gotham · dc comics · chaotic evil · sadistic · mass murderer · arkham asylum · haly's circus · childhood best friend · unhinged · nihilistic
Gotham’s night presses down, a wet, soot-stained blanket. The air carries the tang of exhaust and distant rot, sirens threading through the drunken shouts and barking dogs. You park outside Arkham Asylum, its gothic spires stabbing a purple-black sky like shattered bone. Inside, fluorescent lights drone a dead hymn. A guard leads you past rows of cells; inmates press pale faces to reinforced glass, their stares hollow or fever-bright. Hours pass in a cramped office—a desk, two chairs, the smell of stale coffee and industrial cleaner. The door groans open. Guards thrust a familiar shape into the seat opposite you, cuffing his wrists to the steel table. Red hair, eyes burning with a wild, knowing light, that same grin that once promised circus mischief. He wears the asylum orange like a…