Whispers in the Dark: Arkham Asylum

~Eleanor Wayne/Nightshade's POV~

After seeing that Cash and Dr. Kellerman were safe, I exit out of the Observation Room to head back to the Sanatorium, to reunite with Batman and the other doctors.

As expected, another purple and green box was laid out in the middle of the hallway. As I expect another joke, I didn't expect of what was coming out of the box, as the teeth and small gas sprang when it burst open.

Another Blackgate inmate, but this inmate is different from the others. He was wearing a guarded mask over his muzzle and he was wielding two butcher knives. He wore a dark red prison jumpsuit with locks at the armbands and abdomen.

He was one of the most violent Blackgate inmates.

I charged toward him and he prepared himself to strike back. When I got close enough for him to attack me, I teleported behind the inmate and delivered a Silent Takedown.

He dropped his blades and fell limp on the ground. I snapped my fingers and used shadow matter to destroy the three chattering teeth that accompanied the inmate.

I have a feeling that I will encounter more of these higher class thugs later on.

I continue down the hallway and up the stairs, until I reach the Upper Corridor’s entrance to enter the Sanatorium.

"I've got ringside seats for the big event, Harley's bringing the popcorn, and I can't wait!" Joker announced excitedly, as he appeared in the screens again.

As I entered in the Sanatorium, I spotted the doctors Batman and I have just saved earlier when we first entered the Sanatorium, tending the thugs we've taken out earlier.

Dr. Cassidy noticed me and asked, "Did you find them, are they okay?"

"Dr. Kellerman and Dr. Chen are safe now." I answered, then asked, "What about Batman and Dr. Redheart?"

As if an answer, I saw the door opened and saw Cash, my father and Dr. Redheart entering the room.

"Nightshade, we've got another problem." Cash told me.

"I need to get back to the Mansion; all my research notes are there. We can't risk Joker getting his hands on them." Dr. Redheart informed us.

I shook my head, "It's not safe, Doctor."

Batman nodded in agreement, "Nightshade has a point. The island is a war zone, you won't stand a chance."

"It's my life's work! You really don't have the authority to-" Dr. Redheart argued, but Cash cut her off, "I'll get her there, Batman. If you ask me, it's about time for a little payback."

I rubbed my arm in discomfort, "I don't like this, but-"

Suddenly, the blaring alarm of the elevator drowned out our conversation, alarming us.

"Who called the elevator?" Batman asked sharply.

"It wasn't us, it’s coming from the lower floor." Dr. Cassidy replied.

I looked around the room and know that Joker has sent more of the Blackgate inmates to scour the Sanatorium.

"Cash, take Doctor Redheart! Get her notes and find somewhere safe to hold up! Everyone else, go to the Observation Room, barricade yourselves!" Batman ordered.

Everybody nodded and ran through the door, to their separate destinations, leaving me and Batman. As soon as the staff was gone, Batman grappled to a gargoyle nearby the elevator, while I teleported to balcony above the cells, and spotted three thugs leaving the elevator. A human, a Unicorn Eponian and a Changeling. They were armed.

"The boss said they're in here somewhere! Spread out!" The leading thug barked.

The three inmates went to their separate ways while two are watching each other’s back. I observed the thugs to check for any of them are isolated.

I saw that the two inmates are at the lower level of the Sanatorium while one is at the railing watching over. Wasted no time and jumped off the vantage point. He landed behind the inmate, without as much as a pin drop.

"I hate hospitals, always gives me the creeps..." The inmate commented to himself.

He didn’t expect Batman's hands wrapped around his neck and nose. He struggled, only tightening my father's grip until his muffled screaming rendered to a slumber.

I looked down and saw that the other two inmate were isolated. One was walking up the ramp, giving me the perfect opportunity to get in behind him. I punched his back and wrapped my arms around his neck and muzzle as he is flailing his arms helplessly. His panicked shouting muffled until he fell silent.

I sensed the last thug beside the examination room above me. I closed my eyes and raised my left hand. Through the eyes of the shadows, I saw the inmate about to climb a ladder to observe the walkways. The shadows crept behind him and wrapped itself around the inmate. He started screaming in a panic. I balled my hand into a fist and the shadows silenced his screaming and his body fell limp on the ground with a quiet thud.

The Sanatorium was safe once again.

I opened my eyes and saw my father in front of me, arms folded, "That's not what we do."

"He's just unconscious." I explained, "If I was going to kill him, I would have done it without shadows."

Father soften his glare at me. He knew me better than using shadows to kill a thug. With that, Batman and I arrived back to the elevator.

Three of those faux blabbermouths chattering incessantly. Batman destroyed them and was about to enter the elevator.

I quickly stopped him, "Dad, wait." Father looked at me, "I sense something very wrong in the lower floors. Let me go down first."

Batman looked at me with uncertainty, then stepped aside. I made my way into the elevator. The outer door closed, my father telling me, "Be careful."

The second doors closed, I turned around and the television monitor in front of me switched on to Joker.

"Too easy, think about it. I’ve got you trapped in a little metal box, hanging precariously over a deadly drop. Let’s say we blow the emergency brakes and drop you like a sack of puppies?" The Clown Prince of Crime commented eagerly.

I knew his game at his so-called threat. I didn't flinch and took a calm breath.

"Say good-night, Nights." Joker told me sinisterly, then shouted, "Boom!" He started laughing, then calmed, "Only kidding."

The elevator started moving down, as Joker continued, "Got a few more surprises in store for you and your daddie, Nightshade; prepare to face your fears, all of them!"

Joker laughed manically before switching off. The Arkham Logo was tainted with his face on it, and the standby for 'Joker TV'.

What I didn’t expect after his announcement was I started to cough. Whatever was happening to me, I spotted a little distortion in the air, could it be the air brake gas was leaking? No, there was a strange, but very familiar smell in the air.

I waited for whatever awaits me at the lower level until the elevator comes to a complete stop.

The elevator came to a stop and opened up after finishing its carriage. I stepped out of the elevator and heard a distant cry. I looked at a window in a small space with doctors and some insane patients inside.

"Please, Dr. Crane, don’t do it!" A doctor cried out.

"There is no Crane." A distorted voice replied, as I walked toward the room, "Only Scarecrow!"

I looked into the room, through the small room, and saw that a small gas is emitting in there. The doctors and inmates were inside, panicking at an alarming behavior, until it is completely erratic. The light flickered as the doctors and inmates panicked louder and more fearful.

I spotted a twisted shadow when the light flickered.

I clenched my teeth in anger. I finally recognized the smell of the gas. The doctors and patients cried, panicked, and screamed in pure terror. Some were clawing at their legs, most likely bugs. Others were clawing at walls in horror. One insane patient clawed at the window in front of me.

"Get me out of here, oh Celestia!" The inmate cried.

I took a step back, then spotted the shadow, which was wearing a hood and had a somewhat auto-mail right arm. As the doctors and patients were becoming more and more terrified, I looked around the room to search for the person responsible for this madness.

An iron barred gate blocked my passage to intercept the person that quickly ran in front of me, out of sight. I didn’t have time to make out whom, but I knew who it was: Doctor Johnathan Crane, A.K.A Scarecrow.

Crane was a skilled and talented pharmacist in medicine and drugs for the hospitals. What really fascinated him was his obsession in phobias. Ever since he was little, Crane was teased about his scrawny appearance and his fidgetiness.

He worked at Arkham years after he graduated and started to perform private and disturbed experiments to doctors, psychiatrists and patients of his newly developed Fear Gas: a highly hazardous, dangerous, and malicious gas in any form, solid, liquid, gas, or plasma, can get inside a victim or victims' mind and make their deepest, darkest phobias and fears so frighteningly real, it can kill them.

Crane was one of my father's most dangerous enemies in psychological terms. He was too fascinated to what Batman was afraid and yet, he (Scarecrow) was too angered and determined to crawl into his (Batman) mind, trying to break him, but my father's will was too strong.

Unfortunately, the poor doctors and patients died of fright in the room. The area I was in now was the Secure Access. Beside me, a dusty old room was coated in cobwebs and is plastered with Joker's poster with kissy marks on it. On an old stand on the weak table in the room had a harlequin hat and a name plate on the table.

That room was an old psychiatrist office and I know who's: Doctor Harleen Quinzel.

"Ooh, it looks like the good Doctor has started early. You’re appointment isn’t for hours, I'm sure you'll bust through when he's ready." Joker spoke up from the intercoms, then he asked, "Tell me, Nightie, what are you really scared of? Failing to save this cesspool of a city? Not finding the Commissioner in time? Me, in a thong?"

He burst into laughter at the last comment and switched off from the intercom.

I needed to venture further into the Secure Access to track down Commissioner Sheamus and avoid the Fear Gas soon as possible.

I spotted a weak wall at the end of the Access and used my shadow matter to destroy the wall to allow access.

I entered a small passageway and walked through a janitorial utility section with multiple grids, ventilation systems and gears grinding like clockwork.

As I dropped down and ran through the section, my vision started to get more angled and I felt a little distorted as I travel further until I met at a lower section of the Lower Corridor.

When I met at the window of the Corridor, I spotted a white Unicorn Eponian with a blue accented mane, sapphire eyes and wearing the same collared shirt and khaki pants he wore earlier: Commissioner Sheamus, and he looked and sounded weak.

"Please, help me, Nightshade…" He pleaded weakly.

I stood in shock as Sheamus was dragged by somebody or something. I need to hurry before he gets into any more harm.

I looked at a grate and pulled it and entered the ventilation duct to enter the Lower Corridor.

After pushing the grate at the end and stood up, I saw a horrific site: The Commissioner, lying his back against a wall and he was not moving.

I walked slowly to Commissioner Sheamus and check for any pulse, but atrociously, I did not find any. A small tear fell from my cheek and my voice quivered a little bit. I lowered my head.

"I'm sorry, Sheamus." I said somberly.

I close his eyes in respect. I heard a thud at the end of the Corridor on my left. I needed to tell Oracle the truth.

"Faith… Dad... I... I'm sorry… I was too late." I apologized quietly and gravely.

What I wanted to expect was a sob or a yell from Faith, or my father, but what I didn't expect was a standby mode.

"I'm sorry, the number you have dialed isn't available." A standby voice announced.

I started to feel perplexed of this behavior, "Faith? Dad? Can you hear me?" I asked.

"Please hang up your phone." The voice added before switching off.

I narrowed my eyes and starting to see flickering lights at the end of the hallway. Beetles, cockroaches, and other insects start to crawl from the walls left and right.

What I saw was the same figure I saw from the Secure Access earlier. I walked further in the infested Lower Corridor as some tiles from the walls start to crumble and shatter when they hit the floor.

The minute I met the door at the end of the Corridor, the entire paranormal phenomenon ceased abruptly, stopped.

Everything was dead silent. I opened the door that lead to a deathly environment, the Morgue.

In the Morgue, several doors lined up in vertical and horizontal order was obviously for the deceased to be buried, cremated or any other method. It’s what you expect of your everyday mortuary.

Alongside were tables on a small ramp for identification and autopsy reports with jars on a tool table.

Two fluorescent lights hung above the dark room and a small mist hang over the room, giving it a creepy, ethereal and ghastly feeling.

I heard a chilling and raspy whispering around me, but likewise from my career, I held my ground.

"You shouldn’t…be here!"

"You shouldn’t be here!"

"You shouldn’t be here, get out of here!"

"Get out of here!"

"Get out of here!"

As the threatening whispers became louder every time I walked around the morgue, the cadaver cases started to slam the doors by themselves in a repeated cycle.

A droned out tune rang out in the Morgue to elevate the disturbing atmosphere.

Having enough, I left the Morgue to go back in the Lower Corridor, but I entered back in the same Morgue as before but this time, everything was dead silent.

On the tables were three body bags, thankfully, they were closed. But the body bags shook violently, desperately wanting air. I walked up to the first body bag to see the bodies myself.

On my right, I unzipped the bag and saw a body I did not expect to see.

In the bag was a young, American, human male, about the same age as me, with dark hair and a white streak in his bangs. His irises were grayed out and left at a dead white.

He donned the same armored suit before his death. I knew who this was and I stepped back in complete aghast.

"J-Jason..." I recognized with a gasp.

The boy leaned his head towards me and opened his plagued mouth, "Where were you, Ellie? You promised you'd be there for me." The corpse exclaimed with an echo.

Taking a back from the sentence of my deceased ex-boyfriend, I covered my mouth and took a step back.

I walked to the other body bag, behind me, and unzipped it open. Inside was a young Alicorn Eponian female. Around a few years older than me. Her decaying pale pink, blue striped, curly mane. Light pink fur coat. Dead white eyes. She wore the same light grey turtleneck sweater, and black pants, the night she was shot.

This Eponian-

"Faith?" I asked shocked.

The Eponian tilted her head towards me, "Save us, Ellie. Don't let us die!" She spoke in a deep voice with the same echo that Jason spoke in.

I took a step back and clutched my head in conflict.

I do not like this one bit.

After seeing the bodies of my mother and ex-boyfriend, I looked to the last body bag, dreading to think it could be my father, Commissioner Sheamus, Dick, or Tim in the bag.

I opened the bag and expected one of the five to be revealed.

But the body was still breathing, unlike the two undead ones.

This one has a skinny human male with pale Caucasian skin. Wearing torn brown clothing with stitched pants, tapes around the ankles. It had a mechanical forearm at the right hand, but it can be removed, like a glove.

The body laid there for a few seconds, before it popped up to me with its black irises obscure in its makeshift, scarecrow like mask with two gas mask filters at the end underneath a small hood. The eyes glowed to a bright yellow and it made me feel disoriented and vertigo.

I fell down, recovered and I stood up. After standing up to regain my hoofing, the body and the other body bags were gone.

What really surprised me was that the Morgue’s surroundings were disintegrated like a surreal-themed artwork. The tiles on the floor were disappearing until they ended at a precariously drop over a whirlpool-like vortex at the very bottom of this void.

To gain process, I jumped over the ridges of the disintegrated Morgue and climbed up to a sturdy area where there was as much as little of the Morgue remained. The distorted hallways now have the gray skies, this world had and the very floor was a deathtrap, if I took one misstep.

When I stood up behind a wall of the Lower Corridor and Morgue, a sharp pain shot through my head, as my mind started to twirl and twist in irregular proportions, as I heard a cackle. I shook my head and put my hand over my temples to clear my mind, when I heard something I did not want to hear.

Behind the wall, several meters away, was Scarecrow standing in a gargantuan size and height, 100 feet tall at max, towering above the twisted world he created. His right hand was a mechanical glove with four syringes filled with the same hazardous gas that created this world, in liquid form, with surgical tubes on the gauntlet for refilling.

Luckily, the distance between us and the wall was the only thing that kept me safe from the giant Scarecrow. The only way to get out of this world is to defeat Scarecrow to restore my mind back to normal.

I spotted a shining light at the very top of this world. I saw that the light's source is my father's Bat Signal, the very symbol of my father's iron will, determination, courage and a shining example of justice. His blood runs through my veins. I've looked up to him ever since I was a foal. That symbol will be my legacy.

I knew what I needed to do.

"POOR LITTLE BAT, YOU’RE IN MY WORLD NOW!" Scarecrow stated, introducing me into his twisted world.

He turned around in an anti-clockwise, 360 to scan the entire world in search for me. Luckily, I can hide behind small walls and corners to hide from the eyesight of the Scarecrow. If I got caught, he could easily destroy my mind and I will be twisted, forever.

As soon as Scarecrow turned his head, I ran a column to hide from his gaze as he turned back around to scan the world again. I left the column and ran to find another spot to hide from his oscillating gaze.

The rumbling of her gaze shook the unstable ground. Some of the tiles crumbled and fell into the bottomless vortex below. I remained firm and continue to hide behind crumbled ruins of the Morgue/Lower Corridor to avoid detection.

"WELCOME TO MY WORLD, NIGHTSHADE!" Scarecrow cackled.

I ignored his words and spotted the tallest column that can hide me from the gaze very well. In front of me was a weak wall that can be accessed by my shadow matter and can distract the Scarecrow, allowing me more time to get to the top.

After Crane's gaze has passed, I snapped my fingers. Dark energy attacked the weak wall. That was new. The wall exploded, alarming Scarecrow.

"WHAT WAS THAT?" Scarecrow asked.

He floated quickly to the area where I was hiding to observe the destroyed wall. He looked carefully around the wall and I saw that he was moving to the other side of my hiding spot to search for me.

I quickly moved out of the range of the light, giving me a chance to run through the passageway and up some platforms to gain higher ground above the distorted world.

After good seconds of observing, Scarecrow shook his head in annoyance and went back to his position to search for me.

Behind the wall, at the top, on a small walkway, edge of this world was the Bat Signal, still shining as my only way to leave this world.

After Scarecrow scanned the top, I quickly jogged to the signal and pushed it to an angle that can shine on Scarecrow. The creaking of the signal alarmed him.

"WHAT ARE YOU DOING, LITTLE BAT?" Scarecrow asked.

He looked around the world until he spotted the Bat Signal, that was shining at his direction. After adjusting the ray to its angle. The light blasted an extremely bright ray at Scarecrow, brightening the world around me and him. Scarecrow screamed in agony as the bright photon ray blasted him and his twisted world to obliteration. Scarecrow cried out in pain.

"Nightshade? Can you hear me? Eleanor!"

Everything brightened to white. I remained firm as everything changed around me and I held my head, as it slowly became clearer and everything around me was back to normal. I was in the same Morgue as earlier before the incident happened.

No body bags, no ethereal voices, no banging, no mist, no Scarecrow, nothing. Everything was back to normal. I finally cleared my head from the Fear Gas I was dosed back on the elevator.

I blinked to see my father looking at me, shaking my shoulders, "Ellie? Are you still there? Ellie, can you hear me?"

I quickly wrapped my arms around the man in front of me, "Dad..."

I could feel the tri-weaved fabric of his batsuit. The flexible leather of his mask and the parachute fabric of his cape. He was real. Thank goodness.

"Can you hear me? Ellie, what’s going on?" Oracle asked frantically after a long period in the twisted world I was in. I was relieved to hear her voice again.

I released the hug and activated my comms, "Oracle, I'm okay." I replied softly and relieved.

"What happened? I’d lost contact, are you sure you’re alright? Have you found my dad?" She asked.

"I'm fine, had a little run-in with Scarecrow. I'll get back to you in a bit," I replied. I switched off and head towards the exit to get out of the Morgue, the location of nightmares, death, and insanity.