Lucifer's black hole [Scarecrow]

[Deleted]

He zipped up the janitor uniform in the back seat of an old car he fixed up in the junk yard. Multiple guns were laid out on the carpeted seats as well as a canister of poisonous fluids and a few grenades he got off a veteran at the retirement home he had been spending his nights at.

“Now I lay thee down to sleep. I pray the Lord my soul to keep. If I should die before I wake, I pray the Lord my soul to take,” he whispered softly, the pray he would hope to teach his future children. He imagined what it would be luck to pull the covers up to their chin, to kiss their foreheads and brush back their hair. He would pray for their safety and protection, but to imagine bringing children in to such a world where a simple promise of safety would be so easily broken with the evil that realm this world. The very pit of that evil steaming and breathing to life in Gotham. Gotham was the pit that led down to hell. He was now certain that the reason behind such forces and demons walking freely in this city stemmed from Lucifer’s hands opening up in their very ground.

He knew now why God had sent him to this town. He knew now why he had failed.

There was only one answer to such a cease pool of evil. Sweet mercy was no longer an option. The city had to feel the smite of the Lord. It would face destruction, and from the destruction, God would bring back the light.

He started to pack his items into a duffle bag, except for one of his guns that he put in his holster hidden within his uniform. He pulled out his cross from the necklace under his shirt, and brought it to his lips. He kissed it. “May the lord be with me when I face the darkness and led me out to his light.”

He opened the door of the car, and pulled the duffle bag over his shoulder. He looked up and the building and saw how the darkness seemed to sway and claw at the brick, pulling it further and further into the ground. He had realized the center of Lucifer’s grip in this city and it was Arkham. Arkham Asylum was the pit of this black hole.

Run away. You’re not strong enough.

You’re weak, Matthew. So very weak.

Instead of fighting. Join us….join us and you will be rewarded.

The dark voices called out to him, but he could hear their fear. He would succeed. The Lord had faith in him and had brought him back from death to finish this mission.

He walked to the building, keeping his head down as he went towards the staff entrance. He showed the guard his badge, and they allowed him in without a second thought. As soon as he stepped foot into the building, the air choked him. It rejected his presence because the demons knew he would be here to send them back to the flames. During his time in the FBI, he had already memorized this building, knowing the danger that streaked its hallways. He walked in the direction to the kitchen.

As he turned down another hallway, he felt a freezing sensation travel down his spine. He glanced up….and saw a monster.

The shadows wrapped around the man’s face, creating a horrifying Scarecrow with long arms that dropped and touched the floor. He had faced this demon once before. Yes, the Scarecrow, or the human name he used to mock man-kind, Jonathan Crane. He was being pulled down the hall by two orderlies.

He knew the Lord wanted to destroy this monster, but an action taken now would not be for the best, for the Lord had already given him a plan to execute.

[Jonathan Crane - Scarecrow]

Everything had been going wrong today, just like every day. But every day was the same here, whether they took him here or there. He was always everywhere within the same grasp that Dr. Arkham held him. It didn’t matter what cell or confinement after a while, it was simply always the same. So it was no wonder today that he was dragging his chained feet down the hall as they tried to transfer him. There was so much transferring going on lately he was beginning to think Dr. Arkham was up to something.

Of late he had actually been seeing Dr. Ledford, which mentally he found an interesting subject. She was worthless and weak a pitiful excuse for an intellectual being if she could be called so. But he couldn’t help but have that small sliver of desire to see what drove her. If he could only have her a bit more alone than he previously had, under more controlled conditions and without chains. What was most interesting about their first session was the fact that she actually agreed with his dispositions about Dr. Arkham. Very little people indeed actually agreed with him. For that, he may give her some small amount of credit. Minute, Dismissable.

In his daze of thought he looked up from the ground to see where he was being lazily drug. There was a man fuzzily out of site that was slowly walking into focus. The orderlies acknowledged him as the janitor and he thought nothing more of it as they walked. He had seen many janitors come and go and some stay for several years. They never went around his cell much, but he knew them all by their facial structure. Having very little to do here meant that he took even more notice of people’s faces than before.

When they drug him closer down the hall and he actually got within a short distance of the man he came into focus. Dr. Crane’s eyes widened, a rare sight, his face even turned white like he had seen a ghost. But he was indeed, seeing a ghost. “You!” He roared immediately and the grips on his cuffs became instantly tighter. “You’re dead..” he growled “You crossed the threshold of oblivion!” The orderlies tried to contain him by locking his arms but his feet kicked up into the air in protest. It was always difficult for them to keep him on the floor and he took full advantage of that. “I saw him! Agent Tiffany” The name left his lips like he had a longing to taste his blood in his mouth personally and it was never obtained. He sounded hungry with the chance to obtain it once again.

“Crane! Crane!” One of the orderlies yelled trying to get control of him. “That’s just Jim” He named out the janitor on shift without even looking at him. “He’s been here 9 years!” He continued in a grit trying to get ahold of him without him breaking away. “He’s reacting to that new medication, he’s hallucinating.” They bickered amongst themselves. “Throw him in this holding cell till he calms down.” They both agreed and continued to push him into the small cell.

It was a simple hallway cell used to contain people while in transit. It had three walls and then a small barrier of bars locked magnetically from the outside, meaning anyone on the outside could open it, but he could not. Dr. Crane protested the entire way by digging his heels into the tile, but it was of no use. He was thrown into the cell and the bars were slammed just as he threw himself against it. The orderlies didn’t even look up at Jim before they walked away, agreeing to come back and get him later once he’s calmed down.

An ice cold darkness eminitated from the barred cell. His breaths could be heard from just down the hall after all the activity, but it finally slowed and calmed to gain composure. His eye’s met with his old enemies, the one he got far too little time with, the one he drug by a string until he finally took to the point of excecution, only to have it stripped from him at the last moment….Not that he didn’t win in the end…The horrors of his life forced him to oblivion and yet here he was.

He took a deep breath. “Did you ever imagine being the dead man walking on the cell block?….” He asked rhetorically and slid his hand out to beckon him, a challenge for him to approach and prove that he was real.

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The weight of the duffle bag hung on his shoulder as a constant reminder of what actions needed to be taken within this darkness. He never had believed that destruction would be the only solution to this disease that infested the city. Containment was no longer an option after it had failed so often. Only under God’s touch could this city be reborn.

He heard laughter, loud and mocking, with each step he took down the hallway towards the large dark Scarecrow that consumed the florescent light.

Are you afraid, Mattie?

The monster flung his large body, kicking out the shadows as it roared in protest. The lights seemed to be flickering, but he couldn’t pin point the cause. He almost felt like the very tiles keeping him stable would crack and break underneath him. With the sound of his name escaping the monster’s voice, he became stiff with determination. Fear was the devil’s proxy, and he had no taste for it. His eyes narrowed, as the two men yanked and pulled the Scarecrow into another temporary cage. A cage was mercy to the retribution that truly needed to be dealt. During the episode, Tiffany said nothing, he observed and watched carefully. Noticing that the demon’s long straw arms seemed to be entangled, and while the monster roared and protest, it held no threat.

It spoke, and the long entangled arm seemed to be reaching for him, hoping to grab his soul and pull it down to Lucifer.

“If I am dead, I am merely an angel come down to finish the Lord’s plan,” he stated as if it were a fact and not a suggestion. His eyes stared down the emptiness of the Scarecrow’s. “Straw burns quickly in hell.”

He adjusted his duffle and turned away from him. He had not come here for the Scarecrow. He was one demon out of many and held no more importance than the others. He needed to suck this horrible place down into the pit it created. He moved away and continued his walk down the hallway.

[Jonathan Crane - Scarecrow]

Straw did indeed burn quickly in hell. It was too bad that he would never be plummeted into it. He had tried so many times before. The scarecrow had stood at the edge of oblivion and looked over the cliff into the void. There was nothing of any God that Agent Tiff believed to be there. It was only the cold embrace of darkness that would reach its hand into your chest and take your last breath from you. So no matter how much he burned he knew that his oblivion would never come. He had been exempt from it.

He watched him turn from him and begin walking away. This caused stiffness in his body. Did he think he was just going to leave him here without a confrontation? Did he think he could look the beast in the face again and just walk away? No, that was not going to happen. His hands slammed onto the bar to rattle him and then his hand snaked through. It had to tilt due to the mesh hooked around his hands. One arm came out further than it should have. He twisted it and splayed his fingers.

“The itsy bitsy spider crawled up the water spout…..”

An unstable voice echoed through the hall that Tiff had turned his back to. He wasn’t going to walk away clean, he wasn’t going to just walk away from the man that was supposed to be responsible for bringing him to his knees in terror. He had challenged him over ownership of the girl and the Asylum and Tiff had brought his best game, but it wasn’t good enough. His fingers slowly crawled up the air in the hallways like a spider.

“ DOWN came the rain and washed the spider out….”

His hand dropped just as tiff did from the place he must have thrown himself off of. He was sure Tiff was smart enough to figure the metaphor, the man had woke from the dead after all. A part of Dr. Crane was filled with excitement, the thought that he was alive was driving him mad. He wanted his mind….It was rightfully his and he needed to claim it before others tried.

“UP came the sun and dried out all the rain and the…..Itsy….Bitsy….Spider……”

Dr. Crane press his face between the bars but stared straight forward. His fingers crawled back up to the air slowly.

“ Came out to die again…..”