Batman: Arkham Asylum attack

In and out of Arkham Asylum for 11 years, I was finally starting to overcome my fears. Bats were nothing after some exposure therapy, and the darkness was starting to become normal, even comforting. Sudden loud noises and the nightmares were other problems that still needed fixing.   

The attack was unexpected. I was 21 at the time and lifting weights. There wasn't much else to do other than some cardio. I’d become strong physically, and I’d learn plenty from the fights that’d broken out and from the constant beatings. Once I moved to the adult floor, I was usually left alone. I finished a set and started to take the weights off when I heard a loud bang behind me. I froze and dropped the 45lb weight. I barely avoided crushing my foot. I stared in shock at the weight on the floor and breathed a sigh of relief.

“Way to go Bruce. You could have broken your foot.” I said under my breathe

Embarrassed, I looked around, but I didn’t notice anyone else except for two men. I put the rest of my weights back and waited for the recess to end. The orderlies disappeared for a few minutes. I did some pull-ups while I waited. The orderlies still weren’t back. I picked up a 10lb weight and swung my arm around. Sometimes, the scar tissue still hurt. I thought of it as more of a psychological than a physical wound.

The other two guys started fighting. I looked around for the orderlies, but they weren’t anywhere to be found. I don't know why I got involved. I guess it's just in my nature. I kept holding the weight and used it to work my way between them. One of them hit me in the face. I didn't expect it at all. The man behind me grabbed me around the neck and waist. The other man pulled out a shiv. Then, I realized, this was no accident. I couldn’t explain what happened inside me. In that moment, I changed…forever. I used the weight to crush the hand around my waist. I dropped down and smashed the weight into his elbow. He let go of me. I hit the shiv as it was lunged toward my eye, just in time, but I found I wasn’t scared. I was exhilarated. I snapped back up and crashed the back of my head into my restrainer’s face. The other man lunged again. The impromptu blade nicked my side, but I backhanded the weight into his nose. He was dazed. I raised the weight above my head and slammed it into his head as hard I could. I heard something crack. The man crumbled to the ground, bleeding from the head.

I turned around and a fist rearranged my face. I swung at him with the weight, but it was a clumsy, stupid attempt. He threw a left hook into my nose. I didn’t know someone could hit so hard. The force knocked out a tooth or two. It was enough for me to drop the weight. I fell to one knee with my hands on the ground. A sharp pain ripped through my side as he kicked me as hard as he could. I rolled on my side and looked at him. My eyes begged “make it quick,” but I had different plans.

The guy was a mountain, but he was bruised and slow. I was beat up too, but I was young and fast. Everyone has a weakness. His was the same as everyone else’s. He stomped down on my face. I caught his foot inches from my face. He had all of his weight on it. I brought my leg up to my face and kicked into his other ankle as hard I could. Something snapped in his leg as he started to do the splits. I twisted his other ankle as he fell on top of me. 

The man didn’t give up. He kept wailing on my body. My left arm was pinned under him. I could barely breathe. I focused on his eyes. I poked at them until he finally got off of me. He stood up and went for the shiv of his friend. Why they only had one, I’ll never know, but I wasn’t going to let him get it. I stood and sprinted toward his hobbling frame and kicked him in the back just as he picked it up.

The force dropped him to the floor. I stood standing behind him. I could see he was bleeding. The man turned toward me. The shiv was buried in his chest, right over his heart. He pulled the shiv out. Blood started spurting from the wound. I thought he’d go down, but the crazy fucker charged at me, limping. I had enough time to pick up a weight. I avoided the shiv lunge and hit him in the face with the weight. I grabbed his arm holding the shiv and smashed the weight into it above his wrist. Still, he held onto the blade. I slammed the weight into his temple. The guy was finally done. He fell like a ton of bricks. Magically, that was when the guards walked back in.

“Where the fuck were you when those fucks were trying to kill me? What the fuck?!”

After the cameras confirmed my story, I didn’t spend much more time at Arkham Asylum.


The Next Chapter

Flash fan fiction: A new beginning to Batman

For a year or longer, I've had a Batman idea rattling around in my head. Slowly aching to come out, I tried to think of a way to get such a story to an audience. I was obviously using someone else's characters, so I thought through my blog would be a good way. I wanted to produce about 500 words at a time, but I realized that this would probably be boring and would take a long time to tell a story that's typically told with pictures. My solution is to write different pieces of flash fiction that combine into a longitudinal narrative. In short, the audience has to fill in some of the gaps, but I don't mind that. So, here is the first part to Batman: A new beginning.

Scared. I was always scared. I was just a child, but I could tell it upset my parents. My dad was never afraid, and my mom got by on his strength. I was a boy, but, someday, I would be a man. I knew I needed to overcome my fear. Two years after the fall and the cave, I was still terrified of flying creatures and the darkness. I could see the look of disappointment every time we had to leave a public place because I couldn't handle it. It would be a long time before I learned to embrace those fears. That night, we exited out the back way into an alley. Immediately, I knew something was different, wrong. My father's pace quickened as did my mother's. I raced to catch up. He noticed that he pulled ahead and stopped. I crashed into his side and somehow ended up in front of him, but I didn't even notice him, the man who would change the course of my life.

"Change?" He asked.

My father was a giving man. He reached for his wallet. Mom watched him. I looked at the surprisingly well dressed man. He didn't look homeless. We'd encountered enough homeless people through my father's charity work for this guy to seem suspicious. I saw his hand move, and I moved in front of my dad. My mom was too far away to protect her. My movement startled him. A flash and a bang disrupted the peacefulness of the night, then another. I was on the ground before I realized what had happened. My mom was dead before she hit the ground. My last image of her was with a bullet hole in her forehead. The first bullet nicked my sub-clavicle artery. The doctor, though bleeding profusely from his abdomen, applied pressure on the wound and saved my life along with the help of one Dr. Pennyworth.  I would find out about his death when I woke from a coma three days later.

Police called it a classic mugging, but the man was no mugger. He was never found, either. It'd take 25 years, but I'd find out the truth about that night.

Part 2