Warnings: Rated M for brief clouded flashback of forced sexual acts and some language.

"Time takes it all. Whether you want it to or not, time takes it all. Time bares it away, and in the end there is only darkness. Sometimes we find others in that darkness, and sometimes we lose them there again." – Stephen King

Part I: The Origin

Prologue. Bedaya

The drop was the first thing he remembered.

It was a gentle drop, so they said. They tied a rope around his waist—wound it so tightly that it burned his skin through the material of his clothes. They lowered him gently, gradually, as if giving it a chance to sink in. Not once did he draw a breath. In that moment, he wished for death. Eleven years old, and he already wanted to die.

His feet met with the ground. The air below was cool and dank, rancid with the scent of prisoners spending lifetime after lifetime in Hell. Skinny knees knocked together as he shivered, his bones rattling as he drew the first breath. It came in a whine much like that of a siren, and once he emitted the sound, he could not stop. His burning eyes watered and his aching throat protested as his vocal chords strained to produce a sound. The hacking sobs of a defiled child: a dirty, nonrenewable soul that was no longer fit to walk among the innocent.

An innocent child, defiled. Even his mother thought so.

There were two men beside him, one of which was speaking in a foreign tongue. But one word was recognizable in English; it had come up so often: "Sodomized."

Someone spit on the ground. "Shit. Khara."

And the words mingled with the tears and echoed through the cells. His ribs were bloated with the memories of it, poison pumping through his veins and causing his heart to ache with shame. His mind produced vivid recollections, visual stimulants that made him sick to his stomach.

It had been so bright out when it had happened. An average day on the streets, passing through vendors and bicyclists as they went. He had strayed from his mother's side as she haggled for fruit. He walked in circles through the smog of people, but mother and child were never reunited. That was when they spotted him. Wandering alone. Fool.

Someone grabs his shoulders gruffly and he cannot escape their tense fingers. Jagged fingernails dig into his neck and the sun shines in his face and he cannot see. He is being moved, moved into secrecy, privacy—darkness. The shadows collapse before his vision suddenly, as though the sun has disappeared entirely. There are others—it is more than just the boy pushing them into the alleyway. They speak in garbled Arabic, but they use the word, "bitch." He does not know what it means, and as he moves to turn, he comes into abrupt contact with the palm of someone's hand. An iron grip around a slack jaw. Why does he not speak or cry out? They are pushing him onto the ground, scraping his face on the cobblestone where rats scurry by to sneak treasured garbage. His light skin cakes with mud—darker and darker as they push his cheek further into the rocks. His knees are throbbing and it happens so quickly—so quickly have they gotten his pants down his legs, so quickly they are laughing and breathing and one of them is inside of him, but so quickly his voice disappears as he chokes on the mud in the alley. His body protests, it isn't an easy go, but the rapist continues anyway, wetting himself with spit as his friends watch and laugh and point and strike.

What was worse? The shameful gang rape or being found half naked and torn to shreds by an officer? He had never seen such disgust on someone's face. The pain carried on. Such darkness. Prison for being attacked? But could The Pit—so-called "Hell on Earth"—match the hell that was the alley as the boys robbed him of his humanity? Could it be any more horrifying than the look on the offer's face? He knew he could not escape reality, knew what had happened had already ruined him for good. The Pit was mercy, they said. "You could've been dead," someone hissed.

He stopped crying. He could see no point anymore. He would be in hell no matter where they put him.

"Esm?" asked the man to the right.

There was a snort from his companion as he prepared to be lifted from The Pit. "He is called Bane."

He wished the light would go away.

Time passed in The Pit unusually. The long days somehow managed to change quickly into months. Some of the prisoners had grown used to keeping track of the time—why they did it, no one knew. It must have been important to them, keeping ties with the world above them. A world that had cast them out.

To Bane, it did not matter whether it was summer or winter, Sunday or Thursday, day or night. Location was what mattered, and the time did nothing to change their whereabouts. The people of Hell were to remain in Hell, in the bottom of the earth, left to spend miserable lives with few companions and nothing to look forward to. Well, that was how he felt. Some were busy trying to fight their way to the outside world. If he had kept better track of time, he would have been able to say for certain that people tried to escape The Pit at least once a day. He himself hadn't tried since he was a young boy, and now, he was almost a man.

It had been years. He did know that much.

Hassan was a man who brought the prisoners food. He, too, was forced to live in darkness, and as far as Bane knew, Hassan had done nothing wrong. "Are you taking your portions now, boy?" said Hassan in his gravelly voice. Bane bowed his head slightly.

"Yes, sir, thank you."

As he began to eat his food for the day, a familiar wave of voices darted into the air. It was always the same words: "Deshi basahra, basahra." Someone was going to try to climb out into the world. "Useless, wouldn't you say?" Bane offered more to himself than to anyone. Briefly, his eyes darted to the lock of his cell, carefully removed as the caretaker delivered food. Occasionally he would consider trying to make a run for it—dashing from the prison and scaling the rock wall without the rope. That way, he'd either make it to freedom or die. Either one was better than being confined. It was the feeling of hope that lingered around them each day as the chant began for someone else. Such a shame to have such hopes thwarted each time… "Has anyone ever made it out?" Bane asked expectantly.

Immediately Hassan shook his head as though Bane had gone mad. "Not ever. It's the jump, you see. Truly impossible. That is what I would say."

He closed the cell gate behind him. Each time he heard the lock turn, Bane's spirits sunk further.

It was no more than five minutes before a desperate cry carried through The Pit as the hopeful prisoner fell away and failed to escape. The sound of breaking bones crunching against the rock was startling despite Bane having long since gotten used to it.

A sniffling sound arose against the harnessed howls of the injured prisoner. Across from his cell sat a very secretive prisoner indeed—a boy with icy blue eyes had been there longer than Bane. A younger child who had grown in The Pit, but not by much. His frame was miniscule compared to Bane's developments. The younger boy was crying, as Bane had often seen him do. Pain and sorrow were no strangers in the darkness. They were well recognizable even in the inkiest nights.

It was gruesome, really, to think that Bane had not cried in years while his soul still bled from old wounds he could never escape. He gave the boy a sharp glare and they locked eyes momentarily. His stare was unwavering, his pink, blotchy eyes swimming around bright turquoise. Bane frowned and looked away.

"I hate to see them fail."

The unfamiliar voice sent a shiver down his spine. It had come from the crying boy, whom he had never once heard speak before. But there was something strange about the voice…something very out of place.

The small, young boy had the voice of a girl.

A/N: I hope you all like Bane as much as I do. Please leave me some feedback, first non-Joker fanfiction in a looooong time, let me know how it's going so far. Thanks!