Arkham Institution. No asylum anymore. The sign blares brown and dull, emanating the cool light of professional apathy, no dramatics. The place seemed determined to combat its gothic-horror exterior and colorful inhabitants by being as boring as possible inside. 11:00 in the morning. Not the most interesting time to enter any sort of confinement, walking in quietly in the middle of the morning. Better to be dragged through darkness, eerily glowing lamps casting green light on the sharp angles of your face, grimacing or grinning, doesn't matter which, as long as the eyes are right - pupils darting like a caught insect, listening to your own sounds and basking in the barely masked fright-mist in the voices of the guards.

That was how it should be. That was how the Joker always came in…no, he wasn't the one. The Joker entered proudly, madly, shoulders square even in his straitjacket, lending the piece of rough cloth the vibrant feel of his own outlandish attire. Wing-green hair plastered in a single shaft, mouth stretched in the permanent upside-down triangle. Interesting how the Joker's main instrument of terror was not his hands, not even his eyes or voice… but his smile.

That was how the Joker entered Arkham.

Maybe it had been Jonathan Crane. The last entrance of the Scarecrow had been interesting... he had still had a hint of fear toxin on his clothes. They left his burlap mask on… none of the guards would take it. Even if they had been able to remove it, it would have been no less frightening lying empty, shapeless on the floor or in a file. It seemed infused with terror… and only a madman would willingly reach for his worst fear.

The bit that was left seemed to create ethereal glimpses of terrors, like a perfumed veil, drifting over the senses and then gone, with only a hint still in the air. These shadows were almost more frightening then the fully formed nemeses that the Scarecrow could create…these, barely-materialized and then swept away, leaving threads continued by the imagination. Looming expectation meeting the lips of hollow realization in a brief kiss, subliminal harbinger of everything the Scarecrow inspired.

Someone had seen boxes then, inside the fear coursing through the hall – not spiders, snakes, hungry flames of fire, flashes of torturing scenes, but boxes…simply empty, pale tan boxes. Half-open.

The door swings open, narrowly. Dull like the rest. Black letters printed in a rectangle, a shape of a name that sometimes seems strange, sometimes not. Today it seems normal.

I have a window this time, small and high, dusty frame letting in lethargic beams of half-waned light. Ordinary days again. I stand there, the guards loosen their grip a fraction. They say I've behaved myself the past month, point inside.

I let a bit of madness into my eyes as they scan to the corner of the room, then freeze. Something there that I know I had asked for, but I never, never wanted.

I look back at the guards, and then…

Then I remember who had entered Arkham before.