The year is 1981. The night air in Gotham was thick with a suffocating dampness, a harbinger of the downpour that soon followed. Rain fell in relentless sheets, drumming on the rooftops and washing the grime from the streets, though it could never cleanse the city's underlying filth. Neon lights from flickering signs and decrepit marquees reflected off the puddles, casting eerie, shifting glows that painted the night in sinister hues. The streets, usually bustling with the city's denizens, now seemed abandoned save for the occasional figure darting through the shadows, their hurried steps drowned by the symphony of rain. A chilling wind whipped through the narrow alleys, carrying with it the distant wail of a siren and the whisper of whispers, as rumors of chaos spread like wildfire in the aftermath of Murray Franklin's on-air execution.

Inside a small diner on the corner of a quiet avenue, a handful of weary souls sought refuge from the storm. The flickering fluorescent lights inside created an uneasy ambiance, casting long, jittery shadows that danced across the cracked linoleum floor. Conversations were hushed, burdened with the heavy silence of a city on edge. The walls seemed to close in, adorned with yellowed newspaper clippings, some still fresh with the headlines of that fateful night: "JOKER STRIKES AGAIN!" And a battered television mounted in the corner replayed the footage in an endless loop, the chilling image of the Joker's grin seared into every watcher's mind. Outside, the rain continued to fall, an unrelenting reminder of Gotham's perpetual gloom, a city teetering on the brink of madness.