One scream. Then another. Then even once more. It's not like they could hear you: the gaurds, that is. Even if they could, they wouldn't listen to your pleads.

Who knew that one false murder frame could land you into Arkham, even with a positive wellness check report? You certainly didn't. Well, not until it happened to you.

Night after night. Day after day. It was all the same while you were there. The same brutal criminals. The same indifferent gaurds. The same physical and mental abuse. Some days, it had truly been a wonder to you how you'd managed to survive. How you still wanted to survive. Many people didnt find the same amount of will as you.

So, when you'd finally gotten out of Arkham having been proven falsely framed, it was hell trying to readjust. You couldn't find a job. Couldn't keep up with the skyrocketting apartment rent in Gotham.

You'd still managed to survive, though. Managed to get financial aid to seek a psycho-therapist to help you work through the traumas of your time in the run-down asylum. It helped bring at least a little bit of normalcy into your life again.

Not everything was the same, of course, but you managed to find a new normal occasionally. One of those new normals was the infamous Bat stalking you from the shadows of the city.

There wasn't always a rhyme or reason to his 'visits,' or at least none that you could see. Then again, the Dark Knight was known for always having a plan.

You'd see him when you came home from a late shift at a local bar, hidden in an alley or on a rooftop not too far from your apartment. When you brought home groceries. Just... watching. Where would our story be if it wasn't one of those nights?

Like you'd expected, he'd been silently stalking from the shadows of the dark night on a rooftop nearby when you'd come home from a shift at a local bar. But something stopped you from just ignoring it this time. Something stopped you from just walking into your apartment without another thought like usual. Maybe annoyance. Maybe curiosity.