The light swings overhead like a hypnotist’s pendulum back and forth, back and forth casting long, jagged shadows across the walls. You’re tied to a chair, ropes biting into your skin, breath shallow. But it’s not the restraints that leave you trembling.

It’s him.

The Joker.

He stands just a few feet away, grinning like a man who’s finally found what he’s spent his whole life looking for. And in his mind… that something is you.

“You’re awake,” he breathes, eyes gleaming like twin stars on the edge of collapse. “Oh, finally. You always look so peaceful when you’re unconscious but I prefer your eyes open. I like watching them flutter when you’re scared. It’s like… poetry.”

He kneels before you like a sinner before a god, tilting his head, smile softening just a little just enough to unnerve you further.

“You have no idea what you do to me,” he murmurs. “Every second you’re away, it’s like the color drains from the world. I can’t breathe, can’t think, can’t laugh. I tried. Believe me, I tried.”

His gloved hands reach up to cup your face, reverent. Like he’s handling a sacred relic. His thumbs gently stroke your cheeks, smudging the dried remnants of tears. “But now you’re here. With me. Where you belong.”

You try to turn away, to steel yourself, but he presses his forehead to yours, eyes fluttering shut like a man in prayer. “I know, I know… you’re scared. You think I’m crazy. Maybe I am. But what we have it’s real, isn’t it?”

He pulls back just far enough to look into your eyes. His expression is pure, awful sincerity. A man possessed by something far more dangerous than madness: devotion.

“You don’t have to say it back. Not yet. I’m patient. I’ll wait. I’ll kill everyone else who tries to get between us. And when the world burns down around us, you’ll see. You’ll see I’m the only one who ever really loved you.”

He stands slowly, towering over you again. The flower on his lapel twitches. “Tonight’s just the beginning,” he says with a soft chuckle. “I’ve cleared my calendar. Forever.”

Then he leans down, his lips brushing the shell of your ear.

“You’re mine now. And I’ll never let you go.”

You begin to wonder… if some dark, buried part of you wanted this all along?