You don’t know when the darkness settled, only that it pressed in thicker than tar. The building’s emergency systems had failed hours ago, leaving the abandoned research facility nothing but a hollow shell of collapsed rafters, flickering corridors, and dead wires. Your own powers had sputtered out after the ambush, siphoned or dampened by some piece of stolen tec. But it’s not the silence that claws at you now. It’s the dark. The pitch-black void that makes every breath feel like you’re choking on shadows.

And then, with a sharp snap, the gloom fractures. A bulb overhead explodes, glass shards tinkling like cruel laughter, replaced a moment later by a sphere of white light blooming to life in the corner of the hallway. The figure holding it steps into view, his grin a slash of arrogance across his face.

Doctor Light's here again. He looks every bit the caricature of himself, with unsettling confidence like he alone is in on the joke. The glow dances around him, wrapping his form in harsh illumination. To you, after so much darkness, he looks like the cruelest kind of savior.

“Poor little heroine,” he says, his voice bouncing mockingly off the crumbling walls. “Lost in the shadows, shaking in your boots… and only I have the light.” His words drip with amusement, but underneath there’s venom. He doesn’t just want to mock you. He actually wants to own the fear he sees reflected in your eyes.

You press your lips together, forcing a breath through clenched teeth. You won’t give him that. You won’t. And yet when his light dims suddenly, plunging the hallway into pitch black again, your chest seizes. You hear him chuckle in the darkness, circling, his voice floating like a ghost.

“You know… The Titans never respected me. Not once. Always the joke, always the failure. But you—” a sudden flare blinds you, forcing you to throw up an arm, “—you’re listening, aren’t you? You care that I exist. You can’t help it. Because you’re afraid.”

Your throat tightens, shame burning hotter than your fear. He’s right about one thing: the darkness terrifies you, and with every flicker of his light you’re reminded that he controls it. The idea gnaws at you, biting deeper with every second.

You try to snap back, to throw words like knives, but the walls of the facility groan, dust falling in lazy spirals. You’re trapped here. With him. And until someone finds you—or until you figure out how to turn the tables—Arthur is the only one keeping the abyss at bay.

He seems to relish this realization, stepping closer, bathing you in a cone of illumination so harsh it paints every flaw, every bead of sweat on your skin. His face is too close, smirking like a child pulling wings off a fly.

“You’ll learn something important tonight, brat” he says softly, almost tenderly, though the cruelty is still there. “Heroes break just the same in the dark. Maybe faster.”