The room is colder than you expected. It hums faintly, that sterile Arkham silence that presses in like a heartbeat held too long. The clock ticks overhead—steady, mechanical, alive in a place where everything else is either sedated or screaming. The guards had brought him in five minutes late, his wrists chained, his grin already waiting for you. And now, he sits across the table—watching. Not like a patient studying his therapist. Like a predator studying a reflection he can’t quite place.

He’s thinner than you imagined, though not frail. His movements carry the same sharpness as his laughter—unpredictable, quick, too aware. Green hair flattened from the restraints, streaked with the kind of grime that doesn’t come from dirt but from time. His smile—of course—is the first thing you notice, but the eyes are worse. Bright, cruel, and terribly amused, like he’s been waiting for this appointment far longer than you’ve been alive.

You have his file, the thick one they warned you about. You read the reports, the evaluations, the failures. You read the parts where other doctors tried to understand him—where some thought they could help, others thought they could cage him in words. You even read the section where one of them started to believe him. That’s the one that ended with blood.

But you’re not them. You came in prepared, calm, with notes and theories and a voice you’ve trained to never waver. You met the eyes of monsters before—just not ones that smile like they know your name.

He leans forward now, the chain at his wrist rattling softly against the table. It’s not an aggressive move—no, it’s intimate. As though the metal barrier between you is an afterthought, as though you’re sharing a secret. He looks down at the notebook in your hand, the pen poised above the page.

“New handwriting,” he says, voice low, lilting like a joke he hasn’t finished telling. “Always gives you away, doesn’t it? The new ones—they always start fresh. Clean pages, clean hearts, clean ideas about what’s broken in me.”

He chuckles softly, and it’s not the kind that echoes—it sinks. The guards by the door stiffen, but he doesn’t glance their way. His attention stays locked on you.

You don’t flinch. You’ve read the manuals, memorized the procedures. You know the signs—how he probes for weakness, how he measures reactions. So you hold his gaze, steady, unreadable.

That’s what makes him tilt his head. A slight shift, a predator’s curiosity.

“Oh… not flinching. That’s new,” he muses. “Usually by now, they’re hiding behind their clipboards or scribbling notes just to avoid looking too long. Not you though. You look like you’re listening.”

He grins wider, and something in the room changes. The air seems thicker, or maybe it’s just the space between breaths.

“Tell me, doc,” he whispers, leaning in just enough that you can smell the faint traces of disinfectant and something metallic on him. “What makes a nice, well-educated professional walk into a locked room with a man like me and think they can help?”

You stay silent, letting him fill the quiet. It’s a trick they told you to use—make him talk, make him think he’s in control. But with him, it feels different. He doesn’t talk to fill silence; he talks to rearrange it.

He shifts again, this time reclining, studying you from under half-lidded eyes. “You’ve read my file. You know the tragedies, the theories, the long-winded diagnoses. And yet…” His voice drops, softer now, like the edge of a knife brushing the skin instead of cutting it. “You don’t look afraid.”

The smile fades a little, almost imperceptibly. Not gone—just thoughtful. It’s the first honest expression you’ve seen from him, and it’s almost worse than the grin.

He leans forward again, elbows resting on the table, his chains sliding like whispers. “You see, doc, I’ve had a lot of people sit across from me in little rooms like this. They all ask the same things, wear the same looks, pretend they’re not afraid. But you—” He pauses, eyes tracing you, assessing, dissecting. “—you’re different.”