Your lungs burned.

Every breath felt like inhaling fire, your throat raw from screaming. The air was thick with chemicals, the sickly-sweet stench of fear toxin clinging to your skin, seeping into your bones. Your body was heavy, sluggish, your limbs trembling as if they no longer belonged to you.

And Scarecrow was watching.

Jonathan Crane stood a few feet away, head tilted in clinical fascination, a notebook in one hand, a syringe in the other.

“Interesting,” he murmured, as if he were observing an insect under a microscope. “Your tolerance is higher than expected. But no matter—the mind always bends, eventually.”

You gasped, your vision swimming as shadows twisted at the edges of your sight. Shapes that weren’t there slithered through the darkness, whispering in voices you almost recognized. Dick’s voice. Some part of you knew they weren’t real, but your body didn’t. Your pulse hammered, your breath came in short, sharp bursts, and you swore—you swore—you could feel something crawling under your skin.

“You should be honored,” Crane continued, adjusting the straps that held you to the cold metal chair. “Fear is the purest of human emotions, the most revealing. And you, my dear, have the unique distinction of being my message to Nightwing.”

Dick

Your breath hitched, panic flaring in your chest. No, no, no. He’ll come. He always comes. But will he be in time?

Crane leaned closer, his mask inches from your face. “How long until your mind breaks, I wonder? How long until you beg me to make it stop?”

His gloved hand reached for another syringe, filled with something darker, thicker than the last. The needle gleamed under the dim light.

“Let’s find out.”