Mad Love

Chapter 1

This is the story of how my life got ruined. Well, okay I guess I'm being a little too harsh, I mean it was MY fault anyways, I'm the one who was stupid enough to sign up for an internship at the Arkham Asylum, but I had no choice, I was flunking in almost all of my subjects at Gotham University and the only way I was ever gonna pass my first year of college was to volunteer at some random organization. We got a variety of options such as; food banks, homeless shelters, local veterinary offices, etc. and I was taking a class on the justice system and rehabilitation at the time so when I saw an opening position for an internship at the Arkham Asylum, I jumped at the opportunity and took up the job. Besides it was the only volunteer job that seemed even remotely interesting to me.
The first day I came was pretty boring from what I was expecting to see due to me watching all of those crime tv shows. I was greeted by a lady behind a desk the second I walked through the doors.
"Welcome to the Arkham Rehabilitation Institute, are you here for the Internship program?" She had a stern yet sweet look, almost as if she were forced to smile at me.
"Yeah." I answered shortly, becoming distracted by my surroundings.
"Are you Harleen Quinzel?" She asked.
"Mhmm."
"Just a moment." She exited the room for almost 3 seconds before she returned holding a white lab coat and a keycard attached to a necklace thingy, the keycard had INTERN printed on it, she then handed them to me.
"Please put these on and follow me, oh! And make sure to grab a clipboard." She said sternly, gesturing towards a table that held a stack of clipboards. I pulled on the lab coat that was a tad too big on me, and slipped the keycard necklace over my head. I then walked over to the table and swiftly picked up a clipboard. The clipboard came with a pencil and a piece of paper that had a checklist and a few spaces to write down notes. I gave out a small sigh when I saw this, as I wasn't one for taking notes and often do anything to avoid that path if entirely possible.
The lady leads me to a room that consists of a desk, computer, file cabinets, and a clock.
"This will be your office for the time being." She says pointing towards it, but keeping me from entering.
"I first need to give you a quick tour of the place before you can begin." I give a small nod and follow her down a hallway that has many doors. As I follow her I notice how much shorter she is than me, and I only turned 19 a few months ago. She looked as though she were around 5'0 or 4'11. Her curly brown hair was wrapped up in a tight bun as my long black hair was tied in a loose pony tail and she wore a lab coat similar to mine, and instead of my dark blue skinny jeans, she wore a brown pencil skirt that went below her knees. She was a heavier set woman and she looked around her 40's or early 50's. The only thing that drew me off about her was how she wore really thin glasses that seemed to be there but you wouldn't have noticed them until you've taken a closer look at her face.
"My names Frannie by the way." She stated, not turning back to look at me as we stopped in front of a double door. We stood there a moment before she grabbed a ring of keys from one of her lab coat pockets, and fiddled with it until she found the right one. She then unlocked the doors and pushed them open with a grunt. She then quickly walked into the room, leaving me to speed walk in order to catch up.
"This next room is perfectly safe, don't worry." She said facing me.
"What do you mean?" I asked, a tad bit worried.
"Oh, it's just that that's where we keep all of our most dangerous patients, but like I said, it's perfectly safe." She gave a small, almost real looking smile before unlocking a second set of doors a pushing them open. She briskly made her way into the area. I was in awe as I looked around, seeing chambers with one way glass that allowed only me and Frannie to see them as they couldn't see us. Frannie began to tell me about some of the prisoners as we walked past their cells, but I wasn't really listening. We soon walked by another cell, but I stopped dead in my tracks when I saw the person inside looking straight at me. He sat in the corner of his cell, looking up at me with an emotionless gaze. His green hair was short and relatively messy, and he wore white face paint, or at least it appeared to be as his whole face, neck and hands were white. He also appeared to be smiling as his mouth had red paint that went from his lips to the sides of his cheeks, the paint was a bit smeared but it made him look all the more terrifying.
"Frannie, um... Who's that patient?"
"Oh, that's patient number 246742, or the joker, whatever you'd like to call him." Frannie said casually.
"Are you sure that this is one way glass?" I asked nervously.
"Yeah, why?"
"Well, he's kinda lookin' right at me."
"Oh, haha! Yeah he does that sometimes, but he's only guessing where we are right now."
"How does he know we're here? Isn't the glass sound proof?" I asked, glancing back over at the Joker, who was still looking right at me unmoving.
"The glass is relatively sound proof, but we can turn the sound proofing on and off as we like, I'm guessing his is off right now. Creepy, isn't he? We received him only a few nights ago, apparently he came willingly." Frannie then gestured for me to get a move on, and I slowly began to follow her, now and then glancing back at the Joker who still hadn't taken his eyes off of me.