The Horror and the Night

Bright future, dark city

      As Bruce Wayne walked cautiously through the crime scene his mind couldn't stop humming a song he heard a few days. Its lyrics so fittingly described what his eyes were currently observing. Blood was everywhere, splattered on the wall, on the floor, turned a brownish-black color which indicated that the murder had been committed at least a few hours ago. "Murder," he repeated the word in his head for his mind couldn't find any other rational explanation for the image that froze even his blood in his veins.

"Have we gone too far? Have we lost our minds?" hummed his mind again as he approached the body of one of the victims to inspect it closely. "Male, mid-thirties. Precipitation spots, on arms, face and neckline...cause of death...." he began to analyze the corpse, "bulging veins, scratched eyes, blood under fingernails..." he picked up the victim's hand analyze closely, "...nails broken, as if from scratching..." he noted and gently lowered it back. Although the stench of rot was beginning to signal progressive decomposition, he moved even closer to the body and stretched the torn skin around the eye socket. With one hand, he reached into a pocket hidden in his belt and extracted small pliers, "nail fragments in the eye sockets, stuck deep under the lower eyelid, or what's left of it..." he noted in his head while looking at the small nail fragments he extracted from a scratched hole. "Have we lost our minds?" his mind hummed again, "he did it to himself...." He reached into his belt again and took out two vials. In one he placed a nail, in the other a sample of clotted blood, "...analyze for toxins..." he noted in his mind again. He moved away from the corpse and surveyed the room. The small room, a small apartment, presented before him a picture of poverty and decline. Many apartments in Narrows presented a similar level of disorder and neglect. And yet, despite the mess, the modest décor, the few pieces of furniture, it wasn't quite one of the denes he had seen so often. On a modest dresser, he saw arranged family pictures, wedding photos, photos from a child's first birthday, from a vacation, from a basketball game, pictures of a family that no longer existed. "Have we lost our minds?" he asked himself again as he walked a few heavy steps through the apartment and approached the woman's body. "A woman, mid-thirties. The body has passed into the rotting stage. The death occurred yesterday, time unknown..." he assessed, and despite the strong biting stench of methane and ammonia, he got closer to the body to inspect it more carefully. The smells used to bring him nausea, but over the years he had grown accustomed to them, "mouth annealed, burned as if with acid..." he carefully parted the woman's jaw, the flesh crumbled in his gloved hands, "mouth and throat scorched..." he swept his eyes over the floor in search of another clue. The mug lay not much farther away, its edges clearly marked with traces of blood, and yet he scanned further eventually stopping, at the bottle of bleach, the remnants of which spilled wetly across the floor. "Cause of death... The woman drank the solvent." He once again drew a small amount of blood for analysis to rule out the presence of other toxins then moved on to the last victim. He crouched down beside a small boy's body, "boy, age between thirteen and fifteen, the body has progressed to the rotting stage..." he assessed again, "cause of death, solvent consumption." He didn't have to analyze the frail young body any longer. The marks on his mouth and face were exactly the same as those on his mother's. He only looked at his hands; there was no sign of struggle on them. Just as there were no signs of struggle on the woman's body.

He stepped away from the corpse and examined carefully the room once more. He swept his eyes over the death and tragedy, swept his eyes over the lives that had been lost, the dreams that had been killed. "Perhaps the boy dreamed of becoming a basketball player? Perhaps he had talent, would have broken out of poverty, helped his family. Perhaps he would have led a happy life," he couldn't help but wonder. "The woman had to feed her son with bleach, then drank it herself. The man came home and at the sight of them scratched his eyes out," he concluded, "Have we lost our minds?"