Madness Is The Key

Chapter 7 - New Surroundings

Waking up with a pounding headache I groan slightly to myself. That's what I call a weird dream, I think to myself as I'm trying to lift my arms in hopes to stop the pounding in my head, that's when I realize that I can't move at all. My eyes shoot open but the only thing surrounding me is pure darkness.

The memories from last night slowly start to come back up. Bruce and Elena went to this party. I was in the kitchen with Alfred. Intruders ... The Joker! 

My brain starts to work again as I as the memories keep on coming. Especially the dark eyes and this cruel smile. "Hello? Please, help me!" I try to scream but no sound escapes my mouth and it's only now that I realize that my mouth was covered with duct tape. Panic starts to rise fast inside me as I desperately try to scream for help, try to wiggle myself from the rope that was keeping me in place but nothing seemed to work, in fact, the only thing that my struggling was doing, was cutting the rope deeper into my skin.

It's so dark that I'm not able to see anything. Trying to calm myself down I can hear footsteps slowly approaching me as the door is opened. I have to squint my eyes shut as the room is filled with light.

Standing in front of me are two men wearing clown masks. "Wakey wakey, princess" the shorter man taunts as he slowly approaches me. He kneels beside me and I immediately start to plead with him through the tape to just let me go.

Lifting his mask as he flashes me a toothy grin and I can see that he must be on the older side. Maybe 40-something. There are wrinkles on his face and more grey than black hair, well the little amount of hair that was still left on his head. "Now don't exhaust yourself, the boss will be with you shortly." Boss? 

They're probably talking about Joker, but what could he possibly want from me? 

"Enough, Patrick!", the second man interferes. His voice sounds so much younger than Patrick's. "The boss said to check up on her and give her water nothing else!"

Patrick snatched the water bottle from the second man who was still wearing his mask. "If you scream, I'm going to knock your teeth down your throat, understand princess?"

Oh how I wanted to scream at this disgusting pig to not call me princess, but I was in desperate need of water so I just quickly nodded my head as the second clown carefully removed the tape from my mouth. Before I could even utter a word, Patrick grabbed a fist full of my hair yanking it back as he's forcing the bottle between my lips. I try to drink as much as I possibly can, but being in this position some of the water ends up in the wrong pipe making me cough. Some of the water also spills all over my white tank top and my black shorts.

The second that the bottle leaves my mouth another piece of duct tape is applied. The masked man turns to leave but Patrick is still standing in front of me and I don't like the look that he has on his face. His hand reaches down to my top as his stare intensifies. He keeps on staring at my wet shirt as I try to squirm and yell even more. Thankfully the second man notices what's going on.

"What the hell are you doing? Boss will kill you for this" but Patrick only scoffs at that. "Yeah, well when he's finished with you, better believe it's going to be my turn, Princess." And with that, both men leave the room leaving me completely terrified and alone. 

As I'm kept in this room I slowly start to lose all feeling of time. I don't know if minutes, hours, or even days have passed. At one point I even managed to fall asleep. My head just keeps on pounding reminding me constantly of how I even got here in the first place.

After what feels like an eternity I'm ripped awake with the slam of a door but as I open my eyes the only thing that I can see is darkness. Did I just imagine that? Was I starting to lose my mind already?