THE KILLING JOKE

Part 4: Awakening

The soft, rhythmic beeping of machines was the first thing Jack Napier heard when he came to. His senses were slow to return, like they were emerging from a thick fog. The steady beep, beep, beep of the heart monitor, the distant hum of fluorescent lights, and the faint murmur of voices beyond the door. Everything was muted, dulled by a haze of painkillers pumping through his veins.

He tried to open his eyes, but the light burned. His lids fluttered, barely lifting, and all he could make out was a wash of blurry white—ceiling tiles, maybe? A curtain? His head felt like it was stuffed with cotton, heavy and sluggish. He tried to move, but his body protested with sharp, electric bursts of pain.

Where the hell am I? What happened?

Memories began to trickle back, jagged and fragmented. The chemical plant. The explosions. Gunfire. The security guard. And then the fall... the vats of acid. His heart rate spiked, the beeping of the monitor accelerating as his chest tightened in panic. The chemicals—they had burned, melted everything away. He remembered the agony, the suffocating sensation of liquid fire eating him alive.

His mouth felt dry, his lips cracked as he tried to speak. "W-what..."

A shadow moved in the corner of the room. Jack tried to focus, blinking hard to clear his vision. A nurse stood by his bedside, scribbling something onto a clipboard, her face tight with worry. She was dressed in pale blue scrubs, her eyes darting nervously from him to the monitors. When she noticed his movements, she flinched.

"You're awake," she said, her voice soft but strained. "You've been out for a while."

Jack swallowed, his throat raw, like he'd been breathing smoke for days. "Where... where am I?"

"Gotham General," she replied, her voice hesitant. "You were... in an accident. Severe chemical burns. You're lucky to be alive."

Alive. The word rattled in his head like a bad joke. He didn't feel alive. He felt... hollow. His mind flashed back to the vats—the swirling, toxic mixture that had swallowed him whole. How was he alive? He shouldn't have survived that. No one could survive that.

The nurse stepped closer, her hands trembling as she reached for his chart. "You've been in a medically induced coma for nearly two weeks. There were extensive burns... third-degree, mostly on your face and hands. The doctors, they... they did what they could."

Jack's fingers twitched beneath the bedsheets. His face. His hands. Slowly, with a mounting sense of dread, he raised his right hand into his line of sight.

His breath hitched in his throat. The skin was pale—unnaturally pale, almost chalk-white. Puckered scars ran along his knuckles, and his fingers felt stiff, like the muscles had been tightened and pulled. It didn't look like his hand. It didn't feel like his hand.

He swallowed again, panic rising. "My face..." The words came out like a rasping whisper. "What... what did they do to my face?"

The nurse hesitated, her lips pressed into a thin line. She avoided his eyes as she reached for something on the nearby table—a small handheld mirror. "The burns were... severe," she said softly. "The chemicals caused some... changes."

She handed him the mirror, her fingers trembling as she placed it in his hand.

Jack hesitated. For a moment, he thought about refusing, about tossing the mirror aside and pretending it didn't matter. But he couldn't. He needed to know. He had to see.

With slow, deliberate movements, he lifted the mirror to his face.

And what he saw wasn't human.

His skin was bleached an unnatural, ghostly white, stretched tight across his skull like a death mask. His eyes—once dark and sharp—were now wide and sunken, rimmed with deep purple bruises. But worst of all were his lips. The chemicals had twisted his mouth into a permanent, grotesque grin. The skin around his lips was scarred, pulling his mouth into a macabre smile, even as his mind screamed in horror.

Jack stared at the reflection, his breath coming in shallow gasps. This... this wasn't him. This was a monster. He dropped the mirror, the clattering sound loud in the sterile room. The nurse jumped, startled by the noise.

"No..." Jack croaked, his voice barely audible. "No... this isn't..."

The nurse took a step back, her eyes filled with a mix of pity and fear. "You're still healing. There's been talk of further reconstructive surgery. But the damage... it's... it's permanent."

Permanent.

The word echoed in his mind like a death sentence. This wasn't just a scar. This wasn't just a wound that would heal. This was who he was now. His reflection—the wide, twisted grin—mocked him. No matter how he felt inside, his face would always smile. Always.

Jack's heart pounded in his chest, the beeping of the heart monitor becoming erratic. His fists clenched, nails digging into the pale, scarred flesh of his palms. Anger boiled up inside him, rising like a tidal wave. This was wrong. This was all wrong.

"I... I need to leave," Jack muttered, trying to sit up. Pain shot through his body, but he ignored it, struggling against the tubes and wires that kept him tethered to the bed. The nurse rushed forward, her hands outstretched to stop him.

"Wait! Please, you're not ready to leave yet! The doctors need to—"

"No!" Jack snapped, his voice harsh and filled with fury. He shoved the nurse away, the sudden force sending her stumbling back against the wall. "I need to get out of here. Now."

The door to the room swung open, and two security guards entered, alerted by the commotion. They moved quickly, hands raised, trying to calm him down.

"Sir, you need to stay in bed. You're not in any condition to—"

Jack swung his legs over the side of the bed, his muscles screaming in protest. His head spun, but the adrenaline pumping through his veins kept him upright. He couldn't stay here. Not like this. He wasn't some patient, some victim. He wasn't going to lie in a bed, waiting for doctors to poke and prod him, to fix something that couldn't be fixed.

"No," Jack whispered again, this time to himself. "I'm not staying here."

The guards moved to restrain him, but Jack lashed out, his anger flaring like wildfire. He grabbed one of the guards by the wrist, twisting it sharply. The man yelped in pain, but before he could react, Jack shoved him to the floor. The other guard rushed forward, but Jack was quicker, his movements fueled by a mix of rage and desperation.

He grabbed a tray of medical instruments and swung it at the second guard, sending him crashing into the wall. The nurse screamed, backing away as Jack's wild, frenzied eyes darted toward her.

The room was a mess—monitors beeping, wires hanging from the bed, blood dripping from Jack's clenched fists where his nails had pierced his palms. But in the chaos, something inside him clicked. This wasn't panic anymore. It was clarity.

He stepped toward the nurse, his twisted grin still plastered across his face. She froze, her back pressed against the wall, eyes wide with fear.

"I've got work to do," Jack said quietly, his voice eerily calm now. He bent down, picking up the fallen mirror and taking one last look at the grotesque smile staring back at him. "Gotham isn't ready for this. But they will be."

With that, Jack turned and walked out of the room, leaving behind a trail of chaos and blood.

And in the mirror, his reflection kept on smiling.