Gotham: Panic Attack

Year One

I sit in an empty classroom. Peace is hard to come by these days - sometimes I think that the people on the streets should be paying for peace rather than cocaine.
Okay. You've caught me. Quiet is my vodka.

My hand absently doodles little caped figures in my textbooks, moving between subjects like some sort of vigilante conveyor belt. No one had come to ask me about anything, like where I was for crying out loud, in about 2 and a half hours.

The little voice of a wild inkling at the back of my brain tells me repeatedly that I could be using this time more effectively - rather than breaking into a derelict school. Though still, nostalgia makes a person crave even some of the worst times in their lives - like I crave being here.

This is Gather House. Welcome to the shittiest place on Earth. Population: Me... and whoever else wants to sit in this abandoned death trap and smoke or whatever.
I can tell that other people like this building too, because every so often I see people pass by the doorway to my room.

You were thinking that I should go and investigate? I'm not a superhero - I ain't gonna risk my neck on those idiots.
Maybe I'd been thinking about the prospect that I'm not alone in the creepy building, and so when my cellphone starts screaming out random, erratic vibrations on the table next to me - I jump and almost smash the damn thing.

'Winn.' Says my screen. This is my brother speaking. Or more like my adoptive brother - my Mum took in the poor kid for publicity.

My hands grapple with the device and thrust it to my ear.
'Yes Winn? What is it?' I ask with a little flicker of annoyance in my voice like a flame on a cigarette lighter.
'I dunno where Mum's gone..?' He mutters on the other side of the machine.
'Cool.' I reply and put the phone down.

'Who. Who. Are. Who are you?' Stutters one of the people who presumably make up the asshole club outside.
'No one you should talk to.' I laugh under my breath and swing backwards on my chair - enjoying the tantalising tidbit of instability that it provides my nerves.
This man is ridiculously skinny, like he hasn't been fed in weeks. It almost tempted me to put out a plate of milk and tuna for the poor soul. He had long, red hair and a ghostly pale face. He looked like some kind of rag-doll.

I'd probably need to beat him into unconsciousness later if I didn't just decide to get out of the window and run across the rooftop of the enormous gothic, castle-ish, building. I take a running jump, expand my massive jacket behind me and use its tangled masses around my arms to make a relatively smooth landing on the grass beneath.

The rag-doll dude stares in wonder, as if he'd just seen Godzilla get a bikini wax. Needless to say, he hadn't.