how the cards fell (joker origin story)

A lesson in fear

The next day, I was sat down in front of Dr Crane again and this time he had a strange looking machine with gas tanks and pipes and little dials. It looked pretty strange yet funny and I couldn't help but want to know what it was. 

"I see you have taken an interest in my machine, John, would you like to try it out?" the shrink asked. i didn't have time to reply. he quickly pulled the machine closer and released a pipe with a mask like thing at the end of it and placed it over my nose and mouth. Without further adieu, he flicked a switch and everything went black.

I found myself on a cold, grassy field with a few trees here and there. The sky was a morose, fierce grey, and solemnly cloudless. Only the wind dared to challenge the great grey sky.

A loud roar interrupted my thoughts and I scanned the field around me. Just 10 feet in front of me, were two hyenas. They each had brown glossy fur and on their backs it was crimson red. Immediately, they bounced after me, hoping to make me their meal. I tried to flee but I couldn't. Two dark green thorny vines wrapped themselves around my legs and just as the hyenas got within range to pounce at me, they pulled my down into the ground and the world around me began to shatter around me.
First, there was darkness. Empty darkness. Dark emptiness. Then, I was falling. Dropping. Accelerating faster and faster through the dark haunted abyss. Thud! I had landed.

I should be dead. Maybe I am. Maybe this is what they call the after life.

Things suddenly got slightly lighter and I found myself in a cave. A tunnel. At the other end of the tunnel their was a small amount of light. My thoughts were cut off by the sound of an incessant, unrelenting squeaking sound.

Looking up, I found that there were millions of bats hanging ominously above my head. Their red eyes were unmoving, unblinking, unafraid. Waiting for me, watching me. Studying my every move. They were probably wandering what I was doing invading their cave home.

Deciding that I needed to move on and find a way out, I headed towards where the light appeared to be coming from. No sooner than I had started to walk down the cave-like tunnel had all of the hanging bats dropped and started flying relentlessly around and all I could see was little flittering specks of light slipping in and out of sight like snow on a TV screen that had no signal.

Eventually, the marauding bats cleared and a new dark creature presented itself in front of me. It stood upright and it was a broad and muscly silhouette with points upon its head and it rather looked like a human-bat. A Batman. Or maybe a Manbat.

Strangely, it appeared to be familiar in some rather peculiar way. Like we had met before. It was almost as though we were meant to meet. Like our fates were intertwined with one another. The most peculiar part about it was I felt that he held some form of dislike towards me yet, I still felt drawn to it.

The silhouette appeared to glide towards me and it bore a remarkable resemblance to the grim reaper. I smiled and stepped forwards toward it. I just had to know what it was.

Before I could get too close, it lunged at me and pushed me to the ground and started punching me in the face repeatedly. It hurt, a lot. Yet, I couldn't care, I just laughed and cackled. I didn't feel angry or upset, I just found it funny. I don't really know why. As I said, strange.

Without warning, the cave around me and the shadowy silhouette disintegrated and I began falling through a dark, inky-black abyss once again.

I landed on my feet at the front of an audience in a circus and saw a ring master introducing the next act. He had black hair and a moustache that I picture an old posho wearing upon his face. It curled up at both sides.

"Ladies and gentlemen, for the next act I give you the jesters of mayhem, the king and queen of circus comedy, the menagerie duo!" announced the ringmaster enthusiastically.

Mere seconds later, two joyous jesters bounced into the circle and began performing. All of a sudden, I remembered this. The male one was me and the female was my girlfriend up until tonight. This is the night I stabbed her in the neck in front of everyone and but here's as many of the crowd as I could because she was cheating on me with the strongman. I still can't remember who I am though, or any other memories for that matter. Oh well.

Sure enough, everything I remembered happened in exactly the way I remembered. Girlfriend dead, knife in the eye of the ringmaster, audience screaming blissfully, me throwing knives into the backs,of people in the audience and last but most certainly not least, I set fire to the circus tent and disappeared into the pitch black night.

A sudden force pulled me backwards and I was floating backwards, suspended in the air and playing cards 🃏 surrounding and flying past me. Without warning, I dropped back into the chair in Dr crane's room. "Ha ha ha, you got any other flavours?" I asked. In a way it was quite fun going through those simulations. Crane just stared at me dumb struck. All he could do was ask how.