Out of Time (BatJokes 18+)

The Dream

(A/N: UPDATED IT.)

Bruce fell asleep during The Murray Franklin Show. 

That night he had a dream. A dream he couldn't quite remember later on - as that tends to happen - but went something like this:

It started in a whitewashed cafeteria. 'Bleak' would best describe it. Ceiling fluorescent lightbulbs were the main sources of light, giving everything a sickly pail hew. A handful of these 'hospital sabers' flickered periodically. Adding a nice touch to the scene. 

The room was vast with many tables laid out to try and fill the empty space. There were people in the room; all geriatrics. Bent over in their seats, hunched against walls blending in with the furniture. Lost. Broken. Empty. Shells. Not a single one spoke. Nearly all of them were sitting at some such table with a card and piles of colorful chips in front of them. A somber voice from nowhere would randomly announce numbers and letters every once in a while. Ancient, toothless mouths smacking at nothing. A wrinkled hand takes its time sliding a bright chip over their card, covering a number and letter combo that had been called out correctly. 

This was the extent of movement inside the room. Tinny elevator music was meant to fill in the silence, yet somehow it made everything worse.

 Bruce sat on an uncomfortable metal folding chair facing them all with an open newspaper written in jibberish. His calf resting over his knee. He couldn't read the paper, yet he understood everything it said. It rabble-roused at him like some old-fashioned mob with torches. Declaring to him their plans to turn Crime Alley into a Jack the Ripper-like tour.

This news raised his blood to the boiling point of rage. It rushed to him fast and unbridled, blackening his vision. He crumpled up the newspaper into a tight ball and threw it down aided by a bass growl. It hit the floor - and burst into flames. A thousand disjointed screams surge out from the fireball, wailing and shrieking. They blast his eardrums with their cries as their flesh burns with each word scorched away. It's shrill; running his hot blood cold. "Help me! Save me!" he hears in the cacophony of death before him.

"My God. What have I done?" Wayne whispers before rushing forward and frantically stomp the fire out. He doesn't feel the heat though it licks up his leg. It's warm, and that alone motivates him to move as quickly as he can before he's burned along with them. His eyes are closed against the smoke. It's only when the sounds have ceased does he begin to relax. Panting.

Down, beneath his shoe. Only a few traces of ash remain. Some flutter up to greet him. He had forgotten it was always paper.

Tinny music clears his mind. Bruce senses eyes upon him and he looks up to the roomful of elders. All are staring blankly to what he'd been doing. Moments pass and Bruce doesn't know what to say. He swallows hard.

"Sorry," he says to the room and marches to the nearest door. The long metal handle CLANKS! down and it swings open...

Into Wayne Manor. Bruce was back home, only it wasn't. It felt like home and seemed like home, therefore it was. But it didn't quite look like the original. 

Every wall space held a picture, portrait, or painting of something nonsequitur. Most were beastly in size and all were intricate in detail concerning the frames around them. Furniture was scarce. A marble fireplace was sunk into the wall in the foyer aimed at the front door. The house still held the same warm, comforting glow it always seemed to have, however. But the shape of it was... all wrong.

Bruce didn't bat an eyelash to any of these odd changes as he made his way to the stairs, which was magnanimously less numbered than normal. There were only six steps to get to the high second floor. Which made sense at the time.