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gothic-safari-clown · 3 years

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The Mind’s Power Over the Body

PART FOUR: THE ZOMBIES

Story Summary: Summary: They only ever had each other. It had been that way since high school, ever since Elianna transferred to dreary Arlen and took Jonathan under her wing. They go separate ways for college, and when they’re reunited at Arkham Asylum professionally, Elianna comes to find that they’ve both changed during their time separated. Can she look past the promise of danger and stay by Jonathan’s side as they slide further and further into the darkness while she grapples to come to terms with the truth about herself? Can she accept what needs to be done in order to hold onto the only person who holds any meaning in her life? This is a very self-indulgent AU that draws from several different canons of the DCU and ignoring others, starting in the Batman Begins Nolanverse. This will follow the plot of the movie, although the timeline has been very slightly tweaked.

Part One / Part Two / Part Three

Word count: 1555

Elianna spent all of her free time between other patients that week studying the file on Victor Zsasz. The day of found her doing the same before the afternoon, she was scheduled to one of the secure rooms on the third floor.

It was…disturbing, to say the least.

Apparently, this wasn’t the first time that he had been incarcerated at Arkham. According to the file, he had escaped at least three times, and each time had managed to kill at least two women before they even realized that he was gone, and four by the time that he had been brought into custody, which Elianna found profoundly unsettling. There were pictures of the murdered women, which were positively gruesome. She wasn’t exactly looking forward to being locked in a room with the man, guards or not. The way each of the victims was posed at the scene gave her chills.

On the other hand, she found herself anticipating the session, in a perverse sort of way that even she didn’t quite understand. This would be her first appointment with someone criminally insane, the draw of which had had a hand in pulling her to Arkham in the first place. However, her fear helped to remind her where the edge of her professional fascination should be. She resolved to be smart in approaching the issue; she would ask for the two guards assigned to her to be in the room with her and request a third to be watching on the other side of the glass. This would give her ample opportunity to flee the room if need be.

A glance at the time and Elianna realized that it was time to make her way to the third floor and meet her guards before the session. She gathered everything she would need—the file, her preliminary notes, a legal pad, a voice recorder, and her favorite pen—and left her office, going up a flight of stairs and down a clinical looking hallway to where she needed to be. The two guards she had been assigned were already there waiting.

“Good afternoon, I’m Doctor Montgomery,” She introduced herself and shook each of their hands. “Is there a way we can get one more of you? I would like the two of you with me and someone else waiting here if that’s possible, as well as for all future sessions with him.” She looked through the one-way glass and caught her first in-person glimpse of Mr. Zsasz. He was bald, and she could see the scars on his neck above the collar of his uniform. His hands were cuffed to his chair behind his back.

The taller of the two guards nodded at her request and instructed them to wait while he went to retrieve someone else, and was back with a third man in a few short minutes.

The original two entered the room with El, and the heavy door automatically locked when it shut. Bracing herself mentally, she sat at the chair opposite the table from Zsasz at the center of the room.

“Good afternoon, Mr. Zsasz,” She began in a professional voice as she recovered her notepad, recording device, and pen from her case. “My name is Doctor Montgomery. It’s nice to meet you.” Zsasz lifted his gaze from the table to her face and smiled at her as they made eye contact. It wasn’t a threatening or malicious smile, but she fought away the chill in her spine nonetheless.

“So formal, doctor,” his voice was higher than she expected and almost had a softness to it. The sound of it gave El a feeling akin to something slimy being dropped down the back of her shirt. “Call me Victor.”

“If that’s what you want,” El nodded, doing a bang-up job of keeping her discomfort and morbid curiosity hidden and making a quick note. “I understand that this isn’t your first time in Arkham, Victor.”

“Oh, no. I suppose you could say that this is my home away from home.” His cadence as he spoke made it sound as though he had rehearsed this interaction.

“I see. If that’s the case, may I ask why you bother to escape so often?” Only then did the smile that he had maintained thus far become sinister.

“Sometimes…I just need the mark.” El could tell by the reverence in his voice that The Mark was something very sacred to him.

“I see,” she scribbled another note. “I assume that you’re referring to your tally marks.” She gestured with the end of her pen toward the stretch of scarred skin that she could see. Zsasz nodded slowly, deliberately, and leaned forward across the table, supported by his cuffed wrists.

“Exactly right, Doctor. One for every zombie gone.” He explained slowly, unblinking. El got the feeling that he was profiling her just as much as she was him. Out of her periphery, she noticed her escorts shuffle closer, and she reminded herself that she was relatively safe.

“Zombies?” She inquired, making a note before returning eye contact. She couldn’t show him fear. “Would you mind elaborating on that for me?”

“Yes, of course.” He chuckled, seeming to stare into her soul. Had he blinked since they had begun talking? She couldn’t remember. “Yes, yes, the zombies. All you people on the outside that shuffle through life—like zombies—, still believing that any of us matter in the grand scheme of life.” The scarred man sighed and leaned back against his chair, rolling his shoulders uncomfortably, and his cuffs clinked against the metal chair. Good. “I pity you people. So, I liberate you.” The joy in his voice as he imagines the “liberation” process is chilling.

“I see,” Elianna managed after a beat and quickly scribbled one last note on her pad. She could sense that she made a mistake by asking about liberation; it was unlikely that they could make any progress today, and begrudgingly decided to cut their session very short. “I’m afraid that we’re going to have to stop here for the day, Victor.” She wrote down the time as she spoke.

“Aw, so soon, doctor?” He asked in a facsimile of disappointment with his head tipped to one side as El secured her notes and pen back in her briefcase.

“Unfortunately, so, yes,” she returned her attention to him as she stood. “But thank you very much for speaking with me today, Victor. I look forward to our next meeting.” El nodded to him and made for the door, turning her back on Zsasz.

“As do I, Doctor Montgomery,” the scarred man called after her, and she safely made a face as her back was turned. Once the door was safely closed behind her, she straightened her blouse as though his demeanor had wrinkled it.

“Not bad for your first session with that one,” the tallest of the guards reassured her. “That’s about as long as most people can take of that creep usually, but never on their first assignment with him.” That knowledge made Elianna relax a bit, regaining confidence in her ability to do her job.

“Good,” she sighed, looking up at him. “Maybe I can start to make some progress then.” El allowed herself a little sigh of relief. “Well, thank you two very much for coming in with me, and you for overseeing,” she nodded to each of the guards, respectively. “Enjoy the rest of your day, gentlemen, thank you,” she finished and headed back to her office, her mind swirling with various emotions and thoughts.

Once there, she plugged all of her notes into the computer for backup records and wrote a blurb of her thoughts on her note page before adding it to Zsasz’s file and slipping it safely into her file cabinet.

Her main source of concern was his seemingly efficient means of escape that the asylum hadn’t managed to figure out somehow. In all honestly, there was essentially nothing to stand between them if he decided that she needed to be “liberated.” That was a troubling thought.

Shaking her head, Elianna forced these thoughts out of her head. There was nothing during her interaction to give her reason to believe that she was in any danger, for that night at least. All she needed to distance herself from the current problem was to go home, and having filled out her paperwork as she went, she was free to do so.

She gathered everything she needed into her purse, taking an extra moment to double-check that everything in her office was in its place before leaving for the day. She punched out on the machine outside her door and sent Jonathan a goodbye text as she made her way downstairs and to her car.

By the time she made it home, she was so exhausted from her session with Zsasz, regardless of how short, that it was all she could do to make it into a quick shower before collapsing on her bed. Mental fortitude took a great deal of strength, and she couldn’t quite shake the fear of Zsasz suddenly appearing behind her.

The only good thing about the draining capabilities of fear was that she would sleep soundly that night, and sleep soundly she did with hardly a second thought to the day’s events, save for a few strange dreams.

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