The Worst Night of Your Life <Alex>

[crane]

It was a cloudy, chilly night in Gotham City. Late night, around midnight. The moon was attempting to force its way through the clouds, covering the darker parts of the city of crime in an eerie green pallor. It was one of those nights where most people went to bed early, ready for the next day to come already. It was also a night when a particular super villain was more prone to strike. Johnathan Crane, the Scarecrow, slipped quietly around the near pitch black apartment, a screen in his mask outlining his surroundings. The thin wire held securely in the door lock. The canister of gas hidden in an open ceiling panel.

The room was plainly furnished and messy. The type used often by his usual specimen. Crane ran his fingers over the doorknob to the rather spacious bedroom with his uncovered hand. Tonight was the result of hours of planning and careful watching of his target. She was a mixed girl, body covered with odd symbols. Loner tendencies. Suspicious look in her eyes hidden behind a veil of cheerfulness. And what was better, during his observation, she had exhibited 'mutant' traits. It was something new that had resulted from the sudden change in the world; people with naturally occurring super powers. A perfect test of his latest strain of fear toxins, and a very good subject regardless.

There was the slightest hiss from his mask as he took a deep breath. It wouldn't do to get excited or anxious. His wait could take up to an hour, from his examination of his target's behaviors in Gotham. She was not native, by the way she traveled. She stopped to ask for directions far too often, and often looked up at the buildings in a way Gotham's citizens almost never did when not provoked by the bat. Someone no one in Gotham knew. Someone no one in Gotham cared enough about to check up on if she were to be missing the next day.

Though that was subjective. He was unsure how a mutant would respond to his fear toxins, or how long the hallucinations would last. It could be a few minutes, a few hours... days. Perhaps the rest of her life, depending on how strong her psyche was. A quick glance to the PDA he had hooked to his belt informed him the hidden cameras throughout the building were working... and that his target was nearly there. Silently, he slid the device back in to his belt and disappeared in to the bedroom. There was a click as the door opened and a second as the lights were turned on in the main room, perfectly undisturbed save a string that hung from the ceiling.

There wasn't even a hissing sound as the canisters in the boards of the ceiling begun unleashing their toxins in to the gap he had made in the wall, the tops of the canisters and their nozzles poking in to the room. He heard the door click back shut... time for the experiment to begin. Crane slid further in to the shadows, retreating to the darkness of the large open windows behind her bed, looking out over the waterfront. He flexed his gauntleted hand, waiting silently. In a few moments, he estimated, she would be seeing what she most feared...

[alex]

The chill of the night had managed to seep through her clothes and reach her skin making her shiver and pull her leather jacket closer around her body to try and keep the worst of the cold out, but it wasn't working. She kept her head bent low, staring at the ground as she walked so she didn't make eye contact with any of the other people out on the streets. Work had ended late today, something she hated with a passion, she didn't trust Gotham after it got dark...

To be perfectly honest she didn't trust Gotham in daylight, but she had been sent here to help the news crew for their reports in Gotham. She was pretty much stuck here for the next few months until she could escape back to New York, not that it really mattered, she didn't have any more friends there than she did here. She had rented a cluttered little flat in the city and was making her way back there, looking forward to curling up in her bed and sleeping, she was glad she had tomorrow and Sunday off work, she needed a rest.

She reached the entrance to the building and gave a small nod and smile to the man standing outside, leaving against the wall and smoking. She didn't know him that well but he had stopped some young guys from mugging her when she had first arrived. Realistically she could have managed without him but she was glad for his kindness, it had stopped her from having to reveal her powers too much. She had yet to find a way to repay this lovely man but she was sure she would find one.

She reached her flat after the long climb up the stairs, the elevator having long ago broken down. For a few moments she fumbled in her bag searching for her keys, her fingers brushing past work files and bottles of water among other miscellaneous rubbish. Finally she found them and stuck the keys into the door, opening it with a click. She took a few steps inside and flicked on the light, letting the door shut behind her.

Almost instantly she sensed something was wrong, she couldn't place what it was but something in the air felt different, like something was hiding in the shadows she owned, that she lived in. She took a deep breath to steady herself, which as it turned out was a really bad idea. Something went into her lungs, she could almost taste it on her tongue, soon it would be creeping through her bloody stream and god only knows what it would do there.
She found out a second later when her vision flashed to absolute blackness for a second, the stillness and silence tightening on her chest, trapping her, locking her in this world of nothingness and this devastating isolation. She wanted to scream, to fight, to hit out, but she could only let out terrified whimpers.
In a desperate attempt to get out of this world and find her attacker Alex raised her hands to her throat and pressed down hard on her windpipe. It was agony, the struggle to breath, but when she let go she found herself back in her apartment taking gulps of breath from behind a layer of cloth, something she later realized was her tee-shirt.

She stumbled to her feet, staggering around the room for a minute, looking for the source of this gas, the whole time flashes of spiders and other horrific creatures danced in front of her vision. She couldn't see anything so took flight to the bedroom, running in to escape the clawed creatures that were chasing her. She let out an animal primal scream at the sight of a human figure at her window. Shadows leaped from around him, closing around him, chasing after him trying to block out those terrifying amber eyes that glinted toward her.
'STOP! JUST MAKE IT STOP!...
She couldn't breathe properly, couldn't allow herself to take in more of the poison.
'I'll kill you...just stop it...'

[crane]

And so it began. He heard the sound of the door slamming shut and the cry of fear. In another city, something that would draw attention to the flat; in Gotham, par the course for a normal evening. The sound of the afflicted collapsing in response... not unusual. And after a moment she stumbled in to the apartment and gave a threat as she looked in to his eyes with terror. Crane laughed, his mask distorting it in to something horrifying and the fear toxins flooding in to the room twisting his form horribly. While on his own the Scarecrow in costume was a frightening thing, he knew that the fear toxin's haze twisted him in to something much worse. But that was intended, something he had worked in with the recent strains and his new data.

"You're in my world now, Alexandra Flemming... Everything you see," He made a gesture as he strode forward on his long, stilt-like legs. He knew the hallucination. The entire world seeming to break apart, fragmenting in to oblivion and darkness closing around. A quick jab with his right hand plunged the needles of his gauntlet deep in to the blood vein on her right arm, plungers depressing and forcing a more concentrated dose of his hallucinogens in to her system. He made a swift, too-fluid withdrawl, almost like he was dancing, a hand now on the window sill and a malevolent look on his face that the fear toxins twisted to a malevolent grin.

"I control!" Crane said, suddenly moving faster than his lanky body implied he could, slipping near her side and delivering a vicious spinning kick for the purposes of knocking her aside, slipping in to her apartment and shutting her door behind her. He moved quickly to the light switch, flicking it off once more. Crane had a good estimate of what her mind would be showing her. She would be faced with a door to a place that she remembered, most likely. A twisted shadow, filled with perversions of memories.

"What good does a shadow do to ward off fear?" The Scarecrow's twisted voice echoed through the room, slipping in to the shadows of the kitchen area like a ghost. This would definitely be the worst night of Alex Flemming's life, trapped in the Scarecrow's world of terror and nightmares...

[alex]

People were arrogant. Humans in particular, they thought because they could survive somewhere they owned it, that the alone had power over it. But it always bit back, sometimes by it'self, sometimes it had a helping hand. Alex felt the stab in the arm and little else, the crushing blackness was back in her brain. She couldn't see or feel or hear, it was empty and she had never felt more alone. She opened her mouth t scream but no sound came out as she curled to a ball on the carpet of her bedroom. Maybe this was what it was like to die, this 'peace' that hurt her so much and made her want to rip out of her body if only to make it stop.
Images began to float in front of her eyes, swirling and dancing through her brain, taunting her...Her parents faces, her sister's twisted and mangled bodies grinning up at her. She screamed again and curled tighter, surprised she could feel the floorboards underneath her and the pain of her nails against skin.
This wasn't going to end, she could feel the poison creeping through her brain and infecting her, there must be a way out of this pit of horror.

She had long ago lost control of her body, her powers, she was locked in her fevered nightmares, but she still reached out, trying to defend herself. The shadows in her room twisted gently around her body, trying to cradle her, to protect her. Through the rest of the flat they stalked, searching for the unseen attacker of her terrified imagination and they found someone. A figure in the kitchen, he must be it. Her subconcious called the shadows and the began to writhe and struggle, reaching for his throat, his limbs, anything to stop him...

[crane]

Interesting. The mutant could still access her powers even while suffering from extreme terror. It seemed instinctive from the manners of the shadows now as opposed to other times he had seen them active in his observations. He also knew that they were not actual shadows; physical constructs made of them, but not some kind of sorcery. Crane felt them brush against him with little reaction, waiting until they seemed to be readying themselves to lash out. And then he made a graceful twist and a leap past the counter and back in to the main room, landing smoothly despite the awkward jump.

To his surprise, there was a pounding on the door. Neighbors come to investigate the screaming? He clicked the lock and made his way to the window looking out over the city. It seemed he would have to cut his personal observation short for now, but he had also netted a new test subject. Crane made a quick glance towards his PDA, noting that the cameras were functioning perfectly, displaying the rooms in a green night-vision wash. Crane opened the window swiftly and ducked outside to the fire escape, shutting it behind him and clambering down the side as opposed to using the ladders.

There was the sound of wood smashing apart as a rather burly man busted the door in, shouting out something (Crane guessed something along the lines of asking if she was all right) and conveniently entering the apartment. Excellent. Crane reached the ground after a few moments and slipped in to an open sewer manhole before peering at the screen on his device to see what would happen next in his twisted experiment...