Method Madness

He left the bathroom a few minutes later, still wet in the face, hair slicked back and sticking in angry black tufts to his scalp. The penthouse was no warmer, no more familiar for the time spent trying to exorcise the ghost from the mirror.

He moved like a shadow, drifting from room to room, hands loose at his sides, posture unstudied. The kitchen offered nothing—he hadn't eaten in two days, maybe three—but he paused there anyway, let the marble island bite into his hip, and waited for a voice to say something clever about breakfast. Nothing.

He wandered on, into the living room. The space was designed for people with more friends than secrets: low sectional couch, smoked glass table, a wall-mounted display that looped trailers for the film, Joker stills, production shots. It was set to mute, which somehow made the imagery more violent—like a crime scene you could only watch, not hear.

He passed the display, caught sight of himself in a blacked-out window pane, and shuddered at the double image—himself, and behind him, the film still. Both faces pale and sharp, one smudged with exhaustion, the other smeared with greasepaint and glory.

He was only halfway through the living room when it started.

The flashbacks weren't clean. They didn't play like reel-to-reel tape. They were flashes, pulses of sensation layered over reality until he wasn't sure which was true.

Ballroom, hush falling over a hundred silk-wrapped necks. A single string quartet dissolving into silence. His entrance—slow, calculated—feet sinking into lush carpet, the whole world turning to look, to see what would break first. The memory left him standing a little taller, chin forward, hands curled as if he still clutched the stolen stem of a rose.

Then another: the velvet coat. Heavy, lined in satin, dyed that impossible bruised purple. They'd tailored it to him, every inch—he could feel the cut of it over his shoulders, the stiff press against his scapula.

The coat had a scent—something dark, animal, a trace of cigarettes left in the lining by the costumer, on purpose. He'd left the set wearing it twice, and the security footage of those nights was buried somewhere in the studio vault.

Another: the makeup.

Metallic, bitter.

The first time he tasted it, it made his mouth water, then go numb. By week three he didn't notice it, not until they shot the close-ups and the taste bled into his dreams. He'd wake up with that cold, tin tang at the back of his throat, as if he'd licked a bullet.

The smile. He could still feel the way the prosthetic latex tugged at the corners of his mouth, pulling skin taut and unnatural. It hurt, at first. Later, it was like a scar—sensation dulled, then absent.

The director told him to use it, to let the pain rewrite the line of his jaw, and he did. For weeks after wrap, he'd feel the echo of it at odd moments, a ghost of tension that never quite faded.

The knife. There was a prop, and there was the real thing, weighted for close shots. He could remember, with total clarity, the heft of the real blade. The balance was perfect, the handle cool and smooth, the edge dulled for safety but not so much that you couldn't draw a line on your own palm if you pressed.

He'd done that, once, by accident or on purpose—it was hard to say which. The memory left a phantom sting in his hand.

The confrontation with Batman. The night of the rooftop scene, the city rigged with lights and the wind machines howling so loud he could barely hear the dialogue. The adrenaline, the almost sexual charge of facing down an adversary who didn't know where the performance ended and the man began. They'd shot it at three in the morning. He'd come home shaking, couldn't sleep until noon.

The body remembered everything. It just couldn't call it up on demand anymore. No voice, no laugh, no electric ripple of presence.

He paced the length of the room, barefoot on the frozen concrete, making circuits like a beast trapped in a glass box.

He caught his reflection over and over again—window, table, the face of the black television—each time slightly warped, slightly wrong. In one, his mouth was parted, eyes wide, as if waiting for a prompt. In another, his hands were clenched, like he might strangle the air itself.

He stopped by the wall of windows, light pooling at his feet, and looked up at the poster. The original theatrical one-sheet, framed in matte black. His own face, painted, grinning, eyes agleam with a madness he now doubted he could ever recapture.

He stared at that Joker, the one the world wanted, and tried to see the difference.

He was not sure which one of them was more real.

...

He wound up in the kitchen again. It happened without conscious intent, as if gravity pulled him there, as if the black marble island and the lines of steel appliances called him back with the same invisible thread that tugged him to the mirror.

The kitchen was immaculate, almost untouched—a trophy showroom for a chef he'd never become. Coffee machine, French, custom-tuned to his preferences. Fridge: matte black, humming so quietly you had to press your cheek against it to hear. Induction cooktop, range hood, an entire wall of glass-door cabinets filled with dishes that had never seen a meal.

He stood in the dead center of the room, hands at his sides, and let the silence creep in. The old, thick kind, not just the absence of noise but the presence of something else: expectation, or judgment. He tried to take comfort in it, as he had for months, but now it closed around his ribs and squeezed.

He whispered, "Who the hell am I now?"

The words came out dry, torn by the cracks in his throat. The kitchen soaked them up, spat back a faint echo, as if the penthouse itself was mocking him.

He gripped the edge of the marble island, leaned in until the coldness registered, until his knuckles ached and the tendons on the backs of his hands flared blue.

The question hung in the air, huge and wet and cruel.

Who the hell am I now?

He could have laughed—should have, maybe. The urge hit, flared, then died. What would Joker have done? He'd have spun it into a riddle, twisted the pain until it became a show.

But Marcus just stood there, mouth open, waiting for something to fill the vacuum. There was nothing.

He blinked hard, tried to focus. The sun was higher now, forcing sheets of light through the windows, picking out every flaw on the marble, every dust mote hovering in the stagnant air.

He shivered, as if something cold and oily slid down the back of his neck. Then, without warning, the world shifted.

It was a memory.

Not a good one.

A hallway, narrow and endless. White floors, white walls, white ceiling, all illuminated by flickering fluorescent. The lights buzzed and strobed, made the edges of things blur, like a bad frame rate.

The smell hit first—bleach and old blood and antiseptic, a combination that made his nostrils burn. He could hear—God, he could hear—every squeak of rubber soles on linoleum, every low, private conversation behind closed doors, every rattle of a medicine cart pushed by a hand he couldn't see.

He didn't know this place, not really.

But his mind did.

Or maybe Joker did.

It didn't matter.

The sound of voices: calm, measured, rehearsed for effect.

He was walking, but his legs felt disconnected, as if he hovered a few inches above the floor. He moved toward the sound, turning a corner that was both sharp and infinite.

There was a door, slightly ajar. A sliver of blue light spilled through, colder than the fluorescent, and it painted a line across his bare feet.

Inside: a doctor, backlit, face in shadow. The doctor didn't look up, just kept scribbling notes on a pad.

"You're not in a game," the doctor said, without turning.

Marcus tried to speak, but his tongue was a dead fish in his mouth.

The doctor clicked his pen, a sound like a gun cocking.

"Do you understand? This is real now."

He felt the words hit, each one a physical slap.

Real now.

The memory—or whatever it was—shattered as suddenly as it began.

He gasped, choked on nothing, and staggered backward. The marble island slipped out of his grip, and for a second he thought he'd collapse. He hit the fridge instead, spine slamming into its cold surface, and he slid down to the floor, knees folding under him.

His chest heaved. He couldn't breathe right, couldn't make his ribs work in time with his heart. He wrapped his arms around his knees, tucked his head down, and let himself curl into the smallest possible space.

He stayed like that, hunched and shaking, as the sun climbed the window and turned the whole kitchen gold.

Dust floated through the air, catching the light, spinning in slow orbits above his head.

He remembered being told, once, that the Joker was just a mask. A trick of the mind. That what mattered was the man underneath.

But as he crouched there, alone in the cathedral of his own making, Marcus Vale began to wonder if there was anything left underneath at all.

He hugged his knees tighter, pressed his face against them, and for a long time, he just breathed.

Above him, the appliances kept humming their empty, perfect song.

........

40 reviews! Our guys are crazy, well anyway here is a free chapter!! 

[If you want more keep dropping reviews and power stones!

10 reviews = 1 extra chapter

100 power stones = 1 extra chapter

For Extra Chapters Visit the Patreon and Subscribe!

Currently on chapter 53 over there will be posting 10 new chapters tomorrow on patreon also.

patreon.com/BS_Entertainment98]