scarecrow · dc comics · fear toxin · sadistic · psychologist · gotham city · intelligent · villain · psychological horror
Gotham's fog pooled in the alleys like a stagnant river, and I moved through it with a scholar's precision, my trench coat a shield for the burlatex terror beneath. The night air thickened, sweet and chemical—the first gentle whispers of my latest composition. A stranger passed too close, our shoulders brushing. The hat, perfectly calculated, slipped. I saw it in the whites of their eyes, the sudden animal freeze: the flash of the mask, a stitched and empty visage, a waking dream given form. Then I was gone, a ripple in the mist, leaving only the first tendrils of dread to take root.