Theme Thursday - Friend

As I lay unconscious in the bubbling brook that surrounded my broken body, I had flashbacks. You know, people always say your life flashes before your eyes - I think people do it on purpose, so they can remember everything, in case there is something after this. In case they die. Or, maybe, they remember it so they don't think, "Why did I live simply to die now?" and remembering is their way of saying, "That is what I lived for, and it was worth it."

As I pondered these deep thoughts I never really considered, I was reliving the happiest moments of my life. Coincidentally, they all happened when I was with Mr. Wayne, my best friend. My only true friend, really. It was really a shame I had had to trick him. Me, Jason Todd, unwilling "victim" of the Joker. The Joker wanted to get to Mr. Wayne by getting me - told me he'd kill him if I didn't leave his life. I knew this would hurt him, but nobody dies this way and everyone could keep Batman. Why Joker didn't kill me, I will never know. Maybe to keep me with the pain of knowing I could've stayed, wondering what could've been.

In my dream-like state, memories passing in front of my eyes like a slide show, I slowly began to feel cold spreading through my body, like I swallowed ice water. I began to feel pain, in my chest, my fingers, my knees, my head, especially. I suddenly recognized I was moving, in the water, not on top, underneath the surface, hovering in a midway. My face, above the surface, my mouth gasping for air as it spits out water in return, felt the hot sunbeams. I felt the strange urge to duck my head back underwater to avoid the scorching sun, but I fought it, unable to breathe in the first place.

I struggled to move my limbs in a swimming formation for any surface I could reach, any land, any rock, any branch. A fish, even, would be useful. I squirmed between two rocks and grabbed hold of one. As I lay, gasping for air, I heard a familiar chuckle. No, not a chuckle - chuckles are light-hearted, good-humoured. This was an evil sound, a dark-humoured one. I forced my eyes open, blinked in the blinding sunlight, into a familiar painted face. The scarlet lips moved, in a hypnotizing way, in an all-too-familiar, rasping voice, "Robin!!" He grinned, as though delighted to have found me, "We meet again!!"

The Joker had come back.



(teehee, I cheated and posted this December 6)