Chapter 24: The Survivor's Nightmare
Emma Walsh had stopped looking in mirrors three months ago.
Not completely - she couldn't avoid them entirely. But she'd learned to focus on specific parts: her eyes when brushing her teeth, her hands when washing dishes, her feet when getting dressed.
Never the whole picture. Never the roadmap of scars that turned her body into Victor Zsasz's autobiography.
The safe house apartment in the Bowery was supposed to be temporary. That's what Detective Gonsalez had promised when the cops moved her here after the trial. "Just until the appeal process is finished, Emma. Then we'll get you set up somewhere new, somewhere he can never find you."
That was three months ago. The appeal had been denied. Zsasz's death sentence had been commuted to life. And Emma was still here, in this one-bedroom prison with reinforced locks and panic buttons, jumping every time the radiator clanged or the upstairs neighbor dropped something heavy.
She sat cross-legged on her couch, laptop balanced on her knees, trying to focus on the freelance graphic design work that kept her rent paid.
The client wanted something "edgy" for their horror movie poster - ironic, considering Emma lived in a horror story every single day.
The TV murmured in the background, local news she kept on for the illusion of human voices. She'd developed a pathological fear of silence over the past year. Silence meant she could hear her own breathing, her own heartbeat, the same sounds Zsasz had whispered about during those days in his warehouse.
"Your pulse is so fast, Emma," his voice echoed in her memory. "Like a little bird's heart. But don't worry - I'm going to teach you to fly."
Day one had been the psychological preparation. Zsasz had shown her photographs of his previous victims, explaining in clinical detail what he'd done to each one.
"This is Margaret," he'd said, pointing to a woman suspended by fishing wire. "She begged me to kill her children first so they wouldn't have to watch. I explained that witnessing truth is the greatest gift I could give them."
Day two was when he'd started carving. Not random cuts - deliberate letters, symbols, a proof of ownership across her skin.
"E.W. - Emma Walsh," he'd whispered while she screamed through the gag. "So I remember which one you are."
Each cut had been calculated to cause maximum pain without permanent damage. He wanted her functional for what came next.
"Do you know what makes you special, Emma?" he'd asked while photographing her wounds. "You have a daughter. Seven years old, isn't she? Julia? She goes to Gotham Elementary, walks home past the playground every day at 3:15. Such a predictable little creature."
The threat had broken something inside Emma that even the physical torture couldn't touch.
He'd shown her Julia's school photo, somehow obtained from God knows where. "After we finish our project here, I thought we might collaborate on something smaller. Children are so much more... malleable."
She shook her head violently, forcing the memory away. Dr. Sharma had taught her techniques for this - grounding exercises, breathing patterns, ways to pull herself back to the present. Name five things you can see. The cracked ceiling. The yellow couch cushions. The stack of unpaid bills on the coffee table. The—
"—body discovered in a Gotham warehouse matches the signature methodology of convicted serial killer Victor Zsasz, who was released on parole a few days ago after serving—"
Emma's laptop clattered to the floor as she lunged for the remote, but she was too late. The news anchor's voice continued while crime scene photos flashed across the screen. A warehouse. Bodies hanging in a circle. And in the center—
Emma ran to the bathroom and vomited until her stomach was empty, then dry-heaved until her ribs ached.
When she finally looked up, her reflection stared back from the medicine cabinet mirror - hollow cheeks, dark circles under bloodshot eyes, the cross cross scars across her torso spelling out words in Zsasz's careful script.
UNFINISHED carved across her collarbone. CHAPTER ONE etched into her shoulder blade. And on her stomach, the cruelest touch: JULIA NEXT in letters deep enough to never fully fade.
Day three had been preparation for the finale. Zsasz had spent hours explaining exactly what he planned to do to her daughter while Emma was forced to watch.
"I've been studying child psychology," he'd said conversationally while sharpening his tools. "Seven-year-olds still believe in monsters under the bed. I plan to prove them right."
He'd made Emma write a letter to Julia in her own handwriting, explaining mommy was somewhere safe and would come to fetch her soon.
"Read it aloud," he'd commanded. "I want to hear how it sounds in your voice before we record the video message."
The escape had been pure desperation - not courage, not cleverness, just a mother's terror overriding every other instinct. She'd sawed through her restraints with glass from a broken bottle, her hands so slippery with blood she could barely grip the makeshift blade. Every second expecting to hear his footsteps returning, knowing that if he caught her, Julia would pay the price for her defiance.
Her hands shook as she splashed cold water on her face. This wasn't supposed to happen. The psychiatrists had testified that he was making progress. The whole fucking team had promised—
Her phone rang, making her jump so hard she knocked over the toothbrush holder. Detective Gonsalez's name appeared on the screen.
"Emma? Emma, are you there?"
"I saw the news," she whispered, automatically pulling her shirt higher to cover the scars. Even alone, she couldn't bear to see them.
"Listen to me carefully. We're implementing emergency protocols. A unit is already on the way to move you to a secondary location. Pack only essentials - you have ten minutes."
"He will be looking for me, isn't he?" The words came out flat, emotionless. She was too tired for hysteria. "He's going to finish what he started."
Gonsalez paused too long before answering. "The crime scene... there are elements that suggest you might be a specific target. We're not taking any chances."
Emma laughed, high and bitter. "Elements? What kind of elements, Detective? Let me guess - he left a message for me, didn't he?"
Another pause. "Emma, I need you to stay calm—"
"What did it say?" Her voice was getting stronger, anger burning through the numbness. "What did the sick fuck write this time?"
"There was... there was a photograph. Of Julia. Her current school photo. And a note that said 'Tell Emma I'm ready for Chapter Two.'"
The phone slipped from her numb fingers, clattering on the tile floor. Of course. Of course he'd kept his promise.
Victor Zsasz never lied about his intentions - that was what made him so terrifying. He'd told her exactly what he planned to do, and now he was doing it.
She'd escaped on day three, during the brief window when he'd left to acquire more "materials."
The handcuff key she'd palmed during his creepy monologue, the broken glass she'd hidden in her sleeve, twenty minutes of desperate sawing through rope while praying he wouldn't return early. Then stumbling through the warehouse district, bleeding and half-naked, until a night shift worker at the power plant called 911.
But escape had been the easy part. Living afterwards, carrying the knowledge of what he'd planned for day four, day five, day six - that was the real prison.
She walked back to the living room like a ghost, moving automatically. Pack only essentials. What was essential when a monster was hunting your child? Some clothes. Her medications - antidepressants, sleeping pills, the anti-anxiety prescription that barely kept the nightmares at bay. The laptop with her work files, because even when running for your life, bills didn't pay themselves.
But first, she needed to call Julia's school. Needed to make sure her daughter was safe, that extra security was in place, that the teachers understood this wasn't a drill or an overprotective mother's paranoia.
This was life and death, and Julia was seven years old, and she didn't even know why Mommy had those scars or why they'd moved four times in three months or why there were always strange men watching their house.
Emma's hands stopped shaking as cold rage replaced terror. He thought fear would paralyze her the way it had in that warehouse, when she'd been helpless and alone.
But he'd made one crucial mistake. He'd threatened her daughter.
And a mother protecting her child was capable of anything.
As she zipped up her go-bag, something crinkled under the couch cushions. She pulled out a black envelope, expensive paper with her name written in elegant script. Her blood turned to ice water, then began burning with something fiercer than fear.
With trembling fingers that quickly steadied, she opened it. Inside was a single sheet of matching paper with text in the same careful handwriting:
"When justice fails, judgment comes.
Your daughter will be safe.
Victor Zsasz will not.
- A friend who understands"
Emma stared at the words until they burned into her retinas. Someone else knew. Someone else had been watching, waiting, planning. Someone who understood that the courts had failed, that mercy was weakness, that monsters like Zsasz deserved something far worse than prison.
The Architect. It had to be. The vigilante killer who'd been eliminating the worst of Gotham's predators while the heroes played by rules that protected no one.
For the first time in three months, Emma Walsh smiled. And it was a terrible smile, full of anticipation and righteous fury.
She was still smiling when the unmarked police car arrived, when the federal marshals escorted her to another safe house in another anonymous neighborhood.
But Emma clutched the black envelope in her jacket pocket and felt something she hadn't experienced since the day she escaped that warehouse: hope.
Architect. Someone who understood that the only way to stop a monster was to become something worse.
Emma had been Zsasz's victim once. She wouldn't make that mistake again.
This time, she had an ally. This time, the monster had competition.
She looked out the car window at Gotham's endless sprawl of shadows and neon, and for the first time in three months, she wasn't afraid of what might be lurking in the darkness.
Because something even darker was hunting on her behalf.
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1) I felt like this chapter was necessary to portray how a victim's life changes after an encounter with a villain. Now count all the villains and victims in Gotham. If you're a therapist, Gotham is your golden goose.
2) This chapter also shows the impact the Architect has on people—how his name is beginning to spark hope in the hearts of victims.
3) I made an OST for this fic using Musicful. You can check it out for free on my Patr homepage if you're interested—it sounds good, I think?