"Ken!" A raspy, feminine voice broke the silence, followed by three loud dings that echoed through his bedroom. Ken blinked his eyes awake, wiping them groggily with a lethargic groan.
"Ken! I need your help!"
Another three high pitch rings.
He sat up fast, his mattress springs squeaked at the sudden movement. He swung his legs off of his rickety bed, hissing as his feet hit the cold, rotting wooden floor beneath him.
He ignored the sensation, quickly pulling a ripped old shirt over his head. On his desk a messy stack of medical letters sat, calling for Ken's attention, but he tried his best to ignore them.
Yet his stomach felt impossibly heavy whenever they caught his attention.
He shook his head, pulling open his bedroom door with more force than necessary.
He saw her sitting by the window in an old rocking chair, two thick blankets laid over her lap as the morning sun poured through the thin windows in gorgeous rivulets.
"Sorry" she said, her voice soft and impossibly weak. "I—I just need my medicine." She hung her head in shame. Her finger limply hanging over a small bell, he'd bought her. Ken sighed, a knot building in his throat as he tore his eyes away from his mother. He rushed to grab a bottle of water from the cabinet, drinking tap water wasn't wise.
Not here.
He crushed multiple pills, stirring them into the bottled water. His mothers hand trembled as she reached for the glass, Ken reached out to steady it for her. The doctor said she needed to eat before she took the pills, but he knew she didn't have an appetite.
He used to protest, refusing to give her the pills until she ate. But that always ended awfully, watching his mother tearing up as she forced herself to eat—Ken swallowed, forcing the images out of his head.
He couldn't bear it, any of this.
"Sorry for waking you Ken—" his mother started to whisper as she sipped on the water but Ken cut her off.
"No, I needed to be up." He said "I have that study thing today" he tried to reassure her.
She gave him a weak smile, she saw straight through his reassurance.
Guilt tore Mary up, she'd been sick for years now, sometimes she just wished she'd succumb to it all. Let her son live a normal life, but then she also couldn't leave Ken on his own.
She knew what he was like.
Mary glanced up, watching Ken move around in the cramped kitchen, his sleeves rolled up and hair messy from sleep. The steady, familiar sound of the frying pan crackled through the apartment.
Tears welled up before she could stop them, she pressed her sleeve to her face, pretending to wipe away sweat.
She wished she could make him breakfast again, just once. The smell of toast, the sound of him humming along to his cartoons, the way he used to swing his legs off the kitchen chair and talk about everything he wanted to be when he grew up.
It felt like a different lifetime.
She remembered how hectic it all used to be. Waking him before sunrise, throwing on her uniform, burning his toast half the time. Dropping him off at school a whole hour early, because she couldn't bear the thought of him walking to school alone.
Not in Gotham.
She'd go straight to work, long hours that drained all the life out of her. On her break, she'd pick him up and bring him home before having to go right back to work.
She hated it, with every fibre of her being.
But now she can't even stand and give her son a hug.
And she hates that so, so much more.
"I'm heading out" Ken said, as he handed her a small plate of scrambled eggs. He knew she wasn't hungry, but he'd always put the food there and whenever he came back he'd find at least some of it gone.
That was good enough for him.
He opened the front door, preparing to get going but his mothers voice stopped him,
"See you later Ken, I love you" she softly called out,
He paused, looking over his shoulder, his mother had her head down, pretending to be moving the blankets.
She was ashamed.
"I love you too." He said softly.
—
Ken arrived at the study, he was used to these environments now. Sketch buildings filled with even sketchier people, you sold them blood, plasma, or even took some new party drug they planned to mass produce.
He eyed the large warehouse, taking a deep breath. He never liked being around these human studies, it just felt…dangerous. Too many desperate people, it just fills the room with an uncomfortable tension.
He walked through the main entrance, blinking in shock at what he saw.
The walls were white, spotless and the air smelt thickly of disinfectant. This was the kind of clean you only saw in actual hospitals, not sketchy testing centres. For a second he could almost forget where exactly he was, until he saw the two armed guards waiting near the reception.
Carefully he approached the receptionist, a white woman with too white teeth and a large smile. He made sure to not get too close, he didn't want to accidentally alert the guards.
"Hello! Are you here for Test 31B?" The woman asked in a chipper tone, Ken hesitated. He wasn't used to this, not even actual hospital workers were this…excited?
She does realise she doesn't need customer service for this?
"Yeah, I don't uh…remember the exact name of it, but I've got this?" Ken said as he showed her a screenshot off of his phone. "It's an email they sent—"
Before the woman could even really even look at the form she nodded and smiled even wider at him.
"Perfect!" She exclaimed as she started typing rapidly on the laptop sitting in front of her. "Please take a seat! Someone will call on you soon!"
Again, he hesitated…she didn't even know his name? How were they going to call on him?
"The waiting area is over there." One of the guards said gruffly, nodding towards a pair of double doors.
Ken stood for a moment, hesitation clear on his face. Before he shook his head, he needed this. Three hundred bucks wasn't the most he'd made from one of these 'studies', but it was definitely on the higher end.
Probably another party drug test, he thought. They'd dose him, take some blood and observe him for a couple hours.
Easy money.
He turned, striding towards the double doors. The electric hum of the lights disappeared as the thick doors shut with a bang behind him.
The room was deathly quiet.
He quickly assessed the people waiting, only three, all oozed desperation but not danger. All their heads hung low, avoiding any eye contact. The air here smelt thick, metallic almost.
He was about to sit, but a door flew open, slamming against the wall behind it with a loud crash. Ken's head snapped towards the sound, his fists clenched, his eyes wide and alert.
A man in a pristine doctor's coat poked his head out, locking eyes with Ken. His gaze was sharp, but a smile easily lit his face as he gestured towards the teenager.
"You're next" The man said casually, Ken blinked in surprise, and glanced around the room at the others waiting in case the doctor was actually talking to someone behind him.
"Come on, we haven't got all day" the doctor laughed as he gestured for Ken to come towards him. Ken swallowed, feeling the eyes of the other people in the waiting room now glued on him.
But he walked towards the man, heading through the door.
Slowly they made their way down the neverending hallway, Ken followed behind eyeing every closed door they passed, trying to get a glimpse of the sort of test he could expect.
God this hallway was cold, he thought to himself.
He thought back to his home.
He hoped his mother was okay.
That was his last thought before a sharp, stinging pain stabbed into his neck. Frantically he turned, eyes wide and vision blurring as he stumbled backwards.
A man was standing behind him, empty needle in hand and a sharp assessing look in his eyes. Ken's knees buckled beneath him as a burning sensation spread through his veins. But before he could protest, fight or run.
He fell.
—-
It felt like a constant blur, like he was trapped halfway between sleep and waking, he couldn't think, couldn't move, could barely breathe.
God he was so hungry…
He doesn't even remember where he was, who he is, what led him here.
The only constant was the full electric buzzing and the awful, terrible hunger.
Sometimes clipped, professional voices cut through his mental fog.
"-he RC count is very high, this'll be our first—"
"-idiculous we couldn't possibly transport him n—"
-tabilize him now! Or we lose every-"
He tried to move, twitch his fingers, tense, scream but nothing ever happened. It felt like he weighed tons, that his own body was crushing him.
He'd feel stabbing pains, burning sensations that tore through him like a storm and awful, invasive impossibly cold hands that seemed to dig into him and tear everything apart.
Why was he so hungry?
He wanted to sleep, normally sleep not—not whatever this is.
He couldn't bear it.
He just wanted his mother.
—-
Richard walked into the chamber belonging to Patient 037. The door hissed shut behind him, sealing in the sterile air. He approached the boy's bedside table, observantly glancing over him.
The patient was young.
Dark black hair, pale skin that reflected the bright ultra white lights over-head. Richard started with the simple check, noting down his heart rate, his oxygen levels and his RC count.
Then he went into the physical, a light press against his ribs, the neck and arms. Everything seemed normal, but he needed to check the boy for everything.
His bosses wouldn't accept anything less.
He leaned over the boy, checking his face. His thumb hooked gently beneath the eyelid, lifting it to inspect the pupil—
He froze.
The pupil contracted sharply, as if responding to the hash light from above.
The doctor quickly let the eyelid fall shut, frowning as he leaned further forward to check the other eye. Again his thumb hooked underneath the eyelid and lifted it, and once again the doctor froze.
But this time for a completely different reason.
The iris was blood red. The sclera, a pitch black that seemed to swallow the light around it. For a moment Richard could only stare, transfixed by the sheer wrongness of it. Then instinct kicked in and he jerked his hand back if is burned.
But the eyelid didn't close.
It stayed wide open.
And then it moved.
The eye snapped to him, locking on with a wild frantic precision. The pupil shrank to a needle point and Richards breath hitched as the boys wild, panicked gaze pinned him in place.
The monitors started to beep rapidly, causing a loud, ear piercing alarm to wail throughout the facility. Red warning lights started to flash, Richard could hear the other doctors and staff start to rush towards the room.
The alarm meant something was wrong with a patient, and they couldn't have this fail, 37's the most promising one.
The boys chest rose as a sudden shuddering panicked breath dragged itself up from 37's lungs, it was as if hed been drowning before. His fingers twitched and he had attempted to move but thick metal restraints held 37 down.
37's eyes darted wildly across the room, wide and alert. He looked as if he wanted to speak, but all that came out of his throat was a hoarse rasping sound, so dry that it seemed to pull all of the moisture out of the air with it.
The animalistic sound made Richard take an instinctive step back, the alarm still wailing as fellow doctors poured into the room. They quickly surrounded the experiment, eyes wide as they each individually poked and prodded at 37.
Then came the sound.
A deep, slow creak.
Everyone froze.
The restraints around patient 37's were bending.
No one moved at first. Then Chaos. A few doctors immediately ran towards the door, some panicked and fumbled with their radios, calling for help and some couldn't help but freeze as they stared at the patient in fear.
The creaking turned into a shriek as the restraints tore.
—
Ken stood on cracked pavement, staring up at the familiar outline of his apartment building, his window was dark. He felt a twinge of guilt, his stomach feeling impossibly heavy. She had been there, all alone, all day.
His breathe came out unevenly, fogging up the freezing air. The air smelt of smog and rust, a refreshing change to the antiseptic that had previously filled his senses.
In the distance, a siren wailed, sharp and lonely.
The street was empty and he was thankful for that, he just wanted to get home, without any extra hassle.
His mother was going to be so worried, she'd never let him back outside, he thought to himself as a small smile lit up his face.
Hopefully they had food in.
He was glad to be back.
He took a single step towards the door, his legs trembling and fingers numb.
Relief within touching distance, he just needed to make it up the stairs.
Eventually he made it to the door, the familiar sight making a gentle but all too real smile grow on his face. He reached out, the cold metal of the doorhandle feeling warm, he was home.
He pushed the door open with a creak–
It smelt like mould and stale air, why did it smell like mould?
But underneath all of that, was…was something different.
Something new.
His mouth filled with salvia, his stomach twisting ferally as hunger suddenly clawed at him like it wanted out.
He took another step into the apartment, leaving the door wide open.
Was his mother cooking?
No…she hadn't cooked in years. She couldn't.
He took another step, slower this time. Each movement felt like less of his own doing, and more instinctual, like he was being guided by something else. He walked past a photoframe, a picture of him and his mother when he was much younger, a thin layer of dust covering it.
"Mum?" he called softly, though his voice was coarse.
No answer.
She was asleep.
The floorboards creaked beneath him as he made his way to the living room. The old rocking chair sat by the open window. His mothers form sat still, her back to him, the blankets falling over the armrests. Rivulets of moonlight poured into the dark unlit room, casting an eerie glow through his home.
He approached, trying his best to ignore his cramping, growling stomach. Further pushing down his new animalistic urges.
She sat there, like she always did, but then he saw an empty pill bottle laid by her feet. He frowned, his gaze shooting to her limp pale arm, hanging loosely off the chair.
His hand shook as he reached out, gently touching her cold shoulder.
"M-Mum?' he asked, his voice breaking as a horrible, awful suspicion burned bright.
He shook her harder.
"Mum?..." he repeated in a weak whisper.
He felt weak…but he continued to shake her, though he knew the truth.
"Answer me...please…" his voice broke.
His knees collapsed beneath him, as he buried his head into her cold lap. Painful sobs tore through his body.
When did this happen?
He felt like he hadn't eaten in years.
How long was he gone?
A rich, warm smell filled his senses.
Did–did she think he'd abandoned her?
Oh god…
His hunger tore through him, one of his eyes burning a bright, blood red.
Did she do this to herself?
The scent now surrounded him, his fists clenched hard.
"Stop" he whispered, his voice breaking.
His mouth filled with salvia.
He looked up, into his mothers dead, glassy eyes.
He sobbed.
He was so hungry.
"Please stop" he whined as the hunger roared in victory.
—
Rain.
It fell in heavy, cold sheets, from the dark, lightning filled skies above.
It soaked through his thin hospital robe and plastered his dark hair onto his forehead.
It filled the dark street with a pattering that drowned out Kens thoughts and hid the flow of salty tears pouring down his face.
But it could not fully wash away the dark, wet blood on his hands and face, nor the metallic taste that burned on his tongue, a taste that would haunt him forever.
—
A tall man wearing a dark outfit stepped carefully through the wreckage, his cape dragging through slick pools of blood that reflected the harsh fluorescent lights above. Bodies laid torn and broken throughout the laboratories, expensive equipment destroyed and scattered.
Batmans observant sight swept through the surrounding carnage, noting deep gouges in the walls, the doors that had been torn off their hinges and the trail of corpes following their wake. The detective kneeled near a dead man, the cause of death clear.
Brute force, to the extent that the mans whole ribcage had caved inwards, destroying his organs and ending his life almost instantaneously.
Bruce knew what this building was, it was a lab.
They'd made this monster.