by Emily Ford
The Black Jester finds himself at Rose’s apartment building instead of at his own home. He nearly forgets he’s still in costume until a resident of the building walks outside, seeing only the Black Jester’s fleeting shadow as he ducks out of sight.
What is he doing? He meant to go home. No, he wants to see Rose. Is she okay? How can he see her? He stalks around the building to the back, where he spots her second floor window. The light is still on inside. This is the second time he’s been there.
He watches the window for any sign of movement for nearly an hour. Finally, the light goes off, and he imagines her being inside, struggling to sleep with horrendous bruises and broken bones. He silently aches to comfort her. To help her. But not yet. Instead, he spends the entire night guarding the building against any would-be intruders. Only a female resident enters the building the entire night. All else is quiet, save for the Black Jester’s thunderous thoughts.
In his mind, he replays the moments in the van with her from earlier. He visualizes her face. She was beautiful. Vulnerable. Her large green eyes were murky with fear. Her soft voice spoke words of terror – but she didn’t fear him. It’s a first, and the way she looked at him, as if he was a superhero there to save her and not a masked vigilante likely to kill her, sticks with him.
Fear and terror don’t belong in her. She shouldn’t have to experience them. He’ll kill. He’ll kill anyone that tries to hurt her again. His chest tightens, and he clenches his teeth as he imagines plunging his knife into Larry and Carlisle over and over again in his mind’s movie.
Throughout the night, he seethes, heat flushing his face beneath the mask and face paint. He repeatedly works himself into a frenzy while on duty at Rose’s building. When the morning sun yawns, its soft light illuminates his hideout and he becomes aware that he needs to leave before someone sees him.
He glares at the soft pinks and oranges chasing away his beloved dark night. A spritely ray of orange sunlight strikes his left eye, immediately invoking images of the fire that burned his face ten years ago. His head twitches, then jerks violently as he tries to shake the image from memory. It never works. Whenever this happens, he plunges into the tumultuous memories from that day. The storm. The fire. The flood. The murder. His death, then the subsequent awakening as something … different than he was before.
A neighborhood dog charges the wood plank fence the Black Jester has just crashed into as he battles his violent memories. The dog’s aggressive barking snaps him back into the present, to his relief. Tortured by the memory, he still feels the pain of his mind’s split resulting from being ripped from death’s eternal slumber by adrenaline and electric shock. Filled with an overwhelming, uncomfortable energy, he slams his fist into the wooden fence, knocking the entire plank off its structure into the barking dog’s yard.
The violent expulsion of energy brings him some relief, taking the edge off his enraged state. He quickly scans his surroundings for witnesses, then sprints off towards his own home, quickly glancing back at Rose’s building in case a rogue attacker happened to materialize while he was venting his rage. One last chance to kill before starting a new day.
Then he’ll take his medication and be normal, at least until it’s dark again.
