Mad Jyhad

Mad Jyhad
By kirasmommy

So this is all confidential, I hope? I mean, what I say here stays here when we leave here? Because what I know and what I have to say isn't for public examination. In fact, if anyone found out that I told YOU, I could be destroyed. It's bad enough that so many people ALREADY know! But I do understand your 'need' to know. It must be so disconcerting to be aware that you are missing an entire day of your life.

Oh yeah, by the way, Mars has always been my favorite planet of all of them. So beautiful, red like blood with sands that dance in the wind... So I always thought you were kind of cool anyway. And I REALLY think it's cool that you talked the rest of the League into allowing only YOU to investigate all of this. I know that you did it mostly for Batman. But I appreciate it too, because, well, despite everything, I'm not ready for final death. I'm not ready to sing wihe she stars quite yet.

Are you sure that you are ready to hear all the more 'intimate' details? There's quite a few of them. I mean some of them are a little...uh...yeah, I guess being a telepath and all you have to be sort of all Zen about the whole sex thing, huh?

Well, where to start?

I suppose the best place is as they say the beginning. Or at least near enough to the beginning. If we went all the way to the beginning...well that goes back thousands of years to before the stars began to talk, and you have already said you want to know EVERYTHING!

You know it is pretty amazing how blind people can be when they want to be, even the most intelligent of men. Take Batman, for example. He is extremely intelligent. Brilliant really! Some even consider him to be a genius. And no, I don't say that because he is my partner, or because I look up to him. I mean yeah, I look up to him in many ways but I'm not saying the nice stuff JUST because of it. In fact, there are a lot of times I secretly think he needs to be smacked. To be honest, at the time everything started, I was really considering taking it upon myself to do the smacking!

The man is brilliant, yet...

If you were to ask Batman whether or not he believed in the supernatural, he would say no, that there are logical answers for everything. If you asked him if he believed in ghosts, again he would say no.

Then he would pointedly ignore you when you started to list Deadman, Spectre, Secret, or half the a dozen OTHER ghosts that we personally know and deal with on a regular basis.

I mean, he KNOWS. I know that he knows, and you know that he knows. And he knows that I know that he knows. But it is like he only knows when he absolutely needs to know then he purposely puts it out of his mind. Did I lose you? Never mind... I lose everyone at some point.

Some in more permanent ways.

So, when the shit hit the fan THIS time, he went in to the situation with the idea, 'there is a logical answer for everything.'

Yeah, right! And look at that pig fly!

Personally, I would have settled for a fast retreat and forget about 'getting the bad guys'.

But you know what they say, wish in one hand and shit in the other and see which fills up faster. Looks like my hands are STILL full.

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Batman had told me vampires didn't exist. But then, he doesn't believe in anything he doesn't WANT to believe in. The man is a master of denial.

But he had explained before we even got there that it was a cult who believed, or rather wanted OTHERS to believe, that they were vampires. He said that they had some impressive tricks but that it was tricks nonetheless.

Yeah, tricks all right. In fact, one of the names for it happens to be 'The Dark Trick'. Trick is such a weird word you know? If you say it long enough, it has absolutely NO meaning. Tricks really have no meaning anyway. What is a trick really? A deception, a joke, a hoax, it is a fake, a ploy and a trap. You take something with no meaning and try to make it mean something. And therein lies a trap. But why exactly is it called the Dark Trick? Is it because that which is a blessing is actually a curse? Or does the curse disguise a dark blessing? Or the fact that it was all an accident of fate? Or the fact that all of it is just a joke that our ancestors started long ago? Like the Jyhad? The Jyhad is the greatest joke that will never happen and the others have fallen for it hook, line, and sinker while we all laugh and laugh at their expense.

Did I lose you again? Sorry, I tend to ramble once in a while. You'll have to excuse it. I will try to keep it to a minimum. Sometimes my mind wanders and it takes me a few seconds to remember what I was actually thinking about. My mind has a mind of its own.

Where was I? Oh, where it started. Surprisingly, it was in October. There is just something so ironic about that.

There were many early Halloween celebrations. But there was one in particular that seemed to attract a lot of attention every year.

It was a big...party, a frat house party. And it seemed as though everyone had been invited.

The music had played on even as the screams threatened to drown it out. I didn't appreciate the screams then. I didn't hear the natural music that they make. At the time it was just noise, a terrifying and frightening noise that confused the senses.

Streamers and banners lay on the floor as the fight progressed. Decorations were torn down as people ran for their lives. Running on top of those that had fallen, all trying to escape their attackers. I remembered sliding in food that had fallen off a table. I hit my head and reached up to feel it.

Blood poured from the gash and ran down to mix with the fake blood that had splattered the room for the party's theme this year. Classic slasher flicks. Posters adorned all the walls. Scream, Halloween, Friday the 13th, Nightmare on Elm Street, various others. I had stopped looking as soon as the fight had started.

I pulled on the table to get up...but I was hit. I fell again, sprawled on the ground. Someone had tackled me. He held me down.

He BIT ME!

Of course, the mark is extremely faint now, nothing to really show that I had ever been bitten, but I can feel it. Even now, I feel it on my neck, a slight tingle, a vague vibration. A shiver runs through me when someone touches it. A pleasant reminder of what happened that night.

Sorry, didn't mean to zone out on you there. Um, oh yeah, the night I woke up after the attacks.

The first thing I noticed when I finally woke up was the cold. It was so very cold. But I was not shivering. It was just that kind of cold that is just...bone deep. You know? I was so cold I seemed numb. I couldn't really feel my body at first. I couldn't move. I felt drugged. My mind was muddled and I couldn't really think beyond. 'I'm cold, I've been drugged.'

There was only the most vague sense of panic deep inside. It was like I was detached from myself. Like I was sitting outside my body and watching it from far away.

For the most part, I didn't feel anything emotionally or physically. I could feel the cold, yes, I could feel a heaviness in my body but nothing more.

It could have been minutes or it could have been hours that I stayed in that half conscious state. Where nothing seemed real and I was, but wasn't, there. Like the ghost upon the stair, I was and wasn't there...

Slowly, I began to move. Only my fingers at first. I struggled to flex them. Struggled to pry my mouth open and speak. I was so stiff I could faintly hear them creak as they moved slowly. Like rusty hinges.

My chest began to itch and I could not move enough to scratch it. I groaned at one point and the noise frightened me. It was hoarse and scratchy, unearthly as it hit my ears. At first I feared that something was inside with me. Wherever here was that is.

I began to work on moving my eyes. To open them and see where I was. They felt dry and I felt the first spark of real pain. They burned as I tried to force them open. And the more they burned the more that vague sense of panic heightened and I HAD to open my eyes.

I opened my eyes and it was completely black. Completely! I mean there was NO source of light.

Where the hell was I?

Where was I?

The dark was oppressive and felt heavy! It was so stuffy and there didn't seem to be any breeze. I had to concentrate and force myself to breathe.

I forced my fingers to move once more and I tried to ignore the cracking sound they made every time they moved. I stroked the material under me with stiff fingers; relishing the soft silky feel and wondering where I would be that would have silk sheets?

It was so hard to think. But it was like moving through molasses on a cold day. I needed to think though. Wasn't that what Batman and Nightwing was always telling me? That my strength lay in intelligence. I needed to reason through this. I needed to remember.

Finally I started to... I remembered fighting those... demon things. They looked human until we had started to fight them and then they changed. I remembered someone shouting the word 'Vampire'!

I blinked away the memory as I tried again to reach up thinking, 'Um, this isn't good!'

It took a lot of effort but I finally got one of my hands to move. It was difficult to control my arm and hand. In the end, it was mostly just me throwing my arm up and touching whatever was over me briefly as it hit. It seeto fto feel like the bed, at least what I could feel, maybe a little harder and not as much padding, but still nice and satiny and ruffled.

Then it occurred to me 'Where is my uniform? Where are my shoes?' I attempted to wiggle my toes and heard a loud snap.

Suddenly my body felt like it had been set on fire. Burning pain coursed through my limbs and came to rest in my chest. I shook as the pain wracked my body. I gasped loudly as the agony seemed to go on forever. Electric shocks ran the length of my flesh and seemed to pop within. I felt as though I were being contorted into a pretzel. Tortured by some unseen force. It was a blessing when I finally passed out, no longer able to take the pain.

I woke slowly; the ache was alreadginnginning to fade. I was left again with the cold and slightly numb feeling. Under me my clothing and the bed were soaked with some foul smelling liquid. At first I had feared that I had soiled myself. But the smell wasn't right for that. The smell...was...unique. But I had smelled something similar before. I just couldn't place it, but I was finally able to move easier.

I started to panic a little bit. I was cursing to myself as I tried to wiggle down and crawl out. When I found out I was completely encased I really began to freak out in earnest. It wasn't like when I was stuck in the truck with Cluemaster, at least that was more like being in a cell, this was more like a...coffin.

All I could do was scream, "Where the FUCK am I? Where am I? Where am I? WhereamIWhereamIWhereamIwhereamiwhereamiwhereamiwhereami!" in a gravelly and disused voice.

I tried to calm myself. I didn't know how much air I had. I knew I needed to conserve it. It was difficult but I slowed my breathing. The training I had to become Robin had taught me different forms of fighting and by extension meditation, something I didn't have the last time I was trapped in a tight space.

I continued to try and shift the lid but it wouldn't move. I didn't have the strength. I screamed for help but it didn't seem like... it was getting out. You know like when you yell facing a brick wall? It just seems to bounce back at you. You can just tell that it isn't getting out.

I told myself, 'Come on, Tim, calm yourself. Think your way out of here. You are in a box, locked in. Out of uniform. Nope, don't even have my mask. Great, Batman is going to love that. Damn, one crisis at a time.'

Funny how I was in so much trouble and the one thought that REALLY frightened me was how Batman was going to respond to me being unmasked. I think that speaks volumes.

After much fumbling I found nothing in my pockets, hell; I didn't even have a belt. No shoes either. But the clothes did feel familiar. I remember feeling the clothes with my fingertips and finding the little tear around the button second from the bottom. My dress shirt, I had torn it one night as I rushed to get out of it and into uniform. Even in the dark I was positive that they were indeed my clothes.

I pulled at the shirt and it gave way in the back. I was stunned. I mean it was weird and I kept thinking, 'What the fuck? Who cut my clothes? Who would dress me up after cutting up my clothes then put me in a damn box? Who are these psychos?'

After a while it came to me. The whole set up. It made a sort of perverted sense. They had me dressed like a corpse. They sometimes cut the clothing up the back to make it easier to dress the body. I thought, 'This is so STUPID! They have GOT to be kidding me! What are they trying to do? Freak me out? Convince me I'm a vampire? I bet that is what they are doing.'

You know, I ignored a lot that night. I ignored the stiffness in my body; I chalked that up to having lain there for God knows how long. I ignored the prickling itch in my chest and stomach area, the one that was shaped like a Y if I thought about it hard enough. As it was, I told myself that I was having an allergic reaction to whatever my clothes had been washed in. Or perhaps it was an allergic reaction to the liquid I was laying in. Despite the fact that my backside was fine and that was what was lying in the liquid.

Or I thought perhaps that I was just nervous...nervous...that's a good word for how I felt. I even ignored the twinges in some of my bones. The twinges that felt like broken bones feel when they are almost but not quite mended.

I thought I had it all figured out by that time. I thought they had grabbed me and that they were trying to convince me that I had been buried. I bet that in a day or so, they would 'dig me up' and start in on that whole cult bullshit that they had going for them. I hoped Batman would kick their ASS! He never did like it when his partners would get kidnapped. Of course, I figured once he rescued me, I'd be in for it! I'd get the whole "You have to be more careful" lecture. I knew that I deserved it. I had been stupid enough to get caught.

I figured that it would be worth the lectures once he got me out.

It really would have been, if any of it had been true.

Sorry, um...sorry. It's just that sometimes...I really wish...sorry. Just give me a moment. No, I'm fine.

Where was I?

I knew that I would just have to wait it out. He'd be there, anytime now. Anytime. Yep. I was betting that he was fighting them off right then. He had probably called in Nightwing, also. He'd give me his own version of the "be more careful" speech too. I wanted so much to hear it. It was comforting. Nightwing always had a way of bringing it all into perspective.

'Yep, anytime now.' I kept thinking that. I willed myself to relax, reciting Taps to set myself at ease. 'Day is done, gone the sun, from the lake, from the hills, from the sky; All is well, safely rest, God is nigh.'

'Yeah, anytime now... Fading light, dims the sight, and a star gems the sky, gleaming bright. From afar, drawing nigh, falls the night... They'll be here soon...' I fell asleep believing that.

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My waking thoughts were, 'Okay, this is NOT funny! Where the HELL are they?'

I had fallen asleep true, I knew I had, and true, I didn't know how much time had passed. But surely they should be have been there by now! Where were they?

When I had woken up the very first time, it seemed to be somewhat comfortable. I mean the padding seemed rather soft, and there was a pillow under my head. But after so many hours, I might as well have been laying on a board!

I started feeling claustrophobic. I was doing my best not to lose it. But it was getting hard. I wanted OUT! I couldn't breathe! It was getting harder to breathe! I needed out! And as embarrassing as it is to admit I had even started to whimper "I need out!
I need outIneedoutIneedoutIneedout!" And I just got louder and louder and it was several minutes before I got a hold of myself.

And when I realized that I was totally losing it again I told myself, 'Whoa! Chill out, Timmy! All you are doing is letting them know they are getting to you! Batman must be having a little difficulty getting to you. That's all. I mean, they were slippery bastards, remember? Just breathe. Breathe slowly. In and out, in and out, that's right. See? There must be plenty of air. I don't feel a draft but, hey, been here a while and still going strong! It's just psychological! I can breathe! See...in and out!'

It is so hard to convey the sense of helplessness I felt. It was frightening. Not being able to see anything, not knowing where I was or if anyone even knew where to find me. Kind of like how Blair Witch Project was only frightening to those that could imagine being lost like that. Ironically, the movie never bothered me...this did!

I was beginning to wonder if maybe no one was coming to my rescue, as impossible as that thought seemed. I had to admit that it was a possibility. That, maybe, they would be too late. I would not be the first Robin to die and the risk had always been real.

How many times did I stare up at Jason Todd's uniform? How many times did I imagine his last moments on Earth? It was because of his death and what it did to Batman that I myself had ended up confronting Nightwing and then Batman. It was because of his death that I became Robin. His death was the first and most important lesson I got as Robin. That anyone, and I do mean ANYONE, can die and that I was no exception.

Robin was no exception.

Sadly, it also taught me another lesson that Batman and Nightwing had never even realized that I had learned. That I could not always depend on them to save my ass, not that they would ever step back and let me die, just that they would not be able to prevent it. It only takes a second for someone to die. A second for an accident to kill. Just one second to change your life forever.

Forever is a long time. It lasts for an eternity. Can you honestly wrap your mind around the concept? You say forever, you say eternity, but you will never know it. Even those of us with the potential will escape into death before we can live it. To face it, to understand it, is to go mad. My kind understands it.

I had to admit that, perhaps, something had happened to them. That, perhaps, they had died.

I think I started to cry at that point. I was so sad. I missed them. I thought about all the training sessions and they didn't seem so much like training sessions anymore. I heard the jokes between Nightwing and myself. I missed him so much. It hurt. I felt like my world was at an end.

It was quite a while before I could pull myself back together. I think the only reason that I was able to was because good ol'denial had kicked in! They weren't dead. They couldn't be dead; therefore, they just couldn't find me.

So I needed to figure a way out myself, or to at least let someone know where I was. I had already checked for the link to Oracle. Of course there was nothing there. I had also checked with my hands and found nothing that would help me. I did find some stuff under the pillow, but my fingers just told me they were scraps of paper. Squares with a smooth texture, I figured out that they must be some sort of photos but I couldn't see what they were. I stuffed them into my pants pocket so I wouldn't lose them.

You know I actually do have pretty good eyesight now. No glasses for this guy...anymore. But if you have NO light source whatsoever, it don't matter how good your eyesight is, you can't see shit!

Sorry about the language. I just realized it's been less than...perfect. You can't see crap...oh, thanks. That's really cool of you. It would help if I could just...not worry about what falls out of my mouth. Or mind as the case may be...I'm getting the impression that you are reading my mind at the same time as I'm telling you this. Probably to get the full picture so to speak. Yeah, thought so...let me apologize in advance for any disturbing imagery.

Anyway, I really, really wanted out. I felt like I was losing my mind. I wanted to look up and see the sky.

When I closed my eyes really tight I could see...stars. That kind of helped, it gave me the illusion for a few minutes. Counting the tiny points of light gave me time to calm myself. I wished I could see the stars. I really did. But I would take the illusion over the complete darkness. At least it gave me something to do.

After a while, I started to kind of talk to them, heh, maybe THEY could come up with something, huh? I was starting to go a little batty. I even giggled at the thought. Batty, bat, Batman, get it? Never mind. What's that they say about talking to yourself?

Yeah, I was losing it... big time. I didn't even recognize myself anymore. I couldn't think straight and that scared me.

Every once in a while I tried to lift the lid. But it was on tight and I was still feeling weak.

I hoped and prayed he would get there soon, I didn't think I could take too much more. I begged the stars behind my eyes, 'Please, be here soon! Please?'

I think that was the first time that I heard them laugh. And it didn't give me much hope.

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