Chapter Text
The burning sand, still hot from the heat of the day long past, was whipping by the still body of the boy on a dune. The boy wasn't sure why he didn't know anything, why he didn't know his name or where he was, just a niggling feeling that digging too deep into the calm, the deep feeling of rest that had kept him lying there would be a bad idea. He closed his eyes and tried to go back into the dream he wasn't sure why he'd come out of. He could remember the feeling of flying, of running and jumping, along side a great protecter who'd never let him fall.
Faint laughter, high and cold, out of breath as if they'd been exercising, almost unnoticeable, but raised the hair on the back of the boys neck broke him out of his dream. He shivered in unease, as it whipped around him like sand on the breeze, slicing him, familiar (WHy was it familiar?), as the ever shifting but never ending landscape was painted in the deep purple of dusk. The boy somehow knew (how did he know?) that the time for this place (where was this place?), was ending. The sun was almost set, but hung, as if by desperate (broKEN blOODY) fingernails to the horizon, lighting up the desert in hues of red (REDREDRED SO MUCH BLOOD HeLP) and yellow, which the shadows almost purple and blue, turning the familiar (had he been here before? why was he here?), landscape into an alien scene.
The boy didn’t know how long he’d lain there, just staring at the sun as it made is was across the sky, as it burned his skin— But not badly, not as bad as he had been burned Before. He Knew what burned skin, truly burned skin felt like, the heat that caused it to bubble and melt off twisted bones, what it smelled like; like cooking meat, like the roast the Kind Man used to make and it was Not As Bad, could never be As Bad as the Before, the thing he couldn’t or wouldn't remember. (dOn’T thINk GET AwAY HELP ME B PLeASE!)
The sand under the boy wasn't cooling down as the sun sunk lower, it almost seemed to be heating up as the wind picked up, flinging the burning sand into the boy, whipping thin lines onto his face. The sand began to swirl as the storm grew out of nothing; moving almost in time with the boys swirling thoughts as he lay motionless on the sand. The splitting feeling in the boys head, the screaming pain behind his eyes (his cheek was caved in, covered in blood as the man swung aGAIN and aGAIN), was only growing.
The pain was nothing, was —( PLEASE STOP IT HURTS PLEASE I DON’T WANT TO DIE PLEASE PLEASEPLEASE S T O P) — was all he could feel, bones twisting, cracking shattering as laughter seemed to rise from the very sand around him, thin and high and deranged as he lunged forward, moving for the first time in an eternity under the sun— why did it feel like so long? how long had he been here?where was he? ( IT HURT PLEASE JUST MAKE IT StOP)—To cover his ears as the laughter got louder and louder, surrounding him like a presence, a demon a shadow that every child, every Gothamite, knew to fear, that had no mercy—only paIN only betrayal (MUM PLEASE I WANTED TO FIND YOU PLEASEPLEASE B PLEASE FIND ME PLEASE I’M SORRYI LEFT I’M SORRY PLEASE)
The Boy (JAsON I’M ROBIN I’M JASON BATMAN WILL SAVE ME I’M ROBIN WHERE IS HE ) struggled to his feet the sand whipping around him like knives blinding him, screaming like laughter, like death and threatened to push him down, back onto the sand -- Back onto the ground and the paIN and the mAN ABOVE HIM RAISING THE CROWBAR—)
The noise grew as Jason clawed at his ears, as he hunched over as the memory of buRNING OF BLINDING PAIN OF TOO LATE TOO LATE causing him to crumple as if being hit by an invisible enemy, sending him back onto the sand. The sand began to envelop him, drawing him down below the burning layer heated by the sun as he clawed at the surface. Jason could feel the fine grains go cold, so cold as he, still fighting, sunk further, fighting for breath as the sand got into his mouth and the laughter only seemed tO GROW and it huRT SO MUCH HE COULDN’T BREATHE HE COULDN’T BREATH HE WANTED TO GO HOME PLEASE WHERE IS HE PLEASE BRUCE.
The sand was so cold now as his lungs burned (and buRNED AND BURNED) as he began to grow tired and cold, (But he was burning, he hurt like fire like lightning like white-hot metal poured into his veins) and the blinding pain in his body that never stopped hurting seemed to grow stronger as the dark sand closed over the hole above him, sealing him in darkness, with the cold seeping into him, into his very being, nowhere to go all alone in the freezing dark.(WHY WASN’T HE HERE WHERE IS BATMAN PLEASE I NEED YOU HELP ME PLEASE DAD PLEASE I DON’T WANT TO DIE HELP ME)