Mad World
The young brunette girl sits bound to the chair, crying softly as she looks down the body of a petite blond girl, no younger than twenty-five. The blond woman wears a cowl or a hood, laying unmoving on the cold concrete. Her body is positioned in solemn rest as she lies on the floor, as though she were only sleeping rather than dead.

The brunette girl's gaze drifts upward, across the room, to her captor. He sits facing a cage with two birds inside, teasing them with his finger as they flit about from end to end.

"Why are you doing this to me?" the brunette asks, fear coloring her tone.

There is silence for several minutes. When the girl gives up on an answer, he speaks in a deep, rough voice, one that hasn't seen use in some time.

"You're helping me send a message to an old friend. You'll remind him of someone he loves. You'll die and he'll return here, where it all started, to finish a game we started years ago." he says, continuing to tease the birds.

"I didn't do anything to you! Do you want money! My dad will pay you anything you want!" she pleads. She'd hated the idea of moving to Gotham from Star City, but Dad wanted to take that stupid job with Wayne Industries and uprooted them all. She missed her old friends, her mother and her life. Her birthday was yesterday and that had gone horribly.

She'd ended up here.

"I don't want your money. Real art isn't about making money." he snarls. "It's about evoking an emotional experience from your audience. Take what I've done here. The death of the woman on the floor upsets you, makes you afraid, makes you wonder. You can't help but hope, deep down, that she didn't suffer. But everyone suffers, Jenna. No matter how quickly we die, we all suffer." he says, sighing.

"Please...don't do this to me. Please..." the brunette says, sobbing loudly as her captor walks toward her. He reaches out to make her look him in eyes.

"You're not who I wanted, Jenna, but you'll have to do." he says.



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Two days later, Gotham Police receive an anonymous tip leading them to a warehouse in the Narrows. The bodies of the young women are found, posed in solemn rest, each clutching a small robin. A spray-painted red arrow lays on the ground beside each of them, their bodies several hours cold.

The only other information the police have is a message spray painted on the northern wall of the warehouse.

RED HURTS