[It's past closing time. The bars and restaurants of insincerity are packing up and shutting down, their proprietors not looking to overstay their time in the strange second city.
And Dick Grayson's just arrived. In civilian wear, crashing chaotically through the streets. He'd taken a bet that the doors between the cities would have stopped it following him. He'd been wrong. Fear creatures, like fear itself, defy logic. He should know, lately there's been a new one every time he closes his eyes. He's running on 72 hours without sleep now, and it seems like he's dreaming while awake.
Someone emerges from a shuttered storefront and Dick barrels sideways up an alley to get it to follow him, which it does, keeping up its running commentary:
Always were expendable, weren't you, boy? What do you think he picked you up off the circus floor for anyway, wark? Just a brightly colored target to deflect bullets meant for him. Expendable. Not even talented enough to die when you're supposed to.
Sometimes it's barely a wisp of a monster, sometimes it solidifies into nearly-a-man, sometimes it slithers, sometimes it flies.]
Open the door.
[Dick arrives where he was going to arrive all along, and hammers at the closed Clockhouse doors. He needs to know.
no subject
And Dick Grayson's just arrived. In civilian wear, crashing chaotically through the streets. He'd taken a bet that the doors between the cities would have stopped it following him. He'd been wrong. Fear creatures, like fear itself, defy logic. He should know, lately there's been a new one every time he closes his eyes. He's running on 72 hours without sleep now, and it seems like he's dreaming while awake.
Someone emerges from a shuttered storefront and Dick barrels sideways up an alley to get it to follow him, which it does, keeping up its running commentary:
Always were expendable, weren't you, boy? What do you think he picked you up off the circus floor for anyway, wark? Just a brightly colored target to deflect bullets meant for him. Expendable. Not even talented enough to die when you're supposed to.
Sometimes it's barely a wisp of a monster, sometimes it solidifies into nearly-a-man, sometimes it slithers, sometimes it flies.]
Open the door.
[Dick arrives where he was going to arrive all along, and hammers at the closed Clockhouse doors. He needs to know.
He needs to know this isn't real.]
OPEN THE DOOR.