The calm before the storm.

Good weather was a rarity in Gotham, a rare chance for the sun to be shining, casting its golden glow upon the ruin of a City destined for only bloodshed and destruction, for the skies to be blue and alight with pretty bird songs and the laughter of children dancing through the breeze instead of their screams. But now, Gotham was only blissfully quiet for listening ears, as silent as death with a few exceptions blowing on the wind but just as foreboding, even with the blessed peace that had settled just above the surface, hiding the darkness that lingered below...looking like an innocent flower, but holding a deadly serpent beneath it.

She used to like it like this, years ago, she used to relish the times when her troubled city was still and hushed, when the tragedy that stained every street and every alley seemed to just disappear into the shadows, as if they were never even there in the first place. It was so easy to forget about it all, about the monsters that plagued the world around her, because when you are young and through some kind of divine intervention placed on the wealthier side of history, when everything is handed down to you upon a silver platter simply because of who you are, it's only death and the ruin of a false empire you fear and not much else.

And then she did as most children do and grew up. Ophelia Greene grew up and realised silence was the real fucking killer, the tempted slaughter, the warning that no one heard all for their sweet and naive embrace of soundless salvation. She grew up and finally heard what the ominous and suspicious peace had to whisper, the darling threat, hanging above her neck like she was placing herself in the noose, what was once her innocence nothing more than the length of the rope God wanted her to hang herself with...she finally got a taste for death that the absence of noise left behind when the night was cold and quiet.

She used to think she would miss Gotham if she ever got the chance to leave.

Tap.

Tap.

Tap.

She was wrong.

Footsteps have never sounded more devastating than when they were echoing alone across what was once a proud home, bouncing off of the marble walls until it made some mocking illusion, a symphony of lies and falsehood that seemed to be just for her...like she could pretend that it wasn't just herself walking those lonely halls which had once been full of chatter and noise. Oh, how it was truly sad indeed, catastrophic, tragic, all of those words and more, a hideous grief that clawed and bit at what once has been fragile skin, trying to pull her into the abyss that was full of mourning that would eventually scar over, that would become but a memory.

The only problem with scars, however...was that she didn't want her anguish just to heal over, no, no she didn't want that at all. In fact, she wanted her bloodied wounds to fester in the rotten air so that they would never become whole, so that they would only become black and infested, an eyesore that hurt to cast your eyes upon, she wanted her ruin placed out into the world for them all to see, for them all to remember just what was fucking taken from her...she wanted to give them all a reason for the monster she became all for the sake of vengeance...and she believed it was time for a refresher.

So, with that in mind, Ophelia continued on her journey, the journey, the reason she was back in this hellscape of trauma and disease, walking on past the kitchen, ignoring the ghosts that were frozen in time, sitting at the table drunk upon their own laughter, as she then moved through the living room where the phantom fire cackled as the logs burned in ember completion. Tackling the creaking stairs that grinded upon her every nerve, that struck her like a blow as another type of damning echo flashed past weary eyes, of children, Grayson, Todd and Greene, howling and dancing as they ran down each step with terrified butlers and maid tumbling after them.

Everything was beginning to just blur together, becoming one with memory and reality until she could barely even tell the difference, lost in some kind of delusion, pulled back into the misery of existing, over and over and over again until it felt like her head was about to explode. The upstairs hallway that seemed to stretch on for miles, her every step louder than bombs beneath her feet, pulling her into the suffocating darkness that had become holy in her absence.

And then...she was finally standing, frozen, exactly where she needed to be, dark eyes staring into the white door, into the very creases of the wood as if it would splinter into pieces around her. It seemed so much smaller than it had been that night, that night when it felt like her trembling fingers were too short to reach the handle, the night where she was but a child again, desperately searching for someone to hold her close, to hide her away from the rumbling thunder that had ruined what was supposed to be a good time out of the confines of her home, a taste of freedom to a girl imprisoned by expectations.

Her hand was shaking now too, even as it wound around the door, even while the rest of her body was still like a statue immortalised in stone, it wouldn't stop quivering, almost like the bones that lay beneath her ruined flesh where rattling in the hopes of clawing their way out to escape from what she was forcing them to remember. And although everything inside of her was screaming, her head and her heart and all those in between, begging her to just walk away and heal, even after everything she had endured to become...it didn't stop Ophelia from opening the door, and letting the horrors rush to greet her once more.

There was screaming, deep, primal, haunting shrieks ripped from a bloody throat by unseen hands that were desperate to swallow them, piercing the air with a screech that didn't even seem human, that didn't seem remotely close anymore, like some wild beast ensnared in a trap. What was that screaming? Who? Better yet what? But it was her, it was only herself making thaf god awful noise, it was Ophelia, tragic stricken Ophelia who was half feral in hef unbecoming, wailing like a banshee to the unsympathetic moon who had bathed her shining silver in grief, and then she was clawing frantically across the floor like some eldritch horror.

Because what else was she supposed to do when her legs had gave out beneath her at the mangled sight that struck her like a blow and worse? Her nails biting into the polished floors, bending and splintering and the pain was sweet agony compared to what was lying before her in grotesque heap, making everything red, red, red...and God, it was the sounds that had haunted her, that would never stop haunting her, that disgusting squelch when trembling hands pressed against a gaping wound that her palms had sunk into until she could feel the loose intestines curling around her fingers like a mocking embrace.

She was howling to the heavens and begging for salvation only to have them shove more and more torment down her ripped open throat that was bleeding in grief. Grasping onto too-still fingers and pressing them against her pounding chest, trying desperately to wake them up with her voice that was ruined in her horror...not even daring to register the HA HA HA HA, sprawled across every wall in sinful red until lightning suddenly burst across the dark night and she seen everything, the crimson lips carved into her fathers face, the white paint on her mothers...and the freckled green laced into her baby brothers.

Gone, gone, gone, her entire family gone- and oh how Ophelia cried, her throat raw and heart bleeding as she screamed as loudly as she could into the night, halfway hoping that they would hear her mournful calls on their ascent into the heavens and they would turn and come back for her, to not leave her in this abyss of life without them, without all she had known, to not leave her with the last memory of them being their gory remains. But they didn't, they couldn't, and all her yelling did was fill her mouth with bile as she heaved through bloodstained teeth, as more screams joined her own, as arms wrapped around her limp body to pull her back from the carnage.

As she became a orphan and a only child, all in one fucking terrible night.

Someone cleared their throat behind her, and it was a soft noise, heartbreakingly soft in fact, so quiet that if she were anyone else in the world she would of never heard it...but lately, she found herself hearing everything. However, that didn't mean that familar sound was enough for her to turn her attention away from the (red, red, red) white marble floors that gleamed in the golden light of the sun, the spotless walls that seemed to pulse around her as if readying themselves to close in and crush het between them like an insect, everything was so clean, just like it was before. Clean and perfect and so bloody wrong.

"Ms. Greene...you're back, what a pleasant suprise, we- I was beginning to worry."

Fuck him for speaking to her like she was made up of ever so fragile glass, threatening to crumble, to splinter, to break in unworthy hands if even the slightest amount of pressure was placed upon her weary shoulders...like she was but a wounded animal ensnared in a trap, biting at willing hands with crimson fangs, half feral and half mad, readying to have a bullet shot in her delicate skull to be finally put out of confined misery. And why were the floors so fucking clean? There was supposed to be- there was supposed to be something, anything, splattered across the bedroom...where was all the blood if not on her hands?

There was a burning behind Ophelia's eyes, the weight of unurshed tears a heavy burden as she stared out into nothingness and felt it stare back just as it always had, not moving, barely even breathing as she heard, as she felt him tempt a step closer, hearing the movement of his twitching fingers by his side that longed to gently cup hers in a grandfatherly embrace, but never daring as it was simply unbecoming of a butler...even though there was now no one left to tell him no. "You shouldn't be in here, Ms. Greene, not after what happened- perhaps we can move this to the living room. You will be far more comfortable in there, I assure you."

"You know, I must say that I'm suprised you're still here, Reginald. I mean, with no one left to look after, I assumed you'd off and retire to somewhere nice...God knows you deserve it putting up with this family's bullshit." The affairs, the betrayals, the diamonds paid for by blood and guilt, all of it messy and cruel and sometimes nothing short of a nightmare...but while her family had been no where near perfect, they were still fucking hers.

"Well, I still have one left to care for, Ms. Greene. And I don't plan on abandoning her now, I believe I pinky promised someone many years ago that I would never, did I not?" He uttered ever so gently, ever so carefully as her eyes fluttered shut, forcing herself away from the comfort of his gaze that burned her right through with lost affection, the likes of which that only made her weak where she stood, buried to her bloodied waist amongst corpses and rot and damnation. He wasn't supposed to be here, none of them were, she wasn't fucking here for them...she was back in the abyss of terror for one reason, and one reason alone.

There was something seething inside of her, some feral animal trapped between her broken ribs, clawing at her stomach until ribbons of blood threatened to bloom between clenched teeth. And yet she kept her mouth tightly sealed in fear of what she'd say, of what she'd confess as she head Reginald step even closer, until she could see him, just out of the corner if her eyes, his dark hair just as neat as it had always been...though, it was far more speckled with gray than she had remembered, than she wanted to remember as he sighed quietly. "Come now, Ophelia...you won't find any answers in here."

"I don't fucking need answers, not in a place like this, not in Gotham where even the fucking just are drunk on their hypocrisy and sainthood...I haven't come back here for answers...I've come back for revenge."

And the moment those words slipped out from the bruised seam of her lips, the air became alight with something devastating, as the once peaceful skies of Gothan suddenly erupted all at once, clouding over into grey storms, rumbling with dangerous thunder as the rain poured down like a flood of ages, like an omen, a plague and all things in between, smashing against the glass until literal spliters began to form, shattering her reflection into broken and terrible pieces. And there was a sound, a hideous noise, some high pitch screech that was painful and sharp against human ears...the likes of which set teeth on edge and hearts a pounding, something that was unnatural and wrong.

Revenge, revenge, revenge, that mere implication began to to swirl around the old butlers mind, and that, coupled in with his every sense, his every instinct screaming at him to get out, get out, and that godawful noise that was still just there, hiding beneath the current of his breath, his beating heart. It was like nails being grated across a chalkboard, again and again but so much worse, shrill and piercing but somehow far too quiet, just simply ringing until it seemed that ears would bleed and heads would explode if they listened to it for more than a few minutes...something was wrong here, something was very wrong and he knew it.

But without his permission, Reginald found his eyes wandering, drifting over to the girl standing before him, his little girl who used to dress him up with tiaras pink frilly skirts and forced him to withhold tea parties at the opposite end of a far too-small table in the company of stuffed animals and glistening chandeliers. Only...it wasn't his girl now, was it? That innocence was dead and gone like the rest of the Greene's, but there was something different about her that wasn't just grief or longing...there was something monstrous possessing her mortal corpse and he could taste it in the air like thick sin.

"Ms. Greene...where have you been...all this time? Why have you decided to come back now?"

Dread was beginning to boil at his stomach as the butler took a step back, the fine hair on his body standing on edge, like a man lost in the storm with thunder howling in the winds and lightning flashing across the skies waiting for a moment to strike. Eleven months, eleven long months, the last and the only heir to the Greene estate had been gone, stolen in the night by dark intentions, with only a note left behind in her stead that hadn't been enough to sate them...but alot can change in eleven months, and people can go from people you know...to people you don't.

And then, suddenly, Ophelia chuckled, but it wasn't a nice sound as it bounced upon marble walls in some hollow mocking. Because, you see, it was a different kind of echo that haunted her now as she registered the question in that ruined flesh of her mind, remembrance of absoute devastation lacing its way through her very veins when her skin was split open and power was shoved down into her bleeding flesh until red turned to gold and normalcy turned into fucking Godhood. When she had taken a grotesque hand stained with the blood of the innocent and just, and had allowed it to twist her onto something new.

"Because Reginald, it's took me a long, long time to finally find the weapon that will end all of this. And would you like to know what it is?"

He took another step back as that noise, that fucking noise grew so much louder, growing stronger until he had no choice but to clamp his hands around his weathered ears, face shifting in absolute agony as it rattled his brain against his skull, again and again and again in unbearable pain. However, it was then, and only then, that Ophelia finally turned to face him, half of her bathed in the flickering lights of the chandeliers above that rattled and groaned, but the rest of her hidden behind divine shadow, concealed in the cold where only a flash of sharp teeth was visible through the gloom as she grinned and the whole mansion seemed to shake beneath them.

Blue, blue, blue, it was all blue, the noise, the rippling skies, her eyes, her eyes were glowing a vicious and terrible blue, and she was a nightmare to behold, an angel but purely biblical with wings dripping blood and false salvation. His girl had been shaped to a monster, a monster had been shaped into his girl as it was all rotting and filthy and dead, dead, dead with a sickness so sweet it ached. The weapon- there was a weapon, she said she had a weapon that wpuld end it all, and as the old man fell upon bended knee, howling and screaming as everything became too much, too much, too much...he wondered what on earth that weapon could be?

"...Suffering." And it was finally time for her to use it.