The water was cold and had a weird smell to it, but Ken couldn't care less as he scrubbed himself red raw under the rusty shower head. It had been over a week since he took a shower…
Technically longer, he wasn't showering however long those scientists had him. He ran his hands through his soaked dark hair as he applied a cheap shampoo.
He thought about what his next steps are.
Does he go to a hero? To the police?
Maybe they could…fix him?
Or would they just lock him up.
And it wouldn't be unreasonable, he'd eaten his own mother after all. He certainly wouldn't seem sympathetic once he lets that slip.
He couldn't control himself, he knew that.
But if even he couldn't forgive himself for what he did, why would anyone else.
He rinsed his hair underneath the cold water.
He needed to start his life again.
He couldn't go back to school, he couldn't go back home. They'd ask where he'd been, and if he knew what happened to his mother…
The police would suspect him, all they would need to do is check his dental records and compare them to the bite wounds.
His stomach growled.
Ken gritted his teeth.
Hunger, that was the biggest problem.
He couldn't just kill and eat humans…
His mind flashed back to the ragged man who was threatening that child. The gurgles, the wide terrified eyes and the blood that spurted from the man's wound.
He shook his head, it was necessary, he tried to tell himself, not that it worked.
Ken paused, coming to a realisation.
He didn't necessarily need to kill anyone.
—-
"Any updates on that lab massacre Master Bruce?" Alfred asked as he patched up a particularly nasty wound on his master's back.
Bruce just let out a tired sigh.
Bad news then. Alfred surmised.
"I found a piece of CCTV, of a young boy in a bloody hospital robe running, unnaturally fast through east Gotham." Bruce said, Alfred however furrowed his brows, that was clearly the patient,
"Is that not good news?" Alfred asked.
"It means he is on the loose in Gotham." Bruce intoned. "And I have reason to believe, he might have…cannibalistic urges"
Alfred paused. "What brought you to that conclusion?"
"I visited the lab again, I found some files that were missed by the team that scrubbed it all." Bruce said as he sat up, stretching his arms over his head. "The only thing they fed Patient 037 was raw, human flesh."
Alfred hummed "Sadism?" He offered it as a weak counter.
Bruce shook his head. "They also kept him under anaesthetic, they only fed him human flesh, because it was necessary."
"Necessary for what?" Alfred asked, his curiosity getting the best of him.
"I don't know, not yet." Bruce said, his jaw tensing. He never liked not knowing something, even as a young boy.
"So we have a new meta, killing and eating humans?" Alfred summarised. "Only in Gotham—"
"No," Bruce suddenly interrupted. "No, he doesn't need to kill anyone." The black haired man stood, rushing over to the bat computer.
His fingers flew across the keys, dozens of files and data feeds spilling across the massive screens. Alfred followed, brow furrowed.
"And what exactly are we looking for, Master Bruce?"
"Patterns," Bruce replied. "Gotham's crime statistics haven't changed this week, not enough to suggest a predator roaming the streets."
He pulled up another window, overlaying timestamps and heat maps. "If a meta was hunting, we'd see spikes. Missing persons, witness reports, panic threads online. But it's quiet."
Alfred caught on. "But what about the 'Killer Cannibal' on the loose? Is that not the meta?"
Bruce nodded "I suspect it is, however the woman found cannibalised had been dead for a whole day prior, and the homeless man—"
"Ah" Alfred interrupted, it wasn't uncommon for the homeless to die in their sleep. "So you believe that our patient is only eating the deceased?"
Bruce nodded. "A crime, yes, but what if he can't control himself? What if the experiment changed him to such an extent, he can no longer consume anything but human flesh."
Bruce continued to rapidly type, pulling up a map of Gotham with several large, dark circles marking several locations.
Alfred took a step forward, taking a look at the graph. Before he could even ask, Bruce spoke, though his tone was softer.
"This, is a graph of suicides in the city." Alfred's eyes went wide, coming to the realisation that Bruce was suggesting.
"You believe that the Patient will seek out suicide victims?"
"Yes." Bruce declared.
—-
Ken was wearing the clothes the girl from the library had given him. A dark black tee that was a bit too small on him, fitting tightly. Then he wore grey joggers that were slightly too big.
He rapidly typed on the public library computer, pulling up graphs and statistics and marking certain locations onto a hand drawn map of Gotham.
It was nearing midnight, yet the library was still open. The receptionist said it was funded by Bruce Wayne. Ken had to admit, for all the extravagant parties filled with supermodels and celebrities the Billionaire threw, he did three times as much charity work.
Ken continued rapidly tearing through data, comparing statistics from different sources to find a realistic average.
Each red dot he marked on the map was the location of a confirmed suicide that had occurred in the last year.
Already the dots were beginning to form a pattern, there were hotspots. Gothams suicide rate was remarkably high, but putting it onto a graph really put it into perspective.
It's not a surprise, the poverty and crime was awful, and that's before the mafia or the serial villains that stalked Gotham's streets were mentioned.
One of his old classmates' mother had been blinded by the Joker. He really doesn't understand why someone hasn't put a bullet in that thing's head.
He paused at that thought.
Maybe the problem with Gotham was that nobody did what it needed.
He glanced down at the red dots.
Maybe there would have been less of them, if only someone stood up to it all.
—-
Sorry if this is all abit sloppy, just had to finish an essay :(