The pair stood gawping at each other. Identical- right down to the burn scars on their lower lips.

The replica... Terrified.

Breathing rapid, as if it were Cassidy who wasn't meant to be there.

Like a confused child, Cassidy tilted her head, walking over as her replica stood paralyzed.

"Are you... Real?" Cassidy whispered.

Cassidy held out her hand, trembling.

Don't...

Too late- Cassidy realized- that the thing it was holding...

... Was a shard of glass.

Its façade dropped, revealing a malevolent smile as it slashed the glass into Cassidy's hand.

Cassidy yelped, a sharp pain stinging her palm as the replica ran, disappearing into the elevator.

It went up one level only.

4th Floor.

Bleeding, Cassidy unraveled the bandage from her forehead with lightning speed- wrapping it around her palm. The bandage was wet, greasy from the blood on her head- but she had nothing else to use.

She ran to the stairway.

Pulling the bandage knot with her teeth, a loud bang echoed, and Cassidy looked down.

She found a group of Arkham janitors- banging on the 2nd Floor door.

"Hurry up! She'll find us!"

"I'm trying!"

The most injured of them had a jagged gash on her face, blood mixed with her sweat. The others held her up by her shoulders as the one in front kept slamming into the door.

He looked up at Cassidy, but panic and fear marked his face.

"SHIT!"

In a frenzy, he kicked the 2nd Floor door open with brute force, the group racing inside in a matter of seconds as they slammed it shut.

Confused, Cassidy stepped back from the railing and ran up the staircase.

She reached what she thought was the only floor above...

'߈

ꓤOOꓶℲ'

Cassidy blinked as if it were a trick of her mind, but the sign still remained. Upside down.

She grabbed the handle, but with one pull, it broke off completely.

It took her time to process, beyond the oddness, what on earth she could do except continue to gape at the handle, still clutched in her hand.

She tried pushing the door, but it wouldn't budge.

When she stepped away to look through the door window, she found a silhouette, looking in at her from the other side.

Cassidy studied past the frosted glass window, making out a feminine figure in a white dress, brown hair- tied back, from the look of it. Cassidy couldn't see the woman's eyes. All that was there was her mouth, which dropped open as if to scream.

Instead, the Arkham sirens blared out- muffled, as if it were coming from her mouth.

Terrified- Cassidy ran.

The sirens followed next door.

It didn't have a sign, or a handle, only the silhouette of a man strapped to a table, screaming as sparks of electricity jolted through his head.

Cassidy ran again.

The 3rd door's window was broken. The inside of Gotham Cathedral, empty.

Except for Jeremiah's coffin.

The picture of him and Diana- distorted, smudged, no discernible features except for their clothes.

Cassidy ran as the lights behind her faded. But she was no closer to the top at all.

In a loop with no clear end.

Her legs ran faster and faster than she could keep up with, or the doors were running to meet her. She didn't know how many of them she had passed- or if they were real.

"ThequickbrownfoxjumpsoverthelazydogThequickbrownfoxjumpsoverthelazydogThequi-"

To her horror, Pearl, through the other side of one of the doors, repeated the same phrase. The same rictus grin, the gunshot wound in the middle of her head.

Pearl wasn't looking at anything. Only repeating the same phrase like a machine.

There was nothing left of her.

Cassidy fled to a normal-looking door. Window intact, sign intact-

SMASH!

A rough hand broke through the glass, grabbing Cassidy's sleeve.

"HELP ME!" the man screamed. "IT'S AMADEUS! HE'S GONE INSANE! PLEASE!"

Cassidy struggled as he attempted to cling to her, but finally she tore away, the force of it sending her back. She hit the railing, regaining her balance as she peered behind, but to her horror, all the floors had completely changed.

It was, as of then, a spiral stairway.

Doors on every level, each a few feet apart, all with bizarre writing and scenes beyond the frosted glass. Most of the scenes repeated on every floor, unending, fading into darkness as they descended.

A gateway to hell.

Terrified, Cassidy stumbled to the floor, the overwhelming jumble of sounds and voices from all the doors she had passed.

Wincing, she touched her ears... Until all sound fizzled out to nothing but buzzing.

But there was another, calling her. Faint.

... It was a cry she had heard before.

From her mother.

She looked to see the door to her old kitchen- a few steps away.

She reached for the handle, her breaths heavier by the second.

I- I can't...

Gaining courage, she pushed it open, rushing inside with every resolve she had left.

///

Rain dripped through onto the old kitchen floor, the radio- switched off. No sound but the rain.

And a soft cry.

Cassidy gazed at the back door, wide open, an invitation to anything or anyone that was lurking nearby. Even the rats.

Not that Cassidy knew there was anything wrong. She was 5 years old.

"Mommy?"

Katherine sat, curled up by the cupboards, her ginger hair dangling low.

Her pajamas were soaking wet. Had she been outside?

She lifted her head, eyes raw as she looked at the confused child in front of her.

Katherine's lips trembled.

There was nothing to say. Nothing.

///

In the last second, Cassidy found herself on the 4th Floor of Arkham. The kitchen. Her mother. Everything, gone.

The West Wing entrance showed little more than the clock tower library straight ahead-

"TEACHER'S PET!"

Out of nowhere, the replica lunged out.

Cassidy jumped, but her arm got in the way, crying when the glass shard nicked her skin.

"TEACHER'S PET! TEACHER'S PET!"

Enraged, Cassidy dodged, grabbing the replica's arm and pinning it to the wall.

Fuck- you.

Cassidy pushed the glass shard to the replica's throat.

Tighter.

Tighter.

"Stop..."

The thing began to choke; the glass shard edging into its skin.

"Cassidy... Please..."

Hearing her own name called back to her, she looked again.

It was no 'thing' at all.

It was Joan.

Cassidy recoiled, dropping the glass as Joan gasped for air.

"Joan!"

Alyce ran to them from the West Wing doors.

"I've been looking everywhere for you! We-"

She saw Joan on the floor, gripping her throat. The bloodied glass on the floor by Cassidy. She saw everything.

"Wha-"

Alyce trembled, looking over at Cassidy, who, motionless, could only look down at her own twitching hands.

"What the fuck have you done?!"

Cassidy shook her head, over and over, until finally- she ran away.

///

The evening sunk in.

Henry Price sat on the edge of an open ambulance, huddled in a brown blanket.

"I know it's not much, but... it'll help with the cold," Jim said, placing two coffees next to him.

"Thanks"

Jim sat next to him. Getting colder, with each foggy breath they took, neither said a thing to the other.

The minutes passed, silent, until Jim's phone rang out, and he went into his pocket.

"... Why is this happening?"

Jim looked at the man next to him, silencing the ringing on his phone without checking who the caller was. It could wait.

"What does that- monster- want with my daughter?" Henry spat.

Henry was crumbling, like the kind of dirt that someone would throw on a coffin lid. Jim knew that feeling all too well.

Gathering his words, Jim looked over at Arkham Asylum.

"... I don't know... But if we go in there right now, it'll make things worse... for her... for all of them"

Jim lowered his head. There was no response.

"I'm sorry..." Jim sighed. "If it was my kid, I'd wanna tear that damn place apart"

Jim's phone buzzed again, and he finally flipped it open, seeing a new notification:

'19:23

New voicemail'

He closed the notification.

"You have children?"

Jim's smile tinged with sadness.

"Yes..."

Jim's home screen lingered. A photo of him and his daughter, Barbara Gordon; floral glasses and messy ginger hair, was center stage. Smiling in her wheelchair with outstretched arms, Jim stood next to her. Proud.

Yes. He knew, more than anyone, the pain Henry was going through.

He knew all too well.

///

Cassidy stumbled, bumping into the walls.

She was completely lost. Unable to comprehend. Her balance, her coordination, not even the fact that moments earlier, she had Joan by the throat with a glass shard.

Joan. Her friend.

I'm so sorry... I'm...

The tears kept coming, soggy, relentless, as she pummeled her head with her fists, but no real cry came out. Like it couldn't be heard by human ears.

Looking up, Cassidy found her replica close by, plastering a fake smile.

"I know who you are..."

"Well of course-" The replica replied sweetly "I'm you"

Cassidy stepped back, tripping over a water dispenser as she looked down at herself.

"No... That's... That's not-"

"Not what? True? Of course it is! You're the one who's pretending-"

"Shut up! Leave me alone!" Cassidy screeched.

The replica ignored her, and flicked her hair back with a playful pose.

"In fact, it's got dangerous to let you run free around here... You've hurt people... Dr. Leland..." The replica added with a coy expression. "She's your friend, right? Don't you feel bad?"

"It... It was an accident..." Cassidy stumbled, gripping her head.

"Do you think anyone will believe that?"

The replica strode over, bending down to meet her gaze.

"Oh dear... You really do need help, don't you?"

Cassidy roared, running after the replica with no clear reason, other than for it to stop. Or for something to pummel her fists into.

What a release that would have been.

The chase ended, and Cassidy found herself in the Control Room. No one else was waiting. Only the two of them.

"WHAT DO YOU WANT?!"

The replica grinned, not bothering to answer. But its satisfaction was short-lived, as it saw what was behind Cassidy.

"W-Wh..."

The replica backed away as CCTV monitors flashed. Followed by wires and hardware. Smoke rising.

Cassidy was oblivious to the woman behind her.

The woman in the wedding dress.

Mouth gaping with cockroaches, spilling out as if her jaw was broken.

The replica backed itself toward the cables, sparking, ready to explode.

Cassidy ducked as the lights smashed.

Glass rained down as blue light flashed from the monitors like lightning. The replica screamed, writhing in agony as volts of electricity zapped through its skin. Melting it down to what it was.

Basil Karlo; no more than a pile of wet clay, slid into the cracks in the floorboards. Alive or dead- it didn't matter.

He wouldn't be coming back.

The room plunged into eerie darkness. All quiet.

Then, as if by interference, the monitors switched back on. Cassidy peered through her arms at the only other person left in the room.

... You?

The braided hair, the ivory wedding dress- unmistakable.

It was Elizabeth Arkham.

Cassidy wondered if her eyes were as dead as the portrait of her, but then, she couldn't see her eyes. They might not have been there anymore.

Elizabeth's head turned to the side, focusing on the far end of the room. Cassidy was too afraid to get out from under the table, but she saw what the figure looked at.

A present box, wrapped in trademark green ribbon, nothing more about it.

But Cassidy knew who it was from.

Turning back, Cassidy realized she was alone. Whatever Elizabeth was, a hallucination, a ghost, she had gone...

For good... It was uncertain.

Crawling out, Cassidy unwrapped the ribbon and opened the lid of the box. Inside- an ivory wedding dress, Victorian.

Elizabeth's.

A/N: Yep... Arkham Asylum is definitely haunted.