-Katrina-

~Dream~

"Oliver, start the car, we have to get out of here." My mom begs as she put me in my car seat. "What's wrong Becky? Did Katrina get hurt?" Dad asks. "No, not all! It's him, he found us." Mother sighs nervously as she climbed into the car, "I spotted him trying to take our baby girl while we were busy talking to our friends." "What?!" Daddy roars, "Where is he?!" My father's roars catch me off guard and I cover my ears at my father's raised voice. "Oliver, don't! You're scaring Katrina!" Mom yells as she halts my father from leaving the car, "Let's just get out of here before it's too late."My dad sighs heavily towards my mother's pleas and hesitantly gets back into the car before turning it back on. "Fine honey, I'll let him go, for now. But I swear, if I see or hear about him near you, or our child again, nothing will stop me next time from kicking his ass!" Dad warns as he pulled out of our parking spot.

"I understand Oliver that your upset, and I am too, but please refrain from using such language around Katrina." Mommy seethes. "Really Becky? A psychopath almost took our daughter and you're more upset about my language than him?!" My father demands as we stopped at the red light. "Oh for the love of God Oliver, do you really believe that I'm not upset that he found me?! You know I've been trying to hide from him for over a year now just to keep us safe!" Mom yelled. "Well, your safety measures almost got Katrina kidnapped and possibly killed!" Daddy growled as the light turned green.

Scared out of my wits of the fight getting out of control in front of me, I try to intervene, "L-look, mom and dad, I'm s-sorry I didn't know any b-better about h-him. P-please just s-stop yell-." "Shit! Get d-!" My dad interrupts as a semi cuts across the other intersection and straight into our car.

~End of Dream~

I wake up with a jolt and scream as my family's car is struck by the all too familiar semi, reliving it had never felt so real before! "Agh, my h-head. It h-hurts" I gasp as I sat up. "W-where am I-I? T-this doesn't even l-look like m-my cell." I ask aloud as I looked around. By the looks of it, I was currently laying on a metal examination table with a chain around my right ankle in a very dark, unfamiliar room. "G-go f-figure." I grunt as I play with the chain, "W-when does h-he ever n-" "Agh..." A groan interrupts. My heart rate instantly hitches and I go silent. I didn't even know that someone else was in here with me. Before I can even call the stranger out, I see and hear movement of chains rattling a few feet away from me. The chains were connected to the ceiling and to the floor. And from this distance, it looked like it was holding the stranger in place on a metal upright table. At the current moment, it looked like the stranger was struggling in their chains.

Being the curious, naive little child that I am, I jump down from the bare table and with a small amount bravery, I start to slowly approach the chained creature. "W-who's there?" I demand. The chains instantly stop moving to my small voice and the stranger stops straining against them. With now only my chains making noise, I cautiously continue my approach until I am at least a foot away from the cloaked stranger's right side. Up close, I could see that the stranger was male and he indeed was dressed in all black except for his bare chest. Other than his chest, the man wore what looked like to be armor and a mask with pointy bat ears to hide his identity. "Weird." I chuckle silently.

To my surprise, the man hears me and quickly darts his head towards my exact location in the dark. His sudden movements startle me, and I back off a few steps. "Wait Katrina!" The man groans, "Don't go." I instantly stop moving backwards at the man's command. "He know who I am, yet I don't know him. Is he maybe the man who I met me back at the park and saved my life?" I thought. "Katrina, please don't be afraid, its me." The man sighs. I crook my head to the right as he spoke that, I didn't recognize him at all, but he knew who I was, which made no sense to me at all. "H-have w-we met b-before?" I ask. There was so much shock that settled across his features, that I had to check behind me just to see if he wasn't just staring at a murder behind me.

"You really don't recognize me?" The man asks sadly. "N-no, I d-don't mister. S-sorry." I shake my head regrettably. The man goes silent shortly afterwards as he seemed to look away from me in deep thought, and as he is lost in his thoughts, I take the opportunity to approach him again. "So, what's your name then?" I ask innocently as I sat in front of him. The man quickly shakes himself out of his thoughts and opens his mouth to answer, but before he is able to do so, footsteps outside our cell begin to approach the door. "Quickly Katrina, hide!" The man demands in a hushed voice. "W-what? W-why would I-I hide? It's p-probably just m-mister S-scarecrow coming to c-check up on us." I reply as the door starts to become unlocked, "B-besides even if it isn't h-him, it'll be G-gabriel and h-he's only s-scary when he's m-mad." While the door is beginning to open, I turn my attention away from the strange man and look towards the door as the man continued to look at me in shock. "What has he done to you?" The man whispers to himself.

I barely hear what the masked man says behind me, and ignore what he said all together when I see Scarecrow enter our cell. Scarecrow quickly takes notice that we're both awake and that we were next to each other. Which seem to upset him. "Oh, I see you're both awake." Scarecrow seethes, "I heard noises up here while I was working and decided to come check it out. Was it you two talking?" Both the man and I stay quiet to Scarecrow's question as he glared at the two of us. Feeling that I did a bad thing for talking with the strange man, I bow my head in shame and avoid Scarecrow's gaze in fear. The man however, was glaring right back at mister Scarecrow as I cowered in shame next to him.

"Answer me!" Scarecrow yells in fury. I jump and in fear towards Scarecrow's outburst and instinctively crawl closer to the strange man for protection. His outburst reminded me of what happened last time Scarecrow got angry at me for disobeying. At least now though, I have someone who could protect me from his blind rage. The trapped man smiles down at me as I got closer, and then to Scarecrow as he glared back in anger. "What did you tell her?!" Scarecrow yells as he charged at us.

Before I can even scream, I am easily pried away from the safety of the stranger and into the possessive arms of an angry Scarecrow. "What did he tell you?!" Scarecrow demands as I struggled in his strong arms. "N-nothing, he t-told me nothing!" I sob. Scarecrow's grip looses a bit at my sobbing statement, he could tell that I was telling the truth."If this is true, then what were you two talking about?" Scarecrow demands. "H-he s-somehow knows m-my name, and I-I d-don't know his, s-so I-I asked w-what his n-name w-was. T-that's it, that's all w-we talked about. P-please d-don't hurt m-me, I-I'm sorry t-that I-I d-didn't know any b-better." I begged through streaming tears.

-Scarecrow-

I am completely caught off guard at her confession. Here I thought she knew who Batman was, and was talking to him about my past. While in reality, she had no idea who the man was in this cell with her and was just trying to make acquaintances. Now as I hold her in my arms, I couldn't help but loosen my aggressive grip on her bruising arms and look over at a smiling Batman. It didn't take long for me to figure out why, "He wanted this, he wanted me to scare her to disrupt the sense of trust Katrina has for me." Knowing this, I couldn't allow Batman to get inside her head anymore, otherwise I knew, I will end up losing her. I growl towards Batman as I pulled Katrina closer into my arms in a possessive manner. She hesitates towards my forced demand, and that startles me. "I'm already beginning to lose her, I need to complete the memory recall before it's too late." I thought.

While she is still sobbing, I gently set her down and unchain her right ankle and while doing so, I silently reload the syringes on my weaponized hand. Once the chain was off, I gently grab one of her hands and begin to lead her towards the door. Everything was going smoothly and even Katrina was once again compliant towards my demands, but Batman just had to open his mouth and disrupt my plan again. "No, Katrina don't follow him! Crane's a monster and he's only doing this to hurt you not help you!" Batman yells in desperation. Katrina stops following the grip of my hand and stops to turn and look back at Batman. "C-crane? W-who's Crane?" Katrina stutters in confusion.

Before I could allow Batman to reveal my identity to the innocent child, I grabbed her and plunged my weaponized syringes into the back of her neck. This was a must stronger dosage than she will probably ever experience, by it was my only option to keep her blind from my identity and to keep her lost memories from getting corrupt. Katrina's screams were deafening to my ears as I held her close in my arms to keep her from running away and to ensure she got the full dosage. "No! Stop it Crane! You'll kill her!" Batman yells as he struggled in his chains. "I didn't want to have to do this Batman, but you forced my hand." I replied as dragged her out of the cell. "And don't worry, I'm not going to kill her, I'm going to free her." I laugh before locking the cape crusader back in his cell.

I'll admit, it was a pain and a struggle, but I did end up bringing her back to my lab. "Maybe I shouldn't have given her such a stronger dosage, but then again she'd learn out my identity." I thought as I strapped down her struggling form to the testing chair. "Maybe I should have also brought the mirror with me at the time of injection, so I could have avoided this whole fuss. But then again, where would the fun be in it for me?" I chuckle as I retrieved the mirror and my notes. "G-get away f-from me! G-get away from m-me you m-monster!" Katrina screams while I applied the mirror over my mask. "Aw, come on Katrina. We're just getting started." I chuckle as I turned to face her. At the sight of the mirror, her eyes lock onto it and dilate to it's presence as I got closer. "Good girl, now tell me what you are seeing." I demand as I sat back down in the chair next to her. "A-a repeat of t-the collision." Katrina whispers through tears, "I-It s-stops just as t-the c-car starts r-rolling." "Hmmm." I sigh.

"It sounds like her mind is blocking the memory from continuing to avoid more emotional trauma." I thought as I leaned back in my chair. "I cannot risk giving her another dose, even if it does help her power through the mental barrier, she'll be at risk of having a heart attack or a stroke and die. I guess, that the only other option I can do, is say some trigger words that can help her weaken the mental barrier until she is strong enough to push through it." I thought as I studied her unfazed gaze, "Yeah, trigger words may just be enough to help her power through it." "C-can you p-please make it s-stop, I-I'm getting d-dizzy." Katrina begs as I sat back up in my chair. "Sure, I'm actually going to help you bypass this mental barrier of yours." I explain. "H-how?" She asks worried, "Is it g-going to h-hurt?" "If you think it's another dosage, it's not. I'm just going to say a few words that will help you picture the hidden memories." I explain as I adjusted my chair so I sat right in front of her. "O-okay." Katrina nods unsure to my idea.

Sighing, I carefully remove the mirror from my mask to help the influence of my toxin against her weakened mind. Her pupils return to normal and widen as she begins to hyperventilate to my terrifying image. "Picture the sound of the semi's horn as it collides with your family's car. The screams of your mother and father as your vehicle is crushed into pile of nothingness." I explain. Tears start to spill from her now shut eyes as I gave her the graphic details of the accident I had witnessed. "S-stop." Katrina begs. I easily ignore her pitiful plea, since all that she seemed to be proving to me was that my tactic was working. "Listen to the sounds of their bones being broken as the car comes to a halting stop." I pause as I notice her fists ball up, "Notice the smell of smoke fill your car as the engine starts to go up in flames from the collision." "S-shut up!" Katrina screams as she thrashed in her seat.

"It's working. She's so close to snapping, but it seems that her mind is now trying to block my words out. Its seems that I now need a stronger approach." I thought. Before I can even continue the session, I am interrupted by two familiar voices. "Leave her alone! What did she ever do to you?!" Nathan yells from downstairs. "Yeah you bully, leave her alone!" Ali screams in retaliation. I growl at the sound of their voices. "Gabriel!" I yell. The children downstairs quickly shut up to my outburst as Gabriel comes stumbling over. "Yes boss?" Gabriel slurs. I mentally face palm as I smelled the alcohol on his breath, he was obviously drunk. "Could you please go give those two downstairs some discipline? They're disrupting my research." I command. Gabriel nods and smiles as he went downstairs to beat on the brats. It was followed by screaming and yelling coming from the basement, which I didn't mind. I knew that their screams won't faze Katrina as much as their voices. If anything their screams may actually help her.

Returning to my work, I see that Katrina was still struggling to ward off the resurfacing memory, and I decide to take full advantage of it by break her shell. I quickly stand out of my chair and grab both sides of her face and force her to look directly into my eyes. "S-stop it! J-just leave m-me alone!" Katrina screeches as she struggled against the chair's restraints. "Don't you want to remember? The spray of their blood splash across your face as their necks snapped?!" I harshly demand. "No! No, I d-don't!" Katrina cries. Seeing the tip of her breaking point, I destroy the mental barrier within her mind by forcing her head to the side and whispering in her ear, "Remember how you watched in your car seat upside down, their corpses burning right before your eyes as their flesh melting off their face like butter? All before a familiar looking man approached your trashed vehicle and pulled you from the burning wreckage. The same man who your parent's called a monster. The Scarecrow."

"SHUT UP!!!" Katrina yells as her arms break free from the restraints. Caught off guard at her sudden strength, she quickly pushes me away from her shaken form before bring her freed hands to her throbbing mind. I fall to my back on the floor and painfully sit back up as I start to hear her mumble a few words to herself. Once I'm back on my feet, I re-approach her shaking form and quickly take notice how she was curled up in the chair motionless, but she wasn't unconscious. Instead, she was in a deep state of catatonia. "M-mom? D-dad?" Katrina whispers through clouded eyes. Seeing her eyes, I kneel down next to her chair and examine them. They were moving rapidly and were unfazed to any motions going on around her. I sigh heavily as I come to realize what was happening behind the scenes within her brain. "She's reliving the lost memories." I sigh, "Good, now it is just a waiting game to see if I was truly able to help her remember. Or not."