It Was Him

He did it. He was the scumbag to ruin my childhood. The memories of the amount of agony and trauma he caused for me still shakes me to my core to this very day.

I still remember it like it was yesterday. I was 8 and a half at the time, and that night my parents had dragged me along to some terrible play. There was no point in begging or pleading, as my parents already had made plans for the night all based around that play. We all showed up to the play in our flashiest attires, but were all dismayed as the play that we had went to bombed. About half way through, I began to negotiate with my mother, who was obviously disappointed at the performance, about leaving the play and going out somewhere. After a few moments, she finally agreed and my parents and I grabbed our stuff and go.

Many people had the same idea as us, as a multitude of them were heading out of the building. My father insisted that we head out through the back exit and get to the street through the alleyway beside the building so that we could avoid the massive amount of people trying to leave the building.

We sneaked our way out, and were excited to see that we were alone and nobody else had the same idea as us. Our relief was short lived, however, as a man leaped from the shadows carrying some variation of a pistol. He aimed it at my father and demanded that he handed over all of his money. My father did as the man said and pulled out his wallet. My father looked down at me with a face of despair. He had apparently spent all of his money on the play, thus leaving him with nothing to pay the attacker. My father tried to tell the man robbing us that he had no money on him. The attacker responded by shooting him and killing him in cold blood.

My mother screamed, grabbed me and ran. Before she could escape the mugger shot her in the leg. She cried out in pain, and then was put out of her misery. I fell to my knees and wept. At this point I would accept death with welcoming embrace and I readied myself to be shot. To my surprise, the robber looked down at me, laughed, and then proceeded to gleefully warn me not to go down dark alleys alone.

That night scarred me for the rest of my life, and from that point on I was determined to find the killer of my parents. One thing I can forever say about my parents is that they were without a doubt smart business people, and it showed when before their untimely demise, they had invested in a small company that I would now be the head of.

Over time that company was owned by my father's good friend, but a lot of the company's profit went to me and my family. However, even with all of the money I was getting, I still had no parents, and nobody to look up to. My only companion was an old man who my family was friends with. He treated me like a son, raising me as his own.

The old man would partially fill up the hole left in my heart, but I was still haunted by the grim smirk on the criminal that murdered my parents' face before he ran away. That smile haunted my dreams for years, and it still does on occasion today.

As I grew older, I felt insecure about the world and hid myself from it. I was terrified that a criminal would do the same to me as one did to my parents. I decided it was best to take self defense courses so that I would have no need to be afraid. After a few years of training, I was a completely different person, and I had nothing to fear anymore.

Instead of living in constant fear of crime, I became more intrigued by it. Eventually I became a detective/crime scene investigator. I would help bring killers and other criminals to justice, and I felt a bit better because of that. I learned a lot during my years with those guys, but after a while I decided it would be best to take control of my family's business, as it was the last shred of my parent's existence.

I still control that business to this very day, and I have become very wealthy because of it. However, with my detective skills, I decided the only way I could truly feel better was to find the monster that killed my parents. I spent years searching, the murderer's face still etched into my mind, never to be forgotten. Amid my many years of searching, I heard word of a small time criminal who was now terrorizing my city.

This deranged criminal was worse than any I have ever recalled. He took pride and joy in the suffering of others, and recorded a few of his murders. I decided I would do my own private investigating and find out more about the criminal.

Every day more news would come in about the dastardly deeds being performed by the criminal. He would rob banks, kill police, bomb hospitals and much, much more. Even with all of these massive crimes, nobody was able to catch him or even find the slightest hint about his identity. However, one day he posted a video of one of his killings online, and I instantly knew who he was.

The video was in pretty bad quality and this was also the video to prove the criminal was mentally insane. He had a middle aged man strapped down in a chair with his mouth taped shut. The criminal walked over to the man with a small blade in his hand. He proceeded to slowly cut off all of the fingers of the man in the chair, laughing maniacally with each incision. The video ended with the criminal slicing into the tortured man's face, permanently giving him an unwanted smile.

The last frame of the clip was the criminal smirking. Everyone was puzzled as to the identity of the killer, everyone other than me. That smirk was the same as the man who killed my parents, and even under all that makeup it was still clear to me. I decided to put my previous self defense skills to the test and hunt this madman down, capture him, and bring him to justice.

Before I headed out for hunting, I made myself a protective suit. I made the suit black so that I could evoke fear and blend into the night. Before I went down to hunt the criminal, the old man who helped me through my childhood, who I had now hired as a butler, asked me what I was planning to do with my newly crafted suit.

I looked over to him and chuckled a bit, before responding by saying, "Don't worry Alfred, I'll be back shortly, I'm just going out to hunt for The Joker." Before Alfred had time to process what I had told him, I headed off to the center of Gotham.

~Incorrect3