Schiller lightened his steps and moved down the dark corridor. Though the asylum was large, he knew his target should be underground. He entered the courtyard, then a building behind the asylum, where he finally found the stairs leading down.
Down, and further down. He descended two levels along the stairs. There was no light here anymore. Colored lines forming hallucinations drifted and swayed like ribbons fluttering in wind and rain. And Schiller, chasing those colors, was like a bird soaring on the wind.
The surroundings were so quiet that a pin dropping could be heard. The earlier noise had vanished as well, leaving Schiller able to hear only his own heartbeat. He counted the beats and walked forward with equally silent steps. His mind had almost completely merged with the hallucination; even the darkness did not know whether he truly existed, like a phantom born of suspicion.
There was a circular corridor on the second underground level. Halfway through it, Schiller heard voices coming from a room on his right. The voice was low and intermittent.
"...Death Angel is dead. No one will ever know about what happened back then... Hahaha..."
"Broken Bat's voice." Schiller recognized it. "So he really didn't die." What surprised Schiller, however, was that even with his brain scrambled, he had not only survived but arrived here at top speed, speaking clearly and remaining lucid. Could injecting Joker Virus really accomplish that?
Schiller saw a faint glow leaking through the crack in the door. Realizing the room was lit, he silently stepped forward and peered inside through the observation window.
There was only one person in the room.
He was a fairly sturdy man. Judging from his back, he was young, and his build was definitely not Batman's. In the faint light of some device,