"Click."
The lights came on. The man tied to the chair hung his head, his suit covered in dust and scratches, the edges of his shoe soles marked with numerous burn scars. He whimpered and slowly woke up.
"We're out of time, impostor. Tell me, where is the real Batman?" a hoarse voice asked from in front of him.
Eliot came back to himself and saw an especially terrifying face staring at him without blinking. The other man's skin had an unnatural, icy pallor, and he was gaunt enough to be called skeletal. The two pointed ears on his mask were extraordinarily sharp, while the spiked metal visor below them and the wide, grinning mouth were grotesque beyond measure.
What frightened Eliot even more was the wound across the man's upper body, one that had nearly cut him in half. It stretched from his right shoulder to his left waist, exposing shattered ribs and blood-soaked lungs.
The muscles around the wound kept writhing, healing at a speed that looked impossibly fast but was, in reality, still far too slow. His damaged lungs gave every word he spoke a thick, wet rasp, like a drowned ghost lurking in deep waters.
"You..."
Bang!
Before Eliot could finish, he took a punch. The other man grabbed his hair with a pale hand, his horrifying face drawing closer and closer until Eliot could see the bloodshot veins in his eye sockets.
"Tell me, where is Batman?!"
Eliot choked on the heavy stench of blood. He coughed twice and said, "What Batman? Who's Batman?"
Bang! Another punch.
"Bruce Wayne! Where is he?!"
"Did he send you to kidnap me?" Eliot raised his head and stared fixedly at the man before him. "Too bad you came too late. He's already dead."
Bang!
That punch knocked a