This dream was especially deep, and especially long. Bruce dreamed that he had been walking through a dark passageway. Countless dark corridors led to one circular room after another, each one glowing faintly pink.
Suddenly, babies began crying one after another. Bruce saw an infant appear in the center of a room, plump and adorable, but crying without pause.
Then, all at once, a giant hand appeared above the rooms and scooped up all the little pink houses. Flames rose beneath them, as though they had fallen into Hell in an instant.
Bruce felt the gut-wrenching agony of being scorched alive. The babies' piercing cries echoed through his mind, tearing at him and leaving him disoriented, nearly unconscious.
But Batman was not so easily defeated. The more this happened, the more Bruce understood that someone was trying to break his will. He would not let them succeed. So he bit down hard on his tongue, and the intense pain woke him.
He suddenly realized that he had jolted awake from the dream. But Kent was gone, as was that ramshackle house. His body was completely dry as well. Clearly, he had not truly awakened. He knew he was dreaming, yet he could not wake up at all.
As his consciousness gradually cleared, Bruce began examining his surroundings. He found himself in an exceptionally tidy room. It was a very new house, with spotless white walls, high-quality wooden furniture, tiles set into the walls so bright they hurt his eyes, curtains fluttering gently in the breeze, and a faint scent of lily of the valley lingering in the air.
Bruce sat up and found nothing unusual about his body. On the contrary, he felt powerful, energetic, even slightly exhilarated.
But that immediately put Bruce on guard. To train himself to handle