Chapter 268: Layers of Fear (Part 2)_1
The cold wind howled in the sky over Gotham City, but faster than the wind was Bruce, desperately fleeing through the black rainy night.
Behind him was chasing an abnormal monster with incredibly long limbs, much like a spider. More importantly, the monster had the face of Alfred, and on one of his arms, he was carrying a cup of hot milk.
Continuous spine-chilling screams came from behind him in Alfred's voice, twisted and mournful: "Master, shouldn't you drink your milk before bedtime, have you forgotten?!!"
"You're not a good boy!!" Alfred's face became increasingly distorted, his spider-like limbs flailing, crawling on the ground like a giant arthropod. His head spun 180 degrees, shouting repeatedly: "Good children must finish their milk before bedtime!!!"
Running forward, Bruce recalled what had happened minutes before.
After discovering the globe and the note, he was again attacked by the Joker under the bed, then he sat up from the bed again.
Undoubtedly, he had more clues. A rotating globe, Bruce wondered, what could it represent?
The guy under the bed was very difficult to deal with. From whatever angle Bruce tried to grab the globe, he would be hit by the Joker's dagger, then wake up again.
Unable to make progress in this matter, Bruce had to step out the bedroom door again, exploring in the hallway and other rooms. But much like the traps in his bedroom, Bruce was killed over and over by the Jokers in the other rooms.
Suddenly, Bruce stopped in the middle of the hallway, then turned to look back at his bedroom door.
Each time he woke up, he'd open the bedroom door from the inside, then be killed by the Joker outside and return to his bed, ready to open the door again.
But he never stood in the hallway, and opened his bedroom door from the outside in.
Standing in the dark hallway, gripping the doorknob to his bedroom, Bruce pondered for a long time, and then inferred the rule here—he had to face his fear directly.
While in his bedroom, his greatest fear was a story he'd heard in his childhood. Perhaps he thought he'd forgotten everything, but he clearly hadn't, not in his dreams. This fear was etched on a deeper layer of his consciousness, and had only now been unearthed, becoming a huge obstacle to his pursuit of the truth.
In the hallway, what scared him the most might be opening his own bedroom door. Because he knew it that meant not only the end of one day of despair but also the beginning of another.
Bruce recalled a time when he was extremely scared to go to sleep in his own room. Every time he'd open his bedroom door to rest, he'd do it with a strong sense of guilt and self-reproach, because he felt there were more important things waiting for him to do than sleep.
Now, again, as he gripped his bedroom doorknob, that familiar feeling returned—much like the fear he felt when he looked under his bed.
But he pushed the door open anyway. And on the other side was the second floor of Wayne Manor.
As he stepped onto the second floor, the door behind him vanished. But Bruce knew that even more terrifying events would happen because there were more rooms on the second floor than on the third, and most importantly, this was where Alfred rested.
As he entered the second-floor hallway, he encountered Alfred holding a tray with a cup of hot milk on it. Alfred looked at Bruce and gently asked, "Master, having nightmares again? How about a glass of milk?"
Bruce didn't move. Then, suddenly, the cup of milk turned into a cartoonish bomb, exploding with a "bang," obliterating Alfred. Bruce woke up again on his bed.
The second time, he tried to pick up the cup of milk, but again, it turned into a bomb, killing him and forcing him to restart.
"Face the fear..." Bruce muttered to himself.
What was he afraid of? Was he afraid of Alfred? Or was he afraid to face Alfred's concern?
Regardless of how many times he woke up, regardless of how Bruce tried to reach for the cup of milk or what he said, he would always wake up.
But soon, Bruce's thoughts became clearer. When he faced Alfred again, he said, "Thank you, Alfred but could you please bring the milk to my room?"
This time, the milk didn't explode; neither Alfred nor Bruce got blown up. Alfred just smiled and nodded, saying, "Yes, Master."
Now, Bruce was on the second floor, and he'd asked Alfred to take the milk to his third-floor bedroom. So now he had to return to the third floor, but there was no stairs to take him there.
His quickest option was to wake up startled once again, appearing on the bed in his third-floor bedroom. But Bruce then found, to his surprise, that everything on the second floor was excessively normal—there was no terrifying clown brandishing a dagger, no staircases that would collapse.
Bruce realized that he could no longer run through the cycle again.
What would you do if you knew you were dreaming and wanted to wake up?
Most people would choose to jump off a building—the sensation of falling would quickly wake a person from their dream. But there was another method—to experience sufficient pain or, to put it bluntly, to commit suicide.
"Facing fear…" Bruce muttered this term again, then thought, as long as one belongs to the human race, they cannot avoid the fear of death, so suicide might be the best way to face this fear head-on.
He fetched an awl from one of the rooms – the sharpness of this tool could pierce his heart. But when he had the tool against his chest, Bruce realized that apart from the fear of death, another dread hovered around him, causing his hand to tremble uncontrollably.
What if this isn't a dream?
What if he has been deceived?
What if this time, from the moment he woke up from his bed, to walking out of his bedroom, getting to the second floor, encountering Alfred, having him bring milk upstairs – all of these took place in reality?
What if after the awl pierced his heart, he didn't wake up, but collapsed in agony on the floor, helplessly awaiting the arrival of death?
That would be the biggest joke of the century.
Bruce had no doubt, some madman out there would lay trap after trap to create this joke, guiding him to voluntarily plunge a weapon into his heart and welcome death.
Bruce suddenly realized that he could understand every lunatic in this world, whether they were laughing or shouting madly, harming themselves, attacking others, they might just be like Bruce at this moment.
Perhaps their self-injuring or attacking others was just to escape a terrifying dream, attacking the monsters in it.
Just like if one were to observe Bruce's actions during this time from an outsider's perspective, anyone would think he was insane.
He was frantically moving about his bedroom, lifting the mattress, shifting the desk, repeatedly entering the bathroom, ceaselessly turning the doorknob – incessantly examining everything in the room like a severe OCD patient, repeating these rigid actions.
To an observer, his inexplicable fear of stairs was such that he preferred to jump down from the atrium rather than set foot on them. He crawled on the floor, climbed under the bed and thought for quite a while after taking out a completely normal globe.
He stood absent-mindedly at the door without attempting to open it. He faced the butler who brought him milk with a sudden tearful and terrified expression. He held the cup of milk as though it was a bomb, then swung his arm to fling it away…
The moment the edge of the awl touched Bruce's chest, he suddenly understood the Joker.
The Joker never stopped laughing. Others called him a lunatic, but perhaps he was only laughing at a funny joke in his illusion. From his point of view, what he did made perfect sense.
In their own world, every maniac is normal.
As Bruce was gradually applying force with the hand holding the awl, as he was making a scratch on his chest, he suddenly heard a heartrending shriek. Following that, a monster bearing Alfred's face appeared behind Bruce. As it was turning its head, it shouted, "Master! Why aren't you in your room?!"
"You're even going to this extent to avoid drinking milk! Quickly come back with me. You can sleep only after finishing your milk!!"
Whatever the case, seeing his butler turn into a lanky insect-like creature whose head was incessantly turning was quite a shock for Bruce. So his first reaction was to dodge the attack.
He rolled to the right, then seized the gap when Alfred turned around and fled.
The whole second floor has no stairs. However, at the moment Bruce rushed into the corridor, the window at the end of it suddenly flung open with a 'bang,' letting a cold wind rush in. Bruce had no other options.
When he jumped out the window, he thought that the sense of weightlessness and dizziness would wake him up again, but that didn't happen. He hit the ground hard. An intense pain spread from his back and shoulders.
This overly realistic pain made Bruce wonder if he had truly returned to reality. However, clearly, the monster that defied common sense reminded him this was still a dream.
The rain was pouring heavily. The monster was howling louder and louder. Everything seemed to become increasingly chaotic, as if it had suddenly transitioned from a puzzle-solving game to a horror game, one with an intense chase scene.
Bruce quickened his pace, because he wasn't sure if he would have any other chances to wake up if he were to get caught by the monster.
Bruce was entirely familiar with the road outside Wayne Manor because he had walked on it countless times. But now, he found that the surroundings of his home seemed to have turned into an endless maze.
The monster was still chasing him, Bruce was still running – just like the common nightmare of being chased. As time wore on, his strength and energy were being eroded away.
What is the rule? Bruce wondered. To face fear?
Fear…
Suddenly, he stopped at a familiar intersection that he had passed a few times but overlooked before that.
That was a junction he knew very well – he knew exactly how many pieces of broken stones were piled there, how many cables there were, because it was a gunshot that echoed there, which changed his life forever.