The Risen

1.

Hello everyone! I'm new here so please ignore if I haven't done this right! Feel free to comment and leave reviews! I appreciate it! I don't own Dark Knight or its characters. I only own my originals. 

Aurora

A shooting pain stabbed through her eyes as they opened into the brightness of the hospital room she was lying in. She winced and squinted, her hand coming up to shield her face from the dazzling intrusion. Dark bruises and mild swelling lined her wrist and forearm- a collection of fresh stitches settle into her line of sight- evidence of the predicament she had so recently found herself in. Her body ached terribly and she screamed on the inside, breathing through the pain that had suddenly awakened in her core.

Her equipment erupted into a chorus of fast paced beeping, the smooth lines exploding into jagged peaks. Tears brimmed, burning her sore eyes until they fell, dissolving into the bandages that adhered to the wounds on her cheeks. She grunts ferociously through clenched teeth and closed lips, struggling to combat the overwhelming agony of shattered bones, snarling against the surgical cuts in her seared flesh. Her arms involuntarily thrashed at her sides, pulling at her sutures, yanking on the IVs that did nothing to relieve the torment, trying to cause a pain that would distract her from the unbearable torture that jolted through her.

Heat bursts in her chest, the lights about her head dim. The incessant high pitched shriek of a single tone echoes through her weakening mind. Her vision blurs, eyes crossing, body convulsing, chest burning, her empty and cold childhood in the Narrows of Gotham City faintly replaying in her head- maybe death will be kind. Maybe death will be warm.

“Ms. Donovan?”

The voice was distant. The room was dark.

Heat again erupted into her chest and her eyes flew open, connecting with the wide gaze of a nurse. “Ms. Donovan, everything is ok. You’re in Gotham General Hospital. You were found underneath debris from the Lotus Palace. You flat lined but we got you back. You’re going to be fine.”

“I died.”

The room was emptying. The nurse smiled contently, briskly nodding her head. “You did. But you’re ok now.”

“You saved me.”

Again she nodded, her smile never fading.

“Why?”

Freezing rain fell from the sky like small knives, spearing the exposed malnourished legs of a twelve year old Aurora as she sprinted through the odorous darkened streets of the Narrows. Her bare feet carried her silently across the asphalt, ignoring the stabs of sharp pebbles and glass, and the occasional slippery patch of garbage. A thin trail of blood lined the inside of her scrawny thighs, unequally seeping down to her bony knees. She could still feel him, his cold hands running across her skin, ripping through her floral panties; demolishing her insides with his dagger, piercing her innocence across the hall from the negligence of her addict of a mother. She could still feel the strength of his arm across her neck to cut short the shrieks emancipating from her delicate throat, the force of his hefty frame, pinning her down, crushing her, stabbing her, using her up and leaving her defenseless and exposed to the cold dark truth of the world: light could not thrive.

Her light had been snuffed out, stolen, obliterated. She had been destroyed. And now her shell carried her out into the world; the same world that had abandoned her; the same world that accused her of fabricating stories of abuse to compensate the disheveled state of her mother. The same world that refused to believe that their most favored citizen, Gregory Donovan, M.D., head of Gotham General,  could do such harm to his prized daughter; the same world that labeled her a fraud and pathological liar; the same world that condemned her to her vile fate.

“Ms. Donovan?”

Aurora’s eyes blinked absentmindedly as she came back to reality. She was no longer cold and wet, running through the clusters of strange men that were enticed by the sight of an unprotected child; she was warm and dry, sitting as comfortably as she could with her healing ailments, in a sturdy black leather chair. Her dark eyes wandered through the office once more, taking in the overall mahogany of the walls smothered in multiple degrees and certificates. A large fish tank, built into the wall, sat to her left, two sharks drearily swimming an unchanged pattern. Slow clicks bounced off of the walls; a failed attempt at hypnotism. Boring furniture, boring portraits, boring books – Dr. Maverick.

His eyes were a solid blue, icy and distant, uninterested in the once young girl that had tried to sully the name of his mentor. His golden hair sat beautifully atop his head like a crown of feathered curls, swirling across his cranium in yellow waves. Usually the front of his hair fell across his face in angled bangs, adding to his angelic appearance, but at work his bangs were pushed back, the harsh lines of his face unmasked. He watched her patiently, the gaze in his eye unmoving- he was waiting for her to acknowledge that she had heard him.

“Yes.”

“I asked you how it feels to be in the same building as your father after so many years.”

Aurora holds his gaze, watching the way his pink lips angle downward in a professional frown as she takes too long to answer. “It doesn’t feel like anything.”

He scribbled onto his boring notepad.

She couldn’t help but to drop her eyes to his crossed legs, watching the way his pen danced across the pad held against his thigh. It didn’t matter what she said- or didn’t say- he had already chosen a side. After asking the nurse why her life had been saved, Aurora was signed into the psyche ward at Gotham General, and once again, she was forced to accept her demons; she would never leave Gotham or its corrupt- they wouldn’t let her. They would scribble lies onto their pads, have her locked up in Arkham Asylum, calling her suicidal, and because of her father, she would never be trusted.

“Have you seen him since you ran away?”

Aurora smiled, her eyes lifting back to look at her psychiatrists’ face- he was already watching her.

“No, I haven’t. I’m sure the reunion will be exhilarating.”

Maverick’s eyes drop as he lets out a quiet scoff at her evident sarcasm.  “Are you looking forward to seeing him?”

Her mind traveled- quickly, uninterrupted. His eyes, large and brown, glazed over in palpable drunkenness, hung above her head. His mouth, smiling, revolting; he couldn’t wait to finally have her. She squeezed her eyes tightly shut, her pain cut off by his arm on her neck; he filled her.

“No.”