Diabolical | T. Drake ✔

[01] Deal With The Devil

He covered his features with a black face mask before stepping out of the basement. There was a back door that opened upwards and he had been using it to go in and out of the basement.

The basement he used was right under Drake Manor, a place that he once thought of as home. But the very people who he called family had become a threat to him so he had to choose his own survival, no matter how extreme the measures were.

His parents Jack and Janet Drake had gotten bankrupt after the demise of Drake Corporate. And as they were buried in heaps of debt, they had to mortgage their family house.

But the Drake Manor was unable to get sold at the desired price to pay off all loans and their financial troubles increased. It was then they had to resort to the last option they had or so they thought.

And that last option was using Tim's insurance money to pay for their debts if the boy died somehow. But they weren't so discreet in their plans and their son found out, that first lesson of betrayal from the closest family members engraving upon his young heart.

He did not want to die. He was just eleven years old and had his whole life ahead of him. His dreams, his ambitions, his life... He did not want to give any of it away.

But neither did he want his parents to suffer from their financial troubles.

So he did what no other boy his age could think of.

He faked his death with the help of his family's former chauffeur, getting the car he used to come back from school crashed irreparably so that it might seem that he died in the accident.

His parents got the insurance money, they paid off most of their debts, and left Gotham. While Tim returned to Drake Manor, managing to find an entry to the basement as the rest of the property was locked up.

He was still in contact with that chauffeur who was the only person to know of his survival whereas he was dead to the rest of the world. As a result, Timothy Drake had been living hidden in that basement for almost two years.

By then he was quite used to fending for himself despite all the hardships he had faced in the earlier months to adjust.

He was alarmingly malnourished due to lack of food consumption, his eyes were sunken and his cheeks were hollow.

He was barely surviving but at least he was alive. He could pursue whatever he wanted to in his life. And he was responsible for himself without being a burden on anyone else.

That was all that mattered to him.

He stepped into the supermarket, going straight to pick up a small loaf of bread, a jar of sandwich spread, and sachets of coffee powder. He came to the counter and put his hand into the coat pocket, taking out a card.

He had nicked that credit card a few months ago and hacked the PIN for it. He only ever used it for emergency measures such as getting food which he didn't have to do so often because his body had gotten used to very small portions of food. So the card owner hadn't yet realized that his card was being used by someone else.

But he had a guest at home at the moment who wasn't as accustomed to starvation as he was. So he took the scarce food items and left for Drake Manor again.

Lifting the latch of the backdoor, he dropped into the basement, switching on a dim bulb that shone above Crane.

The man looked up, his tired blue eyes cautiously fixing upon the boy as if waiting for him to do something outrageous. Tim didn't say a word as he cut out one slice of bread, applied the slightest amount of spread on it, and gave it to him.