Hey Everyone!

This is my first fanfiction, so please let me know what you think. I'm looking to improve my writing and to overall, write more as often as possible.

This is a work in progress, and I'm not totally certain of where it's going to go. The rating may change depending on what I come up with. Please, feel free to leave suggestions and criticism of all types. I'd love to hear what you all think about my first story here. Thanks to all of the authors I've encountered thus far for inspiring and motivating me to try some fanfiction of my own. And to everyone I've yet to encounter, I look forward to experiencing anything you may have to teach or learn as well. Thank you, and enjoy. :3

Disclaimer: I don't own The Dark Knight or The Joker. They belong to Christopher Nolan and DC Comics, if I'm correct. I could be said to own my OC and my nameless rabble of victims, though.

Note: I envisioned the Joker in this to be Heath Ledger's, but I suppose the character is debatable.

So, without further ado, I give you...

Tropical Torment Chapter 1

A Brutal Beginning

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The tang of salt was sharp upon my tongue. The sun poured its sunny rays down from its dwelling high in the sky surrounded by not a single ivory cloud. The oceanic air whirled around me, softly ruffling my long brown hair. The bow of the yacht cut smoothly through the sea, plowing through the beautiful blue expanse. I sat, wearing a pair of Bermuda shorts and a pale white top, in a luxurious cushioned deck chair positioned so that I could gaze admiringly over the shiny white railing of the Ocean Angel 5. I didn't care to ask what happened to the previous four Ocean Angels. I was too blissful to care about anything. There was just something about being kissed by the sun, rocked by the waves, and caressed by the breeze that made all of life's problems simply fade away. And the fact that I didn't have the monstrous bite out of my cash made it even sweeter. I had won this vacation, free of charge, from a novel-writing contest in Gotham.

Yes, I lived in that dark, crime-infested city. I was young, but old enough to remember what things were like before Batman slipped from the shadows. I felt much safer knowing he was around. I know some people thought of him as a criminal, but I only admired him more, knowing that he continued to save lives with such ignorant opposition. There wasn't a crime out there that he failed to know about, not a grimy thug he couldn't catch and make to face justice. Well, I guess I can't say that… for there is one. Oh, Batman's caught him numerous times, but he always manages to escape. Gotham's most wanted criminal, the one whose name makes cops cringe and children cry, the one whose face frightens the most powerful nation, the Clown Prince of Crime himself: the Joker.

I shivered a little in the warm, tropical breeze simply at the thought of him. He'd abducted everyone from the old DA's girlfriend to Lao, one of Japan's wealthiest businessmen, despite all of his defenses. He'd killed everyone from people who simply shared part of their name with his newest victim to the previous Commissioner Lobe, the previous Judge Serprilos, and some even suspected he'd killed Harvey Dent, the old Defense Attorney, who had cleaned up Gotham better than anyone had believed and shined rays of hope down upon all of its citizens. He's even almost had Coleman Reece from Gotham Tonight killed by everyday citizens twisted and morphed by fear to do his bidding for him.

He'd blown up ferries, hospitals, and police buildings. He'd robbed banks for millions. He'd dragged Gotham kicking and screaming into darkness. No one was safe from him. Oh, Batman has tried to take him down, but Batman doesn't kill. He never kills. He endures and holds strong where others fail, even when the Joker threatened to expose him to the world. And so, seeing as the Joker is still alive, he's still burning, killing, and laughing.

I swallowed a large gulp of my Mango punch and tried to think of my present luxurious situation. I was on a yacht cruising across the Atlantic. What did I have to worry about? All of my work was done. I was living off of the cold hard cash of my rapidly-selling new book. I was going to live it up to the best of my ability. Now wasn't the time to think of the Joker or hospitals blowing up or any other negative prospect. This was a place of bliss, of happiness, of good food and drink and people, and of relaxation. I wouldn't let unwelcome and ridiculous thoughts ruin this for me. I had worked very hard to get here, and would enjoy it to the fullest.

I took another cool, refreshing drink, settled back in my chair, and closed my eyes. The sun eased the soothing process, gently warming my skin. It was only a minute or two before my calm and tranquil mindset had returned and enveloped me softly in its relaxing embrace. We were still hours away from our destination, and I was just fine with that. More time to soak up the sun and down fruity drinks. I smiled at my reasoning. I was not normally this free-spirited. I enjoyed order, reason, and organization more often than a lack of them.

I suppose that did not mean that I couldn't enjoy myself in other ways when such a wondrous and savoring opportunity was laid open and luxurious before me. Warm weather and the glories of oceanic nature always brushed my soul on a very unique level. The best part was that my fellow passengers were reasonably quiet or in other portions of the ship. I also enjoyed solitude, for periods of recollection and calming meditation. The fact that I wasn't surrounded by screaming and hollering children and loudly-conversing adults just made this ship even better. The sounds of gulls crying, water breaking, dolphins jumping, and sea breezes blowing were music to my nature-loving ears.

I sipped my fruity drink and watched the world around me, in a state of bliss until an unexpected whistle rang out. I glanced to my right toward the opposite railing and noticed other people stirring awake in their cushioned deck chairs around me. A voice spoke to all of us.

"Good afternoon, ladies and gentlemen. We are now nearing our final destination." A sound like laughter being smothered caused many people around me as well as me to adopt confused expressions. The voice. It stirred something horrible in my memory, as if I had heard it before in less-than-desirable circumstances. My hair tossed wildly in my face, bringing the fact that the velocity of the wind or the ship was most likely changing very rapidly into my consciousness. Alarm beginning to swarm in my brain, I leaned forward and gazed toward the bow of the boat.

An island loomed before us, approaching at a steady pace. The boat would have plenty of time to slow and dock safely in the shallows after throwing down the anchor. I began to relax, leaning back and sipping my drink. Suddenly I choked and lunged forward again. My hands gripped the railing like claws as I looked at the sea. A dark strip tinted the water a short distance ahead of the ship. With a gasp I realized it was a reef and would most likely remove the bottom half of the ship if we hit it at our current speed. I could have been wrong. I wasn't the most sea-vessel-wise person in the world, certainly not, but I could gauge space and distance well enough.

Even if we would miss the reef, I couldn't deny that something was wrong. The ship was moving too fast. And the voice. I couldn't place it. I set my drink down and stood up, my shoes clicking against the sun-warmed deck. People glanced up at me as I passed, heading toward the control station of the ship to ask the captain what the hell he was doing. Noticing how I wasn't the only one in a state of alarm, I took the stairs two at a time, my hair whipping even faster now, and ran into a stewardess at the top.

"May I help you?" she asked, her large smile just barely normal.

"Where's the captain?" I questioned, probably appearing to be an escapee from a mental institution.

"Steering the ship, of course," she replied. I frowned at her, my mind racing. I wasn't even sure if there really was something wrong, but a desperate force propelled me to find the answer.

"I need to speak with him," I told her, sneaking a glance and finding that the ship was dangerously close to the reef. There was still time – if she would move!

"I'm sorry, but–" Her sentence cut off as I ducked and darted passed her into the inner portion of the ship, running down the nearest hallway without a clue where I was going. Stupid, yes, but what I felt was my only option.

"Miss!" I heard the stewardess call, though the sound weakened as I got further and further away from her.

Following the numbered directory, I got my bearings and skidded to a stop in front of a thick white door. I extended my hand and knocked. Without a verbal reply, the door fell open as if it had already been broken into, revealing a haunting scene to my saucer-sized eyes. A man dressed in the purest white who I took to be the captain of the ship lay on the cold tiled floor in a pool of his own blood. The wide, empty, unseeing gaze of his dull blue eyes made my flesh crawl. Despite the fact that I wasn't squeamish, I had never seen a lifeless human being in reality, and frankly, I was unprepared. My heart stuttered as I saw the wicked cuts slicing his mouth into a ghastly fake smile. Only one criminal left his victims in such a state.

The voice suddenly came roaring back to me with the force of a wrecking ball, making my knees quake and threaten to give way. I was suddenly very cold. My eyes crawled from the sight of the fallen captain and settled with horrified disbelief on the figure leaning against the steering wheel of the ship. My absolute worst fear was staring me in the face. His dark, wicked eyes swirled with unmistakable madness and disturbing amusement. He seemed slightly surprised at my unexpected entrance and dementedly pleased that he now had some company.

His agonizingly familiar face was coated with messily applied white makeup. Pools of dripping black surrounded his eyes, making them appear without a depth or limit. A smear red as blood accentuated the hideous scars ripping his mouth up into a permanent, sadistic smile. The captain's blood-spattered hat rested awkwardly atop his ragged mop of green hair. His signature violet suit enclosed him, his darkly patterned tie hanging limply against the steering wheel. I didn't miss the movement as his purple-gloved fingers tightened around the blood-smeared knife that he held as casually as if it were a set of keys.

"Well, hello beautiful…" the Joker murmured with sickening interest, the sound of his voice creeping from my most haunting nightmares to caress me like a set of ravenous claws.

The look in his eyes was frightening, seeing as it was both dangerous yet alluring. My heart trembled as his tongue trailed across his ragged crimson lips, making them gleam like hot, fresh blood in the warm tropical sunlight. Despite my frenzied prayers, he straightened against the wheel, his tousled green hair lolling messily in his face with his slightly uneven movements, and then came toward me with a slightly unbalanced gait. Questions for which I had no answers quickly shot through my panic-stricken mind: When? How? Why? When had he gotten on the boat? How had he managed to captain it this long without anyone noticing? Why here? Why now? Why me? I couldn't help but realize how selfish I was in comparison to the dead captain. I could have been joining him very soon.

One thing was certain: I couldn't move. I was a deer caught in the headlights of a plane. Mouth gaping, eyes wide, body rigid as a plank, I could not react in any way whatsoever. Though senses of alarm, panic, and adrenaline pulsed through me with such speed and heat that I should have been able to bolt down the hall and jump over the railing of the ship like a hurdle before he had time to blink, my body as a whole refused to respond. His dark eyes swallowed me more and more the closer he came.

"Enjoying your cruise?" he asked, his tone ridiculously casual. My mouth spasmed as I tried desperately to form words. A red haze flared within my brain. The Joker's eyebrow rose as he scrutinized me. With all of the times I had unwillingly watched as he tortured a helpless victim on Gotham Tonight, it was so much more terrifying to be that victim in real life, to watch him move, smile, and laugh. His yellow teeth latched onto his lip as he fought weakly to control his unsettling giggles. My terrified expression seemed to amuse him beyond all reason.

"Well?" he asked with disturbing playfulness, though certainly desiring an answer, no matter how ridiculous. Reason welled with the fear racing all throughout my body.

"The cruise is… I didn't mean for the door to… I won't – I mean…" My breathing neared hyperventilation. The weak, quiet sound of my voice shocked me. I had never been so inarticulate in my life. Words were always mine to use at whim, but now they left me. What was there to say to him? He would not be reasoned or negotiated with. He couldn't be bought. There was nothing to threaten him with. He had absolutely no rules. That was painfully clear as he reached me and stopped, a vivid monument of terror leaning menacingly over me.

"You look nervous," he prodded, his voice nearing giddy with his repulsive excitement. When I didn't reply, he slowly began to circle me, as if observing what I looked like from a different view. My skin crawled beneath his gaze, causing a cold shiver to slip down the length of my spine. He leaned down to my eye level, causing my heart to race faster than its already-break-neck speed.

"Why so serious?" he asked threateningly, his mood abruptly changing again. I met his gaze, my lips trembling. Fear sparked hotly throughout my mind as I watched him raise the dark, lethal knife up to where I could see it all too clearly.

"Well, as much as I hate to, uh…cut this short," he muttered into my ear, a foreboding, warning element in his frightening tone as he smiled gleefully at his own little joke. Seeing as his circle around me had, unknown to me, aligned him with the wall with me in between, he had a very easy path to prevent me from getting away. Unexpectedly, The Joker shoved me roughly up against the cool, furnished surface of the wall, making me gasp with fearful shock and shooting pain. He grinned happily at my terrified expression. Looking up at him with wide eyes, I felt his warm breath on my face. My feet dangled uselessly in the open air, his body being too close for me to aim a good kick. I couldn't breathe.

He leaned even closer, blocking out my view of anything else, and smoothly pressed the blade of the knife against my lips. My limbs throbbed with my rapidly pulsing blood. My lungs threatened to explode. My hands were clutched into painfully tight fists. I refused to scream, cry, or beg. He would kill me, and the least I could do was not make it any more amusing for him.

He would kill me.

The words slowly crawled through my hazy mind over and over again. It finally hit home that I was going to die. As he savored the horrific moment, the Joker's tongue trailed slowly across his lips, causing my eyes to watch the both terrifying and seductive movement. He noticed where my gaze currently and obviously focused.

"Curious, are we?" he growled with a chilling smile, his voice low and dangerous. As my face flushed hotly with fearful embarrassment, my eyes managed to settle upon his own. I wondered distractedly what he saw there. My impending demise was pretty important for consideration, and yet still I wondered if I was just like every other victim who watched him as he savored every little emotion that flew across their sweat-slick faces, watched the panic mount in their eyes, and saw who they truly where. Who was I truly? I had no time to ask.

"You are beautiful…" the Joker murmured, almost to himself.

As he added slight pressure with the knife, just barely biting into the trembling flesh of my lower lip, the ship barreled headlong into the reef with all of the terrible force, agonizing pain, and utter destruction that I had imagined.

Thanks again and Reviews are appreciated!