"I had in retrospect thought myself a monster; I had thought that being locked in a box was true and just and if you forgive the pun a necessary evil. To be unfeeling, to be in my other guise unrepentant and so, very cruel, for there are no words to describe what, I as him, did, other than barbaric. But it is what they wanted, and little by little I am forced to remind myself that that dreaded phantasm that plagued my nights and fuelled my days with self indulgent eccentricities, and by virtue I have come to haunt myself, and then ho! The ultimate joker card is dealt for if I believe, truly believe that he was me I must accept that I am meant to be nothing other than a man."

The doctrine was simple, the reality harsh and the walls cruel beyond repair. Let me perhaps explain, for those of you who are gentle folk and have never been within the walls of an asylum, there is simply nowhere to run.

Where to begin? That's always the question. How about with now? See look, here I am chained like a dog in my cell and its cold, so very, very cold.

Cure the sick? Condition the mind to reflect the norm of society? Keep the nutters off the street so you can sleep? Behave in a humane manner? See its all bullshit, especially the last one, first do no harm. That one, forgive me, kills me every single time.

See here's the truth, I'm not crazy. I'm really, really not. No matter what they think, what they say. Do I see things differently? Of course, but then I understand. Them, me and the Joker, and now they try to hide their dirty little secret. Make it run away and shatter. The illusion of control is very much an illusion. Even for them, and by them I mean the Government and The Boss and The Roman and all their little minions who truly get off on being more evil than I ever was.

Terror is speculative I guess, but everyone had the capacity to at least defend themselves. Even from Joker's knife. But here?

The showers are always cold, the floor is always wet, the walls drip with the sweat they work up when they beat me, and there is no food, no shelter, only pain. Days and days of endless pain, and humiliation and degradation. There is true horror here, the like of which pray you never see. Never know.

The drugs they pump into me are not designed to help me, but to keep me placid, whilst they bend me to their will and work my shattered body to their satisfaction. Sometimes I scream. But then who can hear? One more crazy screaming into the night against terrors only they can see.

I laugh; it is the only thing I have left to control. I hear them on their regulation rubber soles, creeping down the corridor. Sounds like four of them this time and they are dragging something. The laughter bubbles until the fear rises in my throat and spills onto the floor depositing vital fluids with it. My body so long deprived that there is nothing left to purge.

The tears don't stop as they open the door and stand over me. Cattle prod and drugs their toys of choice, and I can't stop screaming.

As I said, in the long run there is nowhere in Arkham to run.