#dark ed

Walking down the streets a light wind caresses my body at the clouds yet again obscuring what little light the crescent moon provided me. All day my nerves had been getting the best of me tying my stomach in knots. I could not keep the fingers from fidgeting with themselves. I always needed something in my hand as I walked about. Passing the handle of the small switchblade I carried with me from one hand to the other as I waved it in front of me.

I had been practicing using my left hand while at work. Considering the bodies were already dead, a few off track nicks here or there were no big deal. Plus I was primarily the one heading up the autopsies, as Dr. Thompkins had seemed to get rather busy and pulled away from work often. This meant that I was not able to spend as much time at my apartment as I was wanting to. 

All of these thing combined to and continue to build from within me. As I walked in the early hours of this Gotham morning I sought out anything that would ease this mood I currently was faced with. After defacing a few mailboxes and smashing a few window, I finally realized what it was that that needed. I need to ruin something, something living, moving, something breathing...

Searching for my victim, I scoured the streets. I punched at the nearest wall frustrated that I still had yet to find a suitable victim. I was about to give up and climb into bed, but that's when she walked by. Like a ghost standing in front of me. Kringle, or a woman that resembled Kristen. Pausing to looks at her further, I knew that Kristen was long gone. I had buried her myself, even made sure that she was six feet under.

Since I hated the living Kristen with such a burning passion, her look-alike would do perfectly. Sneaking up from behind as silently as the puddle ridden streets of Gotham would allow, I aided her in loosing consciousness by pressing firmly on both carotid arteries. After 15 or 20 seconds ticked by she fell limp in my arms. I chuckled lightly under my breath as I carried her to a nearby abandoned warehouse.

Once there, I placed her in a chair delicately waiting for when she would awaken. Casually I rub the knife up and down my thigh, feeling the cold metal of the blade on the fabric of my suit pants. Seeing her begin to stir, a wicked smile skirts slowly across my face from ear to ear.

"Oh you're finally awake, I'm glad." I walk up slowly to her."You have been selected for a very special...game. One where I ask you a riddle and you must answer it correctly. If you don't...well I cannot promise that your pretty face will stay in that pristine condition. You follow?" 

She simply looked from the knife in my left hand to my face to back to the knife as I spoke, her doe eyes wide and scared, just how I liked them. When her fears eased enough, she simply nodded as her response to my question.

"Good now that that's cleared up, shall we begin?" I pause more for dramatic effect than to receive a reply. "First and easy one. 'What has a face and two hands?'"

"Uh...uh...a clock?" she whispered shutting her eyes tightly awaiting the punishment she feared was coming.

“Oh very good! You are quite clever.” I say rubbing the dull end of the knife on her thigh. “I started off with an easy one.” I let out a laugh from deep in my chest. “Let’s see how you fair with the next one.”

Standing up straight, I twirl the knife in my left hand as I circle her bound to the chair. Pausing my circling of her as I faced her pointing the knife at her.“What asks but does not answer?” Cocking my head slightly to the side grinning as I awaited her answer expectantly, secretly hoping that she’s get this one incorrect.

Tears were starting to well in her scared doe eyes. These were the just the reactions that I loved when I played with my toys. She struggled against my restraints, but of course they held her firmly in place. 

“Dear sweet thing,” Placing the flat end of the knife under her chin raising her face to look at mine.”You see the only way out is to play this game with me.” Pulling the knife back from her to my own body.”What is your answer to my riddle? Or shall I take your silence as your answer and punish you for not playing along?”

“No...no!” She cried out starting to sob. “I will answer.”

I shake my head, muttering to myself, “Though you resemble her that is where your similarities end. You are not even a tenth as intelligent as the last woman I killed. And my dear you are sadly out of time to answer and I am sadly starting to get bored with you.” I sigh dramatically sitting in a chair that I pulled in from the right side of me. Holding my face in my free hand so sad that I had to kill this one so soon, but at the same time I hoped that this would assuage the mood that I had been in.

Standing up now as I walked over to her slowly flipping the knife open and shut and open again with each step I took. Tears now were streaming down the poor girl’s face, but I was not feeling any pity for her. Only the thoughts of how I was going to kill her were racing through my head. Should I go at it slow and torturous or quick and she would most likely feel nothing?

“Now what to do with you, hmmm?” I saw tracing the contours of her cheekbones with the dull end of the blade as I pondered. “Obviously, I cannot let you leave this place, because you have had so much fun with Riddle Diddle that you will tell all of your friends about me. I can’t have that..not yet anyway.”

Pausing to tap my own cheek a few times with the flat end of the blade,”Perhaps I could cut our your tongue, but then again a mute girl is no fun and you would never be able to answer my riddles ever again. I could slash you up and cut you into pieces like the last girl but I don’t like repeating my method in case the dumb detectives at the GCPD start to catch on to my killings. I guess we may just have to go with quick and easy method then.” I say clapping my hands together, the knife handle held firmly in between them with a wicked smile on my face.

Pressing the knife tip against the right side of her neck until a bead of blood formed on the tip of my knife. I watched it drip halfway down the blade and then on the her food giddily. My left hand grabbed her by the hair on the top of her head thrusting it back as plunged the knife in deeper, pulling the blade across her neck smoothly. 

Blood was splattering my face and front of me, but I didn’t much care. I was cackling with glee and excitement. It had been since Miss Kringle’s accidental murder since I had killed. I had missed it greatly.

Blood was pooling around my feet continuing to spread across the floor. As I heard her last breath leave her lips, I calmly set down the bloody scalpel and circled the body clapping my gloved hands together with a giddy smile on my face chuckling to myself before retreating to let dear old Eddie handle the situation. He was a good host that way, always cleaning up the toys that he allowed me to play with. This one had been especially entertaining to play with.

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As the weeks dragged on after dear Eddie took care of the mess that I had left after our altercation with Officer Dougherty, we was not sure to expect from Miss Kringle. The last encounter Eddie had with her she seemed very upset with him. Secretly, he hoped that she would come back to him and finally notice the nice, genuine man that he was. She had figured out the clue that he left for her. Eddie almost wanted to complement her intelligence at catching my clue, but I, being the smarter one, caught him first and held our mouth shut. DON’T! Are you stupid or something? If you complement her, she’ll link us to Tom’s disappearance and we don’t want that. Do we? I scolded. I might fancy a cell in Arkham, but not at Blackgate.

Instead he smiled wide at her stating that it was some ‘weird coincidence’. As she huffed out, Eddie couldn’t help but notice how sad she was. After a shouting match with myself, he became a sobbing mess, curled up on my small couch pulling my knees in to my chest. 

“OH COME ON! REALLY? Eddie, you are this pathetic? It’s no wonder why you can’t have a social life…I’m the only one stupid enough to put up with you,” I sighed taking a seat on the open cushion on the sofa finally taking a small bit of pity on him but was not going to admit that to him. 

“What do you want?!” Eddie screamed back at me through his tear streaked face. “Can’t you go annoy someone else for a change?”

“Eddie, Eddie,” I shook his head slowly as I chuckled softly to myself. “You still don’t quite grasp the agreement that we have with each other, do you?”

Eddie now just simply stayed silent.

“I am you and you are me. One cannot exist without the other. If you die, I will die along with you. That gives you quite a bit of power, you know that, Eddie?” I turned my face to Eddie's while placing my hand on his left knee. “Even if you had the courage to kill yourself, which you don’t, I will find you plenty of reasons to live. And this Kringle bitch is not one. You can do much better, than her Eddie, and you know it somewhere deep down.”

I could tell that it was eating him up inside to admit that I was indeed right, as he rolled his eyes and uncurled himself from the tight ball that he was wrapped in. Walking into the kitchen, he started a pot of hot water. I saw his hand shake as he filled the kettle and placed it on the stove. When he turned around I was right there to greet him with a smiling stare. 

“What wrong, Eddie?” I holds out my arms wide. “Need a great big hug from your dear old Riddler?” 

Pushing my arms out of the way grimacing, Eddie returned to his seat, turning on the TV to try and drown me out. 

“Oh don’t ignore me, Eddie!” I bent over blocking the image on the TV screen. “Just wait and you’ll start to see things in my light and I will be right her when you need me.” I backed away and exited the apartment.

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Many more weeks passed by without so much of a word from Miss Kringle and during that time Eddie visited Oswald’s club a few times. There was a bartender there that was intelligent and even appreciated Eddie’s riddles, but she also seemed very married to her work. Still, he went to Oswald’s a couple of times during a month just to talk with her. It seemed to me that he had taken quite a liking to her, but he was still too hung up on that Kringle bitch to act on it. 

Out of the blue one morning, Miss Kringle bursts into the morgue. Eddie had been preoccupied with examining the body that had just come in. His hands were inspecting one of the victim's right lumbar region cavities. Pulling out a bullet holding it close to his eyes for further inspection, Eddie was so engrossed in his inspection he failed to notice Miss Kringle standing tapping her foot and arms crossed across her chest.

“Mr. Nygma!” She put her had up to her mouth as she cleared her throat. 

He placed the bullet in the small metal basin with the other bullet shards Eddie had found. Walking to her, he sighed. I knew that he was not ready for this. I was proud of him for finally making an effort to move on, however, his heart had not quite healed from all of the abuse that Miss Kringle had put him through. This was mainly in part due to the conversations he had with Bri, Oswald's bartender. She had helped him realize what a bitch Kristen was. It was just Eddie's terrible luck that she was deciding to crawl back into my life when he finally could care less about her. 

I felt Eddie's heart rip open seeing her standing in front of him. He wanted to scoop her up in our arms and kiss her passionately, because no matter how hard he tried he never got what he wanted. However even with Riddler giving me courage, Eddie did not feel like moving on those urges anymore. Kristen held none of my affections. That he found an odd feeling as she had for so long…

“Miss Kringle?” Eddie asked her without any of his excited tone he had once reserved for her.

She blinked at me then continued,” I have a matter that I wish to discuss with you, regarding Tom…Officer Dougherty.” 

OH NO! Eddie be very careful! I sense some danger coming from her, I warned as I sensed that she was getting dangerously close to discovering what really had happened to her abusive ex-boyfriend.

“Yes, what is it you wish to discuss on the matter, Miss Kringle?” he ask politely.

“You are quite sure you know nothing about his disappearance?” She said raising both of her eyebrows.

“Yes, quite.” Eddie replied.

Good Eddie, I say to him inside his head. Only tell her enough to satisfy her curiosity, but not enough for her to come to a conclusions about Tom. Remember, 'No body, no crime.'

A smirk then skirted across her face and that scared me. “I don’t think that you are telling me the whole truth, Mr. Nygma.” She took a step towards me and I took two back. 

CLANG!

We heard the metal instruments shift on the cart as Eddie bumped in to it.

“You know what I think, Mr. Nygma? In doing my own research, I think you helped Tom disappear. Now tell me how you did it…Did you threaten him? Or are you a darker person than I previously ever thought…are you the type to kill a man, Mr. Nygma…hmmm?” She leaned into me and I could faintly smell her perfume coming off of her.

Ed, SHE KNOWS! She cannot leave this room alive! I scream at him concerned.

“I know!” Eddie screamed back at me as he spotted me behind Kristen. He reached backwards for the scalpel on the small cart that held his utensils for an examination. Hiding it in our sleeve, his hand was shaking.

COME ON, EDDIE! DO IT NOW! I screamed louder now.

“No, I can’t…I can’t do it!” He screamed back as tears began burning in our eyes.

Fine! Then step aside and let me handle the situations like this because you never can…I rolled my eyes at Eddie and then walked up to him pushing him aside with my right hand as our back was turned to Kringle.

“What can’t you do, Mr. Nygma?” She stared up at me perplexed at my outbursts.

I casually took off my glasses cleaning them with my tie smiling at her before placing them in my suit jacket pocket. I now smiled down at Miss Kringle knowing I had her right where I wanted her. “Care to hear a riddle, Kristen?” I smirked at her.

She blinked at me caught off guard my sudden change in attitude. “A riddle, Mr. Nygma? Now is not really the time. I can tell that you are just trying to dodge my question now.” She looked down shaking her head. “I know that this was foolish confronting you first. I should have just brought what I knew to the detectives or even Captain Essen.”

“You are quite right about being foolish coming to me first. But let’s get back to that riddle first.” I grin wider at her as I grab her right forearm in my left hand so she could not escape. “What went poking its little nose where it didn’t belong and ended up getting caught in the mousetrap?”

For the first time since she entered the morgue, she was completely silent. Her eyes were wide in fear. She twisted her arm trying to break free of my grasp, but to no success. I traced the edge of her jaw with the dull end of the scalpel in my right hand.

“What you aren’t going to answer my Riddle? That hurts, Kristen…I thought that we were friends. I guess that you are another to add to my ‘hates my riddles’ list along with Detective Bullock.” I then turned the scalpel around and brushed it across her perfectly smooth cheek. A line of blood followed the scalpel’s path running like red tears down her cheek. I looked in her eyes now as they were now welling up with tears. I removed her glasses tossing them across the floor. Using the handle of the scalpel, I brushed way the tears.

“Hush dear there is no reason to cry because you cannot answer my riddle. Most people have too low of any intellect to do so.” I fake a concerned expression then my face contorts in to a wicked grin. “Hmmm, choices…choices…Shall I play with you more or just make it short and sweet? It depends on how much I like you and how entertaining of a toy I think you will be.”

I pull her along with me throwing her to the floor. I heard her head hit concrete floor of the morgue. A red spot began forming on the base of her head. Good, now I wouldn’t have to deal with her screams…even though I would have liked to have heard them as I continued to play with her.

“Hmm, Eddie, how would you perform an autopsy again?” I spoke to the air walking around the unconscious frame of Kristen.

Standing in the door way to his office, Edward glared back at me as he came out of the shadows, but remained silent.

“You don’t want to help? I guess I’ll perform my own.” I cackle twirling the scalpel in between the fingers of my right hand.

“I stall start and the bottom and work my way up.” I nod to Edward. ”That sounds quite good.” I slash at both of her ankles. Red starts soaking through her nude colored tights.

“Good luck walking now, bitch! I just severed your Achilles tendon on both feet.” I laughed.

I next slashed her thighs, smiling as the red soaked through her tights and began pooling around her. Continuing up her body, her wrists, then upper arms were next. A decently sized pool of blood was now forming around her, but I knew that I hadn’t even touched the biggest bleeder of the body. 

Grabbing her by her ponytail, I held her neck up as I plunged the scalpel into the left side of her neck as I stood behind her giggling like a maniac as my face was sprayed with her blood when I removed the scalpel.