The sewer entrance was buried beneath the bones of Old Gotham.
Draven led Selene through the rusted hatch hidden beneath the collapsed foundation of an old church—burned down during the Falcone riots. Most thought the tunnels below had collapsed. But Draven remembered otherwise.
The scent of rot and wet iron hit hard. Echoes bounced off the stone walls, amplifying every footstep, every drip of fetid water.
Selene flicked her flashlight on. "How do you even know this place?"
Draven's voice was low. "Because I bled here once."
They moved deeper, past collapsed catwalks and graffiti-choked corridors. Strange symbols painted in crimson. Glyphs that weren't gang tags. Messages. Warnings. One read:
"THE DEAD DO NOT SLEEP BELOW."
Selene whispered, "This isn't just a tunnel. It's... a maze."
Draven didn't reply. He stopped in front of a sealed bulkhead door, its metal rusted, but not broken. His gloved hand hovered over the biometric scanner. To her shock, it lit up green.
Click. Hiss.
The door opened.
Inside was Black Hollow.
But it was no lab.
It was a prison.
Glass cells lined the walls. Empty now, but the claw marks on the inside told stories of pain, madness, and inhuman experiments. Papers and broken equipment littered the floor. A tattered operating table sat under a single flickering light, dried blood marking the floor beneath it.
Selene's voice trembled. "This isn't Arkham."
"No," Draven said. "This is where Arkham buried its sins."
Suddenly, a whisper broke the silence.
"You shouldn't be here."
They spun around. From the shadows emerged an older man—thin, hunched, cloaked in rags and wires. His beard was tangled, but his eyes burned with clarity. One of them glowed faint blue.
"I know you," he said to Draven. "They called you Wraith. Back then."
Draven's body tensed. "You were one of the scientists."
"I was the last," the man replied. "Before they shut it all down. Before... he came."
Selene narrowed her eyes. "He?"
The man stepped closer. "A test subject. They called him Patient Z. But now... you know him as Joker."
The air froze.
"He was never supposed to survive," the old man said. "But he did. He escaped. And he left a message in blood across the walls: Let the chaos begin."
Draven felt something cold crawl down his spine. The puzzle pieces were shifting. Joker hadn't just been a product of madness. He had been a creation of it—born inside the same system that built Draven.
A system that had gone too far.
"Why didn't you destroy this place?" Draven asked.
The man smiled bitterly. "Because some things must be remembered. And because I knew someone like you would return. To finish it."
Before Draven could speak again, a distant boom echoed through the tunnel.
"Explosives," Selene said. "They found us."
The old man handed Draven a small chip drive. "This holds everything. Names. Projects. Secrets the city burned. Take it. And run."
They turned and ran as the tunnel behind them collapsed.
Fire and dust surged forward, licking at their backs as they leapt through a maintenance hatch and emerged onto the other side—coughing, bleeding, but alive.
As the dust settled, Draven stared at the chip in his hand.
"I know where to go next," he said.
"Where?"
"To the only person left who has the power to stand against Ash Circle... and the will to fight dirty."
Selene looked at him. "You mean—?"
"Yeah," Draven muttered. "We're paying a visit to Gordon."
And somewhere in the depths of Gotham, beneath a shattered funhouse, Joker watched news footage of the tunnel collapse, his eyes wide with excitement.
"Wakey wakey, Wraith," he whispered, giggling. "Now we both remember."
He looked at a wall lined with faces—pictures, sketches, blood-smeared notes. And one face was circled in red:
Draven.