DC: Ash And Blood | Chapter 5 (Patreon)

The constant bangs and shouts bounced off the concrete walls, traveled through the narrow corridors, and seeped into Waylon Jones’s cell in a dull, distorted wave. Arkham Asylum was never truly quiet, and he was used to it at this point but this was the kind of sound that carried weight, the kind that made the air itself feel tense. Somewhere beyond the bars and reinforced doors, something was happening.

Waylon lay still on his cot, his massive body stretched beneath the restraints that held him in place. Even now, even with the chains biting into his armored skin, his mind was calm.

That alone was a miracle.

For once, the drugs in his system had done their job. They had dragged him down from the edge of the abyss and left him with something close to clarity. The fog in his head had thinned enough for him to think properly, to feel properly, to remember what he had done. The guilt was still there, heavy and ugly and impossible to ignore, but at least it was his guilt. At least it was real.

He could think about the people he had butchered.

He could think about the lives he had taken.

He could think about the blood on his hands and the monster he had become.

And for the first time in a long time, he did not immediately want to tear the world apart just to stop feeling it.

He would have thanked Batman for that, if gratitude came easily to a man like him. But staying here, in this place, under lock and key, seemed like reason enough to remain quiet. Arkham was a prison, yes, but it was also a cage built for monsters. If he had to be locked away somewhere, perhaps this was the only place that made sense.

Still, the chains were uncomfortable.

They tightened whenever he shifted, pressing against the thick, armored ridges of his body. The metal had been reinforced to hold him, but it still scraped and pulled in ways that made his muscles ache. He hated the feeling. He hated being restrained. He hated being treated like an animal.

And yet, he knew why they did it.

The downsides of having a body like his were many, but the worst of them was simple: he craved raw meat.

Not cooked. Not seasoned. Not prepared.

Raw.

The kind of flesh that still carried heat and blood and the unmistakable taste of life.

His stomach growled low in his chest, and he let out a slow breath through his nose. They were late again with his meal. That was unusual. The staff had been careful lately, at least careful enough to keep him fed on time. They knew what happened when they forgot. They knew what happened when the hunger got too strong.

Where were they?

He frowned, his yellow eyes narrowing in the dim light of the cell.

Maybe they were delayed. Maybe they had been held up procuring a fresh supply of meat, something decent enough to keep him stable for a little longer. That would make sense. Arkham was full of strange routines and stranger compromises. If they had learned anything about him, it was that starving him was a bad idea.

Waylon closed his eyes and tried to settle back into sleep.

He had almost managed it when the scent hit him.

Copper.

Salt.

Something sweet beneath it, too, though that sweetness only made the blood smell more unbearable.

His eyes opened slowly.

Ah.

Blood.

His nostrils flared as the scent thickened in the air, growing stronger with each passing second. It was not coming from his meal tray. It was not the usual delivery. This was fresher. Hotter. More immediate. It made the back of his throat tighten and his jaw clench.

But there was no one coming down the hall.

No orderly.

No guard.

No tray.

He frowned again, confusion flickering through the haze in his mind.

Was he mistaken?

No. The smell was real. He knew blood. He knew it better than most men knew their own names. It was everywhere in his memory, in his instincts, in the part of him that had never truly been human enough to forget it.

Then he heard it.

A sound so faint that anyone else would have missed it.

A roar.

A hiss.

Something animalistic and furious. Waylon’s head lifted sharply, someone was above him.

Someone like him.

The thought came with a strange, electric jolt through his body. Arkham always brought in the strangest people, but this felt different. This did not feel like one of the usual inmates screaming in their cells or one of the lunatics upstairs throwing a fit.

He listened harder.

The sound came again, muffled by the floors and walls, but unmistakable. A creature. A predator. A challenge.

His breathing changed.

At first, he did not understand why.

The scent of blood was still there, but it was no longer the only thing he felt. The hunger that had been gnawing at him began to shift, twisting into something sharper, hotter. His pulse quickened. His muscles tensed. His claws flexed against the restraints.

Anger.

Predatory instinct.

Possession.

Someone was up there, roaring like they owned the place.

And Waylon Jones could not allow that.

He tried to fight it. He really did.

He clenched his jaw, shut his eyes, and forced himself to breathe slowly. He had spent too many years losing control to pretend he did not know what was happening. The animal inside him was waking. It was responding to the scent, to the sound, to the presence of another beast in its territory.

No.

He would not give in.

He had spent too much of his life being ruled by instinct. Too much of it had already been stolen by rage, hunger, and pain. He would not let some unknown intruder drag him back into that darkness.

But the roar came again.

Closer this time.

Louder.

And something inside him snapped.

Waylon’s own roar tore out of his throat, shaking the bars of his cell and rattling the chains that bound him. The sound was deep and savage, filled with a fury so raw it seemed to shake the air around him. His body convulsed against the restraints as the transformation surged through him. Muscles bulged. Bones shifted. The armored plates across his skin seemed to swell and harden. His breathing came in heavy, ragged huffs, each one ending in a low, wet hiss.

He could feel the change taking hold.

Not just in his body.

In his mind.

The human part of him fought desperately to hold on, but the more primal part was already rising, already interpreting the situation in the simplest terms possible.

A challenger.

Someone had entered his territory.

Someone had come where they did not belong, flaunting their strength, demanding attention, demanding dominance.

Waylon could not allow that.

He had spent his whole life being pushed aside, mocked, feared, hunted, and caged. He had been treated like a freak, a monster, a thing to be contained.

For a good reason.

But there were rules in the wild, and one of them was simple: if another predator entered your space and challenged you, you answered.

He tried to resist.

He truly did.

But instinct was stronger than reason now. Stronger than guilt. Stronger than the drugs. Stronger than the fragile peace he had managed to build in the dark.

His chains snapped.

The sound was deafening in the small cell, metal links bursting apart under the force of his expanding frame. The reinforced door groaned as he slammed into it, bending inward with a shriek of tortured steel. One more violent shove and the hinges tore loose entirely, the heavy slab of metal crashing into the hallway with a thunderous clang.

Waylon stepped forward into the corridor.

His breath came in thick, steaming bursts. His claws scraped against the floor. His eyes burned with a feral intensity that had not been there moments before. The smell of blood was stronger now, and so was the sound above him. Whoever was causing this chaos was no longer just a distant presence.

They were close.

A guard stood at the far end of the hall, frozen in place.

The man had clearly not expected this.

His face drained of color the moment he saw Waylon emerge from the wreckage of his cell. For one brief second, he seemed unable to move at all. Then instinct finally caught up with him, and he fumbled for the radio clipped to his shoulder.

“Code red—”

He never finished.

Waylon lunged.

The distance between them vanished in an instant. One massive arm swung out, claws flashing in the dim light, and the guard’s arm came off cleanly with a sickening snap. The radio hit the floor a second later, crackling uselessly as blood sprayed across the corridor.

The man screamed.

Waylon did not care.

He seized the guard by the throat before he could fall, lifted him off the ground, and bit down into the flesh of his shoulder with brutal force. The taste of blood flooded his mouth, hot and metallic and immediate. It was not enough to satisfy him, not really, but it was enough to sharpen the edge of his fury.

The guard’s screams turned into choking gurgles.

Waylon tore away, dropped the body, and let it collapse in a heap at his feet.

For a moment, he stood there, chest heaving, blood dripping from his jaws.

Then he lifted his head and listened.

The roar above him had not stopped.

If anything, it had grown more intense.

A grin spread slowly across his face, though it was more a baring of teeth than any human expression. The animal in him was awake now, fully awake, and it wanted one thing above all else.

A fight.

Waylon turned toward the stairs.

Arkham was about to become a battlefield. Waylon moved through the corridors like a living weapon.

Every step was heavy and full of purpose. He did not bother with stealth. He did not need it. The guards were already panicking, and panic made them slow. Slow made them easy.

A pair of orderlies rounded a corner and froze when they saw him.

One dropped the clipboard in his hands.

The other stumbled backward, mouth opening and closing in useless terror.

Waylon did not stop.

He slammed one into the wall hard enough to crack the plaster, then hurled the other across the hall with a single sweep of his arm. The man hit the floor and did not get up. Waylon barely noticed. His attention was fixed on the sound above, on the scent of blood and violence drifting down through the building like smoke.

Something was tearing Arkham apart.

And whatever it was, it was strong.

That made the beast inside him happier than it had any right to be.

He passed a security checkpoint where two guards had already barricaded themselves behind a reinforced gate. One of them was shouting into a radio, voice shaking, while the other tried to load a shotgun with trembling hands.

Waylon reached the gate and grabbed the bars.

The metal groaned.

The guards stared.

He pulled once, and the entire structure bent inward.

The shotgun fired wildly, the blast striking the ceiling. Dust rained down. Waylon reached through the opening, caught the armed guard by the collar, and dragged him forward until their faces were inches apart.

The man was crying now.

Waylon sniffed once, then tossed him aside like garbage.

The second guard tried to run.

He made it three steps.

Waylon’s tail whipped out and knocked him off balance. The man hit the floor hard, and before he could crawl away, Waylon was on him. The corridor filled with another scream, then another, then silence.

Waylon straightened, breathing hard.

He could feel the building around him now, feel the tension in the walls, the fear in the people, the movement of bodies scrambling to contain the disaster. But all of it was background noise. The only thing that mattered was the presence above him.

The challenger.

The one who had entered Arkham and dared to roar louder than the rest.

Waylon’s claws flexed.

He wanted to know who it was.

He wanted to know what kind of creature could stir him this way, could drag him out of his cell and into a frenzy with nothing more than a scent and a sound.

Most of all, he wanted to prove something.