Prologue: The Four Second Ghost
The recording was a digital scar on the Bat-computer’s memory, a loop of static and sorrow that had become the only soundtrack to Bruce Wayne’s life.
Static. The screech of a heavy door hinge. A sharp, metallic click—the sound of a firing pin meeting a primer. Then, the sound that ended the silence: a single, definitive gunshot.
There was no scream. No witty retort from Barbara Gordon. No maniacal laughter from the Joker. Just the heavy, indifferent ticking of the Clock Tower’s ancient gears continuing to turn in the background, recording the sound of a room that was suddenly, violently empty.
The Joker hadn't left a riddle this time. He had left a void. He had taken the Oracle, the heart of the Bat-family’s nervous system, and left behind a silence that felt like a physical weight pressing against Gotham's chest.
But to understand how the silence came to be, one must look back to where the threads first began to fray. Before the Clock Tower went dark, before the Grand Theater collapsed, there was a night when the air smelled of burnt sugar and old dread, and the Jester began his game.
