Martha Wayne Memorial Hospital Children’s Wing

“Today is the second day of the latest round of court hearings following the recapture of Joker. He was connected via Tele-video call from Arkham’s Infirmary. Among the charges he faced were the charges for the seventy-three victims discovered last month in the ‘Charnel house,’ including the vigilante called ‘Azrael.’ The Public Defenders for the Joker entered a plea of not guilty by reason of insanity,” the TV announced.

“Turn that off,” the head nurse said, “It is disgusting and the kids don’t need to hear it.”

The Security Guard hit the remote control and put the remote down quietly. The sound of clattering metal trays drew the attention of the nurses and guard towards one of the rooms filled with kids. Three of the nurses and the guard went to the room and stepped into the room wondering what happened. They saw four children in their beds, one started to cough and then started **** and the nurses all rushed to get the child breathing again.

Seventy years later.

“Welcome to the Alfred Pennyworth Memorial Children’s Hospital,” the Head Nurse said to the new hire, “We just opened this place last year. The only things we brought over were the staff from the old Martha Wayne Childrens and Casper.”

“Casper?” the young woman asked of her older supervisor.

“If you hear any sort of banging or dropping of metal trays,” the head nurse stopped and stroked his beard, “It is Casper warning us that a child is in trouble…”

As if on cue, there was the sound of metal trays hitting the floor from a room down the hall.

The two entered the room and looked at the two occupied beds, each had a child hooked up to a respirator but the one to their right had metal trays on the floor next to the respirator and a billow for manual air pumping… The head nurse walked over and picked up the billow and looked at it. At that second the respirator machine made a strange buzzing sound and then went silent as it lost power. The Alarms started.

“Help me get this connected!” the head nurse called to the new nurse…

In the shadows Jean-Paul smiled.

“You can’t save everyone,” the spirit of **** said.

“No, but it wasn’t his time,” Jean-Paul said, “And I will gladly watch over these children for all eternity…”

THE END.