Chapter 268: Layers of Fear (Part 2)

The cold wind howled over Gotham City, and faster than the wind was Bruce, who was running for his life in the dark rainy night.

Behind him was a deformed monster, a spider-like monster with extremely slender limbs. More importantly, this monster had the face of Alfred, and one of his arms was holding a cup of hot milk.

Alfred's voice came from behind him, becoming weird and shrill: "Master, you can only sleep after drinking milk, have you forgotten?!!"

"You are not a good boy!!" Alfred's face became more and more distorted. He waved his several-meter-long limbs and crawled on the ground, like a giant arthropod. His head turned 180 degrees, and he kept shouting: "Good boys must drink milk before they can sleep!!!"

Bruce ran forward while recalling what happened a few minutes ago.

After discovering the globe and the note, he was attacked by the clown under the bed again, and then sat up from the bed again.

Undoubtedly, he had more clues, the globe? Bruce wondered, what does a spinning globe represent?

But the guy under the bed was very difficult to deal with. Bruce would be hit by his dagger at any angle he tried to take the globe, and then wake up again.

Unable to achieve results in this regard, Bruce could only walk out of the door again and explore the corridor and other rooms, but just like the traps in the bedroom, Bruce was killed by the clowns in other rooms again and again.

Soon, Bruce stopped in the middle of the corridor and looked back at the door of his bedroom.

Every time he woke up, he opened the door from the inside of the bedroom to the outside, and then after being killed by the clown outside, he returned to the bed and opened the door from the inside again.

But he never stood in the corridor and opened the door from the outside to the inside.

When Bruce stood in the dark corridor and held the door handle of the bedroom, he thought for a long time and then deduced the rules here-he must face his fear.

In the bedroom, his biggest fear was the story he heard in his childhood. Perhaps he thought he had forgotten it all, but obviously, he had not forgotten it in his dream. This fear was engraved in his deeper consciousness, and it was not until now that it was turned out, becoming a mountain that hindered him from finding the truth.

And in the corridor, what he feared most was probably opening the door of his bedroom, because he knew that it not only meant the end of a desperate day, but also meant that the next desperate day was about to begin.

Bruce recalled that he had been very afraid to go back to his room to sleep for a long time. Whenever he pushed open the door of his bedroom to rest, he felt a strong sense of guilt and guilt, because he felt that there were more important things waiting for him to do than sleeping.

And now, when he held the door handle of the bedroom again, the familiar feeling came up again, just like the fear he had when he looked under the bed before.

But he still pushed the door open directly, and the other side of the door was the second floor of Wayne Manor.

When he stepped into the second floor, the door behind him disappeared, but Bruce knew that something even more terrible would happen next, because there were more rooms on the second floor than on the third floor, and more importantly, this was where Alfred rested.

When he walked into the corridor on the second floor, he met Alfred holding a tray with a cup of hot milk on it. Alfred looked at Bruce and asked with concern: "Master, are you having a nightmare again? Have a glass of milk."

Bruce did not move, and then suddenly, the glass of milk turned into a funny bomb, and exploded with a "bang". Alfred was blown to pieces, and Bruce woke up from the bed again.

The second time, he tried to pick up the glass of milk, but the milk would still turn into a bomb, killing him and making him start over again.

"Face your fear..." Bruce muttered to himself.

What is he afraid of? Fear of Alfred? Or is he afraid to face Alfred's concern?

Waking up again and again, no matter what posture Bruce used to take the glass of milk, no matter what he said, he would eventually wake up.

But soon, Bruce's thoughts became clear. When he faced Alfred again, he said, "Thank you, Alfred, but can you please send the milk to my room?"

This time, the milk did not explode, and neither Alfred nor Bruce was killed. Alfred just smiled and nodded, saying, "Okay, Master."

Now, Bruce is on the second floor, and his instructions are for Alfred to send the milk to his bedroom on the third floor, so he must go back to the third floor, but there are no stairs for him to walk.

The fastest way is to wake up again and appear on the bed in the bedroom on the third floor, but Bruce is surprised to find that the entire second floor is too normal. There is no scary clown holding a dagger, and there is no staircase that will fall.

Bruce found that he could not go through the next cycle.

When you know that you are dreaming and want to wake up, what will you do?

Most people would choose to jump off the building, and the feeling of falling would wake people up quickly from their dreams, but there is another way, which is to produce enough pain, or in other words, suicide.

"Face the fear..." Bruce repeated the word again, and then he thought that as long as they are human, they cannot avoid the fear of death, so suicide should be the best way to face the fear.

He found a screwdriver from one of the rooms. The sharpness of this tool was enough to pierce his heart, but when he took the tool and put it against his chest, Bruce found that in addition to death, there was another fear surrounding him, making his hands tremble constantly.

What if this is not a dream?

What if he was deceived?

What if this time, he woke up from the bed, walked out of the bedroom, came to the second floor, met Alfred, and asked him to deliver the milk upstairs, all of which happened in reality?

What if when the screwdriver was inserted into his heart, he did not wake up, but fell to the ground in pain, and could only wait for death in despair?

That would be the biggest joke of the century.

Bruce had no doubt that a madman would lay traps one after another to make this joke, until he was led to voluntarily stab a sharp weapon into his heart and then face death.

Bruce suddenly realized that he understood all the madmen in the world, whether they were laughing crazily, shouting, self-harming, or attacking others, perhaps they were just like Bruce now.

Perhaps they attacked themselves just to break free from a terrible dream, and they attacked others to attack some monster in the dream.

Just like if you watch Bruce's actions during this period from the perspective of an observer, no matter who it is, you will think he is a madman.

He jumped up and down in his bedroom, lifted the mattress, moved the desk, walked into the bathroom repeatedly, kept turning the door handle, and kept checking everything in the room, just like a severe obsessive-compulsive patient, constantly repeating those stereotyped behaviors.

In the eyes of bystanders, he had an inexplicable fear of stairs. He would rather jump down from the patio than step on the stairs. He lay on the ground, crawled under the bed, and took out a normal globe, but thought for a long time.

He stood in front of his door in a daze, but did not push the door. Facing the housekeeper who brought him milk, he suddenly showed a sad and terrified expression. He held the milk cup as if he was holding a bomb, and then waved his arms and threw the milk cup out...

At the moment when the screwdriver was against Bruce's chest, he suddenly understood the Joker.

The Joker kept laughing. Others called him a madman, but he might just have seen a funny joke in his hallucination. In his own dream, the choice he made was normal.

Every madman is a normal person in his own world.

Just as Bruce slowly exerted force with his hand holding the screwdriver and cut a wound on his chest, he suddenly heard a shrill scream. Then, behind Bruce, a monster with Alfred's face appeared. He turned his head and shouted: "Master! Why are you not in the room?!"

"You ran here to avoid drinking milk! Come back with me, you can only sleep after drinking milk!!"

In any case, seeing his butler turned into an arthropod with slender limbs and his head still turning constantly, this shock was a bit too much for Bruce, so his first reaction was to avoid the attack.

He rolled to the right, and then took advantage of the gap when Alfred turned around to escape.

There was no staircase on the entire second floor, but the moment Bruce rushed into the corridor, the window at the end of the corridor opened with a "bang", and the cold wind rushed in. Bruce had no choice.

When he jumped out of the window, he thought that the feeling of weightlessness and dizziness would wake him up again, but it didn't happen. He fell to the ground hard, and severe pain came from his back and shoulders.

This too real pain made Bruce start to doubt whether he really returned to reality, but it was obvious that the monster that violated common sense was reminding him that this was still a dream.

The rain began to get heavier, and the roar of the monster behind him began to become more and more shrill. Everything seemed to become more chaotic, as if it suddenly turned from a puzzle game into a horror game, and it was the kind with extreme chases.

Bruce quickened his pace because he was not sure if he would have a chance to wake up again if he was really caught by the monster.

Bruce was very familiar with the road outside Wayne Manor because he had walked it countless times, but now he found that the area around his home seemed to have become an endless maze.

The monster kept chasing, and Bruce kept running, just like the nightmare of being chased that people often have. Over time, his mental and physical strength were constantly consumed.

What are the rules? Bruce thought, facing fear?

Fear...

Suddenly, he stopped at a familiar intersection, an intersection he had passed by several times but ignored.

It was an intersection he was very familiar with. He knew exactly how many pieces of rubble and wires were there, because it was a gunshot there that changed his life.