Once again, Gotham fell into a noiseless night. In the deserted corridors of the hospital, only the faint footsteps left on the tiled floor recounted the day's hustle and bustle, along with the unbroken silence of the night.
In such a city that is always extra noisy due to gunfire, the hospital remained quiet. The injured were silently licking their wounds, regaining strength to face the outside cruelty.
One Hand grabbed the handle of the ward door, turning it gently. The sound of the door opening didn't cover the slight vibrations of the equipment. There, Victor was scanning the report at the bedside. He glanced at the incoming Shiller, asking, "What did the consulting physician say? How is the medication working?"
Shiller looked at the report in his hand; a certain set of data under medication reaction seemed familiar to him.
Connors once told him what data signified the Lizard Serum's effectiveness, and the good news was, the numbers right then were squarely in the effective range.
Shiller approached the bedside, looking at Bruce lying on the stretcher. Now, he was unrecognizable.
He had barely recovered from the burns from the previous warehouse fire when he was doused with chemicals. Being exposed to the elements without getting proper treatment, his wounds further infected and deteriorated.
What's worse, he fell into a drum of industrial dye. Most of his hair had been corroded away, and his skin had turned into a rough surface like a zombie's.
This image was absolutely terrifying. After the outer layer of skin was corroded, the subcutaneous adipose tissue, muscle, and tendon intertwined. He had become the muscle man illustrated in anatomy textbooks, but even more terrifying.
Bruce no longer had his handsome appearance. His youth, vitality, and good looks all disappeared with that fall. His body had become silent, like a bat stuck on a glue trap that has to peel off its skin to take flight again.
But neither Victor nor Shiller saw this appearance. They looked through the terrible exterior and saw the soul that was gradually waking up.
The strong power emanating from it surprised Victor and made Shiller silently cross himself for the Batman who would only laugh when infected by the Joker virus.
May God bless him, Shiller thought, a Batman who would only laugh when infected by the Joker virus would forever be no match for a Batman who sincerely wants to laugh.
Subconsciously, Shiller reached out and touched his neck. Caught by his action, Victor's eyes fell between his fingers, and he saw a faint scar.
Ever since Victor knew Shiller, there had been such a scar on his neck. It puzzled him because he didn't think anyone in this town could hurt Shiller.
But Shiller had never spoken about it. It seemed that it wasn't an accident he could just laugh off. Standing in front of the sick bed, Victor spoke again, "Shiller, can you tell me what happened? I don't think you're a man who abuses students. How did Bruce turn out like this?"
"Victor, do you want to hear a story?" Shiller stood at the bedside and looked into Victor's eyes under the soft light shed by the ceiling lamp. He asked, "A story about arrogance and prejudice?"
Shiller lowered his eyes to look at the monster on the bed. He said, "Bruce wasn't as dominant as he appeared when he first came to school. Even today, it remains the same."
"He's been bluffing to hold on to his faith to fulfill his vengeance. I don't like dealing with people like that..."
Victor thought for a moment and said, "Indeed, if a person is so paranoid that they can fool themselves, they will inevitably demand others to agree with their thoughts. They must immerse themselves in the illusion so deep that they don't wake up."
"I deeply understand that..." Victor revealed a sad expression and said, "In the most desperate days, I told myself that my wife would wake up. She would definitely wake up. She would definitely recover."
"If anyone showed me a sympathetic look, tried to comfort me, or told me to restrain my grief, I would have an urge to kill him because he was breaking my illusion. And it was that illusion which was keeping me alive."
Shiller sighed slightly and said, "At that time, I thought that my rejection of Bruce's behavior was due to my own emotions. It was a conclusion derived from some rational analysis. But I didn't realize that since then, some terrible things have happened."
Victor was slightly surprised, looked at Shiller, wondering what kind of thing would be called terrible by him.
"You should know that I'm not a local of Gotham. Ever since I came to this city, I've been feeling bored and extremely nonchalant."
"However, when Bruce appeared in front of me and asked me a question, I heard a series of laughter rising in my heart. But then, I didn't realize the severity of the problem…"
Shiller paused slightly before continuing, "You may know that I've always suffered from mental illnesses, including congenital Autism, anxiety caused by external factors, and some symptoms of obsession."
This was the first time Victor heard Shiller admitting that he was mentally ill. But, in fact, he had known it for a long time.
Indeed, Shiller's daily behavior was somewhat abnormal, but this was not notable in a city like Gotham, hence it didn't attract much attention.
However, Shiller always seemed to avoid this fact, he was reticent about his mental state.
Victor could understand. Regardless of their knowledge or experience, physicians could not always heal themselves. They too, were humans, they also had weaknesses, and oftentimes avoided confronting their own ailments.
But now, Victor, for the first time, hears Shiller speaking openly about his mental state, unveiling a question that's been lingering in his mind.
"I don't know if you're familiar with Scholar's Syndrome, but as far as I can remember, my inner world is very different from that of other people".
Shiller tapped the guardrail of his bed lightly with his finger, producing a clear sound. He said, "Of course, this is something I only discovered later. I found out that the minds of regular people are chaotic and unorganized, their thought processes are quite different from mine..."
"When they retrieve memories, it is not like going down a staircase, sifting through time-stamped files, and carefully observing each one, instead it's a more nebulous, chaotic process. Sometimes they recall their experiences, sometimes they lose them completely."
The hand Shiller had on the guardrail tightened ever so slightly. Victor caught this, and said, "If it's too painful to remember, then don't dwell on it any further. Let's talk about something else."
Shiller shook his head and continued, "When I was a kid, I used to watch other children play with blocks. I thought it was interesting, so, I built my own block tower within my mind using fragments of memories".
"The tower was very small, teetering on the verge of collapse, but I had nothing else to do in the days that followed, so I kept trying to build a taller tower with more blocks."
"Back then, I acted purely on instinct, not knowing what I was doing. I simply found it interesting. I was oblivious to the danger it posed."
"I only wanted a more magnificent tower, so I made more blocks in my attempts to scale greater heights. But I would presume, you know, block towers always have a day of collapse."
Victor had understood Shiller's metaphor; after all, he had read Shiller's papers on the Thought Palace before. So Victor asked, "During your early years, you built a block tower that you couldn't control. Then one day, that tower collapsed. What happened then?"
Shiller was silent for a long time. He said, "The accidents in the real world did not occur the day the tower collapsed. There were signs beforehand."
"While I continued to scale the tower higher, I found that my memory was becoming more acute. I was able to remember every detail of my daily life so clearly that even a brief glance was enough for me to recall it all. Being inherently abnormal, I made no effort to hide any of it."
Victor had a bad feeling about all this. He asked, "So, you revealed your genius traits. What happened then?"
Victor noticed that Shiller would habitually pause for a long time while recounting all this. It seemed like he was trying to skip over some parts of his story, or rather trying to decide what he could reveal.
After a while, Shiller continued to say, "Traits that set one apart from ordinary people in society are easily noticeable. My lifestyle changed in some ways. Originally, none of this mattered. But after the collapse of the block tower, things became progressively harder to control."
"Did your mind collapse?" Victor asked.
"Worse." Shiller looked down at his own fingers, and said, "I am just a normal person. The human brain has its limits. Thought is always restricted by bandwidth, it cannot expand indefinitely."
"I turned the gathered information into blocks, and in order to stack the blocks higher, my personality climbed up along the tower, just to place the next block on top."
"If the block tower represents all sorts of information I have gathered, then the ground would symbolize my mental foundation, which clearly isn't very stable."
"So, one day, there was an earthquake."
Victor's finger that held the notepad pressed down a little. He looked at Shiller who surprisingly did not have any distinctive expressions on his face, but the story he shared was obviously not as easy as he made it sound.
When these symbolic metaphors were translated into more direct concepts, the events became far more horrifying.
A prodigy born with Scholar's Syndrome, possessing exceptional memory and learning abilities, has his mental world totally collapse one day. This could precipitate a host of terrifying consequences.
"The ground cracking, the tower collapsing...none of that really matters..." Shiller shook his head and said, "What's important is that my personality fell from the top...and shattered."
Victor stared dumbfounded.