This response from her gave Dick goosebumps. He shuddered, huddling into his blanket, and looked at Aisha, asking, "What's the matter with you? You're scaring me…"
Not finding what she wanted, Aisha paused to think, then started singing again. After a while, she opened her mouth, bit the air, and sniffed.
As if she had found something, Aisha began to sing the nursery rhyme louder. Later, she realized singing in that way was too bothersome, so she simplified the lyrics and the melody, leaving only the first line and a simple melody repeated over and over again.
Aisha sang faster and louder, all the while chewing as if she was eating something. Dick got so scared that he ran out of the room and called for Alfred.
When Alfred came after being called, Aisha was still singing. Alfred didn't take any hasty actions; he went straight to the phone and called Bruce, who was studying the Ark Reactor Model in the Batcave.
When Bruce came back and saw Aisha's state, he asked Dick, "What's going on? What is she singing?"
Because the song had been simplified to so many versions by Dick and Aisha, Bruce couldn't identify the nursery rhyme immediately. Thinking he had caused trouble, Dick confessed everything truthfully.
Bruce stared at Dick, asking: "You really learned that song? How do you read the music score?"
"I joined the school's choir. The nun who taught singing liked me, so she taught me to recognize some of the symbols in sheet music. But I didn't learn them all, I only know the basic melody, the rest of the tune I made up."
Dick then turned to Aisha and said, "After I taught Aisha, she didn't fully learn it either. The rest of the tune, she probably made it up too."
Just then, Aisha suddenly stopped singing. She stood in place, belched, and then suddenly started laughing. She ran over to Bruce, hugging his leg as she bounced around and shouted, "Dad! So full! I'm full!"
Bruce squatted down, putting his hands on Aisha's shoulders and checked her over. He found that she hadn't been injured and was still conscious. However, he didn't understand the words she had just said.
By now, Aisha had learned to speak a few words and could express her state through language. For example, when Alfred fed her vegetables she didn't like, she would say she was full and didn't want to eat.
Bruce glanced at the clock on the wall. It was past 9 PM, more than 4 hours since dinner. Bruce then turned to Alfred, who shook his head and said, "Snacking late at night isn't good for the health, the Wayne Family doesn't have the habit."
"What did you eat?" Bruce asked.
"So tasty… so full, I'm full! Burp!" Aisha kept repeating these words. No matter how many times Bruce asked, she couldn't say much more.
In the end, Aisha understood that Bruce really wanted to know the answer, so she led Bruce by the pants leg to the window and pointed outside.
Bruce looked out the window, where there was nothing but Gotham's endless night.
Realizing that Bruce still didn't understand, Aisha thought for a moment, then quickly ran back, jumped onto the bed, and switched off the desk lamp.
The room plunged into total darkness. From atop the bed, Aisha jumped around, shouting: "This! So tasty! Just like this!"
Bruce walked over, turned on the table lamp, and Aisha stopped crying. He turned off the lamp again, and Aisha began to whimper. Bruce stood up, shared a glance with Alfred, and said, "Dark? Night? …Darkness?"
Suddenly, he thought that the nursery rhyme might have been created by the Dark Owl Ritualist. Now when Aisha sang the nursery rhyme, it was as if she was eating something, and after finishing was shouting, "so full." Had the nursery rhyme brought something which Aisha had eaten?
Once this occurred to him, Bruce immediately became anxious. He scooped up Aisha and grabbed Dick's arm, saying, "Come with me, follow me to the hall!"
"Alfred, activate the entire defense system of Wayne Manor, get all vehicles ready, if anything unusual happens, respond with maximum firepower!"
Having said that, he quickly walked to the main hall downstairs carrying a child in each arm. He turned on all the lights in the hall, then stood them in the center of the hall. Alfred brought him Batman's complete equipment, and after Bruce put it on, they stood ready in the main hall of Wayne Manor.
However, after waiting for a long time, nothing strange happened. Suddenly, Aisha started singing the nursery rhyme again and began to chew. Bruce took this opportunity to observe the surroundings, but didn't notice anything unusual.
He thought perhaps it was an issue of perception. Aisha was a reincarnation of the Parallax, while he was just an ordinary human. Thus, it's quite possible that Aisha could see something he could not.
Not only he, both Alfred and Dick were ordinary humans. So, among the entire manor, only Aisha could perceive such a thing.
Bruce admitted that he was taken aback when he found out that the nursery rhyme might cause issues. Initially, he had thought Dick couldn't read the musical scores, so he had made him learn the lyrics.
But in reality, he didn't understand Dick well. Recently he had been busy studying the Ark Reactor Model that Shiller had given him. When he returned home, both children would already be asleep and sometimes, he wouldn't even eat dinner at home. They no longer have their comfortable fireplace chats after dinner.
As such, he didn't know much about Dick's school life and wasn't aware of the activities he had joined in school. This oversight had occurred due to this lack of knowledge.
Luckily, Aisha was not an ordinary child. If both children were indeed ordinary human kids, they might have been ensnared by something, and neither Bruce nor Alfred could have noticed it.
Thinking back to his earlier speculation - the chaos and darkness in Gotham possibly due to the Dark Owl Ritualist's secret schemes - had his momentary negligence led Dick and Aisha down a path of no return?
At this thought, Bruce's expression gradually cooled. He didn't leave the children but had Alfred bring the phone over from the living room. He dialed a number, brought the receiver to his ear, and said,
"Hello, it's me. Come to Wayne Manor."
A groggy and raspy voice came from the other end, "What? Bruce? What did you say? Wait, hold on dear, wait, I need to take this call… I am not free right now. It's adult time…"
Bruce's voice grew even colder, "If you don't come over, then I'll come to you, Constantine."
Constantine broke into a cold sweat instantly, feeling targeted by an irresistible darkness. He shook his head vigorously, then said,
"Wait for me, I'll be there right away."