Arkham Asylum was located on the outskirts of Gotham, near the industrial district. It housed over two thousand inmates, all deemed mentally unstable by the state. Due to its location near populated areas it had not been redesigned to hold powerful or alien criminals, like Stryker's Island Penitentiary. It simply existed as a place to throw the villains that weren't strong enough to warrant special attention, but were still regarded as a danger to society.

Ralph Lorrel had been working in Arkham for exactly two weeks and five days as a prison guard. He boasted an unassuming mustache, which was perched atop his upper lip cautiously, as though it were slightly embarrassed to be there and would like to slide away and become a sideburn or something more fashionable. His eyes looked almost apologetically green, and he was so generally uninteresting that he often vanished into the background.

Scoring a job at Arkham had been the highlight of Ralph's career, which was quite sad because the place was easier to find work at than a fast food restaurant. The truth was that no one wanted to work there, and those that did, either ended up dead or injured within a few months. Well, that's what people said anyway...Ralph didn't believe a word of it. After all, what kind of prison would still be running with so many break outs?

"Anything interesting happen today, Louis?" Ralph asked, steering the dinner trolley towards the security door.

A guard, armed with both a baton and a pistol smiled and pressed his hand against a biometric scanner. "Nothin' yet, mate. Few of these loons were screaming at each other through the bars but they can't do much damage."

"Sounds like fun," Ralph replied sarcastically, watching as the door gave a distinct 'click'; the sound of it unlocking. "What time you finish?"

"Five-thirty, you?"

"Six," Ralph chewed on his bottom lip as Louis opened the door for him. "Maybe we could...you know...go get a drink after work?"

Louis gave an airy laugh, hazel eyes shimmering under the fluorescents. "Didn't think you'd ask after last week."

Ralph tried to hide his flustered expression behind long locks of brown hair. He didn't want to think about that little...incident. He had gotten wasted, completely embarrassed himself at the bar and ended up running home without telling Louis. So much for a first date. "Yeah, let's just forget that ever happened...please?"

Louis reached out and swiped the hair away from Ralph's face. Now there was nowhere to hide the red flush assaulting his features. "It's already forgotten. We can talk about it once you've fed these assholes."

Grinning like a madman, Ralph passed into the cell block, placing plates of microwaved pasta through small security slots to the inmates. He had only just finished his rounds when a loud, blaring alarm pierced the air. One by one, the lights switched off until the only thing keeping the prison lit was the distant ebb of Gotham city and the moon above it; shining through the narrow, barred windows like a beacon.

"Ralph!" Louis' voice yelled over the blaring alarm. "Get back here! Now!"

Ralph glanced over his shoulder. The security door looked a lot further away than he remembered. The alarms, which had already left a distinct ringing in his ears, were cut off; only to be replaced with an even more unwelcome sound. Clicking. Just like the security door. At least twenty different clicks in this cell block alone.

Ralph finally let go of the trolley, fingers aching from how tightly he had been holding it. Then, without waiting to watch as each criminal swung open their cell, he sprinted back in the opposite direction.

"Do you hear me? There's a security breach!" He could hear Louis speaking into the radio, but there was nothing but silence from the other end. "Is anyone there? Initiate the lockdown!"

"Where'd everyone go?" Ralph puffed through his confused panic. He had been trained for a breakout, of course, but he never expected it to happen while he was on shift.

"I don't know," Louis re-secured the radio to his belt and pulled out his gun, a Glock 17, "but you need to get to the checkpoint and shut this place down."

Down the line, the inmates started to wander out of their cells, a mixture of confusion and amusement flashing onto their faces; he could already see Victor Zsasz, Jonathan Crane, Poison Ivy, Arnold Wesker, Edward Nigma, Joker, and Harleen Quinzel.

Louis shut the security door, but it wouldn't lock. It simply creaked back open, inviting the criminals right through without resistance.

"What about you?" Ralph said, but his eyes never left the cell block.

"I'll hold them off."

Ralph wanted to argue, but there was no time. If the lockdown wasn't started soon then every criminal in Arkham would be back on the streets...and these people were far from rehabilitated.

Without the courage to even glance back at the scene, Ralph ran. He ran straight through the halls, past the other cell blocks, and towards the checkpoint. It was then that he realised that the asylum was completely empty. There had been at least forty guards on duty when he arrived, but now they were nowhere to be seen.

He reached the keypad, stuck to the wall almost out of sight. With a trembling hand, he typed the lockdown code; 21449068A. In training, this usually forced down large metal doors to cut off each cell block, but this time it did nothing at all. Ralph punched it in again, but still nothing happened. He tried again, and again, and again, not knowing what else to try. This keypad was the only defence they had, and now that he was in the midst of another Arkham breakout, he realised how ridiculous that was.

Panic was rising like bile in his throat. Ralph could hear the maniacal laughter of the inmates, and their rapid footfalls as they scurried towards the exit. It was already too late...whoever had messed with Arkham's security systems had succeeded in their mass breakout.

Ralph took a deep, shaky breath. The keypad, due to some god-given miracle, was on the opposite end of the facility to the exit; so any inmate looking to escape wouldn't have any need to find him.

Initially, the guard was relieved. He hadn't been found by any of the criminals, and if they escaped it certainly wasn't his fault. Them running rampant in Gotham was certainly better than being killed on duty...then he remembered Louis and his blood chilled in his veins. If he had failed to initiate the lockdown, that meant that Louis was still holding off a whole cell block of them.

Adrenaline pumped through his veins at this realisation, and before he could control himself, Ralph was sprinting back. Any noise permeating through the building was drowned out by his own heartbeat until, finally, he arrived at Cell Block D.

His own ragged breathing deafened Ralph as he crept inside. Everything was dark, but his eyes had adjusted enough by now to still see the security door; hanging open like the gaping mouth of a demon. Inside, a strong floral smell hit his senses, but there was something underneath it. A horrid smell; a mixture of vomit and blood.

The smell made Ralph gag, but still he continued through the door. There he saw something that shook him to the core. Vines climbed the walls like winding tentacles, interloping and hanging from the roof. Flowers bloomed in every corner, and lush grass had sprouted out through the cracks in the ground.

The shockingly beautiful scene hid something sinister that Ralph almost missed. A body, hung up like an ornament in the middle of the room. Louis. His abdomen had been ripped open and from within sprouted a small camphor tree. It's branches cut through his limbs and towards the ceiling, ivy wrapped around his exposed ribs and dug into his organs. His eyes had been pushed out by two Daffodil's and now hung beside each cheek, still connected to the optic nerve. There were so many thick roots jammed down his throat that his jaw had been detached.

A cry tore through Ralph's throat like a razor, ripping his throat to shreds. Every instinct screamed for him to run, but his legs were frozen in place. No...wait...they weren't frozen. Something was pinning him to the ground.

Ralph dared to glance at his feet, where two honeysuckle plants had wrapped around his ankles; so tightly that he couldn't even lift them from the floor. He screamed again, but this time it was cut short when a woman sauntered into his view. She stood next to the corpse of his lover, her skin a forest green and her hair red as a bushfire.

"Wh-What the hell?!" Ralph's voice came out like a squeak, barely audible and trembling. "Fuck... Fuck... Dr. Isley... Please don't k-kill me..."

Poison Ivy didn't respond. She simply stared at him with those moss-coloured eyes. Soon, the honeysuckle started climbing up his leg and panic jolted him forward. He reached out with his right hand, hoping to grab hold of her and plead for his life, but instead his fingers slid down her face...and the flawless skin crumbled away like it was made out of brittle leaves.

"Jesus Christ!" Ralph yelped when he saw what was underneath. There were no muscles or tendons, no bones or veins...just bark, like the roots of a tree deep beneath the earth, twisting to create the structure of her face. From within the hollow depths, a flurry of fireflies poured out and circled above them.

Ralph threw the frail piece of skin away from him in horror. This was more than he could bare...he felt like his heart was about to give out. It was already straining against his chest, fluctuating between beating too fast and not at all.

Then, he heard something. A voice. A whisper carried on the breeze. It sounded like the whistling of the wind during a storm, but somehow he understood every word. "Do you not think me beautiful anymore, sweet boy?"

Something overrode the fear for a moment. It was like, one minute Poison Ivy was a terrifying creature worthy of only fear...and the next she was the most beautiful woman that he had ever laid eyes on. Pheromones. It had to be. Everyone knew that Ivy was dangerous, not only for her power over plant life, but because she could make anyone fall deeply in love with just one touch, look, or smell.

"No...no you're gorgeous, Dr. Isley." Ralph could hear himself saying it, but it was as if he were trapped in a cage at the back of his own mind; watching his body move and speak on its own.

She moved towards him, like a snake slithering up a branch, until she was only inches away. The voice spoke again, but her lips didn't move. "Such a sweet talker, why don't you show me how gorgeous I am?"

Ralph felt like he was clawing at the bars of his cage, crying out at the top of his lungs, but his body still leaned forward. His lips crashed against hers. They felt like petals, just as delicate as the skin he had pulled from her face earlier. Too much pressure would surely rip them apart...and it made Ralph queasy to think of what lay beneath it.

Poison Ivy pulled away, her expression stoic. She looked almost as dead as Louis. No emotions whatsoever, like a porcelain doll stuck with one face forever. "I think our audience is a little jealous. Give him some sugar, won't you?"

Ralph's eyes flicked to the corpse. Louis looked just as much a part of the surrounding nature as Ivy was. He felt a wave of grief so potent that it made him want to throw up, but he couldn't do anything. He was a passenger in his own body as it climbed the vines towards Louis' ashen face.

"Do it, lovely," the voice returned. It wasn't telepathy because he could hear it prickling against his ears, but maybe beneath that brittle skin Ivy truly was speaking. Maybe those lips were just for show, and the true ones lay beneath; made of maggots and worms. "Let me watch."

Louis was so close...too close. Ralph could barely look at him, let alone kiss him, but his muscles burned and his body still wouldn't listen. He kissed him, but Louis' jaw was broken and it swung with each little movement. He pushed his tongue into Louis' mouth and he swore that he could feel insects crawling around inside.

It was a relief when he felt Poison Ivy finally wrapping a vine around his neck. He still had no control over himself, but he could feel his throat constrict...and the air leaving his lungs. She had shown him that there were far worse things than death. He wanted to die. He was happy to die. He didn't want to live with these images in his head; of the grotesque roots beneath Ivy's paper-thin skin, and the taste of Louis' rotting lips on his tongue.

———————————-

So, I know this isn't the typical Poison Ivy but I really wanted to put my own spin on her. I like her, but I don't think DC has ever put enough thought into her character (at least from a dark, villain perspective). Since this book is meant to be kinda gothic, I wanted to make a few changes to her. Also, sorry bout the gore but...I love gore 😂