Act I - The fight
He was called Mad Harry Starks, but it wasn’t just a play on the cheerful recklessness with which he got into new scams and new businesses. In that last year of the fifties, the year he spent in prison, he was diagnosed with a manic-depression. In London only a few people knew about that part of Harry’s life. It was a secret within the firm. When Harry ‘went into one’ as his employees called it, they simply stayed away from their boss. There were no meetings, no business-calls and no new fixes. The firm just kept the businesses running and money coming stayed out of reach of any fits of rage, paranoia and depression its boss was known to suffer.
Harry’s was a morbid depression. A downward tunnel with no light at the end of it. What if Logan was right? What if he wasn’t real? What if this was a figment of his imagination? What about all the things he lived and saw? Why did he think he could escape prison when the prison was in his mind...?
His pills were all gone. All eleven of them. Downed with the liquor he had earned from working at the club. He needed more, he needed something, anything.
Fire was a welcomed addition to Rorschach's hut. Every time he left there was the inevitable worry about the fire going out. He'd grown too accustomed to cooked animals and a heat source at night.
Today, Rorschach hurried through the tree-filled path. He avoided the parts of the trail with sand; it could get deep and he didn't want to fall. It would only take more time and there was a fire to return to. Rorschach looked up through the trees and realized he was almost to the compound.
The compound. The large building he never went into that loomed and glared at him. The compound housed all the happy and smiling people Rorschach avoided. The compound housed the fornication and the drugs and the sex and the liquor he'd heard of people indulging in. When this happened, they ended up fighting. They ended up on the beach. They ended up in prison. They ended up dead. And Rorschach was thankful for their punishment. He avoided the compound at all costs.
But he needed more wood. He had gotten some from Dani Reese and it lasted long enough, but his supplies were running out and he needed more.
Rorschach hurried along the path; he'd been gone awhile already and his fire would soon die.
Harry was in thought, in deep thought, when he heard someone hurrying in his direction. He wore a mask. Black spots on a white surface. Familiar black spots on a white surface. ´What do you see, Harry?’ The all too familiar question he always refused to answer. Locked up, locked away…
He wasn’t feeling well and this man - if it was a man at all - was taunting him by his very presence. Or wasn’t he real?
“In a hurry?” he asked, casually enough.
There was a certain talent Rorschach had for reading people's faces. A talent he developed from living in New York City after the Keene Act. The subtle tilt of an eyebrow. The slight frown creeping down one side of the mouth. Rorschach stopped when he saw the man. There was something in his stare. Something that stirred Rorschach.
"Yes," He told him simply but with an underlying force. He wasn't going to deal with people right now. There was a hut to return to and wood to gather.
"So move it."
No one told Harry to move it. And no one told him such a thing while wearing a mask of moving blots. As the gruff voice came muffled from under the mask, the black stains shifted, forming another shape.
There was no sound, but Harry blinked once before lunging towards him. "You bastard!" he growled.
Harry’s was a morbid depression. A downward tunnel with no light at the end of it. What if Logan was right? What if he wasn’t real? What if this was a figment of his imagination? What about all the things he lived and saw? Why did he think he could escape prison when the prison was in his mind...?
His pills were all gone. All eleven of them. Downed with the liquor he had earned from working at the club. He needed more, he needed something, anything.
Fire was a welcomed addition to Rorschach's hut. Every time he left there was the inevitable worry about the fire going out. He'd grown too accustomed to cooked animals and a heat source at night.
Today, Rorschach hurried through the tree-filled path. He avoided the parts of the trail with sand; it could get deep and he didn't want to fall. It would only take more time and there was a fire to return to. Rorschach looked up through the trees and realized he was almost to the compound.
The compound. The large building he never went into that loomed and glared at him. The compound housed all the happy and smiling people Rorschach avoided. The compound housed the fornication and the drugs and the sex and the liquor he'd heard of people indulging in. When this happened, they ended up fighting. They ended up on the beach. They ended up in prison. They ended up dead. And Rorschach was thankful for their punishment. He avoided the compound at all costs.
But he needed more wood. He had gotten some from Dani Reese and it lasted long enough, but his supplies were running out and he needed more.
Rorschach hurried along the path; he'd been gone awhile already and his fire would soon die.
Harry was in thought, in deep thought, when he heard someone hurrying in his direction. He wore a mask. Black spots on a white surface. Familiar black spots on a white surface. ´What do you see, Harry?’ The all too familiar question he always refused to answer. Locked up, locked away…
He wasn’t feeling well and this man - if it was a man at all - was taunting him by his very presence. Or wasn’t he real?
“In a hurry?” he asked, casually enough.
There was a certain talent Rorschach had for reading people's faces. A talent he developed from living in New York City after the Keene Act. The subtle tilt of an eyebrow. The slight frown creeping down one side of the mouth. Rorschach stopped when he saw the man. There was something in his stare. Something that stirred Rorschach.
"Yes," He told him simply but with an underlying force. He wasn't going to deal with people right now. There was a hut to return to and wood to gather.
"So move it."
No one told Harry to move it. And no one told him such a thing while wearing a mask of moving blots. As the gruff voice came muffled from under the mask, the black stains shifted, forming another shape.
There was no sound, but Harry blinked once before lunging towards him. "You bastard!" he growled.