I feel as if I am gradually awakening from a deep, immobilizing sleep. It has now been 20 days since Richard and I made our way back to the batcave--a period I have spent in a personal hell almost as horrible as the one Hugo Strange had in store for the two of us.
20 days: this is the first I have thought in real time for ... I don't know how long. And to be able to write out the name "Richard" instead of thinking of him as "Object Y," or myself as "Object X": the sensation is pure exhiliration.
While I have faced many a foe, I have never experienced anything on this level in my life. Everything I once believed about myself has now been challenged, broken, destroyed. I must rebuild my identity.
I am by no means ready to resume my old life, either as Batman or as Bruce Wayne. It seems that those two roles are now a part of the distant past--I must begin again, start from scratch, struggle to make something of myself once more.
I do not know yet what that will mean. But I have faith that I can accomplish it. I must have faith--without it, I am nothing.