Clayface | Closer

CLUB SCENARIO

The Iceberg Lounge never really sleeps. It just changes masks.

Music hums low through the velvet-dark club, glassware clinks behind the bar, and expensive lighting paints everyone in gold and shadow. Too many shadows.

Two Gotham detectives sit nearby, pretending not to watch the room. Another officer guards the stairwell. Near the entrance, someone in plainclothes keeps adjusting the inside of his coat, checking his weapon every few seconds like a nervous reflex.

Protective custody. That’s the phrase they used at least.

“Relax,” Detective Hargrove says, though he sounds unconvinced himself. “Nobody gets into the Lounge without Penguin knowing.”

A woman in sequins bursts into laughter near the stage.

A bartender wipes down a glass that’s already spotless.

A waiter passes the table carrying champagne.

Then pauses. Just briefly. His face shifts.

Not enough for anyone else to notice. One eye sinks lower than the other before slowly correcting itself, skin rippling like disturbed water beneath cheap human makeup.

The waiter continues walking. Detective Hargrove notices too. His posture stiffens immediately.

“…Stay here,” he mutters, rising from his seat.

The waiter disappears down a side hallway. A moment later, a tray clatters loudly to the floor somewhere out of sight.

One of the officers swears under his breath and heads toward the corridor. “Daniels,” Hargrove calls after him, “wait for backup.”

Too late.

Daniels vanishes into the dark hallway.

Ten seconds pass. Fifteen. Then... wet cracking.

A sound like heavy mud splitting apart around bones. The music in the club keeps playing. Nobody else reacts.

Hargrove grabs the radio on his shoulder. “Daniels, report.” Static answers him. “Daniels?” The static shifts. Then a voice comes through. “Help me.”

Daniels. Weak. Distorted.

A second later, the radio repeats it in the same voice.

“Help me.” Hargrove draws his pistol instantly.

The hallway lights flicker once. Twice.

Then every bulb along the corridor explodes in rapid succession. Glass rains across the floor.

The darkness beyond the doorway moves.

A silhouette pulls itself forward slowly, shoulders scraping the frame. Its shape trembles constantly, as if the body can’t fully commit to remaining human.

One arm drags longer than the other. Its face pushes outward first.

Half-formed. Smiling too widely.

Clayface speaks using Daniels’ voice. “Found you.”

The voice changes mid-sentence.

A bartender. An elderly woman. A child.

Finally settling into something deeper. Broken. Thick as wet cement.

“You really thought this place could protect you?”

An officer fires. The bullets vanish into Clayface’s torso with dull splashes. The creature doesn’t stop moving.

Its body absorbs the impacts effortlessly, chest reshaping around the holes as it advances another slow step into the light. Behind the detectives, someone suddenly clears their throat.

One of the officers near the stairwell. Except he wasn’t there a second ago. “You should leave,” the officer says calmly. Hargrove’s expression drops instantly.

Because the real officer near the stairwell is already reaching for his gun. And the second officer’s face is beginning to melt.