Claire pointed at the sketch.385Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡew7BT0fWZn
Drawn with a black pen, the jagged line cut through the center like a torn zipper. Twisted. Uneven. Wrong.
“This is what I saw,” she said, voice dry like windblown dust. “In the sky.”
Batman. Nightwing. Robin. All standing around her, staring at the paper.
Yep. Batman was back.385Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡNoE3IMEUEs
Sure, she’d just seen him “yesterday,” but that was only true for her. Not for them.
They didn’t remember yesterday.385Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡvSCM2R4AGy
She was the only one who did.385Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡoTXbhkBCTq
Again.
385Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡtANBpVqtGb
One hour ago
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She stood up. Her joints felt stiff—like that rip in the sky had somehow traveled down her spine and into her bones.
“Can you guys... just look at the sky?”385Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡr4iv68nVJs
She asked it like someone who already knew the answer, but still had to ask.
Nightwing and Robin exchanged glances. Then, dutifully, they looked up.
Professional sky-gazing faces.385Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡUZF3XG6w1V
Like it was part of a rooftop protocol.
Nothing.
“No, not like that,” Claire snapped. “Close your eyes. Look with your eyes closed.”
It made no logical sense. But she sounded very sure of it.
Nightwing hesitated a beat, then obeyed.385Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡWWMkIJt2EW
Robin looked at her like she’d just asked him to smell the sidewalk—but closed his eyes too.
Two vigilantes. On a rooftop. At night.385Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡljl1ubjYYu
Standing still with eyes shut and faces to the sky.385Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡnOA0eA14wZ
It looked like some weird silent ritual.
And honestly?385Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡb9GI3UBSPL
Kinda hilarious.385Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡSZnNTORi4k
But Claire couldn’t even smile.
Her fists were clenched, palms sweaty.
A few seconds passed.385Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡxehczhZhWJ
Then they opened their eyes and shook their heads.
“Nothing.”
Her stomach dropped.385Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡU9KmBlMziO
Not disappointment—385Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡhe02rTIPQR
More like that awful sensation when the last thread holding you to reality starts to snap.
“Please,” she said, softly.385Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡzR7XS5hngB
“Tell Batman. I need help.”
Her voice was nearly emotionless.
385Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡk2s7bskFxN
By the time Batman arrived, Claire looked like someone who’d just walked out of a morgue.
Pale. Hollow.385Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡ1rwqHgFLR2
As if the inside of her brain had been scrubbed raw.
She spoke without inflection. No energy for theatrics.385Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡPAcCKZIY9q
Just repeated the same thing.385Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡGbEkCBcnTA
Over. And over.
She’d already said it yesterday.385Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡW6RKCbLCIv
She was saying it again today.385Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡz1pVawdmuA
Now it was Round Three.
What was this, a dystopian Groundhog Day?
Could she just get a USB port installed in her head or something?385Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡNKUApGP8qk
Upload her trauma and call it a day?
Batman listened silently. His face gave nothing away.
Then he said,
“Draw it.”
Claire blinked. Then nodded.
She went behind the counter and rummaged through a drawer. Pulled out a box of pens—the kind she used for doodling on coffee cups.385Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡuYkm1qD9bF
Hearts on Valentine’s. Pumpkins in October.385Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡDlL0Q3AAkr
Nothing too serious. Just scribbles for customers when business was slow.
She took a deep breath.385Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡazdT02faS0
Then hunched over the table and began to draw.
The pen scratched against paper. Each stroke felt like it was being yanked out of her skull.
The drawing wasn’t pretty.385Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡ8QkMWgIQW0
But it was exact.385Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡhxsXUnBjTa
That split in the sky—a zipper, a rift, maybe an eye—whatever it was, it didn’t belong to this world.
She slid the paper across the table.
Batman. Nightwing. Robin.385Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡemtANbV98w
All three stared.
Three different faces.385Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡhMg7FyJq6r
Three different kinds of silence.
Claire studied them. Her voice, barely above a whisper:
“So… what do you think this is?”
It was the kind of whisper that floats like paper against a windowpane.
But her eyes were deadly serious.385Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡ3e0Oh7Gpyj
The kind of serious that said:
If you tell me I made this up, I’m going to lose it. For real.
385Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡxqcea1HQEo
Claire figured she couldn’t really blame them if they thought she was insane.
Honestly, if their roles were reversed, she might’ve thought the same. Who wouldn’t, when someone calmly claimed they were reliving the same day over and over—and also happened to “see the sky split open” when they shut their eyes? It sounded like something between a sci-fi novel and a psychiatric evaluation.
Batman stared at the sketch for a long time.385Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡ79DM25EMBd
His gaze didn’t just study it—it drilled into it, as if he were trying to excavate something buried beneath the paper fibers.
It was the first time Claire realized… he wasn’t as calm as she had assumed.
The silence grew thick, as if some unspeakable truth was quietly pressing out from the sketch itself.
“When did you first see this?”385Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡoxkOJVOW4E
His voice was low—not the kind of low that tried to intimidate, but the kind that sounded like it had swallowed something massive and was now digesting dread.385Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡpalR9AyHKC
385Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡwawlOmM3f4
Claire tried to recall, but her usual nighttime habits got in the way.
She had always avoided going out at night—almost like instinct.385Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡCzjmzY9BMk
Now, trying to pull memories from a part of the day she’d always kept at arm’s length felt like dragging threads from a blank void.
“I don’t know,” she murmured. “Today was the first time I saw it.”
She immediately wanted to cry—not from sadness, but from how stupid it all felt.385Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡN8boOBDiT8
Here she was, explaining some urban-legend-tier nonsense to Batman. With zero proof.
“Do you get headaches? Hear voices?”385Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡLa9NXVBIan
That was Nightwing. His voice was measured, maybe too measured. Like he was running a checklist but didn’t want to admit he was worried.
His eyes gave him away, though.385Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡmTM8JXZzLn
That wasn’t disbelief—it was a quiet, anxious kind of urgency. A desire to help, not dismiss.
Claire shook her head.385Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡgVirE1ccYa
Hard.385Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡJJ19gP4JZt
Like shaking would erase every lingering “are you just crazy?” that might be forming in their minds.385Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡNuxnDnrqOl
She was tired of being questioned. Hell, she was already questioning herself.
“Why only her?”385Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡ46L1PpLvbx
Robin’s voice cut in—not accusing, but contemplative. His eyes moved between the three of them, searching for a logic flaw he couldn’t patch.
Batman lowered his head.385Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡKaqBIbDOs7
His cape shifted slightly, like it was hiding the fact that even he didn’t feel so steady anymore.
He didn’t speak.385Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡUrRqMHmMkb
And somehow that silence was worse.
Claire felt it like a chill under the skin. A subtle, creeping sense of dread.385Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡsM7MivyVKh
Not from the rift. But from his silence.
Then Batman finally spoke.
“If she’s able to consistently perceive a structure no one else can, that implies it’s selectively revealing itself.”
His voice had a kind of emotional distance—not spatial, but psychological.385Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡwWXQqOIzEm
It wasn’t comfort. It wasn’t analysis.385Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡJOPjSy8SOO
It was a warning.
Then he looked at Claire.
And in that moment, his gaze wasn’t warm, or even human.385Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡRLQCF7GV01
It was clinical.385Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡAJt2mA00dc
As if she were no longer a person, but a variable.
“This isn’t just about the loop,” he said. “It might be that the rift itself… is looking back at her.”
Claire’s stomach twisted.385Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡfFDnb8anVu
No.385Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡ0WgRl9f44h
This wasn’t just her seeing the rift.385Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡMStj4BRCtk
The rift… had seen her.
and then Add to home screen.