Claire pointed at the sketch.53Please respect copyright.PENANA6Zzqoe0ajY
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.53Please respect copyright.PENANAqDvfZsHDut
Sure, she’d just seen him “yesterday,” but that was only true for her. Not for them.
They didn’t remember yesterday.53Please respect copyright.PENANAf7CgT328Zh
She was the only one who did.53Please respect copyright.PENANAPxiih7bVdi
Again.
53Please respect copyright.PENANAJKCQvMMfxf
One hour ago
53Please respect copyright.PENANAmXNlYG02Kp
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?”53Please respect copyright.PENANAMDLvyoJgKW
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.53Please respect copyright.PENANAwFyACSynnD
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.53Please respect copyright.PENANAmOXUYBP0ZB
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.53Please respect copyright.PENANAnRNIMg0VKE
Standing still with eyes shut and faces to the sky.53Please respect copyright.PENANAomRzjPeisn
It looked like some weird silent ritual.
And honestly?53Please respect copyright.PENANAqR24Q17pZS
Kinda hilarious.53Please respect copyright.PENANAkioUzbqNfE
But Claire couldn’t even smile.
Her fists were clenched, palms sweaty.
A few seconds passed.53Please respect copyright.PENANAZeaVVYRhEN
Then they opened their eyes and shook their heads.
“Nothing.”
Her stomach dropped.53Please respect copyright.PENANAusOBgPRE9K
Not disappointment—53Please respect copyright.PENANA483zYAn4eB
More like that awful sensation when the last thread holding you to reality starts to snap.
“Please,” she said, softly.53Please respect copyright.PENANAu5oLMhtICh
“Tell Batman. I need help.”
Her voice was nearly emotionless.
53Please respect copyright.PENANAggpLy4FRZi
By the time Batman arrived, Claire looked like someone who’d just walked out of a morgue.
Pale. Hollow.53Please respect copyright.PENANAoBLDxDEzsp
As if the inside of her brain had been scrubbed raw.
She spoke without inflection. No energy for theatrics.53Please respect copyright.PENANA2gUtwwd1zd
Just repeated the same thing.53Please respect copyright.PENANAFTiT7ZraGd
Over. And over.
She’d already said it yesterday.53Please respect copyright.PENANAWS3HT7ZgEX
She was saying it again today.53Please respect copyright.PENANAZ5P8pDW4EG
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?53Please respect copyright.PENANAC5zyIBk3IO
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.53Please respect copyright.PENANAvDW1fUlnF5
Hearts on Valentine’s. Pumpkins in October.53Please respect copyright.PENANAm7h4U9oeqS
Nothing too serious. Just scribbles for customers when business was slow.
She took a deep breath.53Please respect copyright.PENANA0aKy8ML8tA
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.53Please respect copyright.PENANAbJzVxbkUA3
But it was exact.53Please respect copyright.PENANAiL0JnxzBqG
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.53Please respect copyright.PENANALzyhDBKrAq
All three stared.
Three different faces.53Please respect copyright.PENANAJgJME8qS9D
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.53Please respect copyright.PENANAtZnqhxANu6
The kind of serious that said:
If you tell me I made this up, I’m going to lose it. For real.
53Please respect copyright.PENANAFdJOuG9kz6
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.53Please respect copyright.PENANAWhNItYBelD
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?”53Please respect copyright.PENANARbz029Gzmk
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.53Please respect copyright.PENANALaahHvlQ0d
53Please respect copyright.PENANAUZtYpixa3i
Claire tried to recall, but her usual nighttime habits got in the way.
She had always avoided going out at night—almost like instinct.53Please respect copyright.PENANAtkfq7oMNyF
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.53Please respect copyright.PENANAjmofpsMexI
Here she was, explaining some urban-legend-tier nonsense to Batman. With zero proof.
“Do you get headaches? Hear voices?”53Please respect copyright.PENANAoLDYxE3Zod
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.53Please respect copyright.PENANAKQ7lc9ifLN
That wasn’t disbelief—it was a quiet, anxious kind of urgency. A desire to help, not dismiss.
Claire shook her head.53Please respect copyright.PENANA9dfP5oW1q9
Hard.53Please respect copyright.PENANAtPUj4nF3q2
Like shaking would erase every lingering “are you just crazy?” that might be forming in their minds.53Please respect copyright.PENANARExKVmpXIn
She was tired of being questioned. Hell, she was already questioning herself.
“Why only her?”53Please respect copyright.PENANAFBBCPEfD5G
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.53Please respect copyright.PENANARhPhRJF9DD
His cape shifted slightly, like it was hiding the fact that even he didn’t feel so steady anymore.
He didn’t speak.53Please respect copyright.PENANAph3T001gMk
And somehow that silence was worse.
Claire felt it like a chill under the skin. A subtle, creeping sense of dread.53Please respect copyright.PENANAVnclynluN2
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.53Please respect copyright.PENANA0nzZqECL7n
It wasn’t comfort. It wasn’t analysis.53Please respect copyright.PENANA4hTLEpmEGu
It was a warning.
Then he looked at Claire.
And in that moment, his gaze wasn’t warm, or even human.53Please respect copyright.PENANAASagGPHAJv
It was clinical.53Please respect copyright.PENANAL8Hn3mDFmF
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.53Please respect copyright.PENANAJf9KKQvI1Y
No.53Please respect copyright.PENANAjaUix5lxif
This wasn’t just her seeing the rift.53Please respect copyright.PENANARXH9sSDvLX
The rift… had seen her.