Claire pointed at the sketch.58Please respect copyright.PENANAox6sLulGAx
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.58Please respect copyright.PENANAu0BrC6MqOS
Sure, she’d just seen him “yesterday,” but that was only true for her. Not for them.
They didn’t remember yesterday.58Please respect copyright.PENANAFSnL8HHKuE
She was the only one who did.58Please respect copyright.PENANAvQjZg4elF5
Again.
58Please respect copyright.PENANAGtoaWFmzRR
One hour ago
58Please respect copyright.PENANAl8AoRfvoMi
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?”58Please respect copyright.PENANAWvxFzmLt65
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.58Please respect copyright.PENANAfWcXURElXf
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.58Please respect copyright.PENANA4GFt1NRwhf
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.58Please respect copyright.PENANAx9F2v2GVsD
Standing still with eyes shut and faces to the sky.58Please respect copyright.PENANAeYn4vtZFjZ
It looked like some weird silent ritual.
And honestly?58Please respect copyright.PENANAgMM7W7PVRr
Kinda hilarious.58Please respect copyright.PENANAhtJIt2IHo8
But Claire couldn’t even smile.
Her fists were clenched, palms sweaty.
A few seconds passed.58Please respect copyright.PENANAetNMVRxTeC
Then they opened their eyes and shook their heads.
“Nothing.”
Her stomach dropped.58Please respect copyright.PENANA5QftbaD26x
Not disappointment—58Please respect copyright.PENANAoR4dGPr3es
More like that awful sensation when the last thread holding you to reality starts to snap.
“Please,” she said, softly.58Please respect copyright.PENANAFxiLAgul6E
“Tell Batman. I need help.”
Her voice was nearly emotionless.
58Please respect copyright.PENANAnhZY9N4B8j
By the time Batman arrived, Claire looked like someone who’d just walked out of a morgue.
Pale. Hollow.58Please respect copyright.PENANAx869h1UnEg
As if the inside of her brain had been scrubbed raw.
She spoke without inflection. No energy for theatrics.58Please respect copyright.PENANAtC3FqtKDsU
Just repeated the same thing.58Please respect copyright.PENANAyz45ymPMog
Over. And over.
She’d already said it yesterday.58Please respect copyright.PENANAOHseTeMpmg
She was saying it again today.58Please respect copyright.PENANAxyyxUNlgbp
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?58Please respect copyright.PENANAIltC0jYULS
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.58Please respect copyright.PENANAykgk3WvhgT
Hearts on Valentine’s. Pumpkins in October.58Please respect copyright.PENANADg90DnpKwl
Nothing too serious. Just scribbles for customers when business was slow.
She took a deep breath.58Please respect copyright.PENANAEDn2e8XyQC
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.58Please respect copyright.PENANAs2WR2sPxQe
But it was exact.58Please respect copyright.PENANAmCFFPHx2Px
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.58Please respect copyright.PENANAJtf6ZoCWs1
All three stared.
Three different faces.58Please respect copyright.PENANAfX2tIbcFbr
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.58Please respect copyright.PENANA9AYOvIJb1v
The kind of serious that said:
If you tell me I made this up, I’m going to lose it. For real.
58Please respect copyright.PENANAjyBSkNQnSn
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.58Please respect copyright.PENANAul8CiTxVeL
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?”58Please respect copyright.PENANAhjokZjl0wS
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.58Please respect copyright.PENANAMbQaMw566k
58Please respect copyright.PENANAEFFIPEYN6f
Claire tried to recall, but her usual nighttime habits got in the way.
She had always avoided going out at night—almost like instinct.58Please respect copyright.PENANAOJOMZJi8sL
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.58Please respect copyright.PENANAG7WwJzERaK
Here she was, explaining some urban-legend-tier nonsense to Batman. With zero proof.
“Do you get headaches? Hear voices?”58Please respect copyright.PENANAIefNolYhMF
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.58Please respect copyright.PENANAozKRLEP5cr
That wasn’t disbelief—it was a quiet, anxious kind of urgency. A desire to help, not dismiss.
Claire shook her head.58Please respect copyright.PENANAf0fEGmQOIr
Hard.58Please respect copyright.PENANAUceBeeV7Io
Like shaking would erase every lingering “are you just crazy?” that might be forming in their minds.58Please respect copyright.PENANAVArCLZZJIL
She was tired of being questioned. Hell, she was already questioning herself.
“Why only her?”58Please respect copyright.PENANAbTvPmiIgw4
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.58Please respect copyright.PENANA8kl4sVM6Sm
His cape shifted slightly, like it was hiding the fact that even he didn’t feel so steady anymore.
He didn’t speak.58Please respect copyright.PENANABbW6OQdLei
And somehow that silence was worse.
Claire felt it like a chill under the skin. A subtle, creeping sense of dread.58Please respect copyright.PENANAq1jFHgK0Y9
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.58Please respect copyright.PENANANh7UrDP42o
It wasn’t comfort. It wasn’t analysis.58Please respect copyright.PENANAYQ1bFcC1OR
It was a warning.
Then he looked at Claire.
And in that moment, his gaze wasn’t warm, or even human.58Please respect copyright.PENANAlvD6cCX9B1
It was clinical.58Please respect copyright.PENANABgZYNP2lUz
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.58Please respect copyright.PENANAEGU1GFeg1R
No.58Please respect copyright.PENANAS4CkVWX89z
This wasn’t just her seeing the rift.58Please respect copyright.PENANAYoAO6CnYp0
The rift… had seen her.