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.
