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.
