Claire pointed at the sketch.51Please respect copyright.PENANAkKXc2cEcKz
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.51Please respect copyright.PENANAjhkPkuz49E
Sure, she’d just seen him “yesterday,” but that was only true for her. Not for them.
They didn’t remember yesterday.51Please respect copyright.PENANApIIekPROh7
She was the only one who did.51Please respect copyright.PENANAwrOgBt4nSs
Again.
51Please respect copyright.PENANAuuToNevXXl
One hour ago
51Please respect copyright.PENANAgSBM5XzgXi
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?”51Please respect copyright.PENANAVtpN5ODcT0
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.51Please respect copyright.PENANACc5J9RNFEA
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.51Please respect copyright.PENANAH8eLVqFTkT
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.51Please respect copyright.PENANA3iCW8yDyer
Standing still with eyes shut and faces to the sky.51Please respect copyright.PENANAWJoDHnbrTH
It looked like some weird silent ritual.
And honestly?51Please respect copyright.PENANAodvdurIGpJ
Kinda hilarious.51Please respect copyright.PENANAR3HoBmEhpA
But Claire couldn’t even smile.
Her fists were clenched, palms sweaty.
A few seconds passed.51Please respect copyright.PENANAqal9f4Vs5l
Then they opened their eyes and shook their heads.
“Nothing.”
Her stomach dropped.51Please respect copyright.PENANArqI3pDsWv3
Not disappointment—51Please respect copyright.PENANAdURsi7ZnRL
More like that awful sensation when the last thread holding you to reality starts to snap.
“Please,” she said, softly.51Please respect copyright.PENANAxILbzveqGc
“Tell Batman. I need help.”
Her voice was nearly emotionless.
51Please respect copyright.PENANAwDpb5EBWEE
By the time Batman arrived, Claire looked like someone who’d just walked out of a morgue.
Pale. Hollow.51Please respect copyright.PENANAnaMHfkqRx6
As if the inside of her brain had been scrubbed raw.
She spoke without inflection. No energy for theatrics.51Please respect copyright.PENANAi0KXjesfql
Just repeated the same thing.51Please respect copyright.PENANAghh7XpvUN0
Over. And over.
She’d already said it yesterday.51Please respect copyright.PENANAGgt9gCXeHD
She was saying it again today.51Please respect copyright.PENANA0qMfAcAN1U
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?51Please respect copyright.PENANAd5GDSSEppt
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.51Please respect copyright.PENANA6vuVlVifOA
Hearts on Valentine’s. Pumpkins in October.51Please respect copyright.PENANAVJjZj0aDyp
Nothing too serious. Just scribbles for customers when business was slow.
She took a deep breath.51Please respect copyright.PENANAinOQJMHRCB
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.51Please respect copyright.PENANA9m8ktaHltH
But it was exact.51Please respect copyright.PENANAhWguS8BdPu
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.51Please respect copyright.PENANA3i16F4UVJq
All three stared.
Three different faces.51Please respect copyright.PENANA9smSvRU9be
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.51Please respect copyright.PENANAyu96BvCEo2
The kind of serious that said:
If you tell me I made this up, I’m going to lose it. For real.
51Please respect copyright.PENANAObRBk94KJH
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.51Please respect copyright.PENANAdeXSX3qXTh
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?”51Please respect copyright.PENANAaCLmNKosHD
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.51Please respect copyright.PENANAYvpH73U60b
51Please respect copyright.PENANAflwVMV9938
Claire tried to recall, but her usual nighttime habits got in the way.
She had always avoided going out at night—almost like instinct.51Please respect copyright.PENANAigRW83hKJE
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.51Please respect copyright.PENANAYXo3tbcqwW
Here she was, explaining some urban-legend-tier nonsense to Batman. With zero proof.
“Do you get headaches? Hear voices?”51Please respect copyright.PENANAAD9OqFMcKa
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.51Please respect copyright.PENANAMivePcbHas
That wasn’t disbelief—it was a quiet, anxious kind of urgency. A desire to help, not dismiss.
Claire shook her head.51Please respect copyright.PENANArpWEwYoPUA
Hard.51Please respect copyright.PENANATCwkFrY83G
Like shaking would erase every lingering “are you just crazy?” that might be forming in their minds.51Please respect copyright.PENANA5ReIW7bera
She was tired of being questioned. Hell, she was already questioning herself.
“Why only her?”51Please respect copyright.PENANAukDAt8TunC
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.51Please respect copyright.PENANAZkkDDnNgw2
His cape shifted slightly, like it was hiding the fact that even he didn’t feel so steady anymore.
He didn’t speak.51Please respect copyright.PENANA9xG3wmlxbA
And somehow that silence was worse.
Claire felt it like a chill under the skin. A subtle, creeping sense of dread.51Please respect copyright.PENANAVflWF1jz7W
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.51Please respect copyright.PENANAtS8i2bMeGM
It wasn’t comfort. It wasn’t analysis.51Please respect copyright.PENANAyNNZoxoeNd
It was a warning.
Then he looked at Claire.
And in that moment, his gaze wasn’t warm, or even human.51Please respect copyright.PENANAYOBkdON6Wy
It was clinical.51Please respect copyright.PENANAVOggiqkY85
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.51Please respect copyright.PENANAvwZPYIwvlw
No.51Please respect copyright.PENANAJDAMZxJy02
This wasn’t just her seeing the rift.51Please respect copyright.PENANALxntvgifSR
The rift… had seen her.