Claire pointed at the sketch.76Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡocfZZq7MDL
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.76Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡkL80pdXqa7
Sure, she’d just seen him “yesterday,” but that was only true for her. Not for them.
They didn’t remember yesterday.76Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡDLvO3eQqHr
She was the only one who did.76Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡPxaVddUWkF
Again.
76Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡO1SSUxSwLu
One hour ago
76Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡKB4djBgOjm
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?”76Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡtQJQK14yw1
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.76Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡDURQJfNjid
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.76Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡE9fgPa0kYq
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.76Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡ5WTzHDLXUE
Standing still with eyes shut and faces to the sky.76Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡrwlz7Buf26
It looked like some weird silent ritual.
And honestly?76Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡs0ziigUb24
Kinda hilarious.76Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡr7KfeUxa6z
But Claire couldn’t even smile.
Her fists were clenched, palms sweaty.
A few seconds passed.76Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡdXhoUKopem
Then they opened their eyes and shook their heads.
“Nothing.”
Her stomach dropped.76Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡnexGQKsLKr
Not disappointment—76Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡxwAw1NSszx
More like that awful sensation when the last thread holding you to reality starts to snap.
“Please,” she said, softly.76Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡzBQ4IUKA6s
“Tell Batman. I need help.”
Her voice was nearly emotionless.
76Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡruBaf2k0Ip
By the time Batman arrived, Claire looked like someone who’d just walked out of a morgue.
Pale. Hollow.76Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡL5DynzuJrT
As if the inside of her brain had been scrubbed raw.
She spoke without inflection. No energy for theatrics.76Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡmN7WrEGs3W
Just repeated the same thing.76Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡTsJglj4qp8
Over. And over.
She’d already said it yesterday.76Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡwLo31llCel
She was saying it again today.76Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡWl9TDzZCGb
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?76Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡExoKFdqnhW
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.76Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡEq5EjKKEa0
Hearts on Valentine’s. Pumpkins in October.76Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡJaQBBpZDFC
Nothing too serious. Just scribbles for customers when business was slow.
She took a deep breath.76Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡ3j3A6LpyiB
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.76Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡPTgvCQVsuc
But it was exact.76Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡ69ypT99kZY
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.76Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡPCmVmTAAKO
All three stared.
Three different faces.76Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡMTbKcXNFiZ
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.76Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡmwLxc95UVT
The kind of serious that said:
If you tell me I made this up, I’m going to lose it. For real.
76Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡOKaH64svAw
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.76Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡd4AtHQsfFU
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?”76Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡr4jPMQEzMY
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.76Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡ7FDFL5NvWc
76Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡNKolSeamdN
Claire tried to recall, but her usual nighttime habits got in the way.
She had always avoided going out at night—almost like instinct.76Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡUDP71N2DqO
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.76Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡjjbovAiDYw
Here she was, explaining some urban-legend-tier nonsense to Batman. With zero proof.
“Do you get headaches? Hear voices?”76Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡ1VyVkERHVu
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.76Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡFmUEnB5oK0
That wasn’t disbelief—it was a quiet, anxious kind of urgency. A desire to help, not dismiss.
Claire shook her head.76Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡWhbHzbKqJ5
Hard.76Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡnpF3X0MPDp
Like shaking would erase every lingering “are you just crazy?” that might be forming in their minds.76Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡucmzgCA5xo
She was tired of being questioned. Hell, she was already questioning herself.
“Why only her?”76Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡgN2z829ilX
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.76Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡ4E1h4tCQ31
His cape shifted slightly, like it was hiding the fact that even he didn’t feel so steady anymore.
He didn’t speak.76Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡkUa5z1Ut1S
And somehow that silence was worse.
Claire felt it like a chill under the skin. A subtle, creeping sense of dread.76Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡuQkOi2vfPU
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.76Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡ9zthhXxEkz
It wasn’t comfort. It wasn’t analysis.76Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡ7PG12HbsBD
It was a warning.
Then he looked at Claire.
And in that moment, his gaze wasn’t warm, or even human.76Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡVpApGIqkge
It was clinical.76Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡiUOQjhQqKz
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.76Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡ3drgf2WVLO
No.76Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡdgKL6Gfijt
This wasn’t just her seeing the rift.76Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡ9I3S3dTa5m
The rift… had seen her.
and then Add to home screen.