Claire pointed at the sketch.117Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡ9lykUwK5TM
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.117Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡcZkfpSUfr3
Sure, she’d just seen him “yesterday,” but that was only true for her. Not for them.
They didn’t remember yesterday.117Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡPXk8Yq5jso
She was the only one who did.117Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡjaDvZdgHrE
Again.
117Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡsAu9gRJikm
One hour ago
117Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡjFUpCPskKr
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?”117Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡVNCYeJ6MtI
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.117Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡkjO08dsEnm
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.117Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡSDp9AQvO9Y
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.117Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡW0bUXaWD9W
Standing still with eyes shut and faces to the sky.117Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡEfjyCICjps
It looked like some weird silent ritual.
And honestly?117Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡAbj2V289RC
Kinda hilarious.117Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡTDnrkLhj2g
But Claire couldn’t even smile.
Her fists were clenched, palms sweaty.
A few seconds passed.117Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡL3EjZ2m6it
Then they opened their eyes and shook their heads.
“Nothing.”
Her stomach dropped.117Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡHvudlUzAMG
Not disappointment—117Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡ4iqtheTcAF
More like that awful sensation when the last thread holding you to reality starts to snap.
“Please,” she said, softly.117Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡDzu2CmgWgC
“Tell Batman. I need help.”
Her voice was nearly emotionless.
117Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡXWj0er4bIG
By the time Batman arrived, Claire looked like someone who’d just walked out of a morgue.
Pale. Hollow.117Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡGJQDs6KvzI
As if the inside of her brain had been scrubbed raw.
She spoke without inflection. No energy for theatrics.117Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡAUsNW4V6Gg
Just repeated the same thing.117Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡu1yhndowEi
Over. And over.
She’d already said it yesterday.117Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡe8kSiUepYq
She was saying it again today.117Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡkCj6bZA2Q0
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?117Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡKIzcB19UUC
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.117Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡbj8M2Y6rug
Hearts on Valentine’s. Pumpkins in October.117Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡkrC8HHkWSS
Nothing too serious. Just scribbles for customers when business was slow.
She took a deep breath.117Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡRwBCtQ6kaC
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.117Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡlWusgguPJD
But it was exact.117Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡzVECYlf7AL
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.117Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡ75GngDa00j
All three stared.
Three different faces.117Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡuSG6agPUjt
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.117Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡR2b2Tg8WHW
The kind of serious that said:
If you tell me I made this up, I’m going to lose it. For real.
117Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡMgMj9ArO9y
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.117Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡfKiIdmEnlW
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?”117Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡLOIQqXij6h
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.117Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡAJ1OzJj5KP
117Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡKFjdGJwBFR
Claire tried to recall, but her usual nighttime habits got in the way.
She had always avoided going out at night—almost like instinct.117Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡNg7qysbxah
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.117Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡ84q0alr4uK
Here she was, explaining some urban-legend-tier nonsense to Batman. With zero proof.
“Do you get headaches? Hear voices?”117Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡPjEFc2YvQg
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.117Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡbZYw5TL56P
That wasn’t disbelief—it was a quiet, anxious kind of urgency. A desire to help, not dismiss.
Claire shook her head.117Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡsLtPuFakFL
Hard.117Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡdGAAl0GVP5
Like shaking would erase every lingering “are you just crazy?” that might be forming in their minds.117Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡrrZQzNT6lO
She was tired of being questioned. Hell, she was already questioning herself.
“Why only her?”117Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡ41Vno4W5Yw
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.117Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡV5Y2wG6ezK
His cape shifted slightly, like it was hiding the fact that even he didn’t feel so steady anymore.
He didn’t speak.117Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡnkTJLCOgEU
And somehow that silence was worse.
Claire felt it like a chill under the skin. A subtle, creeping sense of dread.117Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡVkNfpyizIZ
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.117Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡZLkO4tMUQK
It wasn’t comfort. It wasn’t analysis.117Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡFLAyXGFNJz
It was a warning.
Then he looked at Claire.
And in that moment, his gaze wasn’t warm, or even human.117Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡ5RbnSicL8E
It was clinical.117Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡDGNgWPaw6k
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.117Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡGxMf4Rr7JF
No.117Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡ05G5OCdaV8
This wasn’t just her seeing the rift.117Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡZtouT9cqxg
The rift… had seen her.
and then Add to home screen.