Claire pointed at the sketch.18Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡxOLFO4jU50
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.18Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡrUsydPAlJu
Sure, she’d just seen him “yesterday,” but that was only true for her. Not for them.
They didn’t remember yesterday.18Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡBMveEaz34H
She was the only one who did.18Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡiHMpGDhUoN
Again.
18Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡMg8aoNTskB
One hour ago
18Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡnaIFB5fo4V
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?”18Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡoyFfm7rtGW
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.18Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡn6k12smdzZ
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.18Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡ43J0fknID3
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.18Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡZ5eAuraOI9
Standing still with eyes shut and faces to the sky.18Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡKid8oLvod4
It looked like some weird silent ritual.
And honestly?18Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡWtBqhkDPPD
Kinda hilarious.18Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡgoXXthC1iE
But Claire couldn’t even smile.
Her fists were clenched, palms sweaty.
A few seconds passed.18Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡqOoph4HVyW
Then they opened their eyes and shook their heads.
“Nothing.”
Her stomach dropped.18Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡWrp1xKeuzV
Not disappointment—18Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡUylhjMiYrL
More like that awful sensation when the last thread holding you to reality starts to snap.
“Please,” she said, softly.18Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡr2zrrSfXQh
“Tell Batman. I need help.”
Her voice was nearly emotionless.
18Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡ4sb7FD4gyL
By the time Batman arrived, Claire looked like someone who’d just walked out of a morgue.
Pale. Hollow.18Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡgSV46FGcsF
As if the inside of her brain had been scrubbed raw.
She spoke without inflection. No energy for theatrics.18Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡnQhrp6RpGQ
Just repeated the same thing.18Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡ4DNwi1RBoE
Over. And over.
She’d already said it yesterday.18Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡpC9XUIXo3C
She was saying it again today.18Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡgCpvJmw9VH
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?18Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡWjfPwKZ2S1
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.18Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡluJ9JSxIii
Hearts on Valentine’s. Pumpkins in October.18Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡjiRSXO7s8Z
Nothing too serious. Just scribbles for customers when business was slow.
She took a deep breath.18Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡba3lfXfd1g
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.18Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡEaGpXIcV8O
But it was exact.18Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡ4CrrrYorth
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.18Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡ5LKoo55Jso
All three stared.
Three different faces.18Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡ5Sc0IQWIPZ
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.18Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡDSNJ93z2tm
The kind of serious that said:
If you tell me I made this up, I’m going to lose it. For real.
18Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡDJuFRytKQJ
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.18Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡAcufRGBmCA
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?”18Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡjStnN7Hasp
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.18Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡFoGQWOPWyb
18Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡDX4SyGjikw
Claire tried to recall, but her usual nighttime habits got in the way.
She had always avoided going out at night—almost like instinct.18Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡTFIPfvTKq1
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.18Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡL43q5lYyIF
Here she was, explaining some urban-legend-tier nonsense to Batman. With zero proof.
“Do you get headaches? Hear voices?”18Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡIa9WEosn4L
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.18Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡkO754QbBoS
That wasn’t disbelief—it was a quiet, anxious kind of urgency. A desire to help, not dismiss.
Claire shook her head.18Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡXNwKYo8hSR
Hard.18Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡaFJvuVnH4j
Like shaking would erase every lingering “are you just crazy?” that might be forming in their minds.18Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡlzWRfZCC3B
She was tired of being questioned. Hell, she was already questioning herself.
“Why only her?”18Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡfeLiu5d5mW
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.18Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡTbEUDBu88f
His cape shifted slightly, like it was hiding the fact that even he didn’t feel so steady anymore.
He didn’t speak.18Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡS1DjMS3EQ2
And somehow that silence was worse.
Claire felt it like a chill under the skin. A subtle, creeping sense of dread.18Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡXmee1X7PUz
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.18Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡLrOHwVhCdB
It wasn’t comfort. It wasn’t analysis.18Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡPl0qyU6UBD
It was a warning.
Then he looked at Claire.
And in that moment, his gaze wasn’t warm, or even human.18Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡvrwRrKCEw2
It was clinical.18Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡ4g5hma35F5
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.18Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡBzfGZEC1jc
No.18Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡjmvkN21E8Z
This wasn’t just her seeing the rift.18Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡNJdHtosk5P
The rift… had seen her.
and then Add to home screen.