Hunger arrived without urgency.
It was not the sharp, animal demand that clawed at the stomach and narrowed the world into a single need. It was quieter than that—an accounting. A reminder issued by the body rather than the mind. Calories required. Water balance trending low. Rest accumulating as debt.
He acknowledged it the way one acknowledged weather: noted, respected, but not obeyed blindly.
The abandoned floor above the bookstore held the stillness of a place that had been emptied carefully, not destroyed. Shelves had been removed without tearing the walls. The dust lay evenly, untroubled. It smelled faintly of paper ghosts and old glue. The kind of place people left because the world had moved on, not because something had gone wrong.
He preferred places like this.
He rose and crossed the room, testing boards with measured pressure. Each step landed where the floor was strongest, weight distributed efficiently. At a window, he peered down into the alley, watching shadows slide as clouds passed overhead. No movement. No voices. The city was busy elsewhere.
He drank from a bottle he'd taken earlier, the water cool and clean enough. He rationed it instinctively, though he did not yet know how long he would need to make it last.
Food would be next.
Not stealing—stealing required confrontation eventually. Not begging—begging surrendered leverage. There were other ways. Waste streams. Overproduction. Places where abundance leaked through cracks of indifference.
He planned routes in his head, correlating time of day with discard schedules. The plan assembled itself without effort.
That disturbed him.
He paused, hand resting against the window frame, and listened inward.
The pressure was there, as always—vast, patient. But layered atop it now was something sharper, more refined. A discipline that treated hunger as a variable to be managed, not a master to be obeyed. A mindset that had survived long campaigns where supply lines failed and weakness meant death for others, not just oneself.
He did not know where it came from.
He only knew it worked.
He left the building shortly after, moving with the crowd but never part of it. At a side street near a cluster of restaurants, he found what he expected: bags set out early, contents untouched. He selected carefully, avoiding anything spoiled, anything messy. Wrapped bread. Unopened fruit. Enough.
He ate on a rooftop two blocks away, back to a wall, eyes scanning even as he chewed. The food tasted like nothing in particular. He ate anyway, efficiently, stopping before fullness dulled his senses.
Appetite was optional.
Function was not.
As afternoon wore on, something else surfaced—fatigue, not of the muscles but of attention. Sustained vigilance carried a cost. He recognized it and adjusted, finding moments of low-risk stillness. He rested without sleeping, allowing awareness to widen rather than sharpen.
That was when the city pushed back.
A ripple of unease moved through the streets below—not panic, not alarm, but curiosity edged with discomfort. A group gathered near the bookstore entrance, voices raised in irritation. A delivery truck idled too long. A patrol car slowed as it passed, officers scanning with habitual suspicion.
He felt it like pressure on the skin.
Not directed at him.
Yet.
But something in the fabric of the place had shifted. His presence, minimal as it was, had begun to register. Not as threat. As irregularity.
He adjusted again.
He changed buildings before dusk, selecting a structure closer to noise and movement—places where attention diffused rather than focused. He avoided patterns, varied routes, crossed streets at irregular intervals. He made himself forgettable.
Still, the sensation followed him.
Not pursuit.
Recognition without understanding.
As night approached, the pressure within him stirred more restlessly. It did not demand release. It anticipated it, the way a storm anticipates lightning. He felt the edges of space soften more often now, responding to his proximity. The world grew… responsive.
He disliked that.
On a quiet stretch of street, he stopped suddenly, stepping into a narrow gap between buildings. He closed his eyes, centered his breathing, and pressed inward—down, past awareness, into the vastness coiled beneath.
Contain, he reminded himself.
Not suppression.
Balance.
The pressure settled, reluctantly. The air around him firmed, space reasserting its boundaries.
When he opened his eyes, the street was unchanged. People passed. Cars rolled by. The city continued its endless argument with itself.
But somewhere far beyond Gotham's skyline, something ancient marked the adjustment.
The anomaly was learning restraint.
And restraint, in a universe governed by stories, was far more dangerous than rage.