He did not sleep that night.
Not because he was afraid to—fear was still something distant, abstract—but because rest required surrender, and surrender required trust. He had learned enough in a short span of time to know that trust, here, was a resource to be spent carefully.
Instead, he entered a state between motion and stillness.
The abandoned building he chose was taller than the last, its upper floors hollowed out by neglect but structurally sound. He settled near the center of the roof, away from edges and lines of sight, back against a low concrete housing that blocked wind and shadow alike. From there, Gotham spread outward in a jagged panorama of light and dark.
He watched it breathe.
The city never truly slept. It only shifted which of its hungers were allowed to speak. Sirens cried farther apart now. Traffic thinned into long, lonely streams. Somewhere, music pulsed behind closed doors, defiant and temporary.
And beneath it all—fear. Not sharp, not immediate, but constant. A low-frequency signal woven into the city's bones.
It resonated with something inside him.
Not harmony.
Recognition.
The pressure he carried felt heavier tonight, no longer content to remain a passive presence. It pressed outward gently, testing the limits of containment the way water tests a dam. He adjusted his breathing, posture tightening almost imperceptibly, spine straightening, chin lowering.
Balance, he reminded himself.
But balance required understanding, and understanding required memory. And memory was still sealed.
That absence had begun to feel like a wound.
He touched his chest lightly, fingers resting over the steady rhythm of his heart. It beat strongly, evenly—too evenly. The body was healthy. Optimized. Built to endure far more than it had been asked to so far.
Why?
The question formed fully this time, sharp and undeniable.
Why did this body know how to ration food?
Why did it understand angles, shadows, escape routes?
Why did space respond to him as though it were waiting for instruction?
No answers came.
Instead, the images returned.
A vast battlefield under a sky choked with ash.
A single figure standing against impossible odds, posture unbroken.
Eyes that saw through deception and chose silence as a weapon.
A woman's hands tracing symbols in the air, voice calm as she spoke of seals meant to hold gods.
The pressure surged in response to the images, agitated now, as though proximity to memory stirred it dangerously. He cut the connection immediately, grounding himself in sensation again—the cold of concrete, the distant hum of generators, the faint vibration of the city's pulse through steel and stone.
Contain.
The word no longer felt like advice.
It felt like law.
He understood something then, with clarity that chilled him: whatever he was, whatever he carried, existing was an act of effort. A constant negotiation between restraint and release. Between being and becoming.
Other people simply existed.
He maintained.
The realization settled heavily, reshaping the way he looked at the city below. Gotham was not cruel because it chose to be. It was cruel because it was overburdened—too many pressures, too many unresolved tensions, all straining against fragile systems.
It survived through imbalance.
So did he.
Perhaps that was why the city tolerated him. Why it hesitated instead of rejecting him outright.
They were alike in that way.
As dawn approached, the pressure eased slightly, as if acknowledging the understanding. He allowed himself to close his eyes then—not to sleep, but to rest his awareness lightly against the edge of unconsciousness.
Dreams brushed against him.
Not stories. Not memories.
Possibilities.
Doors that opened into darkness and light alike.
Worlds that bent instead of breaking.
A sense of standing at a boundary, holding it closed not with force, but with presence.
He woke fully when the sun crested the horizon, its light cutting across rooftops and windows like a verdict. The city stirred again, its daytime mask slipping into place.
He stood slowly, joints silent, body responsive.
Today would require movement. Resources. Decisions.
And beyond all of that, something heavier still pressed on him—not hunger, not fatigue, not fear.
Responsibility.
He did not know who had given it to him.
He only knew he carried it now.
Far away, in a realm where death waited patiently for all things, Death of the Endless smiled faintly, sensing the strain of a being who should not yet understand such weight.
Oh, she thought gently.
You're going to be interesting.
The boy turned toward the edge of the roof and stepped down into the waking city, unaware that his simple act of continuing had already altered the balance of things.
Existence itself leaned, just slightly, to accommodate him.