Vines lifted Batman's cloak and set him down on the ground. Poison Ivy jumped down from the rooftop, stood before Batman, straightened her clothes, planted one hand on her hip, and said, "Why are you wearing that outdated outfit again? Where's your armor?"
"I'm not Batman from this universe," Batman denied. "Batman from your universe isn't dead either. He just needs to recuperate. I need to go inside the hospital and take a look."
"No, you'd better not go in." Poison Ivy said, "There's something terrifying in there. I went through a lot of trouble to lure those crazy plants here. If you get yourself killed inside, don't say I didn't warn you."
"Something terrifying? What is it?" Batman frowned slightly.
"A vortex." Poison Ivy glanced back at the hospital building and said with lingering fear, "Actually, I don't know what it is either. The rooms and hallways in this hospital form a massive vortex that draws everything around it in. Once you enter, there's no way back out."
Batman recalled his desperate flight through the snail shell and those bizarre streetlights. "Is a vortex some kind of particularly significant image?"
"I don't understand any of this mystical nonsense." Poison Ivy shook her head. "But I do know it's a very eye-catching pattern. Whenever I see one, I can barely look away. Maybe that makes it special."
"Of course it's special." Batman did not deny it. He remembered the curtains patterned with vortices he had seen while climbing onto the balcony. They had indeed been attention-grabbing. His gaze would drift toward them unconsciously, and staring at them too long made him lose focus.
Those eyes... Batman recalled seeing those eyes in the thick fog as well. He had deduced that the longer they stayed in one place, the more eyes