Monsters

Summary: Clark's worst nightmare has come true. He just wanted to go home.

Rating: M for the overall story, but probably T for this chapter

Disclaimer: Smallville and its characters aren't mine. I'm just a poor student playing in someone else's toybox.

Pairings: Clark/Lex (eventually)

Prologue

There was non among the myriads of men that existed who would pity or assist me; and should I feel kindness towards my enemies? No: from that moment I declared everlasting war against the species, and, more than all, against him who had formed me and sent me forth to this insupportable misery.

--The monster from Mary Shelley's Frankenstein

"Don't leave me alone. Please, don't leave me alone again." The boy sobbed, heartbroken, when the men got up to leave the room. "Please!" And the door clanged shut behind them, leaving him in his new room alone.

He wanted them back. He wanted anyone back. He didn't care that they hurt him and scared him. Anything was better than before. It had been an accident. And they had been so angry. He had thought they were going to hurt him but instead they just left. And he had been so alone for so long. He couldn't even tell how many days had passed in solitude.

He hugged his knees to his chest and continued to cry, trying to hide his face in shame because he knew they were looking at him. They were always looking at him. He angled his body away from the mirror. He knew about those tricky two-way mirrors, he had seen them in movies. They thought he was dumb; they talked to him in slow, careful words and watched him with those wary eyes. But they had no reason to fear him; they were the ones inflicting the pain. He just wanted to go home.

He rubbed tears and snot on his white sleeve and tried to think of another way to escape. He couldn't really do anything with the bracelet on and he knew they would never take it off again. They had taken it off once so that they could shoot him and watch with awe as the bullets bounced off. But it had still hurt and in desperation, he had broken through the thick steel chains and pushed a doctor away. His father had always taught him how to control his strength so that he could be normal but he had been so scared! He hadn't wanted to make the doctor go flying. He didn't know how much blood exactly was in a human body but a lot of it had ended up splattered against the wall and leaking on the floor. They didn't have to lock him up. He was never going to use his strength again. Never.

"Clark." The noise scared him. It had been so long since he had heard a voice. He jumped, looking around. But there was no one there except for the white. Just white and white and white and the mirror. He squinted at the mirror and when he looked at it hard enough, he could vaguely see the shadow of two men sitting side by side.

"Clark, what are you doing?" The voice was calm and monotonous. "Clark, what other abilities are you hiding from us?"

"I don't know, I don't know," Clark babbled, "I don't know anything. Please. Please, I want to go home. Why am I here? Why won't you let me go home? I want to go home!"

"You can go home once you answer my questions," the bodiless voice replied. "Clark, what are you?"

They always asked him this. His philosophy teacher had asked the class that question once. What are you? And the answers had ranged from "I am Tom" to "I'm an organic being composed of 70 water". Clark hadn't known the answer then and he sure as hell didn't know it now.

"Are you hungry?" the man said, changing the subject.

"Yes!" Clark had been hungry days ago, it felt like months ago. This was one of the few questions that he knew the answer to. It still didn't change the fact that nobody fed him anything.

"How would you like to meet someone?"

"Ok," Clark immediately replied. He liked to meet people. And he never wanted to be alone again.

The door opened and Clark saw someone being dragged in. The man swore worse than a drunken sailor and Clark stared at him in shock. Swearing was bad! Two of the doctors, whom Clark had mentally named Ugly and Uglier, practically threw him in the room and then quickly shut the door.

"Clark, this is Alexander. You can express your monstrous urges on him if you'd like. He is now yours."

Monstrous urges? What exactly did those men expect him to do? The man on the floor groaned and slowly stood up. Then he practically snarled at Clark, body poised and ready to attack.

"I know you," Clark said in surprise once he got a good look at the other man. "You're dead."