Disclaimer: I don't own DC Comics, Warner Brothers, or any of their characters; however, the story idea is my own, and may not be reproduced without asking me first. But I'll probably say yes, so just e-mail me.

The Lost Years

It felt good to run.

He hadn't run in a long time, it seemed like, not just for the sake of running. To run, not because he had to, but just because he wanted to. The ground thumped beneath his feet with each footstep, loud as gunfire but simultaneously quiet in comparison to the world behind him. As he sucked in the sweet air, he listened closer to the world around him, and the sounds that had been barely audible a moment before seemed to increase in amplitude and fidelity a hundredfold. A bird cooed in a tree a mile to his left, declaring his place in the vastness of the savannah. A trickle of water gurgled through a streambed two hundred yards off to his right, the noise a defiant gesture to the cloudless skies above. The roar of a lion was too far off for even he to tell the distance from the animal to his ear, but he guessed at least a hundred miles. And that was just the noise that he first heard; shifting his ears even more, he listened harder – and heard everything. Just for a moment, as it was too much for even him – but that was why he liked it, just to remind himself that there were some things even he couldn't do.

He glanced behind himself, over his shoulder, back at the village a half-mile behind him. No one was looking his way; not that it'll matter in a minute, he thought to himself with a wry grin. He swung his head back around and began running faster.

And faster.

And faster.

He was roaring now, cutting across the grasslands with speed its cheetahs could barely match.

And he wasn't done. Not by a long shot.

He floored his mental throttle, and leapt forward like a rocket. Each step doubled his speed as the ground melted to a blur beneath him. The air pushed against his chest, harder and harder as he accelerated, until with a BANG it fell aside, only to start all over again. Now even his ears couldn't hear anything behind him. Now the world to his sides was becoming harder to see, trees and elephants and brush blending together into a blur. But he wouldn't slow down, not as long as the sun shone bright and he could see ahead.

Looking far off into the distance, he could see a small village of natives at least six or seven miles off. He watched for a moment as the women carried food atop their heads, as the men selected a cow to slaughter, as the children frolicked and played, all as if moving through gelatin. He smiled as for a second, he was brought back to a happier time in his life, back in his hometown ten thousand miles away. A place ten minutes away for him, but as impossible to go to as the home he had never known. He shook his head of the image as he banked away from the village – the few seconds he had been thinking had nearly halved his distance to it, and he had no desire to harm them with an errant sonic boom.

He headed east, pouring on the speed again as the memories that the small village had brought to mind flowed back against his will. Times as a boy playing tag in his parents' field with his best friend. Summers filled with the innocence of youth. Learning that he was far more and far less than he had ever thought he was when his father told him the greatest secret he would ever hold. Saving a young man from a sports car rapidly filling with water, ripping the roof off with his hands to pull the man free. (Ever since then, he'd wished that he had just opened the door.) Lying under a tree with the most beautiful girl he had ever known, feeling more complete than he ever had in his 16 years of living. Running away from his destiny to a great city, only to have his fathers show him the truth. Being torn from the ones he loved into an inky blackness by a man he had never known. Feeling what it was like to fly. And watching his world fall down around him.

Seeing his best friend betray him.

Seeing a man who hated him try to destroy everything he cared for.

Seeing the only girl he had ever loved lying broken on the street, like a toy some child had dropped from a building. Listening as her eyes fluttered for the last time in front of him, her heart beat its last. It sounded like a baseball landing softly in a worn catcher's mitt.

He threw the memories aside and sprinted forward, and the world bowed down around him as he moved as fast as he ever had away from everything. He screamed, a raw, bestial cry that wasn't meant for this world. The world seemed to be moving by faster than he could comprehend, yet he kept running on instinct.

Until he ran out of continent.

He slammed on the brakes, his left foot leading as he dug two deep trails through the soil, onto the beach and into the waves, where he stopped ankle-deep in the water. It steamed around his boots. Behind him, a thousand feet of earth was turned to glass in a straight line pointing right towards him. In front, the Indian Ocean stretched out forever, empty and peaceful. But even he couldn't run on water.

After all, thought Clark Kent as he lifted himself up into the sky for the return trip, I'm not God. I'm just extraordinary.