Terror.

Guilt.

Anger.

Shame.

If I hadn't been a science genius, this would never have happened.

If I had thought about the possible consequences of my actions, this would never have happened.

If I had died during the experiment, this would never have happened.

I sort of wish that I had died.

It would have been better than the horrific reality that currently unfolds in front of my eyes.

Alien spaceships fly above me, firing disintegration rays that annihilate anybody they touch.

There are very few people left for them to touch.

No heroes remain left to fight.

Our celestial defenses, comprised of seven of our strongest fighters, were swatted aside like flies.

Superman, Wonder Woman, Martian Manhunter, both Green Lanterns, Hawkgirl, and Captain Marvel, and they swatted them aside without even a thought.

The rest of the League fell quickly. We lost Green Arrow and Doctor Fate within moments of the aliens landing. Hawkman, Black Canary, and Captain Atom were lost soon after.

Batman, Flash, and Red Tornado were the last to fall. I watched my uncle die giving his life to save Batman, and yet Batman fell less than a minute after. Every single member of the Justice League was taken out in less than ten minutes.

Aqualad dispatched us throughout the world soon after that, but once we located the mothership, we all ended up in the exact same place - Central City.

Of course it would be my hometown.

We lost Blue Beetle, Wonder Girl, Lagoon Boy, and Superboy within seconds of reaching the mothership. We fought well, better than we ever had before as a unit, and yet after even less time, we met the exact same fate as the League.

Aqualad had given his life protecting Artemis. She was still alive and fighting, but she was one of the few. Losing Miss Martian hurt the worst - she was the glue that held us together, and not just thought the mind link.

After three minutes, only Artemis, Impulse, Nightwing, Zatanna and I remained fighting. The others were all gone.

We tried to form some sort of plan, but we were so clouded by grief that we could barely even think, and we knew there were only more deaths coming.

Then Zatanna got shot.

Artemis screamed, Impulse ran, and Nightwing dropped to his knees.

And I stood there, just watching it all, and that was how I saw the protégé of the Batman give up.

"End this, please. I can't handle it anymore. I'm not like Bruce, I can't just shrug off these losses. End it."

The aliens obliged him, and I watched my best friend disintegrate into nothing.

Bart suddenly reappeared, running at top speed towards the mothership. He had picked up the tactic from watching Flash use it in the League's famous battle against the Brainiac-Luthor monster.

He was shot before he got anywhere near it.

Artemis and I were the only ones left fighting. She fired her bow, and I ran, annihilating everything I could touch. These aliens didn't deserve to live, and we both knew it. They had taken everything from us - everything we had, everything we knew, everything we loved - except each other. And we both knew that it was only a matter of time before one of us was lost too.

I heard a scream, and I stopped dead in my tracks, whirling around to see Artemis, broken bow on the ground next to her, with an alien's gun held to her head.

"I love you, Wally!" And then she was gone.

I run. I run without knowing where I'm going or why I'm going there. Screams tear from my throat, but I don't even know that I'm making a sound. The aliens have taken everything from me, and I'm too broken to even continue fighting. So I run, because it's the only thing I still know.

That morning, I had woken up with Artemis in bed next to me, snuggled close to me like she always was. I had smiled and slowly slipped out of bed, going to make breakfast for the two of us.

I surprised her with breakfast in bed - scrambled eggs, bacon, toast, and orange juice. She smiled and kissed me, her messy, golden hair down and her gray eyes shining.

She ate it with me snuggled next to her while we watched the morning cartoons, laughing at every childish thing that we had used to love as children. She may have not had much of a childhood, but she loved them all the same, just as every other child did. It was a Saturday, so we just stayed in that morning, cuddling and laughing.

And then we got Aqualad's alert, and everything went to shit.

I look up at the sky, still amazed that it's only two in the afternoon. The skies are red and black from the fire and smoke, and Earth looks like it's descended into the pits of hell.

I keep running. I've given up, and I don't know where I'm supposed to go. I've watched all of my friends die, including my best friend, and I've watched my girlfriend get shot in cold blood by an alien. I have nowhere to run and nobody to run to, and I'm broken.

Artemis had been my everything, and I'm ashamed to admit to myself that I can't even think about the death of anybody else. I've watched Dick Grayson, my best friend, disintegrate into nothing. I hadn't personally been there for the death of my uncle, but I've watched it. I've seen my cousin get shot, and I can't think about anything but Artemis.

The way she looked with her hair down. The way her eyes would shine when I made a funny joke, even though she pretended that it wasn't funny. The way that she would wake up in the middle of the night and snuggle even closer to me, never knowing that she was waking me up. I would just smile to myself and hug her a little tighter, and she would never even notice. I was never going to have that again.

And then suddenly the scene changes. I'm not running anymore, but I don't even notice that as I look around.

I see the pile of ash that is Earth, and I see everybody that I love lying on it.

Connor and M'gann, next to each other through the end, lying in pools of blood.

Bart and Barry with cuts and bruises all over their tortured bodies.

Kaldur, missing an arm, slowly bleeding out into the ash.

And then I reach the bottom of the giant pile of rubble I've been looking up at, and I look into the eyes of Dick Grayson.

"Why didn't you save us, Wally? This is all your fault. You could have stopped this, but because you became Kid Flash, you brought the aliens here. You never should have performed that experiment. That was what brought them here. They've been traveling here since you did it, and now that they're here, everybody that you care about lies dead or dying on a pile of ash and rubble. Wally, if you hadn't done this, you could have saved us." He nods at me. "You could have saved her."

His eyes close, and I realize that there's one face I haven't seen yet.

I look down at the broken body in my arms to see the face of Artemis Crock.

Her once-beautiful hair is covered in ash and blood, and her uniform is in shreds. There are cuts all over her, and she looks like she's taken a bath in blood. There are bruises all along her face, her neck, and the rest of her body.

"Who... why?"

"Well, you, of course, Mr. West."

I look over to see the face of Vandal Savage.

"Of course you're here. You're going to live through this."

"Indeed I am. But that's not the important thing right now. Mr. West, Mr. Grayson was telling the truth. The aliens were attracted to this planet by your experiment, and this is what happened. All of your friends are dead, and it's all. Your. Fault."

I drop to my knees and scream.

"And now, Mr. West, that you have seen what you've done to your loved ones, you may join them."

I nod.

I deserve this.

I really do.

It's The Exercise all over again, but this time it's for real, and it's my fault.

I look at Savage.

"I'm ready to die now."

I promise, this will all make sense eventually. The story is called "Nightmares" for a reason...

Reviews make me happy. Please make me happy.

- JT