My name is Kara Zor-El., and I have failed.
When I was bundled into a pod and launched from the crumbling foundations of Argo City, I was tasked with a single goal – protect my cousin. Kal had been evacuated from Krypton and sent toward Earth, and he was going to need someone who could look after him. Teach him how to live on his new world, to deal with the powers that the Earth's yellow sun would give him. It didn't seem like a difficult job, given that I had spent a lot of time with my young cousin before Krypton's destruction. He knew me, he liked me, and I liked him just as well. But when my pod was knocked off course, that all went out the window. I arrived years late, crashing into the ruins of what had once been a city called Metropolis.
In my wildest dreams, though, I couldn't have imagined just how wrong things had gone before my arrival. Kal's pod had smashed into Metropolis like a bomb, killing tens of thousands and all but destroying the city. He was taken into government custody and designated Subject 1, experimented on as a potential government weapon against the two sides who had ripped the world apart with their conflict. Krypto, his beloved pet, had preceded me to the planet and been used as incentive for Kal to cooperate before being killed after attacking some big-name Earthling.
I didn't know all of this at first, of course – my pod landed and I woke from suspended animation with a dozen weapons in my face. Placed in cuffs and kept away from the sun's light, I was dragged into the same facility where Kal was kept and thrown into a cell on a lower floor. I didn't even know Kal was in the building until they told me months after my arrival – and even that knowledge wasn't a comfort but another torture. Where my cousin was imagined as a weapon, I was a test subject for them to learn more about Kryptonian biology. To learn how to control Kal, and how to make him cooperate. They would expose me to sunlight for moments at a time, allowing me to heal from the wounds they inflicted before starting anew. By the end of the first month I had lost my voice from screaming, and it never came back.
Every time the torture started they'd ask me questions – were there any other Kryptonians, did we have weaknesses, would we be willing to help the armies of the Earth destroy the Atlantean and Amazon forces. I didn't know the answers, and most of the time I was in too much pain to even comprehend the questions. Eventually they stopped asking, and found a new method of interrogation that didn't require me to talk – displaying pictures on a screen, of people and places, and measuring my reactions. That was the first time I saw Kal. My baby cousin, locked in a cell and emaciated from lack of sun and exercise. It was how I found about Krypto, faithful pet that he was, and the grisly end that he met at the humans' hands. And it was the incentive I needed to fight back, even if it was hopeless.
The men who handled me were careful, and clever, but after following a routine for long enough anyone will get bored. I don't know how long I had been in their custody when the moment finally arrived, but I was left on the operating table unrestrained. One of the sun lamps in the corner was still active, and I was siphoning just enough energy to heal the worst of my injuries. Left in the room with a single guard, I threw myself off the table and on top of him, breaking his neck with a calculated twist. His eyes widened piteously and his mouth made a curious gurgling sound, but I had no remorse. After what they had done to me, to Kal, they deserved everything they got. I snuck into the hall, still naked, and tried to decipher their language enough to navigate. The pictures they'd shown me included floor numbers, and I knew there were only two between my cousin and I.
The next two guards put up more of a fight, at least until I stole one of their weapons and pulled the trigger until they stopped moving. I had no powers, and while even touching the gun made me feel ill it was my only choice. The door to the stairs wouldn't open at first, until I realized the plastic badges the guards wore functioned as a sort of key. As I struggled to climb the stairs, a blaring noise sounded that drove me to my knees – my attack had been discovered, and the facility was on alert. The next floor was in sight when I heard a sharp crack and my leg buckled underneath me – the bullet had hit me right in the knee and lodged in the bone. I forced myself up, though, crawling and pulling my body up the stairs with both arms. When I saw dozens of legs in my path I finally stopped, looking up into the barrels of a dozen weapons, just like my first awakening. At the head of the group stood General Lane, who I had only heard mention of from the others – he didn't deign Subject Three worthy of a personal visit. We locked eyes for just a moment, and then the bullets flew.
I had known nothing but pain since my arrival on Earth, but I was surprised to find that after the first few rounds the pain stopped. I felt peace, and sadness. I was going to die, I understood, without ever seeing Kal's sweet face again. If anything remained of Krypton, I could only offer them my apologies. I'd failed to keep him from harm, failed to teach him how to live his life on Earth. And the worst part of all was that he'd never known about me, never learned that he wasn't Krypton's only survivor. And he never would.