Deep in the woods outside Midvale, well into the witching hour of the night, all was not as it should have been. The woods, usually uninhabited besides squirrels and deer, had a visitor. The Kryptonian pod still steamed as it settled into the ground, a trail of splintered trees in its wake. Its inhabitants, unaware of what was happening, continued to slumber peacefully- for a few more minutes, anyway. The pod began its bio scans, scanning the atmosphere, the biosphere, nearby life forms, and the vitals of its inhabitants. After confirming what needed to be confirmed, the recorded voice of Alura Zor-El spoke, though both the real Alura Zor-El and the language had been dead for over thirty years.
"Location: Earth. Mission completed. Hibernation deactivated."
Inside the pod, Kara Zor-El held her baby cousin, still clutching him to her chest, though both of them floated in water. In order to sustain their hypersleep, the pod had flooded itself after about a year in the Phantom Zone, filtering water out of the space around it. Her eyes remained closed, and she leaned her head back contentedly, not breathing, as her body was supported by the pods bio-monitors. For thirty-three years, three weeks and four days, they had been her only company, the monitors and the small body of her baby cousin. Kara Zor-El had lived a beautiful, privileged childhood, until the day she was dragged from her bed in the middle of the night, had her life's mission screamed at her as she was pulled from the streets, dodging debris, hugged both her parents goodbye, and was launched into space forever. Her baby cousin, the sole reason she'd been saved, had fallen asleep within the first hour, tears streaming down his dirty face, and the hypersleep had taken him.
But Kara Zor-El had not fallen asleep, refused to allow herself to drift off, refused to allow her and her baby cousin to aimlessly drift through space, with nothing to protect them. She'd felt the shockwave, she knew they'd been knocked off course, knew how to read the coordinates she'd been given. She did not, however, know how to steer the ship back on course, or even what her course was supposed to be. So she sat still, holding her baby cousin and looking out onto miles of pitch black space, for three days. For three days she got progressively hungrier, progressively thirstier, progressively more exhausted, for her pod could not support her if she was not in hypersleep.
On the third day, after gingerly placing Kal-El, her cousin, on the console, she began pounding on the glass, screaming, sobs racking her small body as she attempted to break out of her prison. She was, of course, unsuccessful. After decades, she finally stopped, hugging her baby cousin to her chest as she collapsed in exhaustion, finally closing her eyes. She did not open them again for thirty-four years, simply drifted.
Now, however, the glass surrounding the pod broke. The locks holding it on separated. Water poured out of the pod, quickly soaked up by the ground beneath it. The squirrels and deer seemed to stop to watch as the young woman in the pod shivered, then took her first breath for more than three decades, and gave a cough as the dry, pine-scented air filled her lungs.
Kara Zor-El's beautiful blue eyes sprung open.
Hey, thanks for reading! What did you think? Should I continue? I plan to update biweekly, on Wednesdays and Fridays- though I may be switching to Mondays and Fridays, I'll let you know after the next chapter. Thanks so much for reading, hope you enjoyed!