Smallville and all of its related elements are copyright © 2001 - 2007 Tollin-Robbins Productions, WB Television and DC Comics. Superman created by Jerry Siegel and Joe Shuster.

Freak

It's probably one of the most terrifying prospects I've ever had to consider. I mean, when you think about it, no matter how good natured a person was before the meteor exposure, they always become… unstable. There were so many people that I used to be friends with and the next thing I know, wham, they're pinned up on my Wall of Weird, certified murderous psychopaths.

I didn't always think this way, though; there was one person who completely changed how I viewed meteor freaks. He was this introverted, well meaning farm boy, who, despite the odds, would save people—everyone… anyone.

Clark Kent.

Okay, so, yea, I was in love with him. Lana had given Metal-boy a get-out-of-freak free card when she was smitten with him… but then again, it had been his powers that had cleverly manipulated her into feeling that way. Clark forgave Alicia Baker time and time again for her psychotic episodes—try to kill Lana? That's okay. Kidnap me and force me to marry you? Happens to the best of us.

Given his circumstances, he must have been willing to bend over backwards for any girl willing to love him despite…

Well, that's it though, isn't it? For me, Clark's powers, his abilities, his cryptic origins, have never been a despite. They only added to the charisma that is Clark Kent.

Erm… I must have toppled off my train of thought a while ago. Let me try again.

When I thought that Clark Kent was that one in several dozen, the single meteor freak using his powers for good rather than evil, I have to admit, I was swayed. I figured that they couldn't all be that bad, because Clark wasn't. Meteor freaks are just unfortunate people who are different, and the choices they make are the result of their own faulty human wiring, not a result of the powers they've been given.

I've been forced to reevaluate the situation.

Clark's an alien. His inexplicable need to do good isn't still there even though his DNA has been mutated by radioactive rocks. Clark is a case all on his own; there is no one on Earth to compare him to.

So I've returned to my original conclusion. Meteor freaks are crazy. They're crazy because they're meteor freaks; the thing that the Kryptonite does to their bodies, it changes their abilities, and it warps their minds. They lose their grasp on reality, their handle on right and wrong, and they punish people.

It's painful to consider that someday, probably someday soon, I'll be one of them.

The notion of my loosing my sanity has lurked just around the corner since I learned about my mother. She sits in a mental institution, rotting away, and the doctors point at her and say you're next.

"It's genetic," they had explained. "However, it's a recessive trait, so unless your father had a similar marker."

"We can do tests," they'd said. I had just about run from the room. I didn't want to hear about how I had a 50 chance of receiving this gene from my mother. I didn't want statistics, or genetic tests, or dragging my father into this laboratory to see if he had the trait, too. I didn't want any of it.

I wanted to run. I needed to run away from the prospect that my most valuable possession, my mind, my consciousness, my sense of self, might be another person about to abandon me.

My own sanity might be my mother, leaving me when I was twelve years old. It might be my security, my college fund, ripped away by Luthorcorp. It might be Clark, out growing me and falling in love with the girl next door.

And now, I turn another page in the story of my life; the next page is more frightening than the last. More ominous; it's like an angry mob chanting for my head to be mounted on a post in front of the palace. It's wondering if this sunrise is your last.

I woke up one day, in my bed, and it seemed like it should have been a day like any other. I was pumped to aid Clark in his quest to save the world. I was excited to see Jimmy, my new boyfriend, which, in and itself thrilled me, because that meant I was starting to have feelings for this surrogate love-of-my-life.

I wander into the Talon and hear Jimmy professing his love to me, in a very enthusiastic, romantic, and more than slightly distressed way. The saving the world situation for the day is none other than finding Chloe Sullivan and bringing her home.

Wait… what?

So, according to the over-eager photographer and his wide-shouldered friend, I've been missing for over a day.

A day. In normal instances, of course, a day passes without a second thought. I've had like 7000 of them in my whole life, so why should one blacked out day make much of a difference?

My mind raced immediately to the image of my mother in a white room, looking so desolate, so lost. I felt lost like that for a minute; a whole minute of thinking that this was it, it was starting now—I was loosing my mind at last. Then, Clark reminded me about how there had been strange kidnappings with the exact same modus operandi—abducted and then returned with no memory of the incident.

There was a momentary rush of relief.

However, the pattern of quick fire emotions that had been plaguing me since I'd awoken continued as I realized the real reason that I'd been taken.

I was a meteor freak. I was a meteor freak.

I'm a meteor freak.

I'd never really given destiny a second thought before that. Sure, in passing, I'd remarked that Clark and Lana were meant to be together (obviously I was proven wrong by the impending nuptials), but fate isn't something a high school girl contemplates. Or even, a kid in college, struggling through an internship at a high profile newspaper.

But now, the thought crossed my mind. It did more than cross my mind, really, it fell down from a million feet above and left a gaping crack across my mind.

I stopped sleeping. It was hard for me to get through each day knowing that it was true.

I was destined to end up like my mother.

Whether by genetics, or by some weird, alien rock induced scrambling of genetics, I realized that the same white room that my mother occupied was soon going to be my home.

The look of emptiness that haunted her face would plaster itself across my own face.

My destiny, my future as determined by some force out of our control, was to have no future.

I'm starting to realize that I'm nothing… nothing but a freak.