To Kara, the worst part of the Phantom Zone isn't the phantoms, it's the cycle. They come, they make relive her worst memories, they torture her with visions of her dead loved ones, they twist things so that everything bad in her life is her fault, and then they leave. They move on to somewhere else, someone else, and leave her wondering what's real. If they'd just stay, maybe she could waste away into nothing faster, but they give her just enough hope for it to hurt more and more every time. The phantoms leave, and just when Kara feels like she's regaining her grip on reality enough to keep moving, they return, punishing her for thinking she might escape. Reminding her that she's powerless here in more ways than one.
Kara laid at the bottom of the ravine, trapped there since Rao knows when, staring up at the gray sky. She tried to remember what it was like the last time she saw the sun. Had she even noticed it? She spent so much of her life thinking about the stars - the way they looked different from Krypton than they did on Earth. The way they shined when Kenny took Kara stargazing that fateful night on Earth-38. The way Alex asked her about them on the night's they'd go up to the roof with Kenny's telescope to look at the sky and honor his memory. Kara spent her whole life thinking about stars, especially two in particular. Krypton's red sun, which Kara missed so much, and Earth's yellow sun which gave her superpowers and helped her turn her tragedy into something meaningful. She owed everything to the sun, her home culture was based almost entirely on respect for the sun, and she couldn't even remember the last time she truly took time to appreciate the one she lived under. There's nothing she wouldn't give now for just one ray of sunlight.
Kara stared for what felt like both forever and no time at all until she realized she was feeling something else through the fog of memory, confusion, and fear. She blinked twice, trying to remember the word for this feeling. Then, it hit her. Pain. Kara felt pain all over her body, from her shoulder to her ribs and all the way down through her legs. Even breathing hurt, but Kara realized that pain was good. When the phantoms came, all she felt physically was cold. If she was in pain, they must not be here. This must be real. This might be her chance.
Starting with her toes, Kara brought movement back into her body. She felt stiff and sore, but she was able to sit up and survey the damage. She had deep cuts to her left thigh and right bicep and scrapes and bruises littering her body. She could feel the swelling in her left knee through her supersuit, and there was a shard of black rock sticking out of her abdomen. Kara hadn't fully snapped back into clarity, so she pulled it out against her better knowledge. Blood gushed from the wound, sending a wave of black dots through her vision. Kara groaned and pressed on the wound, kicking herself for doing something that stupid. "You are not helping yourself, Kara," she said to herself, gaining a bit more awareness.
After applying pressure to the wound using her cape, Kara was able to slow the bleeding enough to continue. She pressed slowly to her feet, trying her best to ignore the screaming pain from her knee. "The Phantom Zone must hate legs," she said, chuckling a little bit. Between her broken leg, Zor-El's broken ankle, and now her injured knee, Kara figured that walking was something the Phantom Zone would prefer she do less. Kara managed to get as upright as possible and looked around. There was a rock formation a couple hundred meters away with what looked to be enough room to hide. That would be her best hope of avoiding the phantoms if she wanted to stay lucid for long enough to think of an escape plan.
Kara limped toward the rocks, making it almost halfway there before collapsing into the dirt, lightheaded and so, so exhausted. Kara reached forward with her right hand as if she were going to attempt to crawl the rest of the way, but her efforts proved futile, and she sank further into the ground as she lost consciousness.
When Kara woke, all she felt was cold. "No, please. Please not now," she begged, knowing that it was useless. She squeezed her eyes shut, trying to stave off the blinding white lights and accompanying visions, but, as always, her efforts to fight off the phantom were futile.
"Are you going to try to kill me?" Kara heard her own shaking voice ask. "No, Supergirl," Lena said, anger radiating from her voice. "I'm not going to kill you. I'm not a villain." Kara fought against the Kryptonite cage as Lena turned to leave the Fortress. She stood there, surrounded by Kryptonite, unable to move, unable to follow Lena and tell her how much she loved her and wished she could take everything back. Unlike reality, nobody came to rescue Kara from her kryptonite prison. Kara felt herself getting weaker and weaker with nothing but the cold silence of the Fortress to keep her from playing her conversation with Lena over and over in her head. Eventually, Alex showed up in the Fortress with a solemn look on her face. She freed Kara from the kryptonite and faced away from Kara as she told her what had happened. After leaving the Fortress, Lena launched Project Non Nocere and almost successfully altered the minds of the population of National City until Alex found her. "I had no choice," Alex said as she explained that stopping Non Nocere had come down to launching a missile into Mount Norquay, killing Lena. Kara's heart shattered. Her sister killed her best friend who only attempted to use Myriad because of Kara's betrayal, and Kara wasn't there to stop it. "This is my fault," Kara said, choking on tears. "Yes," Alex said, words cutting into Kara like a knife. "This is all your fault."
Kara's vision flickered and the scene changed. She was in the sky, pushing against the alien ship that was seconds away from launching her sister through space. Alex tapped her hand against the glass, encouraging Kara to keep trying. Kara saw Alex's mouth form the words "you got this," and she pressed her hand against Alex's, pushing as hard as she could against the momentum of the ship. Kara felt the thrusters start to give way when the ship's defense system kicked back in and hit her with an energy blast. Kara went hurtling backwards, and the ship continued its course into space. Kara sped to catch up to the ship again when she was thrown back by a wall of flame. Kara regained her balance and opened her eyes to see rapidly extinguishing remnants of an explosion and the remains of the ship falling toward the ground. "NO!" Kara yelled, voice drowned out by the wind. "ALEX!"
Kara screamed and screamed as the reality set in. The force she exerted on the ship had caused a leak, leading to the ship's explosion. Not only had Kara not saved her sister, she had caused her death. Kara stared at the aftermath, wishing with everything in her heart that Rao would find the mercy to let Kara die with her sister. But death never came.
Eventually, the cold faded, and the white in Kara's eyes faded. She tried to sit up, but the severity of her injuries combined with the mental exhaustion brought on by the phantoms had made her too weak to move. Kara wasn't even sure if this was real. Maybe the phantoms were playing tricks on her. Maybe this brief moment of peace was the dream and the horror of watching her loved ones die was her reality. Maybe none of this had ever happened. Kara didn't believe in the reality of anything anymore, and now, without the ability to move, she was truly resigned to the will of the Phantom Zone. She let her head fall back to the ground and prayed for sleep to take her, at least for a while. If her loved ones were still alive, they would have to find a way to bring her home themselves.