7. Starman
CLARK
I am so scared.
I am sitting in a barn in the middle of Kansas, looking up at the stars and wondering which one of them I come from.
I look like a fifteen-year-old boy - a fairly mature one, anyway. I'm quite tall, but I don't look -different-. I am, though. I don't think other fifteen-year-olds can pick up a tractor with one hand. Or outrun a bus. Or have bullets bounce off them. Or see through walls...
I'm not normal. I don't know what I am. Mom and Dad call them 'gifts'. On nights like this, I think of them as a curse.
I've taken to spending more and more nights out here, lately. Sneaking out after my parents are asleep. I can hear Dad snoring if I concentrate, could be back in my room before he looked round the door if I needed to, and that isn't normal. Deep down, I'm still angry with them for hiding why I was different.
We have a spaceship in the storm cellar. The meteors that ripped into this town also brought me with them. I'm a goddam fucking alien.
Either that, or I'm some kind of secret project. The meteors change people. But they make me sick. Maybe I was over-exposed to them? I know one person who has the resources to help me find this stuff out. And I can't tell him. Most people blame him, his father, his factory, for all the weirdness here. I had to lie to him. And he knows it.
Chloe saw me do something, and then I had to lie to Chloe, too. And I love Chloe - I'm not sure how, like a sister, or like something more? But I know that she looks, looked, at me as a -boy-. I don't want to be a project , or one of her wall-clippings. That whole Eric thing was shitty enough.
I'm fifteen. I need to talk to -somebody-.
Lana - I need Lana to be normal. And she's the only thing holding Whitney together right now. She's a lot stronger than people give her credit for, but I can't just dump this on her - hey, Lana, remember when your parents died? Well, that was me - I need her to be there, so that I have a chance with her, as Clark, not some freak of the week family-killer. Selfish.
Pete - I need Pete normal, too. Pete encouraging me to make an ass of myself at sports, without him worrying that I'll rip someone's arm off. Ragging on me to ask girls out. Pete, who accepts most weirdness in this town, even his secret crush dating his worst enemy, but who would freak at finding out that his good buddy Clark had been holding out on him.
So - I have a choice. I can sit here, while my other two friends - the two most curious people I know, the two closest to me - put their puzzle together. Between them, they now have enough information to cause harm. To me, my family, themselves.
Or.
I need to talk to them.
=Run=, the way only I can, and the world is so beautiful at night, this may be the last time I get to enjoy it, because I'm going to change everything, a wall, and I can =see= the i-beams, a shallow net of criss-cross lines, flex my knees and =jump=.
Jump right in, because I haven't been left with a choice.
CLARK
I am so scared.
I am sitting in a barn in the middle of Kansas, looking up at the stars and wondering which one of them I come from.
I look like a fifteen-year-old boy - a fairly mature one, anyway. I'm quite tall, but I don't look -different-. I am, though. I don't think other fifteen-year-olds can pick up a tractor with one hand. Or outrun a bus. Or have bullets bounce off them. Or see through walls...
I'm not normal. I don't know what I am. Mom and Dad call them 'gifts'. On nights like this, I think of them as a curse.
I've taken to spending more and more nights out here, lately. Sneaking out after my parents are asleep. I can hear Dad snoring if I concentrate, could be back in my room before he looked round the door if I needed to, and that isn't normal. Deep down, I'm still angry with them for hiding why I was different.
We have a spaceship in the storm cellar. The meteors that ripped into this town also brought me with them. I'm a goddam fucking alien.
Either that, or I'm some kind of secret project. The meteors change people. But they make me sick. Maybe I was over-exposed to them? I know one person who has the resources to help me find this stuff out. And I can't tell him. Most people blame him, his father, his factory, for all the weirdness here. I had to lie to him. And he knows it.
Chloe saw me do something, and then I had to lie to Chloe, too. And I love Chloe - I'm not sure how, like a sister, or like something more? But I know that she looks, looked, at me as a -boy-. I don't want to be a project , or one of her wall-clippings. That whole Eric thing was shitty enough.
I'm fifteen. I need to talk to -somebody-.
Lana - I need Lana to be normal. And she's the only thing holding Whitney together right now. She's a lot stronger than people give her credit for, but I can't just dump this on her - hey, Lana, remember when your parents died? Well, that was me - I need her to be there, so that I have a chance with her, as Clark, not some freak of the week family-killer. Selfish.
Pete - I need Pete normal, too. Pete encouraging me to make an ass of myself at sports, without him worrying that I'll rip someone's arm off. Ragging on me to ask girls out. Pete, who accepts most weirdness in this town, even his secret crush dating his worst enemy, but who would freak at finding out that his good buddy Clark had been holding out on him.
So - I have a choice. I can sit here, while my other two friends - the two most curious people I know, the two closest to me - put their puzzle together. Between them, they now have enough information to cause harm. To me, my family, themselves.
Or.
I need to talk to them.
=Run=, the way only I can, and the world is so beautiful at night, this may be the last time I get to enjoy it, because I'm going to change everything, a wall, and I can =see= the i-beams, a shallow net of criss-cross lines, flex my knees and =jump=.
Jump right in, because I haven't been left with a choice.