The flashes come quicker and quicker. The cracks of thunder become deeper, more incisive, merging into one long, shattering wave of destructive sound. If he was on shifting sands before, now he is in free fall, plummeting endlessly through a shapeless void. Gone is the plain, the comforting illusion of ground beneath his feet. But there is sound and sight, clear and vivid and agonizing. So many faces, so many voices, blurred with speed, overlapping and merging.
He sees his friends and family die, far away, then near, by his own hands, by each other's hands. He sees himself, in Metropolis, in New York, in Smallville, in a strange place that must have been home. He sees faces he thinks he should recognize, but they rush away before he is sure. So much death and so much life, over and over; the same stories with different endings, a cacophony of possibility, all pouring through his mind at once until he thinks it will surely be ripped to pieces.
He wishes for death, welcomes it. Not as death, but as an end to the pain, an end to the frantic, mad lies swirling all around him. Nothing is real. He has lost himself; he has lost his loved ones. Only shadow puppets remain, endlessly playing out their parts on invisible strings; empty, whispering echoes of the world he can no longer reach. He is spiraling down into insanity itself, and there is only one way to escape it.
"He's getting worse, not better!" Lana was close to tears, panic edging into her wide eyes. Clark's rapid, gasping breaths filled the room with their hollow sound. His face and arms glistened with sweat, despite the cool cloth his mother was using to wipe his fevered skin. Chloe and Lana stood next to each other on Clark's other side, each with a hand on his arm as if her touch could keep him from slipping away. Pete stood guard at the end of the couch, his face grave and drawn as he stared down at his stricken friend. Jonathan paced angrily by the stairs, filled with restless, vain energy. None could bring themselves to refute her, but the words hung in the empty air, challenging.
Minutes went by, silent save Clark's painful inhale and exhale, accompanied every so often by a sound that was somewhere between a groan and a whimper. His eyes darted wildly beneath closed lids, seeing visions, nightmares, dreams, that were never meant to be seen. His temperature rose farther, until even Jonathan and Martha gaped in astonishment as the cloth on his forehead began to hiss and steam. Chloe and Lana were forced to take their hands from his burning skin. The room slowly but perceptibly grew warmer around him. Martha stood up and backed away, motioning for Chloe and Lana to do the same.
"Step back," she said quietly, reluctantly. The words were like razor blades in her throat and the difficulty with which they emerged demanded that they be obeyed. The two girls instinctively backed away.
Clark's hands were formed into white-knuckled fists, his back just beginning to arch in the universal symbol for supreme agony. Jonathan stopped to stare at his son's hands, the thousands of pounds of pressure being contained in them. He let his mind just seize up, let the numb and shock protect him.
Martha watched her heart and soul being torn to shreds before her eyes. She wanted to scream, but she could not. Uncomprehending terror froze her as she stood. Her son…no…not her son. It could not happen. It was unthinkable, impossible. The very notion was too unbearable to contemplate. He could not be taken. Not her son.
There was no way that his parents could have known, of course, but they did. They knew what would happen; they saw what was happening even if they refused to accept it. Somehow they were not surprised when he gave a last, trembling exhale and relaxed completely, one arm slipping limply over the side of the couch. His chest did not rise again. Only the sweat moved on his body, sliding down in streaks like so many raindrops.
Pete felt as though his entire body had been plunged into an arctic sea when the heat stopped emanating from Clark's body. Two seconds ago his best friend and been breathing and now he wasn't. Lana screamed and fell to her knees next to Clark. Holding his face in her hands, running her fingers through his hair, she sobbed hopelessly. Chloe's face was expressionless as the moisture in her eyes spilled over her cheeks. She methodically began CPR, ignorant of the futility of her actions. And some distance away, in an exiled fortress of stone, a man, old though his years were few, sat up, forgetting the fear and the anger he had been nursing. He who had never known friendship realized that his brother was lost to him.
It works. He lets go, he gives in, and everything stops. He lets the peace settle over him, a soothing, invisible blanket of silk. So much serenity, and so deep. He realizes that the storm cannot touch him here, but he also knows that he still cannot reach the world. But as least he can see it, like Plato's shadows on the cave wall. He sees, but he does not see, himself, lying on the couch in his loft. He can hear, but he does not hear, voices, not rapid and nightmarish, but distant and quiet. He's aware of them, but they do not intrude on his own personal quiet, his own personal peace. He doesn't know if they are thoughts spoken out loud; he cannot hear so clearly. All his senses have blended into a formless awareness.
"It won't do any good, Chloe. Leave him."
"No! No, I won't! He can't…he can't…"
Chloe and Lana are near him, holding him. He cannot feel their hands, but he knows they are there. Pete stands nearby, his eyes wide. He's terrified. Why is he so afraid?
"Pete?"
He doesn't hear; none of them answer when he calls. They cannot feel him as he does them. His mother is sliding to the floor, staring, but not seeing. His father starts to go to her, but something stops him and he just looks numbly at the floor.
"No, no…not my son…he was so strong. How could it happen? No, you can't take my son…please…"
"I should have done…there must have been…how could I…I've failed him…"
"Clark, I love you! I never told you that I love you! I love you…you can't leave me…you can't leave us."
"No. I won't allow it. Breathe, goddamn you! I should have never taken you there. Oh God, I'm so sorry!"
"Why? Jesus Christ, why?"
He withdraws his attention from them, recoiling from their pain. It is not so much an action of movement as an action of thought. He doesn't move, but his awareness does. He flies, faster than anything with wings, and higher. He soars over Smallville. He's had this dream before, but now he can have it forever. A forever of freedom.
"Something's happened. God! Why wouldn't they get a doctor?"
He is wrenched back into that which he sought to escape. Lex is there, surrounded by stone, mourning the only friend he has ever known. Clark feels it, as he felt the others; he cannot run from it.
This time, rather than shrinking away, he quests out towards those he has left behind. Pain and loss and blinding grief cascade over him in a colossal torrent. He feels something besides the peace: a sudden, desperate need for those voices he can sense to be clearly audible. He wants to be able to feel them – really feel them – and really see them. He fears the separation. He does not want to fly alone. Freedom alone is no freedom at all.
But to reach them, he must pass through madness.
"Chloe…"
Pete's arms were on hers, gently drawing her back from Clark's prone form. It had only been minutes – just minutes! Emergency room doctors had revived people who had been dead for almost a half hour. Of course they did more than apply CPR; they had defribulators and drugs and IVs and…
"Why wouldn't you take him to the hospital?" She was surprised by how steady her voice sounded. Just another question, just another interview. All reporter, that was her. If only that hadn't been what had killed Clark. She thought her heart would collapse at the very thought, but miraculously it kept beating.
The Kents didn't answer. It didn't seem that they could. Lana and Pete were avoiding her gaze. They were still dazed, unbelieving. They hadn't started asking questions yet. But questions were all she had, all that stood between her and end of her world. Not Clark. Never Clark.
Then the miracle happened.
Clark gasped; one long, shuddering inhale, his spine arching off the couch, his eyes wide open, but unseeing. Heat rolled off his body in waves as the fever returned suddenly and with a vengeance. His arms clawed blindly for something to grip and Chloe started forward to hold his hand, but Mrs. Kent stopped her with an outstretched arm. Clark's father stood behind her, shaking his head in agreement.
The sharp crack of snapping wood turned her head back to Clark and she immediately saw the reason for the Kents' silent command, even if she didn't understand how they could have known. The whole back of the couch was broken off and even as she watched, Clark's fingers dug into the stuffing and tore it to shreds, splintering the wood supports like toothpicks. His other hand groped aimlessly, ripping through the planks of the floor until it hit the metal stool Mrs. Kent had brought in. The seat toppled, sending the basin of water that had been sitting on it crashing to the floor where it wobbled and rolled towards the steps. The steel legs were crushed like tin foil in his grip.
A thrashing leg took out the armrest with a snap. He panted raggedly, his mouth still open in a silent scream and his eyes rolled back into his head. She watched in horrified fascination with the others, an unseen battle.
He is back inside, back in the lashing rains of chaos and illusion. But the only way out is through. He holds on to that thought, that purpose, using it to keep the fall controlled. He fights the madness the only way he can. He neither struggles nor surrenders; he simply accepts. He rolls with its blows, letting it flow over and through him. He sublimates panic, frustration, anger – everything. Except purpose.
Riding out the storm, he begins to see truth in the lies and reality in the illusion, threads of logic lacing chaos. The things he sees are possibilities, and in that sense they are neither true nor false; they simply are. But beneath the endless forking paths, there are commonalities, foundations. The chaos is not random, and the pattern, when understood, is all the more dazzling for its endless complexity.
He sees the home he has never known, the family he has never met, the life he could have had. He sees his heritage; life from death, creation from destruction. He sees himself, he sees the hero, who is nothing more than a man. He sees a future, one of a million million possibles and the choices and non-choices that form it. Ultimately, he sees the essence of destiny, those facts he cannot escape, that he would not want to escape.
These things are true; they are real. Illusion is not false, but a facet of truth. He understands the visions, and with understanding comes control. He seizes lightening, captures wind, contains thunder. He channels the power he now understands is his. He makes his way back to what he left, the storm dissipating in his wake.
Finis