Chapter 3

A shrill ringing, the second bell, filled the quad swarming with kids. Clark watched as the other kids ran for the white brick buildings, but he couldn't follow. His legs wouldn't move. He was going to be late and Principal Reynolds was not going to be happy with him.

Out of nowhere, Chloe appeared. She grabbed him by the arm and started pulling. "Come on Clark. We've got to hurry."

Clark opened his mouth to explain that he couldn't move, but apparently that had passed with Chloe's tug at his arm. "I couldn't move out there. Are we heading to the Torch?"

"Please don't tell me you forgot about today. Geometry, golf hole demonstration, you did bring the model?" Chloe said.

"We haven't even started building the model," Clark hissed. "The presentation isn't for weeks."

Chloe froze in front of the classroom door and laughed. "Please, stop joking. I see the model. You were just trying to scare me, weren't you." She stepped back and ushered Clark in.

Instead of the Daily Planet hole they'd discussed, a red and green glowing model was taking up the front half of the classroom.

"And now we have meteor madness hole to be demonstrated by Mr. Kent and Ms. Sullivan," Mr. Carter announced.

Clark shook his head and turned to face the class, but it wasn't just the geometry class. The entire school was sitting out there watching. Chloe shuffled past him no longer in her usual school attire but in a floor length red sequined dress and flashy ruby and diamond jewelry. She grinned and gestured Vanna-White-style to the model golf hole. "I can't," Clark whispered. A little putter appeared in his hand, the cold metal heavy as lead in his fingers. Even this far from the glowing rocks, Clark could feel the weakness and sickness eating at him. He slowly backed away from Chloe's beckoning figure. Nausea washed through him and the rocks seemed to flash brighter, almost mocking his efforts to get away.

"He's scared of the hole," Whitney sneered from the crowd. Lana, still beautiful but somehow empty and harsh, draped herself across his arm and started laughing and pointing at Clark. "What a freaking dork."

Like a deafening roar, the audience joined in Lana's laughter, pointing and jeering.

"ThEy'Re aLL juSt cATtle, StupiD hErd aNimalS. hOw CaN yoU sTANd iT? SoMEonE shoulD shOW tHem hoW sTupid TheY all Are," the voice of Clark's nightmares called.

The hideous broken voice had emerged from the shadows, first from one side of the room, then another. Clark threw his putter at the last location of the voice. "What the Hell are you? Get out of my head!" Clark screamed.

He was answered by silence, perfect and unbroken. The crowd was not jeering any longer. Clark turned slowly and bile rose in his throat. They were all dead, chests ripped open, hearts gone. The empty pairs of eyes stared at him, accusingly. Clark squeezed his eyes shut and whimpered hollowly. "Stop, please. I won't let you do this. You don't get to hurt anyone."

A cool hand slid along Clark's back, and a rancid wind blew past his ear.

"eMBraCe iT. DO yoU taSTe IT?"

A coppery flavor, warm and thick filled Clark's mouth. His eyes flew open and he was facing a mirror. A horrible grinning version of himself, red tissue, the miniscule remains of a hundred hearts, stuck in his teeth and blood dripping from his chin, was glaring back at him. Clark looked down, and his shirt was covered in blood as were his hands. The red substance was ground under his nails. The reflection was him and the taste in his mouth...


Clark awoke to the sound of his own screams. He sat up in the gently waving pasture grass where he'd been with the heifers the evening before. The last waking moment he remembered, he'd been patting the cow, Alice. Another dream, just another dream, that's all it was. Clark gasped, sobs choking him. "I'm going completely insane." He reached a trembling hand up to verify that it wasn't covered in blood like he'd dreamed but... Clark stared for a long moment, not willing to accept what his eyes were telling him. His hands were red stained and sticky. Flesh was jammed under the nails. "No, he whispered raggedly." It was just a dream though! He had to still be dreaming. This couldn't be real.

The early morning wind shifted and a warm, ripening sweet smell hit his nose. So very afraid of what he would find, Clark stood and turned slowly. The carnage that greeted him was so much worse than he expected. A dozen cows lay dead, their hearts ripped from their bodies, the gray twilight turning the copious pools of blood, black in the field. Clark stumbled in shock towards the cow's little watering hole and waded up to his knees. He could see his wavering distorted reflection, and it sickened him. He was coated thickly in blood. It matted his hair, stiffened his shirt, and clotted in his eyelashes. He vomited into the water, brown and gray chunks of flesh, the remnants of those cows' hearts.

The crimson sun rising behind him, Clark scrubbed at the dried blood, submerging himself over and over in the murky water until it shared the stain of blood in its rosy tinge. "I'm sorry," he whispered over and over. Not able to bring himself to look back at what he'd done, Clark rested his head on his knees in the shallow water and sobbed uncontrollably. He was out of control, dangerous. He needed help. Someone had to be able to help him, to fix what had gone wrong in his brain that would make him do something so horrible.

Rising from his spot in the stagnant pool of water Clark wavered indecisively. He wanted to go home, to curl into his mother's arms and sob. He wanted to beg her to make it stop, make it better. Clark squeezed his hands into tight fists and shook his head. He wasn't five though, and he knew that his parents couldn't magically solve his every problem.

Going home wasn't an option anymore. What if it happened again? But this time it happened at home while he was acting the baby and crying to his mother. What if the voice came back and he killed his parents or Lana or Chloe or Pete? He couldn't go home, and he couldn't go to a hospital or a psychiatrist. How could he get help, when he was so damn unstoppable that he might murder anyone who tried to help him? Clark ran his hands back through his dripping hair and just screamed his frustration until his lungs ached.

Tired in his heart and mind, Clark bit back the sobs welling in him and took a slow step away, away from the carnage and the smell of his vomit. He took a step away from home and the horrible possibilities that awaited him there. The one mocking truth tormenting him, he needed help and there was no one and nowhere to go to for it.


"I can't believe Clark stayed out all night," Martha said. "I can't go to work not knowing what happened or where he was." She dropped into her seat at the kitchen table and aggressively buttered a piece of toast. "I swear he's trying to worry us to death."

Jonathan smirked and downed his cup of coffee. "Somehow I don't think Clark is maliciously trying to frazzle you or me. He's going to come wandering through that door in a couple of seconds apologizing. It's Clark, Martha."

"I don't doubt that, and I know, but it doesn't change the fact that he did this. What on earth is going on in his head?" Martha said. "He's acting like a teenager again."

"Scary isn't it," Jonathan said with a grin. The last time Clark had stayed out all night, he'd shown up the next morning, Lana in tow. That had been a shock, and Jonathan had almost thought he missed the chance to give his son the "responsible sex" speech. "Honestly, Clark is probably out brooding somewhere about the whole dream journal thing. It seems to be bothering him, so we just need to stick around and talk this out with him when he makes his appearance."


Walking forward with no destination except away, Clark moved through the woods. I'm insane, a killer, out of control. The malicious voice inside him was him... The reflection in his dream didn't lie. He was the killer, the insane one, and there was no one who could help him. No one was safe as long as he walked the Earth. Clark froze, that realization leaving him empty and terrified. If he wanted to keep everyone safe, he would have to end his life. He sank to his knees and laced his fingers into his hair, pressing at his skull and the brain that was betraying him. "I don't want to die." He didn't want to be responsible for killing anyone else either.

What if he lost control again and what if this time he didn't wake up? "I have to be strong here, not selfish." Clark rose and turned toward the old foundry, a place where he knew there were plenty of meteor rocks.


"HELL firE and DamNAtION! i sMEll suicIdE iN hIs BraiN," a faceless being lurking in the shadows hissed.

"you said he was a noble one from the beginning, master," a tiny voice replied. "twas a risk you accepted by choosing him, oh powerful one."

"ThE riTuaL hAs ComE tOO fAr Now. FAiluRe iS nO lonGer an OPtioN. i hAVe Too muCH cOmmITTed iN tHis veSSel tO aBandOn it fOr aNoTher," the voice shouted. Every word was harsh and brittle like breaking glass. "I waS So clOse toNiGht. I haD hIm. tHeN tHe suN roSe anD I loST hIm. thERE wAs an iNFLux of pUre eneRgY. i caN'T eXplaIN iT."

"the ritual has never taken so long in the past. only three nights and he should have been gone, depleted. yet you have struggled for months master. perhaps we should accept the loss and choose another?" the small subservient voice coaxed tentatively.

"I wiLL haVe hiM. hE belonGs to mE noW. EscAPing iNto DEATH? i wiLL nOt alloW iT."


Stifling a yawn politely, Lex settled back in his leather desk chair and listened to the nasal voice spouting figures from his speakerphone. "Thank you, Janet. Sell the Veratec, but hold onto the Nantec until it hits 35."

"Yes, Mr. Luthor."

Absently, Lex strummed his fingers over his desk and contemplated the little things in his life, like his new company LexCorp and the beginning of his father's fiscal humbling. It would be a slow process, but ultimately beautiful in its subtlety.

"aLEXander LuTHoR, aT laSt we MeET in persOn. i hAve coMe tO knOW yOu throUGh tHE rOSe tinTED eyeS oF aN inNOCenT, buT yOu ARe noT wHAt hE sEEs. wE aRe brothers, dearEsT LEx. YOu i uNderStand."

That voice, it was harsh and uneven with the rhythm and cadence of a car with two flat tires barreling down a highway. Always silver tongued and slick, Lionel would never sound like that, but Lex could almost swear it was a perversion of his father's voice he was hearing. "Who's there? How did you get in here?" Surreptitiously, he dropped a hand into his desk drawer and wrapped a hand around the heavy little gun sitting there.

A figure, barely shimmering in the shadows, moved forward into the dim lighting of Lex's study. He stood oddly, with his head bent forward, a full head of straight white hair blocking his face from view. The stranger's clothes, a simple black suit over a black silk shirt almost looked like something you would find in Lex's own closet. "I HaVe cOme tO waRN yoU. YoUR FrIEnD, ClarK, iS in THe ProCeSS of a StupId, sTuPid dEcISioN. hE sEEks DEaTh. I hOpE yOU mIGHt KeeP HiM fRom suCH a RecKLess ChOIce."

Lex came to his feet, hand still firmly placed on his gun. It was disturbingly typical. Clark seemed to attract crazies and mutants almost as well as his would-be girl Lana. "Clark isn't the suicide type," Lex said. "How exactly do you know him? Where did you get your information?"

The man looked up and allowed his hair to fall back from his face, or lack thereof. Where his face should have been, a travesty stared out, writhing cords of shimmering inky black maggots. "i rEAd thE DEcisIOn iN HIs minD, wHilE I waS fEEdinG on hIs SOul."


Author's Note

Phew, this is darker than usual for me, and kind of fast moving as well. I hope it doesn't disappoint. Thanks to the Debster who is actually looking over this one for me. Not seat of my pants with this one.

Anyone who's also reading The Lost and wonders where that multi-chapter weekend went. I'll just say... I'm a big fat liar. sigh I was doing the family thing and writing sort of didn't happen like I thought it would. Who knew learning how to count cards with your dad could be so time consuming?

Finally, thanks for all the reviews:) I print them out weekly and burn them as an offering to my muse, Megasponge. (Not really, but you enjoyed the image, didn't you ;) )