Clark shook away the fog that was materializing in front of his eyes and snapped into action. In less than a moment, he'd surmised the situation at hand that looked grimmer by the second. None of the side windows would be big enough to pull his parents through unhindered and the windshield was a no-go as it was nose deep in muck, debris, and water. That left the truck bed, blocked by piles of thick wooden crates that sat like splintered death traps in the back, covered haphazardly by a soaked blue tarp where water was pooling and swirling, now mixed with sharp shards of glass. Deciding on the rear window, he pushed his body into "Clark-time" and spun into action. Barely glancing at the roadway, his only thoughts of a way to save his parents from the flooding and freezing car. He failed to spot two cars a few hundred feet off that would be upon the site in minutes, if that. Or the steadily worsening storms. Or the temperature plunging down the scale in not only the air and sheets of rain, but the car and water filling it as well. The day was growing more hazardous by the moment, but Clark didn't spare even a passing thought to it as he focused on his escape.
Lunging his elbow viciously through the back window, tearing away his sleeve on impact, Clark ducked through the opening and turned the bed of the truck into a graveyard of sawdust and random veggie parts. Clothes stained red with the remenants of his mother prize winning tomatoes, he wrestled the tattered tarp to the road side a good distance from the ditch. Speeding back over to the truck, Clark realized that he could never carry his parents through the opening. It just wasn't big enough, and if anything, their injuries would just be worsened from scraping the metal. Worse case, the trip through the window would kill them. Worse case, they'd break a few more bones. Without a second thought, Clark casually peeled the roof back and cleared the window of excess glass to allow himself the room he needed and set to work on his parents, making a mental note to bend it back before anyone came.
Slowing down considerably, he reached for his mother first. Snapping her seat belt like a twig in his massive palm, he took great care collasping the dash in on itself to free her leg. Scooping her up, Clark craddled his batter mother in his arms, gently rocking her and reassuring her motionless body with a lullabye she'd sing him as a child. Swinging a leg over to the truck bed, he was back in real time until he lay her down on the tarp and gently lay a kiss on her blood-stained cheek. He wipped her cheek and glanced at her angelic face. The face of the only mother he'd ever known. As far as he was concerned, the only mother he'd ever had. She was one of very few people who mattered to him, truly mattered. Clark would give anything for her. The sight of her made his heart shake and he tore his gaze away and returned to the truck before hot tears could roll down his cheek. Martha was someone that he knew he would never have survived without. He couldn't say that about many, and another of them was lying yards away in a truck, and it was time Clark return to him. Pulling his mud-soaked jeans from the ground where he knelt over her stricken form, he rose and ran flat out to the truck.
His father would definitely be more difficult to free from his tangled position in the wreak. Clark lay his left hand on his fathers shoulder to hold him in place as he wretched the steering wheel back and up, nothing more that a piece of useless plastic that was in the way. He tore it out of the car and out the back window in frustration. Repeating the exercise with the dashboard that froze his legs in place, Clark quickly did away the petals of the car as well. The car suffiently gutted and its parts were strewn helter skelter about the side of the two lane highway. All that was left was the seat belt that had shattered Jonathans' arm. Without hesitation, Clark severed its hold and unwound the fabric gingerly. 'Thank god he was knocked out,' Clark thought, knowing how much pain he would be in when he woke up.
With care one might take carrying a time bomb, Clark delicatly gathered up his father. Carrying his still form out of the wreckage, he took the walk over to the tarp slow so he could be sure not to cause further harm. Just as he was setting his father down on the tarp next his mother, a pair of cars drew up beside and several people ran whole-heartedly through the gail to reach them. A girl in her twenties pulled out a magenta Nokia and tapped in 9-1-1, hysterically relating the incident and location to a dispatcher on the other end, though most her words came out in bursts of slurred and rushed words that were almost unintelligible. The dispatcher tried to soothe the young blonde and she choked back tears long enough to get the message through. Three others, one man in his later twenties, the eldest of the group, two women rushed for the tarp. They stood for a moment, gaping at the couple lying on the ground. The dark-haired man and brunetter woman about his age stood side by side for a moment before sharing a knowing glance. These two had arrived together in a white Honda and were clad in garb few in Smallville could afford. If Clark had cared, he would have realized they were from Metropolis, and that knowing look had been one of determination, pity, and recognition. This wasn't the first accident they'd been to, something that could go either way in terms of luck. A pretty blonde joined them momentairly, but the second her bright, sapphire eyes caught sight of the tarp, she fled to her yellow Ford, her small frame wracked with sobs as her friend tried to comfort her and speak to into the phone at once. Her friend led her a distance away from the tarp that obviously wasn't just for the comfort of the quickly dissolving blonde. A wise choice, as the sight was enough to induce a similar reaction in most.
There on the tarp was Martha Kent, bloodied, bruised, tattered, and torn. Her red hair was spotted with a deeper crimson from her forehead wounds and her broken ribs and abdominal scraps soaking her shirt a similar hue. Martha's face was picture of serenity despite; her unconcious features not injuried enough to obscure her beauty and to casual observer, she might only have been sleeping, aside from the slathering of blood dribbling here and there. Jonathan was another matter entirely. He was evidently worse off and it showed. His arm stuck out a wild angle, as though untamed by the bones within. Likewise, his right ankle pitched to the side rebelliously. His chest and stomach were swollen and bruised, and he freely shed blood from his face and cuts. Needless to say, it was grotesque and unnerving. And there was Clark, off to the side, tearing apart the bottom of his shirt as he tried to stop all the bleeding all at once with limited success.
Clark looked horrible. He was soaked to the bone, parts of his clothing ripped and sopping as he tried to help his ailing parents. His muscles gleamed as the water rolled off him, his hair plastered to his head and his shoes squelching as he moved. Blue-green eyes shone with determination to help though a look of horror and terror prevailed in finding a place on his handsome features. Just now he was starting to allow thought to absorb him, thoughts filled with bitterness, depression, regret, saddness to the extreme and a number of other emotions he could have singled out if he'd tried. Clark liked action, liked to be able to help, and to his credit, he was good at it. But where medicine was concerned, Clark knew little to none and was starting to wonder if he'd even done the right thing, removing them from the car. He prayed he hadn't worsened their respective conditions, prayed they'd wake soon, prayed they'd be well and fully recover. Anguish and helplessness enveloped him and sheer panic rushed through is system. In fact, he might have exploded in rage at his inadaquecy right then and there if the sound of crying hadn't pulled him to the present and steered him away from his train of deeply pessimistic thoughts.
It disturbed him as it rose into a cresendo, violently squashing the sound of the storm around him. The shuddering breaths, the horrified sobs, the desperatness of the whole endeavor chilled him to the very bone. Whoever was crying, they needed help. They needed comfort, and that Clark could do.He wanted to give it almost as much as he needed it himself. Searching for the sound, he opened him eyes and peered through the rain to his left. There, he spied a girl sobbing as she sat on the hood of her car, drenched by the rain. But she must have been fifty feet away. Even he could have heard her sobs so clearly over the rain, feel her sadness reverberate through his very soul by the sounds the tears she shed. It had shocked him out of his thoughts, which were in turn shocked enough by the whole situation, and now he couldn't seem to shake the sound from his ears, couldn't tune it out and consentrate on what he could do for his parents. Clark's vision blurred and heart called out for the weeper, more concerned for them than he was for himself. Their pain took his mind of his pain and worry. He didn't even take notice of the couple off to his right in despertate search for the source of the heart-breaking sound. Suddenly it struck him light a bolt of lightening. It was him. He was the one crying.
The realization amazed him but the new wave of shock started to wear away and Clark sunk into his sobs, drooping into the mud on the side of the tarp. He couldn't do anything to save his parents now, and no matter how much he tried to clear away the blood, it just keep flowing. There was so much it startled him, the knowledge it came from his parents made him sick, and the fact that he couldn't hardly look at their mangled bodies didn't aid his efforts to help. Trying to force himself to stand, he was desperate to just gather them up and race them to the medical center in two seconds flat. Clark would have if he didn't think it would kill them. They were too fragile to be moved, much less accelerated to sixty miles an hour unprotected. Fear raced through as he thought he might have hurt them with his efforts to save them. His mind spun with guilt over the fact that he couldn't look at them, help them, bleed for them, even. He sunk down further into a pit of dispair as he fought for breathe, to center himself and focus. Clark only succeed in making his fit worse.
A light touch on his bicep sent a cold chill down his spine, but he didn't respond to it. Nor to the soft, gentle voice of concern that filled his ears with words unintelligible to him. Clark was numb, nearly catatonic as the brunette tried to comfort him, rubbed his shoulder to warm him, whispered reassurances in his ear. Clark knew none of them. Martha and Jonthan filled his vision, the wounds he couldn't force himself to look at moments before now a sight he couldn't tear his eyes from. A strange man now worked on them, but Clark knew that he was helping somehow, knew that he caused no need for alarm. He watched the man used his rags to try and help the Kent's, turning their heads so wouldn't catch water in their lungs as they breathed, checking their stats and whispering clamly to a barely stirring Martha. Clark didn't blink, didn't move as a blearing siren in the distance approached and came to a stop near by. Didn't speak or even register that he heard a voice as an officer tried to lead him away from the scene as paramedics swarmed his parents. The officer failed miserably. Clark wouldn't leave his parents side as the medics assessed them and worked to stablize them. He forced himself up on his feet and stuck in the ground near them, keeping a watchful eye on their still motionless bodies, and only a force of nature or act of God could have moved him.
And from the deepth of his existance, Clark cried.
The thought never crossed his mind that they might not live to see the next day.
Thoughts? Feelings? Rant on.
Lunging his elbow viciously through the back window, tearing away his sleeve on impact, Clark ducked through the opening and turned the bed of the truck into a graveyard of sawdust and random veggie parts. Clothes stained red with the remenants of his mother prize winning tomatoes, he wrestled the tattered tarp to the road side a good distance from the ditch. Speeding back over to the truck, Clark realized that he could never carry his parents through the opening. It just wasn't big enough, and if anything, their injuries would just be worsened from scraping the metal. Worse case, the trip through the window would kill them. Worse case, they'd break a few more bones. Without a second thought, Clark casually peeled the roof back and cleared the window of excess glass to allow himself the room he needed and set to work on his parents, making a mental note to bend it back before anyone came.
Slowing down considerably, he reached for his mother first. Snapping her seat belt like a twig in his massive palm, he took great care collasping the dash in on itself to free her leg. Scooping her up, Clark craddled his batter mother in his arms, gently rocking her and reassuring her motionless body with a lullabye she'd sing him as a child. Swinging a leg over to the truck bed, he was back in real time until he lay her down on the tarp and gently lay a kiss on her blood-stained cheek. He wipped her cheek and glanced at her angelic face. The face of the only mother he'd ever known. As far as he was concerned, the only mother he'd ever had. She was one of very few people who mattered to him, truly mattered. Clark would give anything for her. The sight of her made his heart shake and he tore his gaze away and returned to the truck before hot tears could roll down his cheek. Martha was someone that he knew he would never have survived without. He couldn't say that about many, and another of them was lying yards away in a truck, and it was time Clark return to him. Pulling his mud-soaked jeans from the ground where he knelt over her stricken form, he rose and ran flat out to the truck.
His father would definitely be more difficult to free from his tangled position in the wreak. Clark lay his left hand on his fathers shoulder to hold him in place as he wretched the steering wheel back and up, nothing more that a piece of useless plastic that was in the way. He tore it out of the car and out the back window in frustration. Repeating the exercise with the dashboard that froze his legs in place, Clark quickly did away the petals of the car as well. The car suffiently gutted and its parts were strewn helter skelter about the side of the two lane highway. All that was left was the seat belt that had shattered Jonathans' arm. Without hesitation, Clark severed its hold and unwound the fabric gingerly. 'Thank god he was knocked out,' Clark thought, knowing how much pain he would be in when he woke up.
With care one might take carrying a time bomb, Clark delicatly gathered up his father. Carrying his still form out of the wreckage, he took the walk over to the tarp slow so he could be sure not to cause further harm. Just as he was setting his father down on the tarp next his mother, a pair of cars drew up beside and several people ran whole-heartedly through the gail to reach them. A girl in her twenties pulled out a magenta Nokia and tapped in 9-1-1, hysterically relating the incident and location to a dispatcher on the other end, though most her words came out in bursts of slurred and rushed words that were almost unintelligible. The dispatcher tried to soothe the young blonde and she choked back tears long enough to get the message through. Three others, one man in his later twenties, the eldest of the group, two women rushed for the tarp. They stood for a moment, gaping at the couple lying on the ground. The dark-haired man and brunetter woman about his age stood side by side for a moment before sharing a knowing glance. These two had arrived together in a white Honda and were clad in garb few in Smallville could afford. If Clark had cared, he would have realized they were from Metropolis, and that knowing look had been one of determination, pity, and recognition. This wasn't the first accident they'd been to, something that could go either way in terms of luck. A pretty blonde joined them momentairly, but the second her bright, sapphire eyes caught sight of the tarp, she fled to her yellow Ford, her small frame wracked with sobs as her friend tried to comfort her and speak to into the phone at once. Her friend led her a distance away from the tarp that obviously wasn't just for the comfort of the quickly dissolving blonde. A wise choice, as the sight was enough to induce a similar reaction in most.
There on the tarp was Martha Kent, bloodied, bruised, tattered, and torn. Her red hair was spotted with a deeper crimson from her forehead wounds and her broken ribs and abdominal scraps soaking her shirt a similar hue. Martha's face was picture of serenity despite; her unconcious features not injuried enough to obscure her beauty and to casual observer, she might only have been sleeping, aside from the slathering of blood dribbling here and there. Jonathan was another matter entirely. He was evidently worse off and it showed. His arm stuck out a wild angle, as though untamed by the bones within. Likewise, his right ankle pitched to the side rebelliously. His chest and stomach were swollen and bruised, and he freely shed blood from his face and cuts. Needless to say, it was grotesque and unnerving. And there was Clark, off to the side, tearing apart the bottom of his shirt as he tried to stop all the bleeding all at once with limited success.
Clark looked horrible. He was soaked to the bone, parts of his clothing ripped and sopping as he tried to help his ailing parents. His muscles gleamed as the water rolled off him, his hair plastered to his head and his shoes squelching as he moved. Blue-green eyes shone with determination to help though a look of horror and terror prevailed in finding a place on his handsome features. Just now he was starting to allow thought to absorb him, thoughts filled with bitterness, depression, regret, saddness to the extreme and a number of other emotions he could have singled out if he'd tried. Clark liked action, liked to be able to help, and to his credit, he was good at it. But where medicine was concerned, Clark knew little to none and was starting to wonder if he'd even done the right thing, removing them from the car. He prayed he hadn't worsened their respective conditions, prayed they'd wake soon, prayed they'd be well and fully recover. Anguish and helplessness enveloped him and sheer panic rushed through is system. In fact, he might have exploded in rage at his inadaquecy right then and there if the sound of crying hadn't pulled him to the present and steered him away from his train of deeply pessimistic thoughts.
It disturbed him as it rose into a cresendo, violently squashing the sound of the storm around him. The shuddering breaths, the horrified sobs, the desperatness of the whole endeavor chilled him to the very bone. Whoever was crying, they needed help. They needed comfort, and that Clark could do.He wanted to give it almost as much as he needed it himself. Searching for the sound, he opened him eyes and peered through the rain to his left. There, he spied a girl sobbing as she sat on the hood of her car, drenched by the rain. But she must have been fifty feet away. Even he could have heard her sobs so clearly over the rain, feel her sadness reverberate through his very soul by the sounds the tears she shed. It had shocked him out of his thoughts, which were in turn shocked enough by the whole situation, and now he couldn't seem to shake the sound from his ears, couldn't tune it out and consentrate on what he could do for his parents. Clark's vision blurred and heart called out for the weeper, more concerned for them than he was for himself. Their pain took his mind of his pain and worry. He didn't even take notice of the couple off to his right in despertate search for the source of the heart-breaking sound. Suddenly it struck him light a bolt of lightening. It was him. He was the one crying.
The realization amazed him but the new wave of shock started to wear away and Clark sunk into his sobs, drooping into the mud on the side of the tarp. He couldn't do anything to save his parents now, and no matter how much he tried to clear away the blood, it just keep flowing. There was so much it startled him, the knowledge it came from his parents made him sick, and the fact that he couldn't hardly look at their mangled bodies didn't aid his efforts to help. Trying to force himself to stand, he was desperate to just gather them up and race them to the medical center in two seconds flat. Clark would have if he didn't think it would kill them. They were too fragile to be moved, much less accelerated to sixty miles an hour unprotected. Fear raced through as he thought he might have hurt them with his efforts to save them. His mind spun with guilt over the fact that he couldn't look at them, help them, bleed for them, even. He sunk down further into a pit of dispair as he fought for breathe, to center himself and focus. Clark only succeed in making his fit worse.
A light touch on his bicep sent a cold chill down his spine, but he didn't respond to it. Nor to the soft, gentle voice of concern that filled his ears with words unintelligible to him. Clark was numb, nearly catatonic as the brunette tried to comfort him, rubbed his shoulder to warm him, whispered reassurances in his ear. Clark knew none of them. Martha and Jonthan filled his vision, the wounds he couldn't force himself to look at moments before now a sight he couldn't tear his eyes from. A strange man now worked on them, but Clark knew that he was helping somehow, knew that he caused no need for alarm. He watched the man used his rags to try and help the Kent's, turning their heads so wouldn't catch water in their lungs as they breathed, checking their stats and whispering clamly to a barely stirring Martha. Clark didn't blink, didn't move as a blearing siren in the distance approached and came to a stop near by. Didn't speak or even register that he heard a voice as an officer tried to lead him away from the scene as paramedics swarmed his parents. The officer failed miserably. Clark wouldn't leave his parents side as the medics assessed them and worked to stablize them. He forced himself up on his feet and stuck in the ground near them, keeping a watchful eye on their still motionless bodies, and only a force of nature or act of God could have moved him.
And from the deepth of his existance, Clark cried.
The thought never crossed his mind that they might not live to see the next day.
Thoughts? Feelings? Rant on.