Smallville: The Darkest Night
Chapter One:
The Lake
The reflected light on the water of Willow Lake was like flecks of gold floating on a green blanket. The Lake wasn't the clearest lake in Kansas, but it was the best for get-togethers because of its wide, sandy shore and inexhaustible supply of driftwood. Even now, in the early morning, the blazing bonfires made it seem like noon. Clark was careful to stay far away from them, not because he was afraid of the flames but rather what would happen if some jackass knocked him into the fire. He had discovered over the course of the last five years that not only was he fire proof, but bullet proof, bomb proof, knife proof, and punch proof. He would not be surprised at this point if he was nuclear bomb proof. Falling into the bonfire and coming out without a single blister might be the way that his secret finally came out. That, more than anything, was what he feared.
Four pairs of eyes regarded Clark Kent from two different parts of the beach. They belonged to Chloe Sullivan and Lana Lang, two very different girls staring for very different reasons. Lana stared because she was pondering the mystery of the man that had floated around the center of her universe ever since she was a very little girl. What was the secret that he had been keeping from her? What was so unspeakable that he had to go to the lengths that he had to conceal it from her? He had sacrificed their relationship again and again for some elusive reason. With graduation coming up… she might never know what that reason was. Chloe, however, knew all too well what that secret was… and that was the reason that she stared.
Clark was oblivious to the prying eyes of the girls because, as had happened often this year, distant cries for help rang in his ears like the clang of cymbals in the 1812 overture. His head snapped to the wood line, where his x-ray vision parted the thick underbrush to reveal the incident. With so many witnesses he knew that he couldn't use his superhuman speed to instantly arrive at the location, but he would be damned if he was going to allow that to happen. His parents hadn't raised him like that. He took off running with as close to human speed as he could manage with the sense of urgency he felt. As he disappeared into the brush he left behind Lana and Chloe with nothing to stare at, so their eyes met each other's with a gaze that was both knowing and totally bewildered. Clark had that effect on people.
Joe and Doug laughed as they plunged Dexter's head into the brook again, laughing like hyenas as his pathetic pleading turned into bursting bubbles with a slightly flatulent sound. They had done this to him many times in the men's bathroom, but for some reason thrusting he head into the ice-cold currents was even more satisfying. They pulled his head out of the brook again and laughed as he sputtered. Dexter's face turned purple for a second and a huge gush of water burst from his nose.
"Awww… does Dorkus have a widdle bit of wawa up his widdle nowse?" Doug baby-talked to him.
"Yeah… I think that Dorkus got water up his nose." Joe laughed.
"Please…" Dexter coughed weakly, having long ago given up trying to tell him that his name, spelled Dorcis, was pronounced "Door-sis."
"Pweese? Did I hear little Dorkus say pweese?" Doug cackled.
"I think that I did." Joe said, "We better help him wash that water out of his nose!"
"No!" Dexter screamed before they cut off his scream with another sudden dunk.
"Hey!" Clark yelled as he burst out of the bush "Let him go!"
Like any bullies suddenly confronted with a strapping football hero in a lettermen's jacket, Doug and Joe cut and ran into the bush with gusto, while Clark ran to the side of the coughing boy by the side of the brook.
"Are you ok?" Clark asked, yelling as if talking to a deaf person even though they were in the middle of a preternaturally quiet stand of trees by a babbling brook.
"Ok…" Dexter weakly coughed the word.
"I'm going to make sure that they don't get away… just stay here and I'll get help!" Clark yelled, taking off after the bullies.
Dexter just lay down and coughed, trying desperately to expel the last of the water from his lungs. When he looked up he was surprised that there was no sign of the guy who came to help him, and he was ashamed that he had said thank you or even opened his eyes to see who it was. He crawled to the brook and looked to the spot where they threw his most treasured possession. The book was his most precious possession, which he had jokingly called "my precious" when there was no one around to hear. He had been happily reading it by the brook when they jumped him from behind. The thick novel had been his only refuge from a world that had been nothing but pain and humiliation. As he fished JRR Tolkien's The Lord of the Rings out of the brook his eyes swelled with tears when he saw what the water had done to it. It was beginning to swell and warp with the amount of water that it had absorbed, and the ink had blurred into unrecognizable splotches on the translucent paper.
"No…" He cried, clutching what was left of the beloved paperback to his chest as it fell apart in his hands.
The book had been his only friend, his trusted companion, through four years of hell where even the dungeon and dragons nerds in the library wouldn't let him play their game. Even they laughed at him and called him "Dorkus," although when they were in a good mood they would refer to him as "Frodo."
"No…" he sobbed as the thousand laughing faces and pointed fingers hovered in front of his eyes. The faces of girls who would never date him and of the guys who would never accept him mocked his devotion to the works of Professor Tolkien. The ones who didn't have the discipline or the dedication to take the time to learn the important Elven phases or the history of the Simerillion laughed inside his cranium. They all laughed at him as his precious disintegrated in his hands.
"NO!" He finally screamed, but his howl of grief fell on naught but the deaf ears of the trees, for even Clark was too busy taking the bullies to task to hear his lament.
Was he ever meant to see it? In this moment of grief or in any other? We would never know, for this is only a record of what did happen… not what should have.
The emerald glow was familiar to him, and at first he thought that it was one of the meteor rocks, that littered this little town like trash littered the Jersey shore. As his scream died away to an echo, though, he knew that this was something different. He was drawn to it despite himself. It almost… sung to him. It was something that did not want to be submerged at the mouth of the brook. It was something that wanted to be found.
His hands dropped the ruined book and desperately clawed at the mud and rocks, trying to unearth the thing that was calling to him. Nothing in his entire life could prepare him for what he pulled out of the mud that day.
John and Martha looked into the guest room at the young man that had not stirred since they brought him in last night. Martha's brows were knitted together in concern for the handsome young stranger, and John felt foolish for worrying that she would try to turn the boy away. She had always had a way of caring for anyone who needed it, and he felt foolish for having forgotten that.
"Do you think he is going to be ok?" She asked him.
"I think he'll be all right. There was not a whole lot of blood in his alcohol system last night, and I think that he needs his rest."
"I don't think that it is just the hangover… he seems totally exhausted." She said.
"His car had California plates… who knows how long he has been driving, or where he wanted to go."
"What was he doing here?" Martha thought aloud.
"He couldn't be a day over twenty three." John said, still bewildered that he had not been able to find any identification on the young man who identified himself as Harold. "He's probably just one of those college kids who go on a journey of self discovery after graduation. Afraid to join adult life."
Even though she didn't want to contradict him, Martha knew better than that. The second that she had looked at the young man she knew better than that. Jonathan's family had always revolved around the farm, but hers had revolved around a different institution. She had known the second that she looked at his crew cut that this boy was military. He was military through and through. His bomber jacket confirmed her suspicions. It was unmistakable even though all the patches were torn off. She didn't know how to tell her husband that this boy might be a deserter. She didn't want to add anything to the trouble that this young man was already in.
"Mom! Dad!" Clark yelled from the bottom of the stairs, causing them both to start "Has he woke up yet?"
Jonathan walked to the top of the stairs and held one finger to his lips, causing Clark to zip an imaginary zipper over his mouth as his adopted father quietly padded down the stairs.
"How was the party?" John asked.
"There wasn't…"
"I know all about senior skip day, son. Not a thing has changed since I was your age, believe me." John Kent smiled.
Clark sighed, still not able to get anything by his old man.
"It was fine, but then something happened… these two jerks picking on this guy who… is a little different. After that… I just didn't feel like a party." Clark admitted.
"I understand son." John said, "You have always been… a little different like this boy. You always will be. Different and special."
"I've accepted that." Clark said, "I just… I just don't know what to do about it."
John Kent put his hand on his boy's shoulder "It isn't like you have to decide it overnight. You try to do that and you might end up like that boy upstairs. There are some times in your life, like this one, that seems to be a crossroad. No road seems any better than the other. Your mother and I trust you to pick the right road. All that you have to do is trust yourself."
Clark looked away. After all that he had done, all the mistakes that he had made, could he trust himself to do just that?
The hot noon sun burned his skin red, but Dexter Dorcis had not budged from the side of the babbling brook. Instead, he rocked back and forth laughing a reedy little laugh. He had finally found it. After all this time, all this suffering it was his. His own. His precious. It was in his hands, and would be the instrument of his retribution against everyone and everything that had ever wronged him. It had promised him the power. A reedy little voice escaped his throat as he kept it clutched in his hand. The voice that almost didn't seem to be his recited the words that he had read so often.
Three rings for the Elven kings under the sky,
Seven for the Dwarf lords in their halls of stone,
Nine for mortal men doomed to die,
One of the Dark Lord on his dark throne,
In the Land of Mordor where the Shadows lie,
One Ring to rule them all, One Ring to find them,
One Ring to bring them all and in the darkness bind them,
In the land of Mordor where the shadows lie.
As the dark clouds moved to block the sun that had burned his skin, Dexter Dorcis laughed a full, throaty laugh. In the palm of his hand was the most powerful weapon in the universe. In his hands legions would fall before him and worship him like a god. Nothing could stop him. Nothing at all.
"My precious…" He cooed, stroking the glowing ring with the green lantern emblazoned on it.
Next:
Darkness Falls