Chapter 4: Lost City
"You sure about this?" Bruce asks in concern. Ever since he woke this morning, Johnny had been acting stranger than usual, and as his therapist, he had a right to worry.
"I'm all right, Bruce. I just need to speak with her"
"Aren't you at least going to tell me what this is all about?"
"Not until I figure it out myself"
Bruce nods his understanding. "Fair enough"
They walked into the just opened Talon. The place was already buzzing with customers. From across the room, he spotted the red-headed lady he met the day before.
"Stay here"
Bruce shrugs. "Don't need to tell me twice." Then he disappeared into the crowd.
Walking up to the manager, he softly spoke, "Excuse me, ma'am"
She turned. "Oh, hi, it's you" she says, apparent that she remembered him from the mishap yesterday. "What can I do for you?"
"Actually, it's what I can do for you"
He found her expression change to one of curiosity and weariness. "What do you mean?"
"My name is Johnny Smith," he introduced himself. "You may have heard of me." She only nodded, indicating that she never heard of him.
Johnny took in a deep breath.
"Could we perhaps go somewhere in private?"
"Why?"
He moved in closer, his voice dropping to a whisper. "Look, I'm not here to cause you any trouble," he began. "I've been seeing things, things about you and your family and what happened in this town when the meteor shower hit…"
The woman's eyes open wide at the mention of the meteor showers.
"I think you should leave"
"Please, Martha"
Startled, "How'd you know my name?"
"Please," he pleaded.
"Mom, is this guy bothering you?" Clark rushed to his mother's side and put a hand on the stranger's shoulders. Suddenly, Johnny is thrust into another vision.
He no longer stood in the Talon. Instead, surrounded by tall futuristic crystalline structures, he was in a world he had never seen. The ground shakes, cracks forming in the ground from all directions. Johnny was a little terrified and turned when he heard voices from behind.
Following it, he saw a couple. They looked so human dressed in what looked like white ceremonious robes. The woman held an infant in her arms as the man stood vigilant by her side, fear and sadness etched across their faces, and speaking in a language unknown to him, but somehow, he understood it.
As Clark tried to remove his hand, Johnny reached for it, his consciousness in tuned with his vision.
"Clark, what's wrong with him?"
"I don't know mom," he replied worriedly. Johnny starts speaking a distant language.
"Clark!" his mother cautioned.
"Oh my god. Mom, he's speaking Kryptonian"
"What?"
"We got to get him out of here"
"Let's bring him to the back before anyone notices"
Back in his vision, Johnny watched curiously at the couple.
"Are you finished?" The woman holding the infant spoke in sadness.
"Nearly," the older man replied with equal sadness. "It's the only answer, Lara. If he remains here with us, he will die as surely as we will"
"But why Earth? Their primitive, thousand's of years behind us," his wife tried to rationalize.
"He will need that advantage to survive. Their atmosphere will sustain him"
"He will defy their gravity," she added, making Johnny's eyes go wide.
"But he will look like one of them"
"He won't be one of them"
"No," her husband agreed. "His dense molecular structure will make him strong"
"He'll be odd… Different." The mother was truly worried for the well-being of her child.
"He'll be fast, virtually invulnerable," he assured.
"Isolated. Alone," she completed.
"He will not be alone. He'll never be alone." Placing the crystal into the ship. Lara hands Jor-El their son and he carefully places him in the ship as the sad parents look on.
Johnny watched helplessly as the parent's placed their child in the ship. The same ship he saw in a ditch in Smallville.
"Jor-El," the woman spoke softly, holding her child closely to her heart. "What if nobody loves him?"
Johnny's heart sank. He finally understood what he was seeing. This was about survival.
The ground shakes once more.
Collapsing to one knee, "Jor-El!" Johnny uttered loudly. Then, "Lara!"
Clark's eyes shot up, and so did Martha's. The stranger, Johnny Smith, spoke of Clark's biological parents.
The ground was shaking more ferociously. There wasn't a lot of time.
Jor-El's last words, "You will travel far, my little Kal-El. We will never leave you, even in the face of our deaths. The richness of our lives… shall be yours. All that I have, all that I've learned, everything I feel… all this and more I… I bequeath you my son. You will carry me inside you… all the days of your life." Holding onto his wife tighter. "You will make my strength your own… see my life through your eyes, as your life will be seen through mine. The son becomes the father, and the father… the son. This is all I… all I can send you, Kal-El."
The last sight he saw was the room going black and Kal-El's ship taking off into the galaxy. Johnny burst out of his vision in heavy breaths and the lurking feeling of throwing up.
Clark gripped his shoulders, and as their eyes locked, familiarity settled in…
"Kal-El"
Johnny falls into consciousness.
To be Continued…