The Will to Power
Darkness stalked between every cell. Lex Luthor was aware of it briefly as two synapses clicked together in the emptiness, and then the ability to think flew from him again.
Wait. There. Another moment, longer this time. Then a third, longer then the one before.
Stop. He held the thought, savored it, rolled it through his flickering consciousness. I'm here. I'm here. I exist. Where is here? Where am I? Something in the thought "I" seemed to pull everything into sharper focus. His consciousness resolved into something solid, though still fuzzy, as if bound in wet cotton.
I'm Lex Luthor, he remembered. He then wrestled with who Lex Luthor was. He envisioned his fingers and toes, and they came dutifully into blurry being. The rest of his body followed shortly after.
He floated naked through the emptiness, held together only by his will. He threatened to unravel again at any second.
Is this death? He contemplated the question for a while, the mechanisms of thought continuing his existence. Perhaps, he decided. If death is anti-life.
He had discovered the divine mysteries of the universe. From that vortex, he had plucked out the anti-life equation and used it to destroy Darkseid. He could not remember exactly what he had seen. He could not remember what, exactly, the anti-life equation was. He supposed this knowledge was lost now, drifting somewhere through the opposite of existence.
I had my power suit, he thought suddenly. The particles of the suit resumed their proper formation around his body. He adjusted his tie and straightened his cuffs. The more he thought, the clearer his existence seemed to become.
He realized that if he had managed to pull himself together, then Darkseid might be able to as well.
I think I need to get out of here.
Lex moved himself through the void of nonexistence, searching for a way out. A vague panic began to grip him. What if there was no way out? Perhaps it would be better to let himself dissolve into his disparate, unconscious atoms again.
The doubt caused his hold on his self to flicker dangerously. He pulled himself together, literally and figuratively.
He had willed himself to consciousness, and from there to a physical form. He had even willed himself a power suit. So…
Lex focused his entire exquisitely sharp mind upon creating a way out of anti-life. Suddenly a variation appeared in the in the previously unchanging nothingness, a dark circle of gray in the blackness. The circle brightened until it was a disc of blazing white, sending shafts of radiance through the darkness. It looked uncomfortably like a beacon.
The evil genius propelled himself towards the light, a premonition of danger beginning to crawl up and down his spine. An undefined gravely hand curled around his ankle in a cold grip. Lex looked behind him. He couldn't help it. It was a mass of slightly dark darkness, housing a pair of coal-red eyes. The thing snarled incoherently. It had apparently not yet materialized the physical components necessary to make speech. It very obviously did not want to let him get away.
Lex instinctively kicked at the thing. His foot glanced off a material that felt like many small stones loosely bound together. He paused. Strength was inconsequential here; this was the realm of the mind. He kicked at the thing again, this time putting more thought into it.
The creature howled in pain as it tumbled back into the darkness.
Lex couldn't help but smirk. "Unfortunately, Darkseid," he said, "It appears your intellect is not quite as refined as my own. Enjoy the rest of your anti-life." And with that he slipped through the portal and was gone.
Author's Note: This is a short little piece that is basically my response the the "death" of Lex Luthor, on of my very favorite DC villains, in "Destroyer". Because nobody ever really stays dead in comic books.