"Clark," Jonathan said to his shirtless son whom lay on a cold floor curled up in a ball. He was not even a fraction of his former self, and Clark never felt more ashamed. He felt weak and humiliated in front of these people, and his worth was non-existent. His hands were folded through each other as he stroked them against his mouth slowly so that he could get the taste and feel of his mother. It was mostly her blood that was on his fingers, but he wanted to get the last whiff so that he could at least feel like there was someone who believed him; that there was someone who cared, even if her life was ripped away from her.

"Did you kill her?" Clark muttered to Jonathan in a barely audible tone. His eyes were open as if they hadn't blinked in days and his body continued to shiver. His condition only brought whispers of mocking from the small crowd around him.

"You mean did I shoot Martha? My wife? The woman whom you turned against me!" Jonathan shouted.

Clark's shivering got worse and he curled further in. The voice that came out of his father's mouth was frightening to him as a child, but even in his mature age it still struck a chord in him.

"No, I didn't shoot her, Rev. Jim did. Let me just say that I hope you're happy Clark!"

"What? I…" Clark was speechless. Was he responsible for Martha's demise? Of course he was. He was the reason he was in that room in the first place.

"Calm yourself, Jonathan. What had to be done was done. Now we are going to let our young Clark meet a few people whom he has hurt."

"Hurt?" Clark whimpered. "I've never hurt anybody."

Although he couldn't see it, Clark felt the chills caused by Rev. Jim circling him as he glared down at the boy. The reverend was looking at his bruised back as well as his thinning stature caused by the Kryptonite upstairs, and he smiled. Rev. Jim was proud of himself at what he had done. He had wrangled the most powerful being on the face of the Earth. He really was the most powerful man in the entire worldwide church. Forget working for God, he was God.

"You are about to meet a man named Marvin," Rev. Jim said as he stroked his chin and continued to pace. "He is a Smallville native, and he lived there with his family until the meteor shower, when…well, he'll tell you the rest."

The reverend was finally moving away, but Clark felt someone else coming toward him, and very quickly. He then felt what he thought was a belt coming across his back as a man breathing hard though his teeth .

"You!" he shouted as he hit Clark again before he stooped down and grabbed him by the hair. As he looked in Clark's blank eyes, Clark could smell the whisky on his breath and the heat coming off of him as if he was the angriest person alive. Despite his instincts to cower again, something inside him, the thing he had been ignoring since the first beating, told him to try and talk to this man.

"Who are you?"

"Marvin. Marvin Rinker," the man said with a raspy tone. "Don't you remember me, Clark?"

His questioning reminded Clark of himself when he was on silver kryptonite. This fact not only brought back bad memories, but a horrible feeling in his sick gut.

"You…you went…to school with my dad." The boy muttered.

"That's right boy! I watched you grow up all those years, envying the Kents for gaining a son during that horrible tragedy. That jealousy gave me so much grief, but I had no idea how much you were the reason for all of my misery. Of course, you knew my misery, right Clark?"

"I…I don't…"

"My son, you idiot! My only son. He died in the meteor shower that you came in! He was only five! He was too young to die! I really hope you're proud of yourself, you monster!"

His pain seemed to radiate more than his anger, which helped Clark was able to break through his fear and have compassion on him. "I'm sorry," Clark panted. "I know…what it's like…to lose…someone close…"

Marvin then threw the boys head back down to the ground. The belt then returned to his back and this time with more force than before.

"Rev. Jim said that you would use phony pity on me. It's taking everything I am to not choke you to death right now, but I know that this is the way it was done."

"What was done?" Clark breathed as the belt returned three more times.

Clark felt the belt and knew that his words were doing no good. A man he couldn't even see was intending to kill him, and there was nothing he could do about it. He then gave back into the cowardly urges and frantically began to crawl away from the danger, but he only felt more scared by doing that. Every time he stumbled, the group in the room laughed at him and hurled insults. No matter how much he moved around, he always felt the sting on his back from this man hitting him. However, as he continued, he eventually felt a shoe with his fingers that had a familiar scent; that of his family farm. The shoe belonged to his father.

"D…d…dad?" Clark stuttered.

Jonathan kicked his hand away and said, "Get away from me and don't call me that!"

Clark's pain was at its greatest in this moment, and he had so much to say to his father right now, but only one thought came to mind.

"Dad…please…help…m…mom. She's going to die."

Jonathan's insides began to churn as he heard those words. Why isn't he groveling for himself? Why is he asking for another's protection over his own? He was always like that as a child, but that was a façade. The reverend said so. Jonathan was so confused. His head was spinning around in circles as his emotions started to turn toward this young man seeking his protection. Fatherly instincts that he had formerly tried to dispel were attempting to make their way back to him as he watched Clark crawl away from him and the oncoming madman.

"Stop!" Marvin shouted as he beat him on the back once again. "Stop groveling as if you are a child! No one has compassion on you! Don't you know that?"

"Marvin!" Jonathan shouted as he stepped in front of the man. "I think that he has had enough of you."

Marvin looked at Jonathan with a confused and angry look on his face

"Jonathan," Rev. Jim said as he walked over to the man and touched his shoulder. "What are you doing?"

Jonathan gulped as he looked at the floor and claimed that he didn't know where the urge to speak came from. He felt his chest and gulped once more as he shook his head. Jonathan tried to get his previous thoughts out of his head. This boy had to have been faking it. There was no other way.

"Well, I figure that Marvin's done anyway," the reverend said as he glared at Jonathan. "I think that Mr. Kent should help you prepare the other room for Clark's arrival." The reverend then stared at the man and tilted his head toward a small door in the back. Jonathan felt a feeling of shame in his heart as he went into the room. The reverend then grabbed the angry farmer's arm and let him out through that same door.

The grunting man was led away reluctantly and Clark rubbed his sore hand that was kicked by his father's shoe. Clark lay on the floor with his back down so that the ice-cold temperature of the concrete would make the intense stinging go away. As he lay there, he remembered the Fortress of Solitude and how cold it was, and yet at the same time had a homey feeling to it. Clark attempted to imagine himself lying on one of the icy surfaces, admiring the beautiful crystal ceiling and forgetting all of his problems. Then, all of a sudden, a thought came into his head. What would it have been like if Krypton had never been destroyed? Would there be people who were killing him now?

However, his thoughts were short-lived. One by one, men and women came in to give Clark a piece of their minds, and their sticks. Clark recognized some of them from his childhood, even though they had moved away before he went to junior high. He heard Francis Hobe who lost her husband from krypto-jitters, Rita Baxter who had her son burned to death during a meteor impact, Charley Gorta who had his home and brood of five blown away from a blast, and finally Lily Echolls who lost her best friend in a meteor-related car crash.

Each of these people had worse torture than the previous, both from their whipping devices and their stories. As Clark heard all of these people whom had lost people in the meteor shower, the at-home feeling of his imaginary Fortress of Solitude left him and the guilt of what happened all of those years ago returned. Clark had tried to keep those feelings buried for years since it was impossible for him to control things like that, but for some reason, the feelings resurfaced. Clark had always dreaded people finding out his secret and doing this exact thing to him, and now his worst fears were coming true.

After the final venge-seeker was finally led into the same room as had all of her predecessors, the reverend continued his predatory circling of Clark. Now he was in even worse shape than before, with welts developing on his back and compassionate feelings wearing thin. No matter what Clark said to these people, it would be to no avail. This certainly put a dent in his philosophy that compassion changed people's hearts for the better.

"Clark," Rev. Jim said as he circled closer to the boy. "Before we continue with this, I figured that I should let you in on something. It has always been my philosophy that there are a lot of bad people in this world, you being the worst. However, none of them went through an incredibly painful death like Jesus Christ went through, and he is probably the most perfect human being of them all. They all usually die like kings in their palaces, surrounded by the best doctors. That is the exact type of death that Jesus deserved, and yet he had to endure the cross. So I came up with an excellent idea, I vowed that I would get everyone in my power who deserved a crucifixion and give them a taste of what they should be getting. I think that everybody who deserves a crucifixion, should get one so that the death of our Lord could be truly avenged. And in the process, they would get a little taste of the sacrifice people like had been stomping all over."

Clark began to shake and shiver at the reverend's words. Was he actually saying that Clark was going through a Biblical scenario? Of course. Why hadn't he seen it before? The humiliation, the beating, the betrayal of his closest confidant. It was all coming together, and it was common knowledge where these things led to. This was one part of Aelora's encouragement that he did remember. She was explaining what happened to Steven and…oh no, Steven. Was he going to end up like that? Was he going to end up at all? As more people led Clark off into the next room, Clark braced himself for the most painful experience he would probably ever go through in his entire life, if his life lasted much longer.