"Wake up, Kent, damn you."

Clark blinked and opened his eyes. He groaned when the pain washed over him, and he saw the fresh meteor rocks pulsing slightly in the background. The splinters in his side were sending angry tendrils of pain though him, and he felt hot all over.

"Where are the stones!" Jason shouted into his face.

"Huh?" His mind wasn't coherent. And then he saw his mother and suddenly he was, with a vicious will to stay awake. "Momma!" He managed to flip over, shrieking at the pain when he ripped away from the beam, and grabbing his mother.

She was warm, thank God. Still alive…for now. He was clinging to her like a lifeline, but Jason was grabbing him, his face even bloodier than it had been before the meteor hit, and he was dragging him away from his mother. But no, his mother needed him! "Mom! Dad! Let go!" he shrieked, trying to break free from Jason's hold and crawl back to his mother. The rocks continued to pulse slightly.

Jason noticed that they glowed brighter when Clark was nearer to them.

"What the Hell? You really are different, aren't you Kent?" he accused, picking up a rock and holding it close to Clark's face. Clark whimpered and tried to pull back. "That hurt?"

"My mom," he muttered pain in every bit of his being.

Jason gave a sadistic laugh and shoved a rock into Clark's pocket. "There's something really different about you. It's got something to do with the stones."

"L-let go," Clark choked out. His parents needed him! Why was Jason moving him?

Jason hooked his arms under Clark's and began to pull him from the rubble of the house. "Mom! Dad!" Clark protested weakly.

In what felt like a second later he was dumped carelessly onto the ground, his head striking something metal. Then a moment later Jason was lifting him again and he was being placed into a truck-his family's truck. Clark cried out for his parents again, but his only answer was the slamming of the door next to him. Before he could stop himself, he felt his body slip sideways so that his head rested against the cool glass of the window. The rock in his pocket was still boiling his blood.

The other door opened and then slammed shut again. Clark felt the seat shift under him, but he was too weak to turn his head. He wanted to cry, wanted to scream for his parents, but he was just too weak-and getting weaker. He couldn't do it. Even keeping his eyes open was a chore. Desperation rose in him as he felt the truck start beneath him. Jason must have taken the keys from his dad. Did that mean his dad was dead?

The truck lurched forward and Clark was tossed forward, the seatbelt jerking him up short. His body was alternating between hot and very cold now, except for his side which was wet and warm. Had he sat it water, he wondered? He didn't think he had. His thoughts, he realized, were taking the fast track to delusional.

The fields were rolling by outside his window as he fought to keep his eyes open. He had to keep his eyes open, had to find out where he was going so that if he was able to make a call he could give directions. But if his parents were dead who would he call?

"Mom," he whimpered again.

He heard Jason snort softly before he felt a hand grab his hair and slam it brutally into the dash board until he was seeing stars, and then darkness. His last feeling was that of his body slumping against the door again, his head falling against his chest. The meteor rock continued to set his blood on fire.

----------------------------------

Clark felt himself waking up slowly. Everything hurt. A dull ache had settled in where the nauseating pain had been only a while before. The part of his side that had been pierced with the beam throbbed and his head felt as though there was a rock concert going on inside it.

"Good, you're awake," a voice growled roughly, seizing him and pulling him upright.

"Ahh," he moaned, nausea and vertigo taking over. The nausea overcame him and he spilled the contents of his stomach onto the floor.

"Get it together, Kent. I need to know where those stones are. I know you know, and you're going to tell me."

"I don't know what-"

A harsh smack across the face silenced him. "Are you stupid or just stubborn?" Jason spat out.

"Why are you doing this?" he asked, opening his eyes and trying to look around. The room was dark and he was lying on a bed. There were no windows and the only other distinguishable characteristic about the room was the chair beside Clark's bed.

"My mother is dead, Clark. You want to know who killed her?" Clark didn't reply and Jason grabbed him by the neck and shook him roughly, "Do you!" he screamed into his face, before shoving him backwards on the bed. For the first time Clark realized that his hands were bound together. "Lana did," he whispered. "And when I find her I'll kill her for it. Then, when I get the stones, I'll bring my mom back to life."

"How do you know the stones will do that?" he gasped out, the effort it took to talk draining him.

"Because they are a source of knowledge that will be amazing! It's got to have the knowledge of how to resurrect the dead in there!"

"And if-if it doesn't?"

"Than you and everyone you love are going to pay."

"What-w-why?"

"Because that's just the way it's going to be."

"M-my parents." His voice was quickly beginning to fail him. His strength was ebbing away at an alarming rate.

"We'll see."

"W-what?"

Jason said nothing, but only walked out of the room. Clark heard the sound of a door locking behind him.

-------------------------

Lex had never seen so much death and destruction in his life. He hadn't seen the results from the first meteor shower since he'd been unconscious in the hospital, but if it was anything like this was, he was pretty sure that was a good thing.

Death.

Destruction.

Annihilation.

He saw bodies half charred, lying on the side of the road. Cars were overturned, their drivers handing upside down, clearly dead as well. Death was everywhere. The smell hung in the air like a smothering cloud. And he should know what fresh death felt like; after all, he'd just taken in Lana Lang at the mansion.

Lex drove towards the Kent farm in the midst of it all. Something had been wrong with Clark before the meteor shower and Lex wanted to be sure he was alright. He'd already found Lana in shock on the highway. He'd already stolen a space ship that day, now standing to gain a huge profit. So he'd left Lana at the mansion and had headed to the Kent farm to see if his best friend-his only friend-was alright.

He was not prepared for the sight that met him when he arrived. The barn was perfectly fine, but the quaint, yellow farm house, which had always been a symbol of warmth and home to Lex, had a gapping, smoking hole in its roof.

He was out of the car before he'd even realized that he was moving. "Mr. Kent! Mrs. Kent! Clark!" he shouted. Nothing, absolutely nothing. They say silence is deafening, and Lex decided that he thought that statement had never been more true than at that moment.

He forced open the front door and found that his stomach did a flip-flop at what he saw. There were broken boards everywhere and a great gapping hold in the floor, not to mention the new skylight that had popped up unintentionally. "Is anybody here?" he called.

"Uh, r-right he-here!" a voice called out weakly. Jonathan Kent. After all the times that man had dumped on Lex, he knew he'd recognize the voice anywhere.

"Mr. Kent!" he shouted, hurrying towards the voice on the other side of the room.

Jonathan Kent was not in the best shape he'd ever been in. He was bruised and bloody, ropes still tangling around his limbs, constricting his movements. "G-get Martha and Clark," he croaked out.

Lex ignored him but instead leaned down and undid the ropes, pulling him out of the rubble. "Where are Mrs. Kent and Clark?"

"Over there," he told him, with a nod of his head. Lex moved over to where Jonathan had nodded and was appalled to see the amount of blood...but for some reason there was a trail of blood leading away from Martha. Not thinking about what it could mean for the moment, Lex knelt down and felt for a pulse. Though it was faint, he found one.

"She's alive!" he yelled to Mr. Kent.

"You-You've got to get her to a h-hospital."

"I'll call an ambulance for both you and her. Now where's Clark!"

"I-I don't know. He should be t-there next to his m-mother!"

For the first time the trail of blood registered in Lex's mind with a frightening prominence. Running back over to Mr. Kent, he knelt down so that he could be even with him and asked, "Was there anyone here when the shower hit?"

"J-Jason Teague. Just get Martha and Clark help."

"Clark's not here, Mr. Kent!" Lex tried to tell him.

What little color was left in Mr. Kent's face drained. "W-what?"

"He's gone," Lex repeated. "All that's left is trail of blood."

"No, he-Jason-Clark-you've got to find him, Lex," Jonathan managed to pant out before his physical condition just became too much for him and he passed out. Though his chest felt tight, Lex pulled out his cell phone and called for an ambulance.

Glancing back at the trail of blood, his chest got tighter. There was no way Jonathan was correct. He'd seen Jason die-except he'd never seen the body and if there was one thing he should know now it was that no dead, lifeless body meant that the person was not certainly dead. Jason's words right before he fell off the cliff came back to him.

But not as much as you've been protecting your best friend, huh? Clark?

Oh, you don't believe that. Clark's more connected to this than any of us. You just choose to ignore it. I mean, think about it...the symbols burned into the Kent barn? The fields?

Why can't you see what's right in front of your face, Lex? It's Clark. He's—

What if Jason had done something to Clark? He looked around the house again as he waited to hear sirens in the distance. A bad feeling had settled in his stomach.