WARNING:

This next Chapter is very mature. It involves the actions directly leading to a supposed rape of a young woman. By no means do I mean to condone the actions that take place in these words by writing and presenting them to you. I am only trying to present the events in as realistic a setting as possible, while neither exploiting nor downplaying them.

I do not, however, address any actual rape. I end before it begins.

However, if you are offended by this, I urge you not to read this next chapter. The events will be discussed again, but not in this fashion. I only present this to give context and understanding for the events to follow after this chapter, as well as those that proceeded it.

I apologize for any offenses committed or taken because of this piece and will remove it upon request. I only hope that, as this story progresses, this scene can add depth and emotion and a sense of how real tragedy can be for those who fall victim to some of humanity's worst evils.

This, ladies and gentlemen who have been gracious enough to read and review my story so far, is why I rated this story "M". You have been warned.

Chapter 5: "She Hurt"

Chloe Sullivan was grasping desperately for something to hold on to. An arm, a light pole, the corner of a building: whatever she could get her hands on. Unseen hands were pulling her deeper and deeper into the crowd, the yelling screaming and kicking mass of a mob that had overtaken every square mile to be seen. Police helicopters hovered over head as vandals broke into every shop in sight. TV's spontaneously fell out of shattering windows as man turned against another.

The limousine that Lionel Luthor had so graciously offered her was fading into the distance. If he hadn't stopped, she would have already been taken. But, because he stopped, he was stuck in this now, too. Somehow, in all this chaos, Chloe's higher brain functions were still firing away. She began to kick, to scream, to try and free herself from the mass of broken glass and breaking bones, but to no avail.

She felt a stray punch hit her right thigh as she recoiled in pain. She didn't hear or feel a break, but she knew it would leave quite a bruise. Hand began to grope. She shut her eyes tightly shut and closed her thighs as best as she could. She felt a hand bunch together and pull the back of her shirt. As she was dragged further and further by unseen hands and arms into this mass of chaos, the hand held on, and her shirt tore at the shoulder, as some of the material went along with it. Her belt was ripped right off her, the buckle whipping against her arm as it flew. Someone grabbed her foot, and she kicked as hard as she could. She felt her heel land smack on his nose, felt it crack and shatter under her, if feeble, force.

You have a chance,

Just keep fighting.

Don't Give Up.

Never Give In.

Soon, she heard a yell and a scream as whichever unlucky man with a new broken nose came running through the crowd after her. She was nearing an alleyway now, as far as she could tell from peering ahead of her, the whole world looking as upside down as it really was. She felt another stray hit, this time to her lower back, and bit down on her lip hard, tasting a hint of blood as she tried to hold in her screams.

Don't let them hear you scream.

Never let them hear you scream.

The unseen hands threw her down onto the only exposed floor left in Metropolis, it seemed. She slid as she landed on hard concrete. She was right, she was in an alley way. A pile of trash and half of a stained, beat-up mattress cushioned her fall. For the first time, she looked her attackers in the eye. Three men towered over her. One had very short cut blonde hair and steely blue eyes. He and his companion were wearing matching orange jumpsuits with tag numbers on the left breast pocket. The other was taller, darker, with more short cut hair, black in color. He was wearing a pair of torn up jeans, and a blood-stained wife beater. As she gazed further and further up, she saw the large trail of blood streaming from his nose. Of all the noses I could have broken. She stood back up, faltering on her right thigh.

Get past them.

Run your hardest.

Fight your hardest.

Don't Give Up.

Get back into the mob.

Get lost in the mob.

Never Give In.

As the man with the bloodied nose approached her, she threw her best knuckle-punch at his blood-covered face. With a full-bellied laugh, his left arm clamped down hard on her wrist, pulling her down awkwardly. She felt her entire weight, with added momentum, thrown down on her aching, stinging, throbbing thigh. She faltered, about to fall. Just as she feel, she felt a large palm land far too- hard on her right cheek. Her left crashed into wrapper-covered pavement. "That" the man now towering above her said "was for the nose, you bitch." With both hands, he dragged her up against a wall by her right arm. He glanced back at the two men in jumpsuits, motioning to them.

"This" he continued "Is for all the other shit I'm sure you put them through." With that, he threw her to the floor again, her head crashing hard against a spot of uncovered pavement. She began to feel dizzy, as the whole world spun. She had tried her best to look strong, to not shed a tear, but now, her body was being overcome with hurt and sting and bruise. Her face scrunched up in deep wrinkles of agony and grief. As she dared to peer through tear-stained eyes in a dizzy haze, she could just barely make out the motions of belts being unbuckled as the sounds echoed in her ears.

A pair of hands gripped her hips forcefully. Another pair of hands was gripping the waist band of her pants tightly, bunching them up in its fists. A final hand reached down and grasped her jaw and cheeks, pressing the flesh against her cheeks, forcing her jaw to open, as the other hand, clenched in a tight fist, landed swiftly on her right eye. She shut them both even tighter, tears streaming down her face, mixing in with grime and sweat and dirt and, she had begun to suspect, blood. As the blackness became even darker, Chloe felt as if her whole person was moving into the top of her head. Even the darkness behind her pupils and inside her mind was becoming fuzzy. She was going numb from her extremities inward.

The last thing she felt was the pants she was now barely wearing being torn downward. As the thick, cold, heavy air rushed to goose-bump her now- exposed skin, Chloe's mind fluttered and flew and rose and crashed all at once into darkness, fighting it the entire way.

Somewhere in a cloud of haze and darkness, Chloe felt a pair of hands slipping a pair of pants on her lower body. She didn't who or how or why. She was too dizzy, too lost in the blackness and haze to be able to open her eyes and see. She felt a pair of hands deftly lace one shoe around her foot, and then the other. She fell and fluttered back into darkness. Somewhere there, between the living and the dead, she remembered the way her father used to help her get dressed in the morning before school. She remembered the way he would lean down and tie her shoes for her. Her shoes… Chloe began to reenter reality, to become more aware of her surroundings. It was as if she was waking from a deep sleep. She felt before she before she heard, heard before she smelled, and smelled before she could taste her own dried blood and something else she didn't want to try to identify in her mouth. Then she saw the backs of her eyelids, felt the warmth of daylight pulsing against them.

Chloe Sullivan opened her eyes very slowly. She hurt.