TWO – Death and Resurrection
ONE YEAR AGO
Her naked vessel floated within an infinite white void. Wisps of fire flames danced around and over her body. Fingertips began to turn an ashen black. Her skin burned, yet she felt no heat. No pain. The destruction trailed over her hands, wrists and arms. Flakes, that were once upon a time skin, drifted away. She wiggled her fingers, the last remaining flesh died away revealing bone. It too began to disintegrate towards nothingness. Fear was removed as she looked down to her chest. The decaying flesh filled her vision. Her clear brown eyes, so fierce, searched for resolution. They could only focus upon a heart. Her heart, it was pumping so fast, still protected inside its rib cage, until it was not. The organ's beat slowed as its pinkish flesh turned a corrosive black. Her mind struggled, it tried and failed to command her non-existent hands for movement. The darkness came, it overwhelmed her. Her last thoughts were only of him. She screamed his name, but there was no scream to be heard. The remaining fragments of her mouth, throat, skeleton decomposed into nothingness.
Leaving only the white void.
The Olympian Goddess' tall, athletic body strode through a set of wide and high, white doors, which led into a cavernous room. A brownish-white owl trailed her momentarily from behind, it slowed to land on her right shoulder. Its noticeable sharp talons clasped gently upon her skin. Its bold yellow irises housed aware black pupils that momentarily locked eyes with its mistress. Anger wore on the Goddess' face, her soft-soled boots continued to pound down noticeably upon the reflective, marble tiles of the Great Temple Hall.
The Hall's beauty was in its simplicity of design and architecture, a prostyle temple setting of twenty, Doric order columns, where just beyond resided the Garden of Olympus. Against one of the enormous columns, stood Athena's father, almighty Zeus. His back, though turned to her, he assuredly heard his daughter's approach, yet ignored it. He looked out upon his garden of lush greenery, splashed with magnificent, multi-hued colored flowers. An oasis tended to by mortals. The mortals were a privileged few, as Zeus viewed them, snatched from their homes, to be returned several Earth years later with nary a memory of their time in Olympus.
A large, clear water lake lapped not far from the Hall. The sky was never anything but blue. Light, never anything but present because darkness did not exist in Olympus.
"Why?" Athena asked with irritation in her rich timbre voice. She was dressed in a light grey, tight fitting pair of pants. A loose, white, sleeveless shirt showed well-defined, strong arms. A silver, metallic band wrapped around her right bicep.
"Why what?" Zeus asked turning around. A hint of annoyance on his face. His muscular arms and chest pressed against his white, deep scoop body shirt. The short-sleeved shirt, with gold trim on the edges, carried down just above his knees. The slightly glistening shirt was cinched at his waist by a gold, cloth belt. He wore deep, gold-colored pants. His bare feet did not touch the floor as he levitated slightly above.
"Coy is your thing, father," she said. "But you know exactly what I speak of. Diana. Why?"
Zeus took a stroking hand to his short, well-managed beard. The beard's salt and pepper coloring wore attractively with his nearly buzz-cut, white hair.
"First, I advise you, daughter," Zeus said. "Calm your voice. Do not forget with whom you speak."
"I do not, Lord Zeus," Athena replied, steeling herself in a straight back pose of attention. "But, did you not give me the eye of wisdom? For which, I cannot envision this course of action. Diana should be in the fields of Elysium. An eternity of contentment. Why has she been sent to Tartarus? What has she done to justify such a misguided assessment?"
"You do realize," Zeus deemed. "I do not owe you, or anyone else explanation for why something has been done."
"She is your daughter," Athena asserted.
Zeus smiled. "I have many daughters, daughter."
"Will you not give me an explanation?" Athena asked, moving closer to Zeus. "Is it because of Ares? It has barely been a century, his return is imminent."
"Ares' plight, and his undoing at Diana's hands was his own doing," Zeus responded. "He chose to meddle, aggressively in the affairs of the mortals. Against my wishes. I allowed him, and your siblings far too much leniency. I offer no sympathy."
"You aimed Diana at him," Athena accused.
"I may have set the stage," Zeus offered. "Diana's performance was quite compelling."
"Yet you condemn her? Hades has bought into this?" Athena continued, unable to get beyond Zeus' apathetic glare. "Is it Hippolyta? Revenge against her hatred of you."
"Do you find me this petty, daughter?" Zeus asked. "Casually controlling the afterlife due to past grievances?"
"Do you ask for the truth?" Athena questioned as she, with subtlety, nodded to the owl allowing it to fly between the columns into the Garden.
"I do," Zeus answered.
"It would not be above you to take action in spite," Athena said. "We all have seen it. You know the only one in the mortals' world who will come to realize Diana's fate will be Hippolyta, whom I may have informed, foolishly. In turn, she will inform the Kryptonian. You knew this. And you know he will do anything for Diana. Your grievance is against him, is it not?"
"And if it is?" Zeus asked. "He thinks himself a God. There may come a time he meets an actual God."
"And his crossing from the mortal plane will make you more powerful against him," Athena said.
"You think I'm afraid to confront him upon the mortal plane?" Zeus smiled, as a terrifically red, blazing streak of fire crossed the Olympus' skies before him. "I fear no underling."
"Even one we had no place in creating?" Athena asked. "Earth Mother, Gaia shares no lineage with Krypton."
Zeus' eyes began to glow. Tiny spokes of lightning popped from around his eyelids. He turned to Athena, his eyes having returned to their normal white pupil state.
"So brazen you speak," Zeus observed. "So let me return. We exist no longer in the mortal plane, only as myths. Stories of fantasy. Tall tales. Unlike Ares, I have allowed mortals to live unabated. They no longer sacrifice in my name. Want in my name. Worship to my name. They have forgotten their master. Father. And I've allowed it now for too many millennia. Allowed the conflicts. The rise of so-called religions to another God. Gods. A would-be Kryptonian god. Ridiculous wars fought in the name of falsehoods. Brainiac."
"Your hypocrisy is evident, Lord Zeus," Athena said. "What has changed?"
"They reach for the stars," Zeus responded. "And Earth is my sole domain. You are correct, daughter. I had no hand in the Kryptonian's creation. Nor the Martians. It was the primeval force that is Chaos. It has spread its seed beyond my vision."
"To other worlds," Athena stated. "And what does this have to do with Diana?"
"The mortals require a reminder of their true origin," Zeus stated. "I can end them all, but I did that once. And here we are. Their minds are not as easily controlled. Manipulated. No, what I want of them, to spread the greatness of Olympus beyond Earth."
"Your greatness," Athena suggested.
"Your tongue is quite barbed in this moment," Zeus menaced.
"You want the Kryptonian, Kal-El, out of the way, so that you can be the world's savior," Athena said. "But, why these machinations?"
"I do not fear him," Zeus stated. "But I respect his power. Fighting him. Bloodying him in front of the mortals would make him a martyr. We will fill the vacuum of his and Diana's absence. Their Justice League. Comrades. They must never know the Kryptonian's disappearance is of my doing. The mortals will love us. Look to us for guidance. And spread that beyond Earth."
"Father," Athena asserted. "You seek love through duplicity. A common theme with you."
Athena felt the violent hand of Zeus upon her cheek before realizing he had moved. Her body sailed across the room, landing and skidding with a series of rolls. She placed a hand on her battered cheek as she stood. The owl returned to dive quickly down to Athena's side, its sharp, grey talons momentarily protruded toward Zeus. It ultimately settled down, once again, upon Athena's right shoulder.
"My, my, daughter. Are you okay?" said a shrill-like, female voice behind her.
Athena turned to see, "Hera."
"That seems to be leaving a mark," Hera observed, pointing to Athena's face. "What ever did you do?"
Athena towered over Hera, who was not her true mother. Hera was the wife of Zeus. Highly conniving and controlling. For Athena, conclusions began to zip about her mind. "You have a hand in this, don't you?"
"A hand in what?" Hera asked gliding over to Zeus' side. The bottom edges of her loose flowing, toga-style dress shimmied across the floor.
"Diana. Kal-El," Athena accused.
"Ah," Hera sighed saddling against Zeus' left arm, her hands slowly caressed his bicep. "Who do you think proposed it to my dear Lord? Diana's purpose was onefold, get her Kryptonian dalliance to Hades. Hippolyta, as planned, took care of that. Did you think me mad when I practically dared you to tell her of Diana's fate? And you did. As planned. This Kal-El exists on ever shortening time. Once his fate is sealed, along with Hippolyta's bastard daughter, we will make our glorious return to the Earthly plane. And our names will carry forth beyond Earth. Beyond Olympus."
"And you worked your influence, words on the others, I suppose?" Athena asked. "Even Apollo?"
"It wasn't hard," Hera responded. "The skies. Waters. Lands of Gaia are filled with pretenders. The mortals will recognize true power. And receive, when deserved, benevolence from their guardians. Your fellow Olympians are eager to dispel the myths."
"When?" Athena asked.
"I have aligned Olympus' time with that of Earth," Zeus said. "It is in Hades' hands."
"Father Zeus?" Athena questioned with a spiteful tinge. "Have you considered that Kal-El may be a God himself, and that such ignorance on your part could spell disaster? Poseidon. Atlas. They thought sinking Atlantis would solve their Atlantean problem. We see where that has led. I fear the mortal world and ours are approaching a flashpoint, where all will change. This maneuver, now, by you, becomes the catalyst."
Zeus turned his back to Athena. He resumed a heightened ponderance amidst the overwhelming beauty that surrounded him.
Nightmarish blurry images slowly dissipated to awakening thoughts. A voice, low, yet overwhelming commanded of her.
"Awake, Amazon," Diana heard.
Her eyelids flickered, managing to remain up and open. Her weary eyes looked in all directions, peering into a darkness that nearly consumed all that it touched. Her body hovered, parallel to a rocky, chippy ground several feet below her. Slivers of reddish light, in the distance, cast long shadows.
"Where am I?" Diana stammered. Her body, so slow to react to her thoughts. "Who are you?"
The disembodied, deep baritone voice continued from the blackness around her. "We are your eternal fate. I am Aeacus."
"I, Rhadamanthus," another voice stated.
"And I, Minos," yet another voice announced.
Diana's mind pounded, pulsed against her skull. She struggled to remember last remembrances before her anew awakening.
"Kal," she whispered out. With considerable effort, she brought her arms up, reached toward her torso where Mongul had thrusted Athena's sword in and through her. She felt a raised, long scar, but the wound itself was closed. Healed over.
"He cannot help you here," Aeacus said.
"Judges. You are the judges," Diana wearily replied. "Of Underworld."
"We are," Aeacus confirmed.
"I am dead," Diana stated with little emotion.
"So this place dictates," Minos answered.
Diana's shock ran its course, being ultimately consumed by her lost. Her body, her thought now consumed by the absence of a love. Her greatest love. Her body vibrated, shook, at a forever absence she feared beyond anything.
"This is not Elysium," she could only observe.
"No, it is not," Rhadamanthus said. "For why we are here. Those above have condemned you to the pit of Tartarus."
"Who?" Diana asked, unable to break the invisible force that kept her unclothed body in a static, floating position.
"Lord of Heaven. Lord of the Gods," Aeacus answered. "Almighty Zeus."
"Zeus? Why?" Diana demanded.
"His reasoning is not ours to question," Minos replied.
"Then how do you portend to judge?" Diana asked, her fire, her resiliency, was returning. "Is this pretense? My fate already determined?"
"Not quite," Rhadamanthus said. "We judge whether Tartarus becomes your destination, or the Asphodel Meadows?"
Diana managed a cynical laugh, even for a demi-Goddess, in such horrid, surreal conditions. "So hell or a mindless existence becomes my fate," she assessed. "You know my life? The essence of who I am?"
"We do," Aeacus replied.
"You seek favor with Zeus?" Diana asked.
"We have judged more than fifty billion mortals, and otherwise," Aeacus said. "For us to spend even this moment of time on you, is an anomaly."
"You killed a God," Minos stated.
"Killed?" Diana mockingly responded. "Did I truly? A God's death is suspect at best. I little imagine Ares' death, if you call it that, to be permanent. Is he here?"
"Gods do not reside in Hades or Tartarus," Minos answered. "Or in Elysium. They are beyond our reach."
"This is folly," Diana said. "I regret far more, too many other lives that were lost due to my actions. Proceed with what you will, as will I."
"And there is that willful obstinance," Rhadamanthus observed. "A component of your life since Hippolyta gave birth to you. As such, I judge it to be your final destiny."
"Agreed," Aeacus said.
"Agreed," Minos echoed.
An unnerving silence poured over and through Diana's body as it was pushed downward with considerable force. Physical contact with the sharp, hard ground left her momentarily breathless. Her body and its senses continued to reawaken from death's dormancy. Blood again flowed within her, washing away the numb sensation in her hands and feet. She gathered herself, knees and hands scraped upon rock. Above her was only the blackness. Her vision found the splintered red light that shone from between, what appeared to be several, large, tall slabs of stone positioned vertically into the ground. The judges' silhouettes came into focus as each stood between a slab. Their shapes varied in height and weight. One appeared to have four arms. Another horns. The third, so very thin.
A crunching noise barely tickled the noise receptors in Diana's ears before the ground broke beneath and around her. Crumbly stone floated upward, swirled around her vulnerable body. The vortex crashed into her flesh, keeping her from movement. A circular hole formed underneath. The impenetrable force upon her body released its hold, and she fell through the ground's opening. The hole's circumference grew around her as an unpleasant, hot, sticky air rode and pushed her body from above. Her flight ability failed in response to her increasingly desperate commands.
Diana fell into the black abyss, beyond the judges' sight. They backed away into the darkening red light until there was only the light. Diana would fall for nine Earth days.
Three hundred sixty-two days later…
Clark enters Doom's Doorway via Themyscira. A very long, cylindrical tunnel stretches ahead of him. His super-vision is unable to see its endpoint. With his wingspan, he is able to touch opposite sides of the tunnel, which feels like a mixture of metal and stone. The unknown material gives off a low-level light, glimmering off his black uniform. He attempts to look beyond the tunnel's walls, but there is nothing, at least nothing that he can detect. No Themyscira. Just darkness. Clark glides onward, perpendicular to the floor, his head nearly scraping the tunnel's topside. Time ticks off in his head, seventy-two seconds pass before he sees an endpoint. He lands gently, walking the remaining few yards. He sees no transition, it is much like the doorway barrier he entered Doom's Doorway.
Clark scours, frustrated with his inability to see beyond the wall. His annoyance is short-lived as he walks with confidence, directly into the wall. There is no give. He pushes his powerful hands against it. No give. His right foot braces from behind as he pushes harder. Still no give. He is unable to pass through. He arcs back his right arm to deliver a punch.
"Problem?" he hears from behind.
Clark turns his entire body quickly to see figures, all of which, he has problems reconciling. They appear human, but some are ravaged.
"How could such bodies catch me unaware?" Clark thinks.
"Problems, I asked," repeats a youthful woman dressed in an all-black, snug attire. Tank top, pants and boots. An ankh pendant necklace dangles against her chest. Hair bangs that are so deeply black, nearly cover her eyes. Her face and uncovered arms are so very white, reminding Clark of English aristocrats centuries ago who powdered their faces. She is slight of build, standing in front of extremely warped caricatures of humanity.
A man, Clark thinks, who is so very old looking stands next to her. His eyes are two black orbs that Clark is hard-pressed to shake away from. A fleeting second brings Brainiac back to his thoughts. Another man appears sickly, his body mutated with infections and malformations. Pus oozes from open wounds. His left arm is significantly smaller than his right.
There is a woman who stares at Clark. Her green colored eyes, so hypnotic, compelling him to close his own. To fall asleep. Clark physically rattles his head, breaking away from her gaze. Another woman wraps her arms around herself. Sobbing. Wailing in some form of grief. A man of extreme short stature holds on to her leg, not to calm her, but to find some solace for himself. His head darts with anxiety in all directions.
A shirtless man stands away from the group. His body is so frail. Thin. Reminding Clark of the Jewish victims, ultimately survivors, he found at so many Nazi concentration camps so many decades ago. The man's fingers slowly move upward to his mouth, which opens and closes repeatedly. A sickly sheen of saliva hangs and drips from rotted teeth. It is mesmerizing until a woman's scream causes Clark to take a step back. She is in some form of agony.
Clark nearly misses seeing the child, maybe a girl of eight years of age, who hides behind them all. She takes a quick look at Clark, then looks away just as quickly.
"Who are you?" Clark asks.
The young woman in black takes several steps towards Clark. "We're the welcoming committee, Clark," she says. "Or do you prefer Kal-El? Superman? Man in black, maybe. Love your new color scheme."
"And so you know my name," Clark replies calmly. He towers over her by at least a foot, but she shows neither hesitancy nor fear in maintaining eye contact. "Clark is good. And you are?"
"I'm Death," she says.
"Of course you are," Clark muses. "You mean that literally, I assume?"
"However you prefer to take it?" Death says with a smile.
"And the others?" Clark motions. "The personification of other states, of being, I presume?"
"You are a smart one, Clark," Death says.
Clark laughs lightly at the absurdity of this moment, even for him.
"The humor would be?" questions a smiling Death.
"You wear a symbol from your neck that means eternal life," Clark states. "Irony is not lost with Death, I see."
"You are fun, Clark," Death says. "But the ankh represents, as you noted, eternal life; but it is not just mortal existence, it is also the afterlife. Ergo, eternal life. To why you are here, you really want to do what you came here for?"
"She is my eternal life," Clark says. "Without her, I am yours."
Death smiles. "Wow, Clark. Symmetry poetry. I feel a pang of jealousy not being the one you have come for," she says. "Such passion for Diana. Quite unlike anything I have seen in many years. You will need it. Yet still, I place your odds of success quite low."
Clark smiles, whispering to himself, "Never tell me the odds."
"Indeed I will not," she says, speaking so normally as a madhouse of amusement park mirrors plays out behind her. "Should you wish to proceed. Through the door behind you, focus on the first moments you met her. Hold on to them as you pass through."
"That's it?" Clark asks.
"For now," she says.
"May I ask a question?" Clark inquires.
"Of course," Death replies.
"The world has mythologized the Greek Gods," Clark states. "Do they exist as such? Those myths. And the gods that are now worshipped by the people of Earth, do they?"
"As with all myths, there are some truths," Death answers. "Where would the fun be if I told you the totality of what is, and what is not? I wear, as you pointed out, an Egyptian symbol. God is such a triggering word. Means many things to many people of different beliefs. If the God you are concerned with has dominion over Earth, then there is only one."
"Zeus," Clark infers.
"There was a war," Death states. "Give or take, four hundred thousand years ago. Lasted a long time. Amongst individuals, or deities you may have even called them. The Gods as you know them of Greek mythology if you will, persevered. Won out. For millennia thereafter, they played vital roles in structuring society across the planet. And then they choose not to."
"Why?" Clark asks.
"I do not know," Death says. "I was not privy to that decision. My guess? They grew bored of the lives of mortal humans."
"Bored?" Clark repeats, ebbing internally his heat vision a few millimeters from his irises. Testing to make certain his abilities are still there, not quite trusting Death. "Zeus is bored, does that explain his apathy toward Diana? Her wrongful fate? Or was he an active participant in her fate? My wife. My wife has been in hell for a year. A year. And I had no clue. Leaving her. Leaving Earth. Hoping solace was out there, what she would expect me to do. Solace in knowing she was in a better place, a good place. I'm saying nothing you don't already know, right?"
"Yeah, you're all open books to me," Death says. "And now, you will attempt to do what no one has ever done."
"What state, physically, is she in?" Clark asks. "When you saw her?"
"She was your Diana," Death says. "But how long that lasts, in the Underworld, I do not know. I hold no power, wherein you are about to traverse. Once the moment of Death has past, my function is done."
"Your function? The scientist in me has so many questions," Clark says. "Where I stand. Now. What plane of existence is it? Where am I to Earth? Am I on Earth?"
"We've struck midnight, Cinderella," Death says. "Only one question you need answering right now. And that is of yourself. Do you forge ahead on faith?"
"One last question, please?" Clark asks of Death.
She ponders, staring at the strongest individual she has met at the life crossing. He impresses her, as such, "You may ask the question."
"My Earth father, Jonathan Kent," Clark says. "You saw him at his death, his mortal existence. Do you know where he resides?"
"Without certainty," Death replies. "But your question is more than the surface. To answer your true question, Jonathan Kent was mine before you reached Martha Kent that day. You could not have saved him is the answer you seek."
"Did you speak to him?" Clark asks, seeing his father, at that moment, so clearly in his mind.
"You truly think I converse with every human at their mortal death?" she inquires. "Nine thousand lives every day. Thirty-nine and counting since we started speaking."
"I get the sense, you're able to be in multiple places at once," Clark says.
"You just keep impressing," Death states.
"The only sensical notion in a world that bends what I've believed to be normal, which becomes more and more relative each day," Clark relays. "Are all your Death versions of equal capacity, or is there a central one, controlling the others?"
"Which you have first-hand knowledge of," Death replies.
"Brainiac," Clark voices.
"The biggest death toll day since nineteen ninety-one," Death says. "February eighth. You remember that day, don't you Clark? You and Diana were right in the thick of it."
"Are you now poking, or prodding?" Clark responds. "Or maybe both?"
Death smiles, she touches Clark's hand. He is surprised to find Death's touch so warm. Alive.
"I'm not all doom and gloom, Clark," she says wrapping her fingers around Clark's hand. "If it gives you comfort, I do believe Jonathan Kent is in Elysium."
"It does," Clark answers, his eyes glazing over a bit.
"I know what you're thinking, but are you going to bring everyone back?" Death asks, removing her finger hold upon Clark. "An impossibility you do know. As Hippolyta told you, only the greatest love can make the journey. I think we both agree that would be Martha Kent, and we both know such a journey for her would be impossible. At least at the moment."
"Her death. Do you know when people will die?" Clark asks. "Leave their mortal existence?"
"The simple, short answer, no, I do not," Death answers.
"That's it?" Clark asks seeking greater explanation.
"That's it, Clarky," Death replies. "Shouldn't you be going?"
Clark stretches, feeling his slumping shoulders and back. He stands straight and tall. "I will see you again," he says, turning and facing the wall door.
"Assuredly. And take pride, you will be one of the very few who will see me more than once," Death says from behind him.
Clark stifles a grin, cocking his head to the side. He takes a glance back and Death, the entire cadre, are gone. He absently fiddles with Diana's lasso, still wrapped around his left shoulder and arm. He thinks back, eighty years ago. Flying in Germany, his search for Adolf Hitler's secret base of operations. Loud, continuous fire rang out near the Austrian-Germany border. He flew quickly to discover carnage, both human and machine. And there she was, down but definitely not out. He held his hand out, she took it. That first moment of physical contact, his life came into focus. Diana rotated his doubts until they came into clear view for Clark. How to rid them from his person. His thinking. That was Diana. That day, she became his everything.
Clark takes a step, his right foot moves through the wall door with ease. The rest of his body follows.