Young Justice: The Gold Corps: Shattered, Chapter 26: I Wish I Could Live in Your World

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I don't own Young Justice or the Green Lantern Corps.

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Chapter 26: I Wish I Could Live in Your World

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Susan Anderson's integration back into society took place slowly, with her family's full support. They didn't coddle her, though, of course, they did see to her physical needs, which, at first, were considerable; but nobody tried to conceal from her the reality of what had happened. Several of the boys had been caught, and prosecution was pending.

Susan herself took her time recuperating. There was no need to hurry, and she was intelligent enough to know that it was a good thing she didn't remember the attack itself, even if she did remember the dream (which was bad enough by itself). But even then, she couldn't fully shake the feeling of horror whenever she thought about what she must have gone through. It was like a black, bubbling cyst in the pit of her stomach.

She could tell herself the dream wasn't real, that it was just a dream, a fevered imagining of her own mind, but the attack had really happened. In real life.

And sometimes…sometimes when she closed her eyes, she could see him, her perfect knight in shining armor, his golden uniform, flying through space…

Of course, the psychologists were right: she must've waked up just a little, not all the way, but just enough to catch a glimpse of the Gold Lantern comic book her brother, an avid collector, had been reading, there in the room. That was the theory behind sleep apnea, sleep paralysis, and several related sleep disorders, anyway, and there was no reason to assume a similar principle was impossible here. And then, once she had partially waked up, her mind had concocted a fantasy about a hero who'd come to rescue her from the demons of her own mind. Of course that made sense. That was the only way it made sense.

Had to be. She didn't like comic books, had never read one in her life.

But then, several weeks after her full physical rehabilitation….there was that time when she happened to go to the mall with some friends. They'd all gotten separated, with their usual plan of meeting back at the food court, and she'd found herself in front of a comic store. Normally, she would sniff disdainfully; obviously, this sort of thing was for those whose reading skills must be limited in some way.

But her brother liked them. Well, it took all kinds.

Just out of sheer curiosity, however, no other reason, of course, she found herself wandering into the comic store and perusing the colorful shelves. Yes, the overly muscled men and overly endowed women, all the highly implausible adventures…

Hm. Gold Lantern. Well, now that was…interesting. Yes. "Interesting" was a good word for it.

Somehow it happened to find its way into her hand. Well, it wouldn't hurt to look inside, would it?

"Hey!" shouted the proprietor, "You read, you buy, girlie!"

She turned, almost casually, to the man. "Excuse me? 'Girlie'? I'm not a 'girlie,' I'm a customer. Is this the way you treat all your customers? If so, it's no wonder I see no one else in here." The man spluttered a bit, but didn't seem to have an especially witty comeback to that. "As I see no one else behind the counter, I presume you to be the manager. Very well; otherwise I'd have to have a word with him about rude employees. But I can obey rules, just like anyone else. I have even been known to behave in a civilized manner, unlike some." She continued, producing her card. "Here. And I want a storage bag to put it in."

And it was really very strange. Somehow the comic book made its way back to her room, undetected by her friends or family. She wasn't too sure just how that happened. It just seemed to find itself a hiding place in a box on her closet shelf, underneath some other boxes. Safe and secure.

The fact that she was fully recovered physically didn't mean her traumatic event hadn't left its scars. Not long after the comic book purchase, she and her best friend Rhonda were again at the mall, but this time both firmly situated at the food court. The schezuan chicken from the little Chinese place was to die for, and Rhonda was addicted to the cheese stuffed-crust pizza. Susan wanted to go browse the comic book store again, resisting not only because she didn't want to talk to that barbarian of a proprietor again, but also because she didn't want Rhonda knowing her guilty little secret.

Of course, Rhonda knew about the attack. All her friends did, and all had expressed outrage over the incident, all the more so because they knew it could have happened to any one of them. "I know it had to have been horrible for you, Suze."

"Well, as I've told you, I don't remember anything about the attack itself. Nothing. What I do remember was walking to get a cab. Then…then that nightmare," she stopped and shivered, even in the warmth of the day, "That horrible, horrible dream I told you about. Devils and everything. That part's crystal clear. That's really all I remember until I woke up in the hospital, feeling like I'd fallen into a cement mixer."

"Well, yeah, but…" Rhonda hesitated. "I mean, I know you don't remember, but, but….I can't help wondering, what it must've been like. You know, what it was really like." There was something odd about the way she looked at her friend when she said that.

Susan felt the black something inside her gut turn into a white-hot continuous explosion and begin to seethe somewhere deep within her. "Oh, I get it. You're wondering about how it felt to have sex? That the part you're wondering about?" Rhonda drew back before her friend's fury. "First off, I did not have sex! I was attacked, for God's sake! If someone held you down and hit you with a baseball bat, would that make you want to get hit with a baseball bat?" She was shouting the last words; several heads turned. Sensing this through her rage, she grabbed her bags and stormed off, barely aware of Rhonda's calling after her.

"C'mon, Suze, I didn't mean it that way! Hey, hold up!..."

But Susan wasn't in any mood to hold up. She ran all the way home, slamming open the door and slamming it shut, ignoring her mother's first indignant, then concerned comments and questions, and stormed up to her room, closing and locking the door behind her. She kicked off her shoes, and flung herself down on her bed, ignoring her cell ringing Rhonda's distinctive ringtone. She finally just turned it off completely. "Susan?" Her mother's voice came from the other side of the door. "Susan? What's wrong?"

She didn't open the door. Susan's parents believed that their children should be allowed their own privacy. Within certain limits, of course. "It's…nothing, Mom. I just had a fight with Rhonda. She'll probably be calling you or even coming by. I don't wanna see her right now."

"Oh. Well…are you alright?"

"Yeah, Mom. Just mad as heck."

She could hear her mother chuckle on the other side of the door. "You can say 'hell,' if you want to, you know. We're the only ones in the house right now." Susan's father had a thing about his children using certain words.

"Well, okay, then. I'm mad as hell right now."

"Wanna talk about it?"

"Not right now, Mom. Just…not right now."

"Okay. Just so's you know…I'm here. 'Kay?"

"Okay." She could hear her mother's presence receding back down the hallway.

Presently, she judged it was safe. She retrieved the comic book from her closet, still in its protective sleeve. She took it out of the plastic with the sort of care normally reserved for the works of Da Vinci or Michelangelo. Carefully, she turned the pages.

Gold Lantern. Well, of course it was a comic book, a book for children, whose reading skills weren't maybe the best in the world. And for those adults who couldn't wrap their minds around more mature subjects, or needed the graphic images to stir their imaginations. Magic power rings? C'mon, really!

But…

Still, this was interesting.

She read about the recently-created Gold Lantern Corps, and saw the echoes of their creation, in the Great Sundering; saw and understood what the golden light was for, its origin, and what emotion (sort of) it represented…yeah, it was a comic book, but, but…this wasn't exactly a kids' concept. Or not just for kids.

Her eyes misted over as she read about her hero. "I know you'd understand. I just know you would."

I wish I could live in your world.

Then she very carefully put the comic book back in its back and re-hid it there in her room.

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Then something occurred to her…. She turned her attention to her computer. Maybe…maybe there was more information to be had there.

Wikipedia: Gold Lantern. Real name: Ragnar "Ray" Rok. Current alias: Ragin Ramanujin, Indian exchange student. Planet of origin: Unknown, thought to be ancient Maltus. Grew up on an unnamed world somewhere in the Orion spur. Affiliations: Gold Lantern Corps, Doomsday 2, Bertran, Green Lantern Corps, Justice League International, Rose Wilson (who?). Formerly affiliated with the Sinestro Corps, and with an unnamed group of covert operatives on "Earth—16," whatever that was supposed to mean.

This was even more interesting.

She read about the coming of the being known as Inferno, and his destruction of Mars, of Ray's nearly losing his own life trying to save the pitifully few survivors of what had already been a pitifully few—beings who had already hurt him so very much. She read about the rise of their frenemies, the Silver Lanterns, and their perfectly reasonable but totally opposite cosmic agenda.

She sat back, smiling ruefully. I wish I could be in his universe.

"Be careful what you wish for, Susan Anderson." Was that a voice? Quickly, she whirled around, hoping to God her brother hadn't sneaked in and spied her on her computer, looking up subjects she'd sneered at so recently. But he wasn't all that prone to doing that, anyway, and, anyhow, it hadn't sounded like his voice.

It had sounded like a child's voice. But there was no child in the room.

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Days passed uneventfully. Susan began receiving a 9 by 12 inch opaque tan envelope from a major magazine distributor, which she was always careful to immediately take to her room and secrete somewhere. One day, Rhonda (with whom she'd made up) chanced to be there when the mail was delivered, and noted how quickly her friend took the envelope up to her room. Almost as though she had something to feel guilty about.

?

She followed her upstairs, to her room. "Suze?"

"Oh! Uh, yeah, Rhonda, I was just coming back down." She hastily stuffed the envelope into a box and shoved the box back up on the shelf in her closet.

"What was that?"

"What was what?"

"That envelope you just got. You acted like you didn't want anybody to see you getting it."

Rhonda noticed her friend getting extremely nervous. "I-it's nothing. Just, just a magazine I have a subscription to. I'll, I'll read it later…."

"What's the name of it?"

"It's not important…" Rhonda noticed Susan's face getting very red.

"SUE-zan! You went and subscribed to Teen Beat, didn't you? And you don't want your father finding out…that's it, isn't it? He wouldn't let you have those magazines…c'mon, that's it, isn't it?"

"No! No, it's nothing like that…"

"It's nothing dirty, is it?"

"Of course not! RhonDA!" Susan stood there, in the middle of her room, hands on her hips. "What kind of a girl do you think I am, anyway?"

"I dunno. How many kinds are there? Okay! Okay, Suze, it was just a joke! Ramp it down, already! But what kinda magazine would you wanna hide from everybody?"

Susan dithered. She really didn't want anybody knowing her guilty little secret, but she'd known Rhonda since sixth grade. "Okay, I'll tell you. But only under one condition: that you swear you'll never, ever tell anyone, and I mean anyone, especially my big-mouthed brother, about it."

"Alright, I promise. Now, what is it?" The two were alone in Susan's room.

Susan made sure her door was firmly locked, and then retrieved the envelope from where she'd stashed it, opening it up, and drawing forth the contents. "Suze! A comic book? I thought you said those were for kids!"

"Sh! Keep it down! He's got really good hearing. Yeah, I know what I said, but…you remember, back when I…was in the hospital?"

"Yeah…"

"I told you about my dream, didn't I?"

"Just how horrible it was, and that you dreamed somebody saved you."

"Yeah, well, I don't understand it, but…this is who I dreamed about." She pointed to the figure on the cover of the magazine. "Him. The Gold Lantern."

Rhonda picked up the comic book, turning the pages. "Huh. So you dreamed about a character from one of your brother's comic books coming to save you?"

"That's just it. I'd never heard of him before. And you know I never read comics before. The doctors say I must've regained just barely enough consciousness to see the comic, like, maybe on the couch or something, and my unconscious mind filled in the rest. Except…except I…I don't know if that's what happened or not. How could I see something on the couch, with me lying flat in a bed, my face half covered in a bandage?"

Rhonda looked up at her. She was kneeling on the floor, still flipping through the comic. "So…what're you saying? That this guy really did come an' save you?"

"Is that any crazier than me seeing a comic book cover with my head all bandaged up? I never had X-ray vision before. And, and…Ever since I woke up, it's like I've known about him. I mean, I know—don't ask me how I know, I just do—about how he sounds, how he walks, everything. It's like I really met him, Rhonda. I could recognize his voice over the telephone." She paused, running her fingers through her hair, sitting on the side of her bed. "That's what gets me. I mean, if it was a dream, it was one really detailed dream. I know how crazy that sounds. But I can't get him off my mind. Some parts of the dream are kinda vague, but the parts I remember are as sharp as razor blades. Don't dreams usually fade with time?" She turned to her friend. "That's why I want you to promise me you won't blab. They'd say I was losing my mind or something, an' put me on some kinda medication that I don't want or need. So promise!"

Rhonda shrugged. This was no big deal…was it? "Sure. My lips are sealed." She got up and sat by Susan, the comic book still in her hands. "So tell me about this guy."

Susan picked up the comic from Rhonda's hands. "Well, in the comic book, he grows up, all alone on some alien planet. He somehow gets this, like, magic or something ring that can make his will reality. You know, I looked it up; there's actually some historical basis for that."

"There is?"

"Some legends say King Solomon had a magic ring that he could use to control demons, or djinni, as they were called. The legends say he used them to build his Temple. But I mean, that was a legend, yeah, but it was from like three thousand years ago. So they probably got the idea for the power rings from that." She turned the page. "Anyway, he gets this ring, and ends up on Earth. And, from what I've seen so far…" And she proceeded to give Rhonda an abbreviated version of Ragnar's story. "Anyway, that's the story so far." She turned more pages.

"Who's that green girl?"

Susan sniffed. "That's his 'girlfriend.'" She rolled her eyes. "Or she was. Sorta."

Rhonda smirked. She so enjoyed rattling her friend's cage; she was so obvious about it. "'Sorta'? Sounds like you disapprove."

Another sniff. "She's a total ditz. He could do so much better. Besides. You don't know what she did to him, just a few issues ago."

"What'd she do?"

"I'll show you." Now that her "secret" was known, Susan was feeling an immense sense of relief. She no longer had to go it alone. "Rhonda? You don't think I'm crazy, do you? I mean…"

Rhonda put her arm around her friend. "No, Suze. You're not crazy. But you know what? Even, even if you're totally batshit crazy, you're back with us. I mean, I don't know what it was like for you, in that coma, but you don't know what it was like for us, for you to be so….it tore me up, inside! I didn't know if you'd ever wake up! None of us did! So you dream about Mr. Gold Lantern here. So what? I mean, you know he's not real, so what's the harm?" She thought. "And maybe, just maybe, in a way, he did save you. I mean, there you were, locked in a coma. If you had a dream that brought you out of it, so much the better. And if that dream was about a guy, this guy, this comic book character, it doesn't change anything. He did save you. The fact that he's only in your head…well, that's where he needed to be when you really needed him, anyway. Kinda like, I dunno, some kinda dream therapy or something.

"So tell me more about this comic, this guy. What did that green girl do to him, anyway, that's got you so PO'd at her?" Her grin grew broader. "Besides your being jealous, I mean."

Susan sputtered.