Chapter Seventeen: Dreams and Reflections

At night, Emmet slept, and dreamed of his childhood.
They were not farmers.
They were not scientists.
They were not businessmen.
They were not politicians.
They were shopkeepers, leading a simple life.
When a rocket crashed on their Earth, they were the first ones there. They were out having a romantic evening. A dinner that was cooked by the man and eaten by both. The man, Olgard, with his wife, Felia. There, love is simple. There, love is understood.
During this very romantic evening, a star was falling. It was falling down, down, and still further down. What started out as a source for a wish soon became a source for panic. It was coming closer and closer, it was heading towards them!
Not a word was spoken, they were futile. Olgard grabbed his wife and they ran. They ran as far as they could. The star crashed not two hundred meters away. The crater was huge. Stopping in their flight, curiosity took over. They turned around and walked towards it. Inside was a craft unlike any they had seen before. Fearfully, they opened the hatch. The design was advanced, but it had similarities to their own world's designs. A wash of air flowed out of the small compartment. The dust settled around the rocket. They saw the beautifully crafted spaceship. It was silver in colour, with the wings of the ship coloured red. On the front of the ship was a symbol, an emblem. Felia thought it was Kryptonian, but Olgard was not quite sure. They looked at the vehicle and its occupant: an infant. About two years old. He was so small. The moonlight shone upon the babe in transcendent light, as if the gods were giving the two a sign of great things to come.
Taking the baby, they ran away. Away from the site, away from their picnic. It was twenty days before anyone reported that the ship has been taken.

"Emmet," said Olgard, "that will be his name."
"It is a good name," said Felia, "but how can we raise him?"
They already had three kids. The economy was not strong enough to support more kids, and even if they applied for adopting a stray boy, that rarely meant that they would be able to keep it, especially with their youngest son, Garlin, in need of medication.
They filed for adopting a stray, saying that they found him in the bad parts of town. Hoping this would be sufficient. They gave him the name and hoped for the best. It wasn't answered well. The government could not afford to help them. The war effort was such a taxing problem, and it wasn't even a war they could gain much from, thought Olgard.
He returned home from the office, the streets were desolate, the world seemed that much bleaker. He had been allowed to legally adopt the child, but no benefits would be given to him. There was no way he could manage to keep his family going with another mouth to feed. But what could he do? He couldn't turn the boy away, how could he?
He was outside his apartment building now. The house was an old building with bricks of different colours, built when the population was getting too big and there was no time to invest in colouring buildings. Then the war came and colouring a bunch of buildings became inconsequential. He walked up the wooden stairs, each step echoing along the hallways. Each step harder than the previous. How could he tell Felia? How?
Something broke, and a child was crying. It was from his apartment. He ran over to the door and quickly unlocked it. The sight was terrifying. Emmet, standing up, was holding above his head a table. The dinning table. Above his head. The whole table. The scene wouldn't compute in Olgard's head. His other children were staring at the child, their new brother, and they were stunned. How could the child be able to do that? Who was this person?

It has been three months since they first discovered Emmet's powers. His two eldest children were by now far away, working factories in order to try and live. Child labour in such a technologically advanced nation, but they were both over sixteen, it was time. Meanwhile, Garlin was getting worse, and the shop was not able to bring enough food for the family. The amount of money they earned was getting smaller and smaller. They didn't even have enough medicine.
"Ask for another loan, they will give it to you!" yelled Felia. She was right, they would give him the loan, so that they may collect the debts when the war was over. Olgard went to the bank, then he entered. Once inside, he waited for three hours, then left. He knew what must be done, he knew what he had to do. Garlin was not worthy, he was weak, he couldn't be afforded. Garlin's fate was sealed. There was no other way.

Endless days went by of Emmet being forced to train, to study like his life depended on it. But Emmet had a purpose: he will find a way to help Garlin, he will help him. He will find a cure for his illness. He will become the greatest person in the world and find the cures.
As his education continued in his schools, so did his powers. Every night, after hours of studying at super-speed, he would be driven to abandoned factories and fields by his dad. His dad who constantly instructed him, who constantly made sure Emmet knew how important he was, and how that came with an obligation to his planet. He had to fix it. Emmet would train his powers through the night. Training to master his abilities, but also to expand them, to test their limits. The sun would provide him with the energy he lost through the difficult hours of the night.

Twenty years after his arrival, Emmet graduates from his university. His studies had been fundamental to his abilities. Learning physics, chemistry, biology and so many other subjects allowed him to be ready. His father would be proud. He was ready to become the hero he'd wanted to be for so long. He had trained to be this hero for so long. He'd created the suit, and he'd attached the cape himself, creating it from different materials for its different functions. His training, which had started when he was four years old, concluded in the undeniable fact that he had no limit to his powers. At the time he thought his drive came from Garlin. First to save him, and after Garlin had died Emmet thought he did it in his honour. Emmet didn't know why Garlin died, why the bank refused the second loan, but it was something he would try and uncover when the time was right, when people knew who he was. But even then, Emmet already knew, deep in his heart that Garlin was a failure, a burden. Those with incurable diseases should be used for study only, kept alive only if science needed them. Society had no place for people that could not, or would not contribute.

He saved people. He saved so many, but he knew it was not enough. He had to do more. Saving people from burning buildings was inconsequential when every day news of the war his country was fighting and the dead that were massed came in. He didn't want to be affiliated with any country. But he had to stop wars. They were the climax of evil, the greatest deterrent to progress and unity. They had to be stopped. Somehow. Enough was enough.
His life was lived surrounded by tales of wars going on in some part of the world or another, many times he dreamed of intervening, many times his father forbade it. Now he was in charge. Now, it was time to stop these things. The world knew who he was, now it was time for the world to know what it should be.
A battle was underway in a small provincial town in the middle of a nation that had been in constant war for three years. The tanks were already leaving, the soldiers were going in. Emmet arrived to see the horrors: kids being shot at point blank, firing squads assembled to shoot the men. Women's screams of horror and pain as men dragged them into abandoned houses, shooting them when they are done.
Infuriated, Emmet obliterated the attacking forces. Killed them all. Destroyed them. He had to take control. He had to do what was right. His people could no longer be trusted.

Killing was necessary. An evil person will have no chance of doing another evil if he were dead. The chance that a criminal would repent was inconsequential. You did not kill the innocent, you do not hurt those that have not harmed.
The people that did not contribute to their society were worthless. Completely worthless, and therefore expendable.
Emmet saw his world, the world he led with all its glory. He knew he created a true utopia, a world where everyone did their part, and where they all knew the true meaning of the rule of law.

Emmet woke up. He looked around and remembered where he was. He had been dreaming of his past very much recently, but it was not a problem weighing on his conscience, it was a way to reflect, to understand what was happening. A few years ago Emmet gained full control of his dreams and could guide them as he pleased by controlling his unconscious completely.
He had to do the for this planet what he did for his, these wars must be stopped. Atrocities must be ended. Evil must be uprooted by any means necessary.
He walked into the living room of his small and simple apartment, his host was in the usual seat, watching TV.
"Do you have any siblings?" asked the host, he was still staring at the television, but he never seemed to pay much attention to it.
"I had three siblings. All older. The eldest two died of poisoning from the air in the factories they worked in, it was a time of war and home front health was not deemed important, amongst other things."
"And the other one?"
"My father... He died because of my father."
"How?"
"He was very sick, and my father decided that it was a lost cause trying to save him, so he let him die. He did, in a way, a similar thing with my older siblings. He chose to invest in me rather than to invest in them."
"I'm sorry."
"Do not be. What he did is perhaps unforgivable, but it was necessary. He did not have sufficient income to save us all, and he picked me because I was the better of them all. I sentenced him to death for his crimes, but I told him I understood. Everyone is equal before the law, but not everyone is equal. Some are more important than others. Some are just a liability, a tax on the resources of the many. They can be dispensed with, if necessary."
"So what are we to you?"
"A lost planet. A planet filled with contradictions and ideals that will not yield and cannot stand. Ideals that work for the betterment of the human spirit while they destroy the human condition. A planet that needs saving."
"So what're you going to do now?"
"I'm going to show your biggest champion what needs to be done."
And with that, Emmet left the apartment, he rushed over to the lower stratosphere, and looked at all that was going on. He heard the cries of joy, of happiness. But those were blocked out from his mind as soon as they were registered, he did not care for them, barely even noticed them. He did not pay any attention to the wife whose husband just came back from a trip, his family welcoming him home, or the poverty-stricken kid who finally got the scholarship he needed to attend university. Not the whispers of love that the couples were telling one another. All of this may as well not have existed in his eyes. All he heard were the cries of women being abused, kids being beaten. He heard the rolling of tanks and gunshots. He heard the cursing and the yelling. He heard it all. And not one single tear was shed from his tightly closed eyes. He opened them and a red as dark as Hell's replaced his blue eyes. His anger swelled and evolved to something greater, something worse.
He flew towards Syria. He saw the devastation within its borders. ISIS. They were destroying cities, hurting women, children. Killing everyone. It stopped now.