no ordinary world

13


She hadn't gotten passed the nurses' station when the fluorescent lights flickered once, twice, and then burned out. All of them, and at the same time.

Chloe paused, a rambling actor bumping into her in the dark, "This is happening... this is really happening!"

"What's happening?" Chloe grabbed the shadow and asked, "Where are the generators?"

But she was bumped again, and was thrown into a medical cart.

Shoes squeaked frantically across the hall, Chloe regaining her balance and her orientation. Which way was it Lois' hospital room? she peered in the blackness, but did it really matter? Was any of this ever real?

Faintly, Chloe spied one of the exit doors, opened now with shadows of people flocking to it. They were all evacuating like the sudden power outage was a spur of some natural disaster.

And it was. Natural, no. But when Chloe passed the threshold and looked up into the sky as everyone else did, she knew.

It was still dark, it was still night. The many flecks of simulated starlight shining defiantly as another, larger star, invaded their spotlight.

It was a celestial contradiction of night and day never seen before on a real Earth. Or had Lex proven that this place, this world,  was unlike any other ever created.  The sun was caught in a cycle of cataclysmic, sublime, silent explosions. Star bursts of ghostly fingers spraying across in the sky. It was a sight more beautiful than she ever imagined. Their simulated star, dying, in front of them. All light on the earth was dead, and it left everyone to gaze up at the only thing that seemed alive.

It provoked a sense that they had suddenly transported to a different planet entirely.

It was happening, Chloe thought, feeling her heart in her chest.


Silent, except the murmurs between the crowd of actors on the street. Some had flashlights while others had the sheen reflection of the explosion in their wide eyes. The silence gradually fell to a low drumming... as if the thunder had finally awoken to its lost lightning.

Fat raindrops  crashed against Chloe's forehead, yet there wasn't a cloud in the sky.

This rain, was not rain. It was preventative measures. She looked down at the street gutters as water gushed from the pavement... It was water from industrial sprinkler heads.

The studio was on fire.

"What now?" she heard someone whisper, either to someone in the dark or across the radios. But there was no answer, no one knew. A malfunctioning power surge affected the town like a tidal wave, and now they were all dependent on the light of the stars and the moon.

The moon was still on the horizon, and hung there as if it were caught by surprise.  It's emotionless  face watched as its counterpart swirled in fiery display.

And the more Chloe watched the celestial spectacle, the more she realized that  it looked more like a falling meteor than a star. Bloated, and angry... unpredictable. Falling towards them.

Sheriff Adams appeared from the twilighted darkness, her hat absent from her head, "What now?" she said, with a airy dissonance that sent chills down Chloe's neck.

Yes, what now?

Streaks of her wet hair crested her eyes, but she could still see the cropping of the road that led from the hospital to the Kent house. With this sudden flood of water, the dirt road would turn into mud and then it would be impassable. She had to leave, now.

*

With only her headlights lighting the way, Chloe drove through the heavy rain, listening for any traffic over the radios. There was none, and she was certain the power outage had taken over Lex's radio tower too. But still, the eerie glow of the sun shone with a determination and source of its own. A churning, fire ball of energy in physical suspense. Waiting for...

She approached the crossing of the ravine, but was forced to stop. The bridge was inundated with swift water, the water management systems offline and inoperable. Without Lex's engineers monitoring the lands, the area was a playground for Murphy's Law. Everything designed in Smallville had been based off of the principle of 'picturesque,' and most of those designs nearly impossible to manage without constant oversight.

All of Smallville's pretty landscaping and waterways being erased. The narrow, steep rocky avenues, so the transplanted greenery. None of it was native to the flat lands the project was bred.

Chloe watched as the mud began to slide down the mountain side.

 The world Lionel Luthor had built, now turned upside down by his son.

She got out of her car and shielded her eyes from the rain. She thought she could climb her way across, that possibly--

She lost her footing, slipped. Water rushed passed.

She landed on her back, her face assaulted by the torrential rain. Her eyes shut, coughing. She covered her mouth.

But her eyes kept opening, she couldn't help it, she had to see it.

The sun, it was falling.

"Chloe!"

The voice grew stronger over the rain, and she heard heavy clonks of boots tromping through the water and mud. It was Clark, his jacket over his head, his truck's headlights back lighting him from across the bridge, "Chloe, are you alright?"

Before she could answer, he swept her up and brushed off her face. She barely had time to smile, to realize, that she was overjoyed to see him now. Not because she was stuck. Not because it was raining. And not even because she didn't know what was about to happen to them all. But, just, because.

"Clark..."

"C'mon, I'll carry you over, " he said, his hair wrapped around his face in thick strands. Easily, he gathered her legs and carried her across the swift water, abandoning her car on the other side of the bridge. She looked across at it from behind his shoulders just as the water swept it away.

Where her own legs and car wouldn't have made it across, Clark walked over the strong current effortlessly. And he didn't seem to notice either.

Clark placed her in the cab and ran over to the driver side and popped in, "I told my mom to stay inside the house... I'm glad I found you out here. I wasn't sure-- Do you think Lois is ok--"

"She's fine," Chloe shivered.

He looked over at  her. It was stronger than she expected it to be. He might have been calculating the risk of crossing the bridge again, or was he calculating the trust in her words? He looked as if he was reading her mind, or her soul. Clark looked at her with a confidence  that she wasn't sure he'd found anywhere else. He took her word, and reversed the truck.

Clark made no mention of the sun, even as his eyes caught it around the cab's visor several times. Chloe made no mention of it either, unsure what to say, or even if she should say anything at all. She instead watched him as he maneuvered the truck carefully long the pitted mud holes as competent as a man born to do so.

There was no way Clark could have understood what was happening, or why the sky was so strange. He didn't seem to be afraid, or curious at all. His demeanor was all so focused, and determined, like a marathon runner obsessed with a mythical finish line. Pressed against all corners, Clark was fighting, still reacting to the obstacles thrown at him by men who hide beneath titan sized props. If it wasn't social manipulations, then it was physical barriers, or elemental disasters. Now, it was the entire town falling apart. Chloe turned to watch the sun's fury from the rear cab window.

The sun was sinking lower, the lashes of fire whipping at the higher mountain line. A fine orange glow began to show behind the dark, jagged rocks.

Clark glanced at it too in his rear mirror, and adjusted it once or twice.

But he didn't say anything.

Had they pushed Clark to the point where he no longer questioned his enemies... or did he even know where to start?

"Now what," Chloe asked unexpectedly, the question fumbling from her lips even before she knew it. There was no subtext in her ear, no lines  cued from Lex. There was no one there in the truck cab except her and Clark.

There was no one else.

"I'm taking you back to the house, my mom is waiting there. I told her to wait," Clark said, eyes focused on the dark roads, "we have batteries and a gas generator in the barn... after I get you there safe, I'm going back for Lois."

The windshield wipers slapped away stubborn raindrops, swarming and obstructing their view. Clark kept driving and didn't stop, not once.

*

He drove her back to the farm, where the roads became nearly impassable. Rather than parking the truck, the tires simply quit in the mud.

The Kent property was strange in complete darkness. Chloe couldn't remember a time when the porch light was off, nor was there ever a cold feeling when she approached it.

But the power outage had affected it too, and the house was blacked out. Abandoned. Empty.

Cold.

She shivered, clothes soaked and her bones shaking. They sought shelter underneath the Kent's porch. Clark went inside the house and looked for his mother. His voice was that of a frightened boy, hiding underneath a grown man. When Martha didn't answer inside the house, and Clark came out, panicked.

"Clark," Chloe caught his arm as he ran out, "she's not here."

He looked at her, like a creature looking from out his cage... Behind him, the moon crested the black ridges of town.

It was a labyrinth, Clark's labyrinth. Both for his body, his abilities, and his mind. The walls were closing in. There was no one else but them now.

They were alone.

"Martha... isn't here." Chloe reiterated, in a way that suggested she wasn't anywhere. She saw the same look inside his eyes. He was reading her, again.

Clark's blue eyes shone like glass in a dark void. Crescents of translucent flesh so delicate, yet so powerful as they cleared into crystal with Chloe's words. Slowly, a light burned in them. Slowly, he understood.

"What's going on, Chloe?"

"Martha.. Lois... They're not real, none of this is real..." her words spilled from her mouth, and then it was too late... "The fires, your entire life! None of it is real, it's all a lie."

Beyond the shelter of the porch, rain continued to fall in frantic relays. Until then, Clark had made no reference to the strange fire in the sky. But it was then that he looked over his shoulder then, and back at her.

"That's not real?"

She stared at its face too. She was angry, angry like the fiery sun in the distance. Everything written on pieces of paper, erased, crumbled up, thrown away and then set on fire. And Lex was watching too. She wondered what it looked like, his entire world, burning? He would never see the world burning from her eyes, or from Clark's.

Clark's eyes.

Chloe frowned,  "Do you even know what's happening? Why all of this is happening?" she shouted at him, over the beating of the rain, and the storm in her chest.

Clark responded with nothing, his own body heaving with anticipation. In his hands, he held two flashlights he'd taken from the house, "Do you?"

She saw the mix of confusion, and suspicious in his eyes...

"You don't even know who you are..." she shook her head, and bit down a sob.  Not knowing what else to do, collapsed her arms around his bulky frame and drew herself into him. He locked her in, his large arms encompassing her waist and shoulders...

This was only the third time he had held her since...

She closed her eyes.

"No," she heard his voice through the deep resonation of his chest, "I don't know why any of this is happening... But I know that you and me are going to be ok. Alright? You're safe here at the house. You're safe here, with me."

She closed her eyes harder.

"Clark..." she said, lifting her head towards his, "you're not safe here. We're not," she caught her breath as he came closer to her, "I want you to know everything, before it's too late."

In his eyes, there was a deeper understanding, a creature realizing his purpose, his beginning and end. It was clarity. "I can hear your heartbeat," was all he said, but his chest against hers swelled like a great crescendo.

Chloe blinked, and wondered if he truly could. Had the radiation exploited him, and returned his mysterious abilities? The way he looked at her, confirmed it. Was that all he could think about right now? Her, and her... restless heart?

Chloe swallowed the dry, bitterness in her mouth, her eyes moistening, "I want you to know the truth... out of everything, out of all the lies..."

"C'mon," Clark interrupted her, and took her hand, "the generator's in the barn. I can get that started, then--"

"Clark, wait!" they both stopped in the driveway, raining continuing to pour, "you need to listen to me, please."

The sun's flames arced higher, while the body sank lower.

He couldn't help it anymore. Clark stopped in his tracks, feet sinking in mud.

They both stared at the sun, galloping down until there was one final crash into the murky blackness of the earth.

A blinding light shook the stage, and then a glow.

Chloe shielded her eyes, and when she reopened them, there was Clark, looking into them,

"I love you," he said, and without prompt. He said it like a man did on his last, thin, high wire. His voice was trembling, and she could not tell if it was from the cold rain or the fear of not knowing how all of this was going to end. She didn't know if he truly meant those words. She only knew he said them, before she had the chance.

"I love you, too," she said right after.

There was a moment between their confession, and the moment when she decided to kiss him. The wall of fire had spread across the horizon, and the Moon, lifting up in the distance.

Chloe walked across the mud and the rain towards Clark. When she placed her hands against his face, he bent down.

She kissed him, very carefully, weaving in every last stitch of her feelings for him in that kiss. She knew it wouldn't last, that they wouldn't last. But she knew it was important to make this known.

"Out of everything," Chloe whispered to his lips, "just believe that this is true."

Clark pressed his forehead against hers, and held her longer, "I always believed it."

She nodded, drops of rain sliding down her face, "Then don't ever give up. Promise me. Please."

"Ok," Clark nodded, "I promise."

They both smiled, but it didn't last.

The glow swelled higher, and Clark took her hand, "C'mon, we're leaving."

*

The truck broke down about 3 miles out of town.

Clark carried her the rest of the way, his pants caked with mud up to his thighs, but his legs never stopped kicking. He found that his legs worked faster in the mud than the truck, and it was strange, but he felt that he was getting faster with every mile.

Clark ran until the terrain prompted him to climb. Then he started climbing.

The slick, black rock challenging even in dry weather, Clark scaled the first wall with Chloe tailing behind.

He felt the a pang of discomfort when he touched the rocks, an eddying nausea in his stomach and head. His adrenaline kept him going, and her, Chloe behind him.

"Not much farther," Clark said, his eyes catching the hell waiting behind them.

All of Smallville was burning.

They couldn't go back from here.

He reached down with his arm, and Chloe grasped it and climbed.

She saw his veins, bulged and.. green. Clark's skin pale, and sickly. He gritted his teeth and forced  a smile through his eyes. His strength was waning.

"Clark, are you ok?"

"I'm fine.." He grabbed another hold of rock and stepped up, "Not much farther."

He tried not thinking about the pain. He tried not to vomit. Instead, Clark thought about what he was leaving behind. Chloe told him that everything he knew wasn't real. That his wife, Lois, was not real. That his mother, was not real. That what he felt, everything he ever built for himself, was gone. It was all burning behind him. And for everything that it was worth, he felt it was worth nothing. He didn't care.

He looked ahead of him, and searched for another stronghold to climb next.

He didn't care about any of that. He didn't care, and hadn't care for a long time. None of it was ever truly his. And if it wasn't real, then who made it?

"Clark!"

He looked down and saw that Chloe had slipped. He reached down for her and grabbed her arm, "You're ok. I got you."

This was real. This feeling, this pain. Seeing her hold onto him, trust him. That was real. He could hear it in her chest when he touched her hand. It was real.

Once she climbed up to him, they leaned against the mountain face and rested, "Clark, I don't know how much farther we can climb. It's too dangerous."

"I promised you I wouldn't quit," Clark wheezed, and then touched her cheek.

"There has to be a better way.."

He looked at her, then to the sky, "There is, but it's not ready yet... besides, I don't think I can fly in this weather."

She looked at him curiously, "What?"

Clark looked back at her, and then laughed.

Laughing made him wheeze, and then dizzy. He tried not thinking about the nausea, but it followed along his throat down into his chest, pumping more pain with every heart beat.

Behind him, buried meteor rock vibrated underneath its black exterior. His heart shook with equal intensity, but it wasn't in his control. He clutched his chest. Heart attack.

Chloe clung to him and sat him down, "We have to get you away from here."

His ears imploded with the sounds of his own body fighting against himself, her voice was muffled, and his own cries protested against her. He could barely see the crest of the open sky beyond the black mountains. He could almost see their freedom.

"Clark?" she spoke to him in muffled, fuzzy tones as he eventually passed out, "I'm going to get you out of here... Clark? Can you hear me? Clark..."

Rain splashed in his eyes, with darkness flooding in. The light of the blaze, he could barely feel it's heat on his cheek... But he thought he felt her on the other, her lips touching his so sweetly.