ISSUE #7 (October 2018)
Written by Emma Woods Featuring: Supergirl
Superman
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"TO HEAR A PIN DROP"Krypton did not die quietly, it screamed into the void.
Kara Zor-El was a part of that symphony, falling to her knees as the very ground beneath her feet convulsed, the skyway rippling like a tidal wave and throwing people from their feet. Jarring every bone in her all too fragile body, the young girl fell, tears streaming down her cheeks as the world around her crumbled. It was maddening, the sheer scale of the destruction beyond all reason, it was a catastrophe. It was the end of the world, and not one of them would ever know why. She struggled to retain her sanity just as she struggled to find her feet, searching desperately for the way home, a way back to her family, the only sane thought that she had left. “KARA!!” someone screamed from nearby, a voice filled with fear and horror, “KARA!!” The young girl looked about, searching for the source, her eyes opening wide in recognition when she saw her, Allaran Van-Ar, her friend, her oldest friend, so close and yet terrifyingly far away. Kor-Vel, Vax-Nel, Sin-Ral, so many of them huddled beneath the shadow of the House of Zod. They screamed at her to join them, to brave the horrors of a collapsing world, to add her fragile courage to their own in their darkest hour. As she began to speak, cataclysm spoke for her, a primordial cry rising upwards from deep beneath the earth and then, as the ground buckled, a great tear ran up the citadel that housed the family of Zod. It split with an ear piercing screech, the structure teetering as its foundations shattered, the crystalline edifice collapsing with life ending finality, swallowing her friend’s whole beneath it. “KARA!!” they screamed, begging for her to save them. “KAAAAAARA!!” It took several moments before she realised that she was awake, blinking slowly as her eyes adjusted to the sunlight peeking through her window. She could hear the world outside, waking to the dawn, the quite industry of a productive farm sheltering a family. Her family. One she had both never known, and the only one that she had left. The dream was not quick in fading, lingering within her memories even as sleep was left behind her, the screams drumming against her temples. She was no longer sure how much of it was memory, the nightmares visited her so often, each subtle in their variations, she could not be certain how much of it had really happened, nor how much of it was imagined. It was simply too much, too huge for her to process, it was something no-one should have to see. Kara sat up, the world around her comparatively at peace, the young woman listening to the calls and chatter of those who had welcomed her into their home. Her infant cousin, now a grown man, filled with warmth and compassion, his sons, boisterous and strong and his wife, driven and unyielding. They had left her to her slumber, Kara now hugging her knees, granting her privacy without question. It was more than she could have ever asked for, and yet... She looked at her own hands, feeling her palms tremble, why could she not talk to them? Smallville, Town Kara Zor-El of Krypton, Matriarch of the House of El, was not at all convinced by the abundance of plaid that she was now wearing. The reflection that stared silently back at her in the full-length mirror did little to abate her mounting concerns. The clothes certainly were practical, that she could admit, but they were far from flattering. Her suspicions were only further cemented by the giggling of her peers just a few yards away, the duo of teenage girls also inside the small store deliberately failing to disguise their amusement at her expense behind her palms. Kara didn’t turn to look at them, she didn’t need to, seeing them more than well enough in the reflection of the mirror over her shoulder, but it was all that she could do to not frown openly, scarcely able to detain a deep sigh of resignation. With her blonde mane, which she knew damn well could be left to flow full and vibrant, pulled back into a mousey bun, and her clothes seemingly designed to be as unflattering as possible, there was one truth staring back at her in the mirror that was inescapable. She looked like she had been dressed by her Dad. As an immigrant from the stars, she required new clothes to blend in if she were to take up living here indefinitely, an entire wardrobe to be frank, but this was not what she had envisioned. It was, however, what her Cousin had deemed to be appropriate, and he had spent his life living here… “Kara,” Clark Kent drew her attention as he stepped on over, as clueless as he was well meaning concerning her current mood. She could not bring herself to begrudge his enthusiasm as he helped her to assimilate to her new, alien environment, he was trying so hard to help her to fit in. It wasn’t his fault that she felt like she was doing anything but. And yet… “Here, I found these,” he held out a pair of thick rimmed glasses, similar to those that he and the boys often seemed to wear for reasons that she hadn’t entirely figured out yet. She slipped them on and, after blinking once or twice, she could not keep the frown from momentarily creasing her features as a renewal of teenaged giggling rose up from behind her. “Perfect,” Clark insisted, meaning it to his very core as he put an arm about his cousins far smaller shoulders, pride all but beaming off him in waves. He was so open, so loving, so utterly sincere, she couldn’t bring herself to disappoint him. She nodded, bottling up her misgivings and resigning herself to make the best of it, Kara Zor-El looking upon her reflection one last time for posterity, Karen Kent staring back at her. “Jonathon Kent,” Lois Lane announced by way of rebuttal as she tidied up the utensils by the kitchen sink, not needing to turn around to know full well what her youngest son was in the process of attempting, a Mothers intuition could not be fooled. “I know you’re not planning to start eating before your Father gets home.” “But Moooooom,” Jonathon protested like a scolded pup. He continued to present his case, holding his stomach for emphasis as he sat at the dinner table, a veritable feast laid out before his eyes, the Kent household filled with the scent of home, “I’m soooooo hungry.” “You know the rules, young man,” Lois would not be deterred, drying off her hands before taking her own place at the table. “Unless the world is ending, we eat together as a family.” Suitably scolded, he didn’t protest further, which wasn’t to say he was overly happy about the state of affairs. His mood, however, rapidly improved as his elder Brother, Chris, began to elbow his youngest sibling in the ribs, engaging him in a silent game of one-upmanship as boys were prone to do, distracting him from his rumbling tummy. Lois let it go, for the moment, satisfied with the relative peace and quite it presented before it escalated out of control, at which point it would be their Fathers problem. “The bunk bed is up,” Connor Kent, her eldest, declared as he marched down the stairs. “Awesome!” Jonathon perked up by several decibels, sitting up straight at the news, the idea of sharing a room with his big Brother the best one ever in his opinion. “Dibs on top bunk!” “It’s all yours,” Connor surrendered any territorial rights he might have had without a fight, instead sitting down at the dinner table with a rolling of his broad shoulders, easing out the aches and pains. Unlike his siblings, he no longer possessed his Fathers superhuman might, and his efforts to adapt to his mortal failings continued to be a struggle. “Thank you,” Lois squeezed Connor’s forearm, making sure he understood her implied meaning. “It’s ok,” Connor nodded, offering a tired smile, the young man having already given up his own room with equally as little resistance, “I get it, girls need their own space.” “I still think you could sleep in the barn,” Chris ribbed from the opposite side of the table. “With the cows?” Jonathon incredulously queried, “gross.” “Boys,” Lois scolded, not for the first time wondering where their Father had gotten to. The question was answered not a moment later, the windows lightning up from the passing headlights of their truck, before it came to a stop in the driveway, the unmistakable baritone of her husband’s voice soon emanating from outside. “Dad!” Jonathon shouted unnecessarily from his seat, lightning up and grinning from ear to ear as his Father entered the farmstead, several bags tucked under his arms and his jeans caked in mud. He filled the abode with affection, as he always did, the man never happier than when he was here. “Lois, boys,” he greeted with a smile of his own, leaning over to deliver a kiss to the cheek of his wife. “You’re late,” Lois didn’t scold her husband, but she made certain that he was aware of it, “and filthy I might add.” “Sorry,” Clark apologised, “the tire blew out on the Branden truck and they ditched, I couldn’t leave them out there all night.” “Of course not,” Lois agreed, fond of their nearest neighbours, “are they alright.” “Oh, fine,” Clark assured, removing his boots long before he could be rebuked for not doing so, “a little shook up, but no harm done. I’ll check in on them tomorrow.” “Did you pick up the truck by yourself?” his youngest son inquired excitedly, “did you use one hand? A finger?” “No Jonathan, that wouldn’t have been very discreet,” Clark calmly imparted a life lesson, “besides, a team effort inspires community spirit.” “I guess,” the boy conceded, albeit with an air of disappointment. A silence fell, uncomfortable for a moment, as Kara cleared he throat quietly, waiting hesitantly at the door. It was the boys who were most awkward, as they had been for the last few days, each of them left uncertain for their own reasons. Clark, by comparison, could not have been more open. “Come in Kara,” he encouraged, setting down her bags in a convenient corner, “you don’t have to wait for an invitation, this is your home now.” Taking a que from his Father, Jonathon hopped up from his chair, dashing around the table to pull a seat out for his cousin, a girl who was as much a mystery to him now as she had been when she had first arrived. He wanted to know more, almost bursting at the seams in his desire for answers, but he had promised to be patient, and so he kept his barrage of questions to himself. For now. After just a moments further hesitation, Kara joined the Kent’s for dinner, sitting between the man she had known as Kal-El and his first son, Connor, smiling politely at Jonathon for the proffered seat. He grinned back before darting back to his own chair, clearly eager to start digging in. She listened as they spoke amongst themselves, smiling, laughing, the boys jousting as children do, the last, living witness to the fall of Krypton learning their native language at an expediential rate. It had surprised her at first, the speed at which at her solar charged biology was adapting to its new environment, this world’s yellow sun heightening more than just her physical attributes, and yet so much about her new family remained so… alien… They were so very close to what she knew and yet, ever so slightly off centre, like a photo out of focus. They were so very much like Kryptonians that she could almost believe that they weren’t… …Human. Almost. She found it disorientating, the more she focused on the disassociation between what was familiar and what was not, the dizzier she became and, after politely excusing herself from the table, she made her way upstairs, acutely aware of the silence that followed her. She had waited until they were asleep before leaving, Kara Zor-El of Krypton laying awake on her bed as the Kent’s, one by one, had turned in for the evening. It had not been hard to pry open her window without alerting the others, nor was the two story drop something to be feared for a girl who could defy gravity, and so it had been easy to leave the Farm behind her, to find a little space, attired not in the guise of Karen Kent, but in the bold blue and reds of her family, her crest proudly embezzled across her chest. She had not gone far, scarcely half a mile before she’d stopped, sitting atop a hill that provided vantage for hundreds of acres all around. She hugged her own knees, this orphan of a dead world, reminding herself with every breath that this wasn’t Krypton. Krypton was… Kara closed her eyes but she did not want to sleep. The dreams were more persistent now that she had left the calming influence of Oa. They were always the same, and yet completely different, memories reimagined, distorted, rearranged in new and terrifying ways, her recollection of those events so broken by the sheer immensity of cataclysm made manifest that it was like looking through broken glass, her subconscious desperate for it to make sense. The screams, it always came back to the screams… … Kara snapped her eyes open, every inch of physiology suddenly alert, her senses narrowing to a pinprick. She could hear the screams. They were not some wild imaginings of a traumatised teenage girl, no figment of her imagination, she could hear them as though they were happening beside her. They were real and they were happening right now!! There was no hesitation, no second thought, the air exploding with the CRACK of a sonic boom before she had scarcely left the ground, Supergirl taking flight like a red and blue thunderbolt from heaven… “Kara?” Superman spoke as softly as he was able as he came to land behind his cousin, the utterance of her name laced with his concern. She didn’t answer, the girl from Krypton knelt beside the riverbed as the water trickled on by, the current both calm and unrelenting. She was drenched from head to toe in the dark hours of the night, while a sack lay open beside her, the contents of which were equally sodden with water. Clark needed none of his superhuman senses to identify the contents of the bag, those small bodies having been tossed into the stream in an act of abject callousness, and his heart felt heavy just the same. “Kara,” he knelt beside his cousin, placing a hand upon her shoulder. When her voice broke in answer, scarcely above a whisper, he almost didn’t hear her, “He couldn’t save them.” Perplexed, Clark embraced his cousin further, seeing for the first time the small kitten she had cradled within the crook of one arm, the ginger feline shivering as she stroked his forehead with one finger. “He tried so hard to be heard,” Kara explained, holding the sole survivor of his litter close, “but he couldn’t save them.” “No, you can’t always save them,” Superman explained as he embraced Supergirl as only family could, the feline that she had rescued now purring as he slumbered. “All you can do is try.” |