Lost in the Darkness (Superman Returns) - Complete

[bistyboo1974]

Title: Lost in the Darkness, 1/1
Author: bistyboo1974
Rating: TEEN
Word Count: 1,053
Disclaimer: In case you haven't noticed, I merely play in this fictional universe...I don't own it. Sucks to be me.
Summary: Our hero is lost in silent darkness after dealing with the daunting task of hurling New Krypton into outer space. But whispers in the dark help him find his way back to the light. This story sprang to life while listening to Somewhere by Within Temptation. Pretty, pretty song. *sighs*
Spoilers: Superman Returns, naturally.

*****

He’d never felt like this before. A pure, raw sensation of pain was ravaging his entire body, and he felt it tear through every fiber of his system with each movement he made. As he ascended higher and higher, he prayed that it would be over soon. Only a little farther, then he could let go. He had to hold on, just a little while longer. Then he could rest. Then he could get as far away as possible from the toxic emerald glow of this atrocious monstrosity he was heaving into space.

The jagged, poisonous tips of the green minerals cast a haunting glow over his pale skin as he reached an even greater height, illuminating his face with a deathly light. Almost there, he thought to himself. Sheer willpower was all he was working with now. His strength had all but left him. He could barely see a thing, save what the repulsive green glow around him allowed.

Just about a hundred yards, and then it’d be safe. Safe to let go. Safe to fly away from this thing that was sapping him of his energy, that was draining away his very life.

Fifty yards yet to go, and he wanted to scream in agony into the fathomless depths of the cosmos. He wasn’t so sure he’d make it before his head ruptured or every last muscle in his rapidly-weakening body seized and left him completely helpless.

Twenty-five yards left, and he was blessing the end, even if it meant death. If death brought an end to this misery, he’d welcome it…but not before he disposed of the massive, barren rock structure he was supporting upon his wilting shoulders.

Twenty, fifteen, ten yards…

And then he was there, finally. He lifted the hideous mass upwards, then pushed off with trembling, bleeding hands and watched. Watched with stricken eyes as it floated safely away. Watched it go safely away from all it could’ve brought harm to on the Earth far below him.

Everyone was safe now.

Everyone, apart from him.

He felt his body go limp. He would be falling soon, he could not help it. He had no authority over his own body any longer. Gravity would at long last defeat him, greedy to claim its long-defiant challenger. His eyelids closed and his body gave in, sacrificing its last ounce of determination to stay afloat. The pull towards the planet beneath him was triumphant, and it drew him quickly back towards its surface.

***

Everything in this place was dark, was quiet. There was no pain here, either, but what he noticed more than that and most of all was the silence. He was getting lost in it, and it was strangely beautiful. Peaceful and serene.

Was this heaven, he wondered? He remembered hearing the rector at the quaint old church in the rural town he grew up in preach about heaven when he was a boy. His mother would sit intently and listen to each word, but he remembered shifting in his pew as he listened, with his brows drawn tightly together, feeling slightly doubtful about the whole thing. It sounded to him like a fantasyland filled with fat resting cherubs and singing seraphs…at least the way this man told it. So, if this was heaven, it was nothing like the old rector from that little town had sermonized about it. Not at all.

He was fast becoming used to the stillness, though; the blissful absence of sound was a balm to his ever-bombarded ears. In a world where everything – from the tiniest whisper of a gnat’s wings to the loudest roar of a jet engine – was audible, it was quite pleasant to finally hear absolutely nothing. The tranquility of the absolute quiet of this place caressed his exhausted sense.

This could be heaven, he thought, as the darkness absorbed him more and more. Not a sound. Not a thing. It could be…

But a hint of something awakened that sense once again, made it alert, made it once again take notice of sound…it wasn’t much, but it was something.

Words? Yes, soft words. A lovely voice spoke them. He listened to them, not wanting to give up the peace of the darkness completely, but still eager to hear them. The voice was so familiar, and so sweet. It didn’t assault his overwrought sense, but caressed it like the silence had. More than the silence had, actually.

He listened. It wasn’t hard to do. That voice was one he could pick out of a din from a million miles away. He’d heard it so many times before, both when awake and in his dreams. And now it was speaking…to him? Yes, now it spoke to him…

“I don’t know if you can hear me.”

He could, and he was listening intently now, shunning the silence for the appeal of that voice.

“They say sometimes that when people are…that sometimes they can hear you. I don’t know if you can hear me.”

No way to communicate, he could only listen.

“I wanted to tell you that…”

The voice paused, and he cursed the silence that followed. When the voice spoke again, however, it was in the softest murmur and one of his ears felt the tickle of warm breath against it. The words the voice spoke…could they be true?

But, of course they were true. That voice wouldn’t whisper gentle lies to him.

They were true.

He could feel the darkness shattering. Flickers of light – hopeful, bright beacons – invaded the darkness as the voice became quiet again.

Before he could scorn its absence, however, he felt another rush of warmth; one greater than the warmth felt from the murmuring in his ear. The voice was silent because the lips from which words had passed just moments before were now touching him, pressed tenderly – but all too briefly – against his mouth, sparking more bright flickers, and causing him to want even more to turn away from the dark and walk into the light.

The words the voice had spoken had beamed a radiant ray of light into the shadows where he had been resting, but now the time for rest was over.

Another quick but potent rush of warmth confirmed that.

Now was definitely time to walk in the light.


THE END

[Duchess67]

VERY well done! I really enjoyed this and you know what, this is almost exactly what I had pictured happening when that scene was onscreen. I LOVED it! *vbg*

[Island Breeze]

I liked it! Great short story, Bisty!