Fall of Justice

Mother's Flowers

Hours after lights out, Kara sat awake, the screams and calls of Arkham's mad residents echoing through the halls outside her room. And she was one of them. Though she kept quiet, her oncoming lunacy was beyond doubt. Each day she grew weaker without the sun, not only in body but in mind, and yet, the thought of going outside, going anywhere weighed so heavy on her chest that at time, it was hard to breathe.

As she sat there listening to their shouting, she would remember. She tried to push the memories away but they wouldn't let her rest.

As she tore past white clouds on her way to her adoptive mother's house some months prior, Kara blew past the speed of sound for the first time-- a sonic boom rumbling somewhere behind her. Joker had begun to systematically kill her friends starting with Jimmy Olsen, the young photojournalist and friend of her cousin, who she was beginning to develop feelings for. He had been found floating in the canal in the early dawn hours of a Sunday morning, the morning after they had admitted their feelings for each other. The morning after she kissed him. Her first kiss. A message had been carved into his forehead; "XOXO."

For weeks following, more and more people she knew were found all across Metropolis, their bodies cut, beaten, even as she tried to hide them and Superman came to help, the person committing these crimes somehow got the upper hand, as if he knew all their moves even before they themselves did.

But that day, Kara was determined to win. She would fly to her adoptive mother's home and have Clark take her somewhere neither of them had thought about, some place he would discover along the way. She was relieved to find that their Kansas home was still intact, the yard was clean and the garden full of color and bloom. The flowers always made her smile, to her they meant safety and comfort, they meant home.

Clark was already there in his suit and tie, she knew he was faster than her but didn't realize how much until she saw him standing at the driveway with his arms crossed and a smile on his face. She floated past him and into the house.

"Kara," her mother said in surprise as she flew through the second floor window.

"Mom, come one, Kal's downstairs, he's going to take you somewhere safe."

Her mother threw her arms around the girl, holding her tight. Her mother knew about what was happening, and she knew there was nothing to be done but to go with her daughter. Kara held back her tears at being held. It was all she could do not to fall apart in her mother's embrace.

Kara looked out the window and called to Clark, "Check the car, make sure it's safe."

Her mother cockd her head. "We're taking the car?" she asked.

"A flying man versus a man in a car, one blends in, the other doesn't. Go, I don't want to see where."

Her mother nodded and kissed her cheek, then ran downstairs. Kara stepped to the window, ready to fly before she knew which way they drove.

A sound broke her concentration. The sound of something tearing across the atmosphere. Kara looked to the sky, something was coming but she couldn't see what.

"Go! Now!" She screamed to her mother who ran into the car with Clark. Kara flew out as the speeding thing came like a bullet, she focused her vision as he broke through the clouds and it became clear, it was Superman.

She looked down to the car beneath her, Clark smiled from the front seat, his eyes shining green. She dove to the car-- a wave of heat and ripped past her, debris and flame filling the air.

Kara landed like a hammer to the ground, it was too late. The fire burned at her feet, her mother's flowers wilted black. The driver's seat was empty, as if no one had been there at all. Her mother's body burned on the other side.

An intrusive thought would often come to her in the night as she tried to sleep, it would burrow in her subconscious and grow, stirring until she couldn't fight it any longer. That thought was this; when you lose everyone you love, everything you've ever known, the only comfort you have is knowing it can never happen again. But for Kara, it did.

She lost everyone in Krypton. Her parents, relatives, her friends. But since then, year after year, things got better. She began to laugh again, to enjoy her days as she thought she never would. She was even cared for by people who loved her like she was their own daughter.

And then, one by one, they were taken from her. Her friends disappeared in the night only to be found later, their bodies bruised and torn. There was no moving on from this. Kara Zor-El lived in darkness, her world was ashes and death the only constant. She was no longer afraid to die. And now, she realized, she was no longer afraid to kill.