catalyst, inhibitor

Reccing Note: Yes, I'm posting something heartbreaking. You have been warned. This is Bride, had it gone another way. Clark never defeats Brainiac. Doomsday is unleashed.
And Chloe...

by xxamlaxx at her livejournal
2740 words. R. bride. Leave her the love. or, poke her into writing something happy. She likes it, I think.

The world comes into view slowly.
The world comes into view slowly. Pain pounds inside his head and behind his eyeballs; throbbing pressure with every heartbeat. The sky above is an angry gray, dark like pencil graphite on fresh white paper, frosty and shaded. He can’t tell if it’s night or day, can’t see the sun or the moon behind the clouds. The street is littered with rubble; shattered glass and broken concrete. Cars lie overturned, their alarms blaring, echoing loudly in the silence. Orange flames lick up from twisted metal and black rubber tires, engines long dead as gasoline leaks from the cars in rivers, running red down the pavement.

Gasoline isn’t crimson, shouldn’t smell like death and copper.

-

His hands gleam maroon in the soft, orange light that flickers from the fires. His skin is wet and sticky, crusted scarlet, torso and chest marked with droplets; as though he’s taken a shower in blood, walked through a mist of it. Broken glass cuts the bottoms of his bare feet as he pads across the asphalt. The ground is a sickly warm, like it too is drenched in fresh blood. He walks naked and vulnerable through familiar city blocks, but never sees another person. He finds a mangled body in front of a department store. The bloody mass of splintered bone and torn muscle barely resembles a human. He slips red soaked jeans from partially severed thighs and slips them on, continues walking through desolate streets.

Weak cries draw him to a dark apartment; the door hangs off its hinges, swings slowly in the evening breeze. The wind carries the scent of decomposition, tastes like ash and burning. An infant lies on plush, white carpet, skin stretched tightly over its bones, hollow cheeks and sunken eyes. Its mother rests on the floor beside it, flies buzzing in and out of her mouth, maggots wriggling in her eyes. The baby is a tiny thing, fragile in his hands. The child quiets in his arms, nuzzles against his bare chest. He makes a bottle in the kitchen, boils water that barely trickles from the tap. When he finally offers the formula to the baby, he realizes that it has long since died.

He carries the sad, little corpse in his arms for miles.

-

Smallville is in the same state as Metropolis. Everything is bent and broken; once green rows of corn are black and singed, withered and titled to the left. Clark’s farm is empty. Jimmy is not in his and Chloe’s apartment. Rats run through the streets, feast on piles of rotting flesh and bone. There isn’t a man or woman left in sight. The small town is utterly silent except for wailing alarms and the howls of dogs.

He remembers what not-Chloe said to him about his destiny in the structure made of glittering ice and crystals as their breath rose in wispy clouds of heat.

He wonders if he is truly responsible for the end of the world.

-

He’s heard that hope springs eternal. After three days of solitude his spring runs dry. Every city is the same, every city is empty, every street he walks has bodies that have been cold for days. He asks the sky why he is left conscious, why it does not maintain control of his skin and roam the terribly empty world. The sky doesn’t answer.

The rain that splatters on his skin is hot like tears, and afterwards his flesh stings and sizzles.

-

He’s lying on a hotel bed when he hears the patter of footsteps in the hallway. He darts to his bruised and exhausted feet, dashes through the door he locked and bolted. Not because there are people to keep out, but because he needs to keep himself in. There is a brief flash of brown hair around a corner, tan and dirty skin. He follows the sound of harsh, ragged breathing, frightened sobs and desperation.

The pursuit ends on the hotel rooftop. The person he’s been chasing is a young woman, in her mid twenties. There are clean patches on her dirt smeared face from where her tears washed the skin clean. She stares at him with bright blue eyes, wide with recognition. She doesn’t recognize him; she recognizes the sight of another human being. He can’t be sure this isn’t an illusion; it would never let anyone survive it’s tsunami of destruction.

“Hi.” He hasn’t spoken to anyone other than himself in days. His voice is faint and raspy, hoarse with lack of use.

“Please don’t hurt me.” She trembles, hands covering her face, slowly backing away from him.

“I won’t. I’m a paramedic, I can help you.” There’s a cut on her arm that smells of infection, a line of pus oozing from the wound. Her pale cheeks are full and flushed with fever, sweat forms on her skin in beads. “My name is Davis Bloom.”

“I’m Carolyn Shullz.” Carolyn smiles but won’t approach him, steps backwards when he moves forward.

“Do you know what happened? How long has the world been this way?” He has been alone for five and a half days, doesn’t know if he can take another second of it.

“Nine days. Whatever it was attacked exactly eleven days ago. It destroyed everything, every fucking thing in just forty-eight hours.” Fresh tears spill down her cheeks, wash away more blood and grime. “I hid in the cellar. I wish I hadn’t.” Three quick steps and she’s standing on the ledge, hair moving in the wind. Clothes that once must have fit are now baggy and loose around her body.

“Please.” He begs, throat thick and heavy. “I don’t want to be on my own again.”

“I’m sorry.”

She drops from sight; her body hits the street below with a thud.

-

His feet lead him to a military base, a stone compound with a tall metal fence. He walks in without protest. An alarm sounds but there is no one around to answer it, no one left alive. He’s killed and devoured all, brought about the end of his world.

“There you are.” What lives within Chloe’s body beckons him. His muscles move against his volition, until he’s face to face with what isn’t Chloe. Her eyes are filmed over with grey, a steely metallic color, dark circles of purple beneath her eyes, sallow skin. Chloe’s body moves mechanically, driven by a collection of inhuman impulses, lines of computer code rather than human thought. “You’re in your human form. Interesting.” Cold, steel-like hands cup his face, examine him.

“Chloe.”

“Chloe Sullivan is gone. You know that.”

“Who are you?” He finally asks, staring at soft, pretty features; the face he’s memorized and dreamt of.

“I am Brainiac.” Monotone voice, pale lips forming words.

“What did I do?” Outside a crow pulls bits of flesh from a dead soldier.

“What you were programmed to. You brought this pitiful planet and its people to extinction. Now it’s time to move onto another world.”

“I don’t want to do it.”

“Would you rather stay here?” Brainiac laughs, dry and hollow; a robotic sound emerging from Chloe’s vocal chords.

“Are you giving me a choice?”

“You are expendable. With a new body, I can build new tools when I desire.” Brainiac tilts Chloe’s head to the side, stares at him with dull grey irises. “You also have no control over your actions. I can use you until every planet in this universe is empty.” His limbs are stiff and aching. “Or, you can come with me and I will give you time with your precious Chloe Sullivan.” Brainiac smiles cool and mechanical. “Obey me and I will free her mind for an hour each day.”

He stares at the smoke filled sky for a long time, then takes Chloe’s hand in his, and the ground vanishes from beneath his feet, until he and Chloe surge into the abyss.


He absorbs it all, the sights and sounds, the rush of wind and air and the universe.


Colors contort and shimmer before his eyes, swirl into long, bright streaks. He absorbs it all, the sights and sounds, the rush of wind and air and the universe in his ears as the star speckled sky moves by. The expanse of black dotted with white diamonds looks the same every second, every minute, every…moment of warped time and reality. He focuses on what used to be Chloe’s hand, now is bones and flesh and muscle controlled by mechanical impulses, an extension of a supercomputer. Her skin is cold, icy, like metal; stainless steel covered with a thin layer of epithelial tissue.

The blur and corruption of sensation ceases and he’s standing on a planet that isn’t his.

-

The sky is a dingy orange on this world. The clouds are hoary, hanging low in the sky, elongated and strange, curling into odd spirals that never move, even when the wind blows hot and sour. The air smells of distant cities; he can see buildings looming in the distance, constructed from bright red material; they sparkle like gemstones in the white light of the star that functions as the sun.

“Where are we?” He asks quietly, wiping away the sweat that is forming on his skin in beads under the intense heat of the new world.

“The name of this planet should not concern you.” Brainiac chuckles, using Chloe’s voice, a low, almost computerized sound, hollow and dry. “You’re going to be destroying it.” Brainiac picks up a handful of soil, rolls it between Chloe’s pale, slender fingers until Brainiac holds a small, scarlet crystal between Chloe’s thumb and index finger. “This is the planet Latsyrc. The people here forge immense cities from natural resources. They’ve filed down entire mountains for this.” Brainiac tosses the shiny, crimson pebble to him; he catches it in his right hand. It is warm from sitting in the sun. “Keep it as a souvenir; you’ll want to remember each of the worlds you reduced to nothing.” Brainiac laughs again; the sound of dry leaves rustling across pavement.

“I want to see Chloe.” He slips the rock into his pocket, into the jeans that are fetid of human blood and death; sickly bitter of copper and rotten flesh.

“No.” Brainiac moves like liquid, crosses the ground quick and silent; a stream of data moving through cyberspace. “You’ve done nothing to deserve it. Show me progress, then you may have your reward.”

He blinks and he’s left alone beneath a foreign sky.

-

He walks over a mile to the city, marvels at the smooth, flawless walls of red crystal; the streets carved from soil. He sees people for the first time in days. A child clings to his mother’s hand and points at him, speaks in a language he doesn’t understand, then waves shyly, hides his face against his mother’s leg afterwards. Around him happiness and normality travel on sidewalks, men and women chat, children giggle, running and playing in the street that doesn’t have cars.

He smells food, passes a restaurant where people are seated, feasting on unfamiliar plant matter and meat. He walks inside and immediately a man shouts something to him, sounding angry and irritable. When he doesn’t respond, just stares, the man tries another language, then another, until he says in thickly accented English.

“You cannot walk around like that.”

“I’m sorry, I…I’m new to this planet.” His chest is completely bare and several young women blush as they scurry past him. “My home…it was destroyed.” Sympathy flashes on the man’s face, bronze skin and purple irises relaxing and no longer threatening.

“I give condolences. I am Namor, here.” He is offered clothing, a shirt made from a material similar to cotton, soft and smooth against his skin. He slips it over his head with a smile, utters a thank you and leaves.

The planet has no idea what is to become of it.

-

He wakes in darkness, to a moon that fills up more than half of the night sky, bathing everything in silver light. His new clothes are gone and a plume of dark smoke rises in the distance while orange flames lick at the buildings of this new world. His mouth tastes strange; liquid is smeared to his flesh, a bright, cerulean blue sticky fluid. He spits and his saliva is tinged blue. He idly wonders what his body is bathed him, what strange substances are abundant here.

He walks the now silent, deserted street, and more blue liquid laps at his feet, splashes beneath each step. The smoke from the fires thins enough to allow moonlight to permeate it, and the horrors he’s committed become visible. Bodies lie everywhere. Crumpled in heaps of whatever composes their anatomy. He sees something that resembles bone protruding from what must have once been a beautiful woman, what is now a pile of decomposing genetic material. Blue is a puddle around her and he realizes that on this planet the people bleed blue, not red. The street is flooded with blood and he vomits hot onto the ground, vomits up more blue and stringy muscle, chunks of meat he does not remember eating.

Tears leak from his eyes, burn at his skin until they drip into the blood of the innocent.

-

He seeks out Brainiac, finds him thirty-five miles away, staring blankly at a large screen, eyes wide and dulled over, filmed over gray. Brainiac is unresponsive; Chloe’s eyes remain fixed in place, never blinking. He doesn’t understand.

He retreats into the corner, leans against cool crystal as blood dries and hardens on his flesh.

-

Brainiac finally moves after hours of waiting, turns and gazes at him. Chloe’s face is expressionless, cold and hard, rigid, unyielding, like metal rather than living skin and muscle. There are dark, dark half circles beneath Chloe’s eyes and her skin is five shades too pale, sallow and beginning to cling to her cheekbones.

“I did what you asked.” He tells Brainiac, reaching out to touch Chloe’s face.

A bit of Chloe’s flesh comes away in his hand.

-

He stares at Chloe in terror, his heart beating rapidly in his thoracic cavity, fast and painful, seemingly thudding against his ribs. Chloe’s skin in his hand is icy; he tosses it away, shudders as it plops wetly onto the ground, familiar, red blood in his palm.

“What’s happening?” He demands, throat thick and heavy.

“Humans are pathetically weak.” Chloe’s voice is hoarse, monotone and barely more than a whisper. “This body cannot handle the change in atmosphere and light.” Brainiac speaks and blood wells up from Chloe’s mouth, droplets on Chloe’s lips. “It is dying. I must find a new one.” Brainiac moves slowly, but never alludes to pain. He doesn’t know if Brainiac can even feel it.

“What happens when you find a new body?”

“The old one reverts back to its normal consciousness.” Brainiac smiles at the hope in his eyes; Chloe’s gums are bleeding, crimson staining her white teeth.

“So Chloe will come back?”

“For a time, her body is close to death.”

His heart slowly shatters into a dozen shards that crumble in his chest and land in the pit of his abdomen.

-

“Did you find me a body?” Brainiac is panting heavily when he returns, the body of a man thrown over his shoulder.

“Yes.” He has no control over his body as is lays the still living man down, all two hundred pounds of lean, intimidating muscle, broad chest and shoulders, powerful biceps.

“Good.” Brainiac stands, doesn’t possess the energy to walk, instead Brainiac crawls and the flesh of Chloe’s knees is abraded away by the crystal floor, is left in trails of red and white on the ground. “Once I have my new body, you will finish what you have already begun.” Outside there is life and only a modicum of destruction. He’s destroyed little more than half of the planet.

“No. I won’t. You said yourself you can create more of me. Do it, I’m tired of killing.” Brainiac watches him thoughtfully.

“You truly desire to stay here on this planet, with the dying object of your pitiful affections?” Chloe’s voice is a croak.

“I do.”

“Fine.” Brainiac presses Chloe’s bleeding lips to the man’s and there is a flash of light, then man is on his feet, looking at the world with dull grey eyes. “I have already absorbed information; you may stay here on this planet for the rest of your days.”

He blinks, and Brainiac vanishes.

-

“Chloe!” He rushes to her body, cradles her in his lap, holds skin that is warm and alive, but cooling with incipient death. Green eyes stare up at him, going cloudy, beginning to film over with mortality.

“Davis.” Chloe coughs up blood; it splatters hotly on his chest.

“I’m sorry.” He apologizes, crying, sobbing because he’s destroyed worlds but now his own is literally ending in his arms.

Chloe reaches up, strokes his face with slender fingers, then goes still and silent.