Super: Origins

by Palladian

  Her head had been turned in the opposite direction when she felt Mr. Chen's hand on her shoulder. She turned to look him the eye and found him staring at her, his glance hostile. He’d opened his mouth to speak when Lex felt all the muscles in her body go rigid, suddenly jolting her into the past.

  “Alex, you idiot!” her father's voice rang out as he shoved her backwards, using the strong grip he had on her shoulder.

  She’d been looking the other way when he grabbed her, so it had been a surprise. Due to that, she didn't have time to stop herself from sitting down hard. She was wincing from that when the real pain hit with a sharp crack when she smacked the back of her head into the wall with enough force that she saw stars.

  Hearing a roar, she looked up to see her father charging her. With fear, she looked back at the wall, one of the ones that had a floor-to-ceiling mirror, and noted that it had broken where her head had landed and cracks now radiated out from that spot. She pulled a hand back from the top of her head and smelled the familiar tang as she realized it had blood on it, but quickly replaced her hand as she slumped to the ground, pulling herself into as tight a ball as she could manage.

  I wonder how hard it will be to clean that, she thought as he began to attack her, kicking her wherever he could reach. I hope I can get the glass out.

  Lex blinked a few times, and as her vision cleared her hearing also seemed to kick back in. She saw Mr. Chen in front of her, a concerned look on his face.

  “Lex,” he asked, “are you all right?”

  She felt her body fling itself backwards, away from him, as the fear from her memory seemed to catch up with her. Lex caught sight of herself in the mirror as she swung her head around like a spooked horse; she looked even paler and saw herself shaking. She felt something begin to rise up in her, starting from her toes, and Lex knew she had to get out of there.

  Turning back to Mr. Chen, Lex tried to form some words, but her voice faltered. Just before her feet started to run, something made its way out.

  “Sorry, I…I have to go.”

  Then, suddenly, she was hurtling out of the gym and tearing up the stairs. She slipped on them at one point but heaved herself up using the handrail and kept going. Her heart pounded so loudly she could hear nothing else and all of her limbs shook crazily, but she could only think of finding someplace safe. As she burst out onto the main floor, Lex looked around to make sure no one stood in her path. Seeing her way clear she continued, shakily leaping up the stairs several at a time until she made it to her room. Locking the door behind her, Lex pressed her back up against it for a moment, still trembling. The feeling had continued up her body and had made it to her chest, which began to heave for breath, making her feel as if she’d choke. It continued upwards, and she felt the pressure in her throat, as she had many times before, but it continued this time, until it made its way to her head. Feeling she needed something to hold onto, Lex made it to the corner of the hallway leading into the rest of her room before everything came apart. She gasped as she sat hard on the floor, leaning into the wall, and realized that her face felt wet.

  Suddenly overwhelmed by memories of the abuse she’d survived, the hard words thrown at her, and the pathetic, crawling life she’d been forced to lead, everything in Lex contracted. She felt as if she’d be sick, but as she curled around the corner of the wall, she sobbed for the first time she could remember in her life. It went on and on as her body curled in further on itself, her sorrow seeming to rise with all of the tears until she couldn't stand it any longer and howled, her grief pouring out through her throat. That allowed the tears to slow, finally, but as Lex calmed down, she began to feel a headache rising. The calmer she became, the more the pain grew, until the pale light coming in from the grey day outside felt unbearable. Lex tried to stand and make her way to the medicine cabinet, but the pain spiked hard through her head and drove her to her knees. The sudden onset and immense pain felt like no migraine Lex had ever had before, so her fear pushed her to try to stand again to get something to help, but the pain grew to the point that the world started going black and began to disappear. As she slumped to the ground, throwing up her arms so that her head wouldn't hit the floor, Lex thought to herself that she needed to get some rugs for her room in case this happened again.

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  Even with her eyes closed, she could feel herself going somewhere. She seemed to be half lying down, being conveyed in something with unyielding curves and angles. Gradually, her ears started working again and she heard Casey's raised voice.

  “…anyone down here? Answer me!”

  Lex tried opening her eyes, worried at the sound of panic in Casey’s voice, blinking against the feeling that her eyelids had been pasted together, but immediately shut them again as light entered, feeling as if needles had penetrated straight through to her brain. She cried out weakly in surprise and pain, bringing her hand up to cover her eyes.

  “The light,” she heard herself saying in a voice that sounded husky and slurred.

  “Lex, Lex, are you all right?” she heard Casey asking in a frantic tone, but the pain rose back up and Lex felt herself being pulled under by it again, Casey's voice receding until it disappeared.

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  She stood in the middle of a long wall of what appeared to be white light. But she realized as she lifted her arm up that the light was moving around her in a swift stream past her body and on. With a start, she knew she now stood inside the wall of water she’d seen before. For some reason it didn't have the same chill or feeling as it had when she’d stood outside it, and she could move around as well. Carefully, she took another breath of the substance, sensed it move into her lungs, and sighed out in relief as she felt fine.

  Suddenly something farther down the line of light captured her attention. She saw the mysterious woman again, struggling with everything she had, pushing to come inside, where Lex stood. She watched as an arm emerged, as if in slow motion, then a leg and a head. Once that happened, the woman pushed the rest of her body through as if pulling it out of a tar pit. Lex could see that the other woman looked small and fit like her, and noted that she had very short hair that seemed completely white. She wore jeans, a black t-shirt, and black motorcycle boots, and once she’d arrived inside, she ran up to Lex with a speed that didn't seem quite human, appearing to flash in and out of existence at several points along the way.

  Lex stiffened and drew herself up as the other woman approached, but she stopped a few inches from Lex, breathing heavily, and Lex found her eyes captured by the other woman's, their color an unnaturally bright spring green delicately laced through with forest green. They both hesitated a moment, then the other woman looked quickly over her shoulder before yelling, “Watch out for the drugs!”

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  Lex's eyes sprang open, and she immediately panicked. She didn’t recognize the location, but it looked like a hospital room. Several medical personnel were running around the room, hooking her up to machines, writing things down on clipboards, and talking to each other. She looked down at her arm to find an IV needle in it and immediately pulled the thing out and threw it away. Lex had never liked needles, but after her encounter a few moments ago, she found herself on high alert.

  The medical people had finally realized she was awake and had all turned to look at her, a couple of them drawing back. Lex glared at the small crowd, attempting to move into more of a sitting position away from them and trying with her stare to prevent any from approaching. Her muscles seemed heavy and gluey, though, and she couldn’t quite manage to sit up. When she’d slowly wrestled her uncooperative limbs to a half-sitting position, however, Casey burst through the door.

  “Lex! What's going on? Are you OK?”

  Lex tried to answer, but found that her mouth wouldn't open. She stared at Casey, trying to plead with her eyes for the other woman to get her
out of there, but she found that her gaze had started to haze over and her eyelids had begun to close. As Lex blinked slowly, she realized that her muscles had stopped responding to her altogether, and she probably would have felt panic as she began to slump back on to the hospital bed, but her mind disobeyed her at last, falling heavily into a deep blackness instead.

  She floated in the dark nothingness, and it somehow seemed safe as all her responsibilities and worries dissolved into it. After what seemed like a long time, however, she started to feel a nervous fluttering around the edges of nothing. Something else was out there. Lex found she couldn't go anywhere or do anything, though; no matter what she tried only more darkness greeted her. So, she waited with fists clenched and jaw set until a monstrous face loomed out of the black, resolving itself inches from her own. The smell of rotten eggs nearly choked Lex as she watched it drip green acid slime from its gaping, saw-toothed maw and roll its bloodshot eyes alarmingly in its sockets as it grinned the devil's grin. “Alexxx…” the thing called to her, and Lex fought her way backwards as she recognized the voice and realized it was her damnable father…

  Lex gasped and sat up quickly in the hospital bed, looking frantically around and getting ready to bolt. Her sudden movement yanked an IV hard enough to rattle the pole it hung on, causing her to wince as the needle in her arm moved around.

  “Hey, Lex,” Casey's voice sounded out suddenly, in the low light of the room. Her voice came across as disused and rough, as if she’d just woken up. When Lex's eyes had adjusted enough to see, she realized her friend probably had just awoken, now shifting position in a chair near the foot of Lex’s bed.

  “What the hell happened? You've had the place in an uproar all afternoon. Everyone's been down to see you; the medics thought you were going to attack them—”

  Casey broke off as Lex began crying, and then continued, her tone softer. “Hey, hey, none of that. You're OK, everything's fine, it's just that everyone was worried about you.”

  “I'm sorry. I didn't mean to worry everyone,” said Lex, trying to keep her voice even as she cried. She felt ridiculous and wondered if she was ever going to be able to stop, thinking maybe she had to make up for lost time.

  “Of course everyone's going to worry about you if something like this happens,” Casey responded, bending forward and peering at Lex. “Just relax, though, you don't need to be so upset.”

  “Sorry,” Lex said, trying unsuccessfully to wipe her tears away, since they kept coming, “I really am sorry I caused so much trouble.”

  After a few quiet minutes that Lex used to try to compose herself, Casey met Lex’s eye again. “Did something happen today?” she asked, concern clear in her voice.

  Lex nodded and related the flashback she’d had in the studio and then the headache afterwards. “I've had the same symptoms before, but the migraine was much, much worse and came on more suddenly than any other I've had,” Lex concluded, her hands tangling together in her lap.

  Casey looked thoughtful for a little while and finally said, “Well, it's not unusual for people to get sick not long after they get here. I remember Riss had some sort of terrible asthma attack, and Serena got pneumonia or something. They were both down here for a while.” She shook her head, looking worried.

  “What about you? Did you get sick when you came here?” asked Lex, wiping her face with the back of her hand. The tears seemed to be diminishing but hadn't quite stopped yet.

  Casey's lips suddenly thinned into a hard line. “I was actually…sick when I got here. It took me a lot longer to heal than I usually do, now that I think about it.”

  “What happened?” Lex asked, anxiously considering the mental picture of her friend laid up.

  Casey shook her head, a closed expression on her face. “Let's talk about it another time, Lex. You should get some more rest now.”

  “I'm sorry,” Lex apologized, blushing with embarrassment as her tears started up again, “I didn't mean to upset you.”

  Casey sighed and patted Lex’s leg through the covers. “It's all right, Lex, everything is OK. You just had a really big day. I'm not upset with you, I just want you to get better, so get some sleep.”

  “OK,” Lex replied, snuffling a little as she dried her tears. “I do feel pretty tired again, all of a sudden.”

  As she lay back in the pillows and got comfortable again, Lex looked at Casey as she sat in the chair, leaning back and trying to relax. Lex closed her eyes just for a moment as she pulled the covers up to her chin. As they settled back around her, she seemed to be surrounded by the smell of bleach until that slipped away in the darkness as well.

  When she opened her eyes again, the chair was empty. The lights had been turned on, and she could clearly see the hospital room she remembered from yesterday. A man in a white coat stood with his back to her, writing something on a clipboard as he took readings from a machine that Lex was attached to.

  “Where's Casey?” Lex suspiciously asked the man's back, pushing against the rough sheets as she sat up in bed.

  As the man turned around to face her, Lex recognized Dr. Rogers, the same man who’d taken down all of her information when she’d first arrived.

  “Ah, you're awake,” he said with a smile, “I think she went to get you some breakfast.”

  He studied Lex then as he sat in the chair Casey had occupied the night before. “Would you like to talk about what happened yesterday? We assumed you must have had a bad migraine, since we tested you for other things and found nothing else wrong, but no one really knew what happened before Casey brought you down. We talked to Mr. Chen, but all he said was that you hadn't been feeling well and he told you to take the afternoon off.”

  Lex looked down at her hands for a moment. Just the mention of yesterday had brought a prickly feeling to her eyes, but she thought about it for a moment and decided she didn't really feel like crying. She took a deep breath before briefly explaining the events of the previous day, up until she passed out.

  “I guess Casey must have found me afterwards,” Lex concluded.

  The doctor nodded. “She came down here to find someone to help, but she didn't know why you’d lost consciousness. We gave you some painkillers after Casey mentioned that you’d complained about the light, but you didn't appear to appreciate that.”

  “I remember,” Lex said, grimacing at the thought. “I really am not fond of needles.”

  “Ah,” the doctor replied, making a note on the clipboard, “we'll have to remember that for the future. At any rate, we’ll be running some tests over the next few days to make sure everything’s all right and to see if anything in particular set this off.”

  A bolt of pure anxiety shot through Lex as the dream woman’s warning ran through her mind. She’d opened her mouth to ask for more details, but Dr. Rogers stopped speaking then, standing up as he looked at the door.

  Lex glanced up to see Casey backing in through the doorway carrying a tray full of food. “Good morning, sleepyhead,” Casey said, pushing the chair nearer to the head of the bed before sitting back down. “Are you hungry?”

  “Yes, thanks,” Lex replied, realizing now that she'd woken up fully that her stomach felt completely empty. She noted that the doctor had started to leave, and felt torn, wanting to question him further, but also wanting to spend time with Casey. She sighed as the door closed and turned to look at her friend.

  “So, how are you feeling today?” Casey asked.

  “Like I'm recovering from getting run over by a truck yesterday, and hungry, too.”

  Casey pulled a little rolling table over and spread Lex's breakfast on it, then began arranging her own. “They'll probably want to look at you down here for another couple of days, I’d guess,” Casey finally said.

  “A couple of days? I'm fine now, but the doctor was talking about wanting to run some tests. What will they want to do that would keep me here for days?” Lex appreciated the sweet cinnamon smell of the cereal Casey had brought, but suspicion made her stomach
turn sour.

  Casey shrugged. “It seems like if one of us gets sick they like to do mountains of tests to find out what happened, whether it’ll happen again, whether they should give us some drugs, and probably whether they should fire us, all that sort of thing.”

  “But I feel fine. I want to talk to Mr. Chen and apologize for yesterday, though. He must think I'm crazy or something.” Lex picked up her spoon, trying to focus on eating, but her fingers kept worrying the silverware pattern instead.

  Casey shook her head. “I doubt it. I think he’s had a pretty long life and seen all kinds of things, so he seems to understand a lot. I wouldn't worry about it, but I can go talk to him, if you like.”

  Lex shook her head, eyes closed in humiliation as she thought of what she’d done. “I should talk to him myself. I want to explain. Maybe they'll let me out of here for a few minutes so I can see him.”

  The two ate in silence for a little while after that, Lex devouring the granola and drinking the tea Casey had brought without really tasting it, lost in worry. After a while, although Lex hadn't known Casey had noticed, she finally realized her friend had brought the kinds of foods that Lex usually chose for herself, and she couldn’t help but smile as it came to her.

  “So, what are you up to today?” Lex finally asked Casey, still grinning.

  “I'm going to be in the gym for a while, but I thought I'd find out what your schedule is and come down here to have lunch with you at noon if I can. Then they have some tests they want to run on me this afternoon. They have some they run every few weeks on me, so I guess it's time.”

  Lex found the idea that her friend needed regular medical tests strange because she always seemed to be in the best of health. Since her friend didn’t seem to find it odd, however, Lex nodded in reply as she sipped her blueberry green tea. Once they’d both finished eating, Casey gathered the empty dishes up on the tray. When she picked it up to leave, she looked down at Lex for a moment.