Lois & Clark Forums Forums Fan Fiction Lois & Clark Fanfic Destined: Journey (3/4)

Kal stood quietly behind his father and watched the machine continue to place piece after piece onto the growing spacecraft. Seven more days. His father said the spacecraft would be ready in seven more days. They would run a few simulations over the next several days as the vessel was nearing completion, and then, Kal would leave. He stared blankly as a robotic arm placed a small sliver of clear crystal about the size of a finger into a slot next to the simple control panel in the inner chamber of the spacecraft. The crystal had been programmed with the exact location to which the spaceship would navigate and the take-off and landing protocols; Kal would have to do nothing.

Soft footsteps approached from behind him, and Kal turned and bowed slightly to his mother. Her face was a mask, betraying no grief or pain or unease. Kal tried his best to maintain a calm expression, like hers, but he felt an unfamiliar knot growing in his stomach. He would miss her. He would miss his mother dearly.

“Tell me one more time, my son. What is it that you will say once you reach Earth? Tell me in English, Kal,” La-Ra implored, her voice kind and gentle. Her blue eyes gazed upon him with hope, and he swallowed tightly as he formed the words in the still-awkward language he had worked obsessively to learn in the last two weeks.

“Hello. My name is Kal-El. I am from a faraway planet called Krypton. I come here in peace and wish to learn about your world. Please direct me to where I might find shelter and food. I appreciate your assistance. And I would also like to pet your cat.”

Kal knew neither of his parents understood a word he spoke, and so for his own amusement, he tended to always tack on a random statement at the end when they asked him to speak to them in English. Asking about petting a “cat” was still his favorite. He had tried over the last two weeks to guess what a “cat” might look like. Sometimes, he pictured the animal as a one-meter tall monster with a long tail covered in iridescent scales, large glassy eyes with slitted pupils, hooked claws for feet, and red and green feathers covering its thick body. Other times, he imagined something a little less grand—for example, a creature small enough to hold in one hand, covered in a thick, soft layer of fur. He hoped for the former; it sounded more interesting.

His mother nodded and held his gaze for a few extra seconds before moving away from him, closer to the spacecraft. Her eyes seemed to scan every bit of the small vessel carefully, looking for flaws. Jor-El also stood by, running calculations and simulations, testing and testing and testing some more.

Both of his parents had been working as tirelessly as he, and although he was reassured by their effort and trusted that his spacecraft would carry him the nearly one million light-years to Earth, he found it more and more difficult to accept that they were willing to send him off, knowing they would not survive.

“Mother, I think you should go to Earth instead of me,” Kal had told her two days prior as they shared evening meal together in their family’s quarters. He had started into a long and somewhat incoherent explanation as to why he felt that way. He had tried to appeal to every logical argument he could, even though this strange, irrational part of him just wanted to stand up and shout, “I cannot live while you die, Mother!” However, halfway through his long-winded rant, his father had stopped him and told him that he was not to bring up the subject again. Kal had hung his head, mumbled a quiet, “Yessir,” and continued to pick at his food, his appetite gone.

Now, as he stood watching his parents converse about whether the hyperjump system would function properly given the added weight of the pack Kal planned to bring with him and whether the trajectory of the landing would account for the drag created by the varying thicknesses of the different layers of Earth’s atmosphere, he knew his eventual departure from his home planet was indeed quite inevitable.

And would occur in only seven days.

He had also grown more distant from Drek and from his other friends, Tag-Do and Kin-Ra. It pained him too much to contemplate that he would be abandoning them to their deaths. And his father had finally given him permission to skip morning teachings, although Jor-El still insisted he attend exercise every day. Keeping in peak physical condition would be important for surviving the trip to Earth, Jor-El said.

Kal backed up a step and turned away from the spacecraft.

“I would like to take a walk to the far gardens, Mother. It should be quiet there. Will you accompany me?”

Kal had made the same request every evening for the last five days, and every time, his mother had some reason for not being able to accompany him. Today was no exception.

“I apologize, my son, but I must stay here and help your father recalibrate the navigation crystal for take-off. It seems the speed of Krypton’s rotation is increasing, as your father postulated it would. We are nearing the end of Krypton,” La-Ra said, her tone straightforward and impassive.

Kal’s breath caught in his throat, but he did not allow himself to react outwardly. He straightened up and set his jaw.

“I see, Mother. Will you require my assistance with your recalibration, or may I take my walk?”

“You may go, Kal. Your father and I will expect you at evening meal,” La-Ra replied. She sounded distant, far away from him, even though they stood less than a meter apart.

“Yes, Mother.”

He moved, unable to be still any longer, and he soon found himself at the exit to the laboratory, tugging on his heavy, cumbersome robes. He stepped outside of the laboratory and into the long corridor, which was empty and quiet. He turned to his right and headed briskly toward the west wing of the palace. Expertly navigating corridor after corridor, he allowed his mind to wander, and he spoke softly to himself, jumping from Kandorian to English and back again as he remembered words and phrases from his studies.

“I am Kal-El of Krypton. My mother and father were Jor-El and La-Ra. Our planet exploded and now I have no home. I was Kal-El of Krypton. Now, I am Kal-El of…nowhere.”

He halted just outside the palace and gazed out across the dimly lit walkways crisscrossing around the courtyard. The sun had just set, and the light continued to fade around him. Kal-El of nowhere. Did English have a term for “nowhere”? “Kal-El of no place,” he could say, but he thought maybe that was not quite right.

He began walking again, following a path north along the wall bordering the edge of the courtyard until he eventually came to a gate.

“I am Kal-El of no place. And I would like to open this gate, which will lead me to the gardens. Will I find your cat there? And may I pet it?”

He knew one thing for sure—he was absolutely going to have to make petting a “cat” his first priority upon reaching Earth.

He continued talking quietly to himself as he exited through the gate and continued north.

“I am Kal-El of no place. The gardens will be dark tonight. I would like a light…a lantern. I did not bring a lantern with me. Do you have a lantern?”

At a fork in the path, he turned sharply to the right and then continued on.

“I am Kal-El of the planet Krypton. My mother and father? No, they did not survive the explosion. I am sixteen Earth-years old. And I am an orphan.”

He blinked as he tried to remember the English word for a child whose parents had died, but he found he did not really want to know, and he continued on his path as he distracted himself by recalling other information he had read about Earth.

Surprisingly, he had learned that Earth’s rotation on its axis and its orbit around its sun were nearly identical to Krypton’s; therefore, Kal would also be considered sixteen years old in Earth-years. His studies of Earth in his book on planets of the Fifth Realm had also revealed that Earth’s gravity was only two-thirds that of Krypton. But what interested him the most was what they called “seasons.” He had learned that because of Earth’s tilt on its axis, the climate cycled through four major seasons, which were called, “spring,” “summer,” “autumn,” and “winter” in English. According to his father, he would be arriving in the northern hemisphere of the planet during “summer," when the temperature was warmest. Still, the warmest of temperatures on Earth were nothing near the normal temperature on Krypton, and his mother had begun working on a simulation for him to acclimate himself to the much cooler temperatures of Earth.

However, he was running out of time to acclimate to anything.

He stopped walking and sat at a bench just off the main path. Spread out in front of him, blue and white flowers with large broad leaves and delicate round petals bloomed in patches dotting the brown earth.

The far gardens, called such because of their location at the very edge of the palace property, had always attracted him, drawing him near whenever he felt uneasy or unsure of himself. The last week, he had come here every evening to just sit and think. He thought about his friends and how he had been unable to tell them anything about his upcoming journey—how they had no idea that the planet they called home was about to explode. He thought about his early childhood and when he had begun his studies with Jin-Dal. He thought about a journey he once took with his mother, traveling for a day and a half over the mountains to the west. And although he could not remember the purpose of their trip, he recalled hours of her telling him stories, reading to him, and wandering quiet mountain trails together in search of rare flowers, like many of the flowers here in the gardens. He thought about Za-Ra, the young woman whom he was supposed to marry when he reached his twentieth birthday and became Supreme Ruler. They had been betrothed at birth, but he had only met her one time, when he had turned thirteen years old. And he thought about his upcoming journey and how nervous he was to travel alone to a strange planet with strange people who spoke a strange language.

He wrung his hands together and held them still in his lap.

“I like these flowers. They are white and blue. My mother and father? No, they did not survive the explosion. I am an orphan.”

He closed his eyes.

“I like these flowers. They are beautiful. They are white and blue. I am Kal-El of no place… I am Kal-El of…Earth.”

When all of the light had finally disappeared from the sky, Kal stood and quietly turned and walked back toward the palace, where his parents would be waiting for him.

Kal-El of Earth.

Only seven days.



The next morning, Kal awoke to tremendous shaking. His sleeping platform rattled, and books, writing implements, and papers fell from his desk. He grasped the blanket covering him and pulled it up over his head as he squeezed his eyes shut.

His father had explained to him that this would happen. As Krypton’s core began to become more unstable, the ground would start to quake. Weakly at first, and then growing stronger and more frequent as the planet’s destruction grew closer. Yet, even though Kal knew the cause of the shaking, a strange unease washed over him.

This is fear, he thought, automatically using English rather than Kandorian. The Kandorian language had no word for “fear”; the closest equivalent was probably “apprehension,” but that did not quite fit the emotion Kal felt.

After a moment, the shaking stopped, and Kal jumped up and rushed to dress, pulling on his leisurewear and robes over his undergarments. A loud banging at his door startled him, and he hurried over as his mother pushed the door open.

“Kal, please come with me to the laboratory at once. Your father is already there. It is starting, my son. Hurry,” La-Ra instructed, her tone tight. She motioned stiffly to the hallway, and Kal nodded as he rushed past her and down the long corridor of their family’s housing unit.

At the end of the corridor, Kal turned sharply to the right, his mother at his heels. Around them, other families milled about in the hallway, talking amongst themselves in hushed voices. Kal overheard a few words and phrases, punctuated by stunned silence as they knelt formally at Kal when he and his mother hurried past. He did not recall ever having seen so many people in the hallways, even following the presentation of the Supreme Ruler, which happened once a year in the courtyard outside the Great Hall. However, he kept his eyes straight ahead and his face impassive and continued walking purposefully.

“Young Lord Kal-El!”

Kal heard the voice of Jin-Dal from behind him, but his mother placed her hand on his back and applied just enough pressure to keep him moving forward.

“My son, please continue on to the laboratory. I will explain to Master Jin-Dal that you are not to be disturbed,” La-Ra told him in a low voice. Then, her touch dropped away, and he heard her greet his teacher kindly. “Master Jin-Dal. Best morning to you. I am afraid my son will not be able to speak with you as he is needed right away in Jor-El’s laboratory…”

Her voice faded as he rounded the final corner to his father’s laboratory, and he approached the door in a slow jog, not bothering to stop or pause as the door disappeared to allow his entrance.

“Father!” he called as soon as he felt the door rematerialize behind him.

Jor-El emerged from the small room where the spaceship was being assembled. His face remained expressionless, but he hurried over and placed his hands on Kal’s shoulders. Kal at once felt some of his unease fade at his father’s touch.

“My son, you must focus and be strong right now. The planet’s core is heating faster than I had expected, and our time is running short. We must again recalibrate the navigation crystal. Do you remember how to run the calculations?”

Kal nodded, his eyes wide. “Yessir, I remember. But Father—”

“Kal, we have no time right now. The Council has summoned me, and I must leave immediately. You and your mother must work together to recalibrate the navigation crystal. I have diverted all of our extra resources to increase the assembly speed for the spacecraft.” Jor-El squeezed his son’s shoulders and then moved away toward the door. “Our time grows short, my son. I believe your journey must happen sooner than we expected.”

Jor-El turned back toward Kal, regarding his son for a moment. Kal held his breath as his father’s dark eyes flashed with concern for just the briefest of moments before becoming impassive once again. Jor-El then nodded and knelt down to pick up his robes, which sat in an untidy heap on the floor.

“Please, my son, get to work recalibrating the navigation crystal. I will return as soon as I can.”

And Jor-El disappeared through the doorway, leaving Kal alone.

He did not allow himself even a moment’s hesitation. Recalling the many hours he had spent learning the recalibration process from his father over a week prior, Kal stepped into the small room with the nearly completed spaceship, pulled up the holographic control panel, and began inputting a series of numbers and symbols, representing his personal security code. Then, Kal clicked several keys to eject the navigation crystal from the vessel and gently extracted the crystal from its slot.

He held the crystal up to inspect it. The small, clear crystal captured and refracted the dim light entering the room through a small window along the upper edge of the wall, sending a ribbon of rainbow colors cascading along the white floor near Kal’s feet. He turned the crystal around in his hand and then placed it into a void space, which opened up near the holographic control panel.

Then, he began scanning through lines and lines of data his father had collected and compiled to explain and predict the heating and destruction of Krypton’s core. Acceleration of the planet’s rotation resulting from the unexpectedly fast rise in the core temperature was the key variable that had changed. His eyes landed on numerical readouts for the last week, and he quickly assessed the numbers. The sharp increase in the planet’s rotation corresponded to a rapid jump in core temperature by nearly five hundred degrees. Kal swallowed hard and began copying the new numbers into the appropriate mathematical formulas.

Footsteps behind him announced the arrival of his mother, but she remained silent as she moved up to his side and studied the calculations with him.

As the calculation was completed, Kal stared at the new numbers, an odd and uneasy sort of emptiness filling him. The new calculation revealed that their timeline had been shortened by two full days.

He shook his head as his breath began to come in short, fast bursts.

“This cannot be right, Mother,” he said. And his fingers once again clicked through the calculation. But he once again obtained the same numbers. Three more times, he repeated the calculation, each time feeling himself grow more agitated. “This cannot be right, Mother,” Kal repeated. “I cannot lose those two days. You cannot… You and Father and Drek and Jin and Kin and Tag… You cannot lose those two days. This cannot be—”

His mother’s hand covered his, and she moved closer to him and wrapped him in her arms. She had not embraced him like this in many years, and he stiffened as he closed his eyes.

“The calculations are correct, my son,” she murmured into his ear. “Please continue with the remaining steps of the recalibration process. You leave Krypton in four days. We must get the spaceship completed before then.”

Then, La-Ra pulled away, turned around, and left the small room. Kal stood, unable to move, staring blankly as the robotic arms continued their silent work. He did not want to recognize that his calculations were correct and that his mother was right. He did not want to leave his parents and friends. He did not want this.

“I am Kal-El of Krypton. I leave for Earth in four days. And please may I…pet your cat.”

He murmured the now familiar words while he clicked on various buttons to initiate recalibration. The hologram in front of him flickered as the ground shook briefly, and Kal tightened his jaw.

“What is your name? I am Kal-El of Krypton. Is that your cat? What is your cat’s name? I have traveled from…from very far away. My planet…it was…destroyed. I am the last survivor.”

He did not know the word. He never knew enough words.

Resigned, he reached into the void and pulled out the recalibrated crystal. It again refracted a deep rainbow of light as he moved it into its slot in the spacecraft. The machine paused momentarily and beeped when he inserted the crystal, then resumed the assembly process.

“I have traveled from very far away. My planet was destroyed,” he repeated again, raising his voice just slightly. “I am Kal-El, the last son of Krypton. Please help me.”

He backed away from the vessel until his back hit the wall, and then he slid down and buried his head in his knees.

Only four days.



The ground continued to quake all throughout the day. Most tremors were much weaker than the one that had woken Kal up. However, with each one, the population grew more anxious.

La-Ra forced Kal to take a break from his work for midday meal, and he settled at a small table in the back corner of the Great Hall, feeling nauseous as he stared at his food and listened to the quiet whispers around him. He only caught bits and pieces of conversations, but in these bits and pieces, he heard an underlying mistrust of the official statement released by the Council assuring the populace that they had nothing to worry about.

“The shaking is merely the tectonic plates realigning and should not cause any alarm,” the statement had said.

Jor-El had written the statement and signed his name to it, and that should have been enough to placate everyone; after all, Jor-El was one of the most well-respected scientists on Krypton. But the curious glances in Kal’s direction as he ate his midday meal with disinterest and the murmurs circulating around the room hinted that the suspicious behaviors of the El family as of late—Kal’s lack of attendance at morning teachings and disruption of his regular routine, Jor-El’s prolonged stints of working in his laboratory without rest, and La-Ra’s canceling of two planned trips in the last two weeks—had attracted more attention than they had hoped.

And now, Kal sat alone, forcing himself to eat some of the oatmeal in his bowl, while running their most recent calculations in his head again. His four days were passing, and he had not even seen his friends. He looked up and scanned the room but did not see Drek or Tag or Kin. Even Nor-Zod, son of retiring Supreme Ruler Dru-Zod, was notably absent. Not that he cared to see Nor-Zod; Nor-Zod had never liked Kal and had made sure that Kal knew it.

The ground shook again, and a hush fell over the room. Kal’s hands flattened onto the table, and he closed his eyes as he waited for the tremor to pass. Finally, after several much-too-long seconds, the rattling abruptly stopped, and Kal let out the breath he had been holding.

He shoved another bite of the bland food into his mouth, chewed, and swallowed, then washed down the taste with a long sip of tea. As usual, the oatmeal had little flavor, but the tea was his favorite—a bit spicy almost, made from a rare plant found only in the mountains to the west. He had requested it specifically. And he savored the sip, knowing that he may never taste this type of tea again.

English had a word for the drink—“tea,” he recalled. He gazed blankly at his plate as he imagined what “tea” on Earth might taste like. Would they have plain “teas,” like the brown leaf tea he usually drank? And spicy “teas,” like this, his favorite, made from special herbs or plants?

“Kal-El, my friend, you are here.”

Drek’s voice startled Kal, and he looked up at his friend, who approached with a tray of food and sat.

“Yes, my friend. I have been busy as of late and not so hungry either. It is good to see you, Drek,” Kal replied. He sipped his tea again and watched his friend push his utensil into the bowl of warm oatmeal on the tray.

“I am not so hungry today either, but Father insists I must eat,” Drek agreed.

“You, not hungry? That is something I never expected to hear, my friend!” Kal said with a bit more enthusiasm than he had intended. Drek nodded, abandoned his oatmeal altogether, and instead picked up the small pastry sitting in the corner of his plate.

“True, I never miss a meal. But today, Kal…”

Drek’s agitation was clear to his friend, and Kal felt himself tense uneasily. He picked up his own pastry and took a small bite. A faintly sweet flavor from the dark filling inside tempted his tongue, and he took a second bite.

“I understand how you feel, my friend. My father has been working all morning to understand what is happening with these tremors,” Kal lied. A feeling of disgust welled up inside of him, far stronger than he had ever felt before, but he pushed away the unfamiliar emotion as he remembered his parents’ insistence that no one know the true nature of the quaking. “Would it please you for me to explain?”

Drek held his friend’s gaze for a second and then nodded, his interest evident in the minor tension in the creases in his forehead. Drek ate his pastry with one single, large bite and chewed while he listened to Kal.

“Krypton’s crust is composed of five large tectonic plates…”

By the time Kal finished his long, detailed, and not entirely accurate explanation, all of the men sitting at tables around them had also grown silent. Kal was all too aware of the attention he had attracted, and he shifted his eyes from Drek’s to scan the room. Although many of the men who had been listening in lowered their eyes and turned their heads away, pretending they had not been eavesdropping, several met Kal’s gaze unabashedly, which was slightly disconcerting to Kal. One man at the table directly next to theirs stood, knelt down for a moment, and then cleared his throat as he rose back to his feet.

“Young Lord Kal of the House of El, future Supreme Ruler of Krypton and son of Jor-El, Chief Scientist and Advisor to the Supreme Ruler, please accept my apologies for overhearing your conversation. My name is Thak-Tal, and I am an assistant to the Council. I am glad to hear your detailed explanation for the shaking of the ground. We have surely never felt anything like this before, Young Lord Kal-El, and we are all a bit unsure. Your explanation has reassured me, and I will now go back to my family and give them the news that all will be well. Please accept my words of appreciation, Young Lord Kal-El.”

The man bowed again to Kal and then turned and left. Many others around him followed, murmuring their gratitude to Kal before leaving the Great Hall to return to their families. Drek sat quietly until the commotion had died down and then stared at his friend.

“They do not all know you like I do, Kal,” Drek said informally, his voice low. “They do not know that at least part of your explanation was fabricated.”

Kal blinked back his surprise at Drek’s tone and forced a neutral expression on his face.

“I do not understand, Drek, my friend. I have not been deceitful,” Kal stated. He took another small bite of his pastry and held his head high, maintaining an air of indifference.

“Kal, you have been distracted for weeks now, not just from the quaking of the ground that started today. There is something else happening that is beyond what your father has told us and beyond your current explanation,” Drek said. He took a long sip of his tea.

“It is true, Drek, that I have been preoccupied as of late,” Kal admitted quietly. He kept his expression carefully controlled and thought quickly for an explanation that would appease his friend. He settled on something that was at least somewhat close to the truth. “The shifting of Krypton’s geological integrity has been under my father’s watch for some time now, and Jor-El required my assistance with his work as he sought to understand and predict the movement of the tectonic plates. My father expected this would happen, but he did not want to alarm anyone because there is no cause to worry, my friend.”

Kal studied Drek’s expression, but found it blank, as usual, and to his relief, Drek nodded.

“I expected such an explanation, my friend, and I am pleased to hear there truly is no cause to worry,” Drek stated, his tone becoming more formal again. “Will you be attending midday exercise with me today, Kal?”

“I cannot. My father still requires my assistance.”

“I am saddened to hear this, but I understand. I hope to see you tomorrow then, my friend.”

Drek nodded to Kal, pushed himself up, and took his tray with him as he left Kal, once again, to himself. The exchange had left Kal even more uneasy. It was not right for him to survive and everyone else to perish.

They do not even know they will not survive, Kal thought, again switching to Kandorian when he did not know the English word for “survive.” His jaw tightened as he corrected the sentence using a word he did know. They do not even know they will all die.

“It is not right,” he mumbled out loud, keeping his voice low to disguise his use of the foreign language. “No one will know. Is that better, or not?”

“Kal, my son.” Jor-El’s greeting startled Kal out of his reflections, and he looked up to his father, who stood not more than a foot away, his eyes neutral and impassive. “Kal, please join me back in the laboratory at once. We have more work to do.”

“Yes, Father,” Kal responded.

He stood, leaving his tray on the table, and followed as his father led the way back through the winding corridors to the laboratory. He pictured Drek again, his closest friend, and saw the tiniest flicker of betrayal that had flashed through Drek’s eyes as Drek had accused him of not telling the truth.

He did not like it. He did not like the deceit and betrayal. But more importantly, he did not like to consider that in four days, he would be leaving Krypton and his family and his friends—leaving all of them behind to perish.

He stepped into the laboratory with his father and heard the pop behind them as the doors locked. Jor-El turned around to face Kal, his eyes dark.

“Kal, my son, I have been informed of your oration in the Great Hall,” Jor-El expressed. His voice was without emotion, but he reached up and set both hands on Kal’s shoulders. “You have a gift with words, my son. Your discourse has eased the worries of the people, and they will surely pass on these assurances to others. I am thankful for your quick thinking and articulation, my son.”

Kal simply nodded at the praise. Then, he and his father removed their robes, and he followed his father into the smaller room. He stopped abruptly as his eyes fell on the small spaceship sitting on the platform in front of him.

The robotic arms had retracted and no longer whirred and clicked and hummed.

The top of the ship was open, and Kal’s pack, which he had prepared two days prior, was secured next to the seat for the sole passenger—him.

La-Ra stood silently, her hand placed over the family crest that had been etched onto the front of the spaceship.

A single white flower, like those from the patch of blue and white blooms growing in the far gardens, had been placed on the control panel next to the only button that Kal would have to push—the launch button.

Kal felt his stomach sink, and he shook his head.

“I have four days. Mother?”

He stepped forward toward her, but his legs wobbled precariously, and just as he steadied himself, the ground shook again, this time rumbling with such ferocity that a crack formed along the far wall of the room. His mother reached out and grasped his hands, and they stood silently, Jor-El joining them, while the quake passed. As the ground stilled, Kal again shook his head.

“I have four days. The calculations said I have four days. Father, did you see? Mother?”

Panic like he had never known before welled up within his chest, and he stepped backwards away from them.

“I am not ready. I have four days still!” The words were spoken in English, although he had not meant them to be, and he backed up another step and repeated the words in Kandorian. “I am not ready. I have four days still! Mother?”

“Kal-El, my son, while you were gone, the core temperature jumped another three hundred degrees,” Jor-El said firmly, his voice clear and strong. “I predicted that near the end, the fluctuations in temperature would become erratic. This is what we are now observing. The core temperature is increasing in random increments, and we have reached the point where we can no longer predict with certainty when Krypton’s destruction will occur.”

Kal shook his head again, and his mother squeezed his hands.

“Kal-El, my beloved son,” his mother murmured softly. Her hand reached up to touch his forehead. “You must be brave, my son, for great things lie ahead, and your journey is just starting. Be brave and strong and unafraid as you approach your new life and new destiny on Earth. Find new friends and experience new things and build yourself into the great man I know you can become. The great man I know you are. And most of all, my dear son, remember that you are Lord Kal of the House of El of the planet Krypton. Do not forget our family crest, which is a symbol of hope, and do not forget yourself.”

Jor-El stepped up, but did not touch Kal. His voice deepened as he set one hand on La-Ra’s arm.

“Take with you your strength, honor, honesty, and intelligence, Kal-El, my son. Take with you your courage and bravery. And should you find yourself feeling lost or alone, remember that your mother and I will always be with you, Kal. You are our greatest accomplishment, my son. You are our legacy. You are the legacy of Krypton. Be your best, my son. Be yourself.”

Kal stood as still as stone as his mother and father both stepped away from him. He could not breathe. His chest would not rise to fill his lungs with air. He balled his hands into fists but did not move.

He did not have his four days. He only had minutes.

He did not want this.

He opened his mouth to speak, but the ground shook again, a tremendous force from below them breaking up the layers of earth and rock. The floor fractured between his feet, and Kal stumbled sideways toward the spaceship. He grasped its edge, smooth and cool, and looked up at his parents in alarm. A crevasse had opened up between them, separating him from his parents.

“Mother! Father!”

No, he did not want this. He could not leave them. He shook his head.

“My son, my dearest Kal, you must go now,” La-Ra spoke in a strong, clear voice. She leaned into Jor-El’s arms, and the two embraced as the ground shook again.

Outside, an enormous crash echoed through the courtyard. Kal twisted around toward the sound, and his eyes widened in alarm as he saw the growing chaos through the room’s single window. The building that used to stand tall just across the courtyard, which had housed the library, weapon storage units, and food storage units, was now not more than a pile of rubble, dust billowing out from underneath the settling rock and stone.

He turned back to his parents. The crevasse had grown to about two meters across. His eyes flitted back and forth several times as he judged the distance. He could jump and make it and then stay with them. He could do it. He would do it. But as he readied himself for the leap, the ground shuddered again, and the crevasse grew larger.

“I was supposed to have four days!” he yelled. He grabbed a hold of the spaceship to keep himself from falling as his legs gave out; his hand gripping the spacecraft also felt weak, and he struggled to hold himself upright.

“We love you, my dear son Kal.”

He raised his eyes across the room and saw his parents again, holding each other. His mother’s eyes, a beautiful shade of vivid blue, held no “fear.” Only love and hope. And in his father, who held his chin high despite the walls beginning to crumble around him, Kal saw a great fortitude—a strength and resolve unlike he had seen before. Kal clenched his jaw, dipped his head in acknowledgement, and turned to climb into the small spacecraft.

It was a tight fit; the vessel was barely large enough to hold him and his pack. As he settled into the seat, which was maybe a bit too hard and a bit too cold, the canopy began to close, and he watched through the transparent material as his parents held each other tighter and shifted backwards another few meters from the still-growing crevasse. Shoulder and hip belts automatically fastened to secure him into his seat, and a monotone voice announced, “Life signature detected. Welcome, Young Lord Kal-El. Please press the ignition to initiate the launch start sequence.”

With a final exhale, he reached out a trembling hand and pressed down on the ignition button, his eyes locked on his mother.

The ship whirred to life, rose a meter or so off the ground, and hovered briefly as an opening formed in the ceiling.

And with a final, oddly silent vibration of the spaceship’s control panel, the ship rotated and launched heavenward as its passenger screwed his eyes shut, clasped his hands together, and screamed with grief.



When his screams subsided, Kal sat staring out at the vast blackness ahead of him, blank and numb. The numbness stuck with him, throbbing like a headache and blocking any other feelings he might have had. Even when he turned around and looked back at Krypton, growing smaller and smaller as his ship moved away; even when he closed his eyes and tried to remember how it felt to have his mother embrace him one last time; and even when he twisted around again to see the planet that was once his home explode in a blinding flash behind him, he still felt only numbness. A great emptiness—a void that nothing could fill.

Gone. Krypton was gone. His parents. His friends. His home. The gardens, the palace, the courtyard, the trails, the mountains, the oceans. All gone.

And yet, here he sat, in his little single-person spaceship, hurtling through emptiness, safe and sound, somehow having escaped with only minutes to spare.

He felt numb.

The control panel lit up, and its monotone voice announced, “First hyperspace jump set to the Ginga Cluster in ten seconds. Nine. Eight. Seven. Six. Five. Four. Three. Two. One.”

He suddenly seemed to become so very heavy, and a great weight pressed down on his chest, forcing all the breath out of him, as the blackness around him swirled into a blinding array of bright colors. Then, only seconds later, the feeling disappeared, and he was once again surrounded by blackness out in every direction.

Kal closed his eyes and leaned his head back onto the headrest of his seat as the ship’s navigation system spoke again.

“First hyperspace jump successful. Next hyperspace jump to the Fifth Realm in forty-four hours, sixteen minutes, fifteen seconds.”

And silence filled the space. A silence that would surround him for the next forty-four hours, sixteen minutes, fifteen seconds until the countdown to his second hyperspace jump. He should use the time to study English more. But he could not convince himself to do anything. Not think, not speak, not read. He did not want to be here.

No, he should be dead, with the rest of them.

His eyes opened halfway, and he saw the white flower his mother had left him on the control panel. He straightened up, reached forward, and cupped it carefully in his hands. It was perfect; a full bloom with three broad leaves underneath the multiple thick layers of round white petals. Kal brought the flower up and touched it to his forehead, imagining it was his mother’s lips kissing him goodbye. Then, he leaned forward and set the flower back down on the control panel.

“Mother, I miss you already,” he said out loud, using his native language. With a sudden rush of an unfamiliar emotion that made him want to punch the roof of his vessel with all of his strength, he realized he did not want to practice his English. He did not care whether he could communicate when he got to Earth. He did not even care if he eventually reached Earth or not.

After all, he should be dead with the rest of them.

“Mother, I miss you. Father, I miss you.”

He closed his eyes, dropped his chin to his chest, and let the silence and darkness envelop him.




Art by KSaraSara