Clark found it difficult to accept the reflection staring back at him.
Even if that version of himself had been warped by red kryptonite, the thought that his fear of Adrian still remained unsettled him deeply.
Was he really that powerless to change, even when everything else about him had shifted?
He fell into quiet self-doubt.
"Don't be sorry, Clark."
Setting down the Daily Planet in his hand, Adrian spoke evenly. "You've already paid the price."
The price, of course, being the exhaustion that left Clark bedridden for an entire day after returning home.
Clark forced a weak smile. "Maybe I deserved that. But I want you to know—I didn't mean for any of it to happen. Adrian, I never wanted to hurt you."
"If saying that helps you sleep better," Adrian replied, pulling out a chair and sitting at the table, "then apology accepted."
He didn't put much weight on Clark's remorse. Words were like masks—they could reveal or conceal what someone truly thought. And Adrian wasn't one to be swayed by a few sentences of regret.
Jonathan sipped his coffee and looked up from the kitchen counter. "There's been an incident near the Benati River," he said. "Two unidentified people found dead. No records, no IDs. The investigation's probably going to take a while."
"Benati River?" Clark's expression shifted slightly at the mention.
He remembered the two assassins who had ambushed him there while searching for Jessica. He had only knocked them unconscious… or so he thought.
If they were now dead—then who killed them?
A quiet suspicion crept into his mind as he turned toward Adrian. His brother's calm, unreadable expression did little to ease the thought. For a moment, Clark wondered if he was imagining things.
"Clark."
Martha's gentle voice broke his spiral. "There's at least one good thing that came out of all this. Remember the prophecy Ms. Cassandra told you at the sanitarium? About something terrible happening to us? We're all still here. Maybe that means what you saw wasn't the future—just one possible path that you've already changed."
Jonathan nodded in agreement. "I've never been one to believe in prophecies," he said firmly. "The past belongs to death. The future belongs to us. Nobody can decide it for you except yourself."
Clark's eyes dimmed with thought. The vision he'd seen still haunted him: his parents' gravestones, his blood-red eyes, and Adrian—his own brother—standing against him in the dark.
The Clark in that vision had been a monster, a reflection of the same rage the red kryptonite had awakened.
But maybe, just maybe, the future really had changed.
He leaned back, resting his chin on his hands, quietly pondering his father's words.
Across the table, Adrian's gaze sharpened slightly when his mother mentioned Cassandra.
A woman who could glimpse fragments of the future?
Interesting.
He made a mental note of the name.
Ms. Cassandra.
Sanitarium.
He'd visit her himself soon enough.
---
The Next Day – Smallville Sanitarium
The sun was soft that morning, spilling across the quiet courtyard. Birds sang somewhere in the trees.
At a round table surrounded by flowers, an elderly woman sat calmly, a pair of dark sunglasses resting on her face. A closed book lay in her hands.
When Adrian arrived, he didn't speak immediately. He simply observed her from behind.
Without turning, the old woman smiled faintly. "Why don't you come sit down, young man? You won't see much standing there."
Adrian walked forward, pulled out a chair, and sat opposite her. "Adrian Kent," he said evenly. "You can probably guess why I'm here."
"Ah," she said with a soft chuckle. "Clark's brother. He told you about me, did he?"
"I heard you can see the future," Adrian replied. "And that you showed my brother something that… left quite an impression."
Her smile widened. "So you came to test me, then? To see how a blind old woman can read destiny without eyes?"
"I came to confirm what he saw," Adrian corrected.
She tapped the cover of her book thoughtfully. "If you wanted to know what Clark saw, you could've asked him directly. But perhaps you two aren't as close as you'd like to believe." She tilted her head. "Still, I can't tell you his future, young man. That belongs to him."
Then she extended a frail hand toward him. "But yours… I can show you."
Adrian regarded her for a long moment, then smiled faintly. "I don't believe in fate. I make my own."
Her head tilted slightly. "And aren't you curious what kind of future a man like you creates?"
Her tone was calm but probing. "Maybe you'll see Clark… or maybe something far worse."
Adrian hesitated, then finally took her hand.
The world around him twisted. Darkness poured in like ink, swallowing the light. His mind was pulled somewhere else—somewhere distant, heavy, and suffocating.
When the haze cleared, he was standing amidst ruins.
A blood-red moon hung over a shattered city. Buildings lay broken and burned. Ash and silence blanketed everything.
Clark descended slowly from the sky, his cape torn but still billowing in the crimson wind.
Adrian looked down—and in his grasp, he held a steel trident impaling the grotesque head of a fallen creature.
Wonder Woman, clad in battle-worn armor, screamed a war cry and charged, her blade raised high. Adrian's Heat Vision flared and hurled her back in an instant.
A burst of scarlet energy erupted to his side—Zatanna, her dark hair wild, her fishnet-clad figure framed in chaotic light. She raised her staff, chanting words of power.
Adrian raised his hand. The air cracked.
A golden staff flew into his grip, shining like a miniature sun. Power rippled outward as a surge of pure energy exploded, erasing Zatanna's spell and everything around her.
And then—silence.
The world flickered again. The battlefield melted into an underground abyss, littered with white bones and rivers of blood.
He stood alone in hell.
Then his vision snapped back.
Adrian opened his eyes, his hand still resting over Cassandra's cold fingers.
"Ms. Cassandra?" he said quietly.
But the woman didn't move. The faint rise and fall of her chest had stopped. Her sunglasses slipped, revealing lifeless eyes.
He exhaled softly, setting her hand down on the table.
After alerting the nurses and doctors, Adrian left the sanitarium without another word.
As he stepped into the light, he looked up
at the sun breaking through the clouds.
Was that really his future?
It seemed impossible—yet not entirely beyond.
---
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