Chapter 4: First Blood
Miller's Field stretched out under a purple sky, corn stalks swaying in the evening wind like they were whispering secrets to each other.
The shortcut had seemed like a good idea. My apartment was eight blocks from Main Street, but cutting through the old Miller property shaved off fifteen minutes. The farmer had died years ago—nobody cared about trespassing anymore.
I was halfway through the field when the screaming started.
High-pitched. Female. The kind of scream that came from genuine terror, not surprise or annoyance. It cut through the evening air like a knife and turned my blood to ice water.
[METEOR-AFFECTED INDIVIDUAL DETECTED. DISTANCE: 47 METERS. THREAT LEVEL: MODERATE.]
Meteor freak. Already.
My legs moved before my brain caught up. I pushed through the corn, stalks whipping against my arms, following the sound. Another scream—closer now, more desperate. Something crashed through the vegetation to my left, moving fast. Too fast.
I burst into a clearing.
A girl—maybe sixteen, cheerleader jacket, blonde hair tangled with corn silk—scrambled backward on her hands. Her ankle was twisted at a wrong angle. Tears streamed down her face.
And standing over her, blocking the moonlight, was something that used to be human.
Greg Arkin. I recognized him from the school hallways—quiet kid, bug collection, recently dumped by his girlfriend. The meteor rocks had done something to him. His eyes were too large, compound-looking in the dim light. His movements were wrong—jerky, insectile, like a praying mantis sizing up prey.
"You shouldn't have run, Heather," Greg said. His voice buzzed at the edges. "Running just makes it more exciting."
The girl—Heather—sobbed and tried to crawl away. Her injured ankle dragged uselessly behind her.
Don't. Don't get involved. You're not ready. Your powers are barely online. Let Clark handle this.
Greg's hand shot out, impossibly fast, and grabbed Heather's ankle. She screamed again.
Damn it.
I hit Greg at full speed.
My shoulder connected with his midsection, and for one glorious second, I felt the enhanced strength do its job. Greg flew backward, crashed through three rows of corn, and slammed into a fence post with a crack that might have been wood or might have been bone.
"Run!" I shouted at Heather. "Go!"
She didn't need to be told twice. Despite the ankle, she was up and limping toward the road, adrenaline overpowering pain.
Greg rose from the broken fence like something out of a horror movie. No pain in his expression. No fear. Just that horrible, buzzing curiosity.
"You're strong," he said. "What are you?"
[WARNING: OPPONENT RECOVERY FASTER THAN ANTICIPATED. RECOMMEND: TACTICAL RETREAT.]
No kidding.
Greg moved.
I didn't see him cross the distance—one moment he was by the fence, the next his fist was buried in my stomach. The air left my lungs in an explosive rush. My feet left the ground.
I flew.
Thirty feet, maybe more. The corn stalks didn't slow me down—I crashed through them like tissue paper until something solid stopped my flight. A tractor. The impact sent fire racing up my spine. Something in my chest went crack.
[DAMAGE DETECTED. RIBS (2): FRACTURED. INTERNAL BRUISING: MODERATE. RECOMMEND: IMMEDIATE DISENGAGEMENT.]
I couldn't breathe. Couldn't move. The world swam in and out of focus, pain pulsing through me in waves that matched my heartbeat.
Greg's footsteps crunched through the corn. Slow. Deliberate. He had all the time in the world.
"You interrupted my hunt," he said. "That was rude. I'll have to teach you manners."
Move. Move. MOVE.
My hand found a tire. Tractor wheel, maybe three hundred pounds. The strength surged through me—desperate, uncontrolled, probably damaging—and I heaved.
The tire hit Greg square in the chest. He flew backward into the corn, vanishing with a crash and an angry, buzzing shriek.
I ran.
Not toward the road—toward the barn at the edge of the property. My ribs screamed with every step. Blood ran down my back from where the tractor had torn my shirt and skin open. The world tilted at strange angles.
The barn door hung open. I threw myself inside, found a corner behind ancient hay bales, and collapsed.
[PURSUIT NOT DETECTED. OPPONENT HAS REDIRECTED TOWARD PRIMARY TARGET.]
Heather. He's going after Heather.
I should get up. Should keep fighting. Should—
The pain hit like a wave, dragging me under. My vision went gray at the edges. The hay smelled like dust and old summers. I focused on breathing—shallow breaths that didn't move my ribs too much.
[COMBAT SURVIVAL BONUS APPLIED. +50 XP. CURRENT: 85/100.]
[STABILITY: 92%. CORRUPTION: +1% (VIOLENCE).]
I laughed. It came out wet, accompanied by a cough that tasted like copper.
The System is keeping score while I bleed out in a barn. Perfect. This is perfect.
My hands were shaking. I held them up in front of my face, watched them tremble in the moonlight streaming through the barn's broken roof. Twenty minutes ago I'd been walking home, thinking about Kara, planning my next move like a chess player.
Now I was hiding behind hay bales, coughing blood, unable to help a girl who might be dying because I wasn't strong enough.
This isn't a TV show anymore. This is real. People die here.
The shaking wouldn't stop. I wrapped my arms around my chest—gently, mindful of the fractured ribs—and waited. For Greg to find me. For the pain to fade. For morning.
[ENHANCED RECOVERY ACTIVE. BLEEDING REDUCTION: 15%. BONE KNITTING WILL BEGIN IN APPROXIMATELY 6 HOURS.]
Six hours. I had six hours until my body started fixing itself, and two weeks until the ribs healed completely. Two weeks of hiding the damage, acting normal, pretending I hadn't almost died in a cornfield.
Somewhere in the distance, a siren wailed. Heather must have made it to the road. Must have flagged down help.
Good. At least she's safe.
I stayed in the barn until midnight. The walk home took twice as long as usual—every step sent lightning bolts through my chest. My back had stopped bleeding, but the torn skin stuck to my shirt in ways that promised agony when I finally peeled it off.
My apartment building loomed like a sanctuary. Three flights of stairs had never seemed so high.
[LEVEL UP: 1 → 2. STAT POINTS AVAILABLE: 5. ENHANCED RECOVERY BONUS APPLIED.]
The notification appeared as I collapsed onto my bed, still fully clothed, blood drying on my skin.
Level 2. I almost died for one level.
The pain dulled slightly—the level-up doing something to take the edge off. The bleeding from my back had stopped completely. My ribs still felt like broken glass grinding together, but the stabbing quality was fading.
I stared at the ceiling. Tomorrow I had to go to school. Had to act normal. Had to sit through classes while Greg Arkin was out there, hunting.
And Clark doesn't know. Nobody knows except me and Heather, and she didn't see my face clearly.
I should tell someone. Should warn them about Greg, about what he'd become. But how? Walk up to Clark Kent and say "Hey, that quiet kid with the bug collection is actually a meteor-powered serial killer in the making"?
The anonymous tip. That's how they did it in the show. Anonymous tips, letting Clark investigate.
A plan started forming through the pain. Small steps. Careful moves. Feed information without revealing sources. Let Clark be the hero—he was built for it. I wasn't. Not yet.
The ceiling blurred. Sleep dragged at me, heavy and irresistible.
Tomorrow. I'd figure it out tomorrow.
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