No One Can Stop Me

Whoosh!

The afternoon sky was overcast, a cold wind sweeping low through the town's streets.

Martha, the mother, went out shopping, with Clark and David tagging along to help carry things.

It looked like rain, and the townsfolk hurried along.

Just as Clark loaded two discounted jugs of laundry detergent into the car, his vision blurred. The world around him turned into a silent film—black and white. The people on the street were no longer residents but walking skeletons.

A woman with a grocery basket brushed past him, and Clark flinched, stepping aside awkwardly.

David knew his super-vision had kicked in again, uncontrollably. "Focus on controlling your gift. Don't fear it or fight it."

When Zod first reached Earth and absorbed sunlight, he adapted to his sudden abilities in under a minute—though that was partly because he was a trained elite warrior.

But both were Kryptonians. Zod didn't have extra organs or limbs compared to Superman, and his potential was even lower.

"Think about before gym class. Why could you always control it then?"

Watching Clark's troubled face, David suspected it was tied to his mental state.

He resisted his emerging powers. They made him feel like an outsider, constantly reminding him he was an alien. That was why they flickered on and off.

"I..."

Clark started to speak, then noticed something strange in the distance—an odd skeleton that caught his attention.

In his black-and-white vision, everyone else looked like X-ray images, but this skeleton glowed a vivid green, like...

"Meteorite?"

It instantly reminded him of the stuff that had caused him so much trouble.

For some reason, those meteorites had come to Earth with him, yet they were his bane. Just getting close made him weak.

"What's wrong, Clark? Again?"

Martha walked out of the supermarket and saw her eldest son's distress. She immediately suggested heading home. "Let's go home."

"No, I'm fine."

Clark saw the green skeleton enter a small shop by the street. He shook his head, took a deep breath, and tried to control it. Two seconds later, he shut off the ability.

"David was right. As long as I don't resist it, I can do it!"

He felt a surge of joy, but glancing at his calm younger brother, a pang of frustration hit him.

The gift was his, but his brother understood its tricks better.

David wasn't surprised.

"Everyone knows Superman is a bit of a psychological being."

Seeing that her eldest son was gaining control over his new ability and wouldn't have problems from it, Martha felt relieved.

"Mom, didn't you say you were going to the antique shop?"

Clark had seen the green skeleton walk into an antique shop by the street.

"Our bedroom lamp is broken. I'm having your Aunt Catherine fix it."

A few steps later, Martha led her two sons into the shabby antique shop on the corner.

Ding-a-ling.

The door opened, and a welcome bell rang.

The shop was packed with all sorts of items—porcelain and hornware displayed in glass cabinets, oil paintings, antique clocks, and embroidered tapestries hanging on the walls.

Some palm-sized statues with a strong ancient African tribal style were casually placed in the corners...

It called itself an antique shop.

David looked around, wondering if any of it was actually antique.

A shop that had stooped to repairing household appliances—he wasn't sure.

"Most of this is from last week."

"Mrs. Kent—I mean, Martha, how have you been?"

Catherine stepped briskly out from the back of the shop, a flicker of tension in her eyes, a rehearsed smile on her face.

"How's business?"

Martha didn't suspect a thing. The woman before her was the Catherine she knew—same eyes, same nose, even the same wrinkle at the corner of her eye.

"Not bad."

"I'm here to pick up the lamp." After a bit more small talk, Martha smiled and got to the point.

"Lamp?"

Catherine looked confused.

Clark secretly tried to activate that special vision again.

He strained the muscles around his eyes, and after seven or eight seconds, he finally succeeded.

Behind the counter, a flesh-and-blood skeleton glowed with meteorite fluorescence.

"But... why is it so much shorter?"

The skeleton looked different from what he'd seen before—earlier it was a young woman, now it was hunched over.

"Could there be two of them?"

He remembered that Aunt Catherine's daughter Tina also attended Smallville High, but they weren't in the same class.

"That mahogany lamp Jonathan broke."

After Martha's explanation, 'Catherine' seemed to finally remember and turned to go inside and fetch it.

"What's that smell?"

David sniffed—a faint, elusive stench crept into his nose.

Clark took a whiff too but didn't notice anything.

Besides super hearing and vision, Kryptonians had other senses far beyond normal humans, but he might not have awakened them yet.

As an ordinary person, Martha didn't detect anything either.

"Sorry, Martha, let me check—that lamp isn't fixed yet. Could you come back next week?"

'Catherine' stepped out with an apologetic face.

"Of course."

Martha, always easygoing, gave a light laugh.

She turned to leave with her two sons when she spotted a corner of a stack of cash sticking out from under a cabinet near the stairs.

She bent down and picked it up.

"What's this?"

"Thank you, Martha, I'm such a fool."

Seeing the cash, Catherine quickly took it, her tone a little stiff.

"A customer paid in cash, and I've been looking for it all day. So that's where it was."

"You're welcome. That's no small amount, Catherine—make sure you keep it safe."

An unnatural flicker passed through Martha's eyes as she smiled.

After giving her advice, she hurried away with her two sons.

Out on the street, walking away from the Antique Shop, Martha said quietly.

"That stack of cash had a Town Savings and Loan band on it."

The Town Bank had just been robbed, and now a stack of ten thousand dollars from that bank showed up in Catherine's shop? It was hard not to make the connection.

"Catherine said it was from a customer, but we all know her antique shop hasn't had a sale in ages..."

"I don't think Aunt Catherine's family is well-off enough to just toss ten thousand dollars around carelessly."

David had noticed the panic on 'Catherine's' face when that cash appeared.

"Whoever robbed the bank is probably connected to her."

"I saw it too."

Clark said, glancing back at the Antique Shop, and saw something shocking.

Inside the shop, a figure that had been hunched over seemed to stretch taller, its spine straightening, turning back into the young woman he'd seen before.

And more importantly, inside a standing cabinet in the shop, a woman's body was stored there.

Aged, hunched, heart no longer beating, blood already clotted.

"I don't think we were looking at Aunt Catherine." He opened his mouth.

"Then who was it?" Martha asked, puzzled.

"I don't know, but..." Clark told her what he'd seen.

Someone they'd known for years might be dead, and her body had just been right behind her.

Martha was shaken and decided to go home first and discuss with her husband Jonathan how to handle this.

Even if her eldest son had abilities beyond normal people, she didn't want him getting involved in this matter lightly.

The door closed. Tina's flesh flowed like putty, reshaping into her original form.

Thinking back to Martha's unnatural expression when she found the cash, she expressionlessly hung up the "Closed" sign, and a cold, sinister voice echoed through the shop.

"No one's going to stand in the way of my happiness!"