At last gaining a moment to catch his breath, Lex struggled to his feet. He fought down a violent urge to vomit and gulped in air. But his desperate will to survive had not faded; driven by instinct, he kept frantically smashing Clark with the thing in his hand.
Feeling the weakness in that powerful body, Lex abruptly flipped Clark over, pinned him to the ground, and violently struck his chest and head with the object. Every place it touched began to smoke, and Clark screamed without stop.
At last, perhaps spurred by the pain, red light began to gather in his eyes. Clark suddenly thrust out both arms, shoving Lex off him, and let out a piercing scream:
"Ugh!!!!!!"
Two beams of red light pierced the roof, passed through the clouds, tore through the atmosphere, and shot straight into space. Then, like a severed kite string, they flickered in the sunlight and vanished without a trace.
Clark flew away like a beaten dog. He could not even steady himself, staggering before crashing into a building. Yet the usual sight of buildings collapsing after Superman touched them did not occur. Instead, Clark screamed. The building did not budge, while he fell in another direction.
Diana had only just left the Police Department when she witnessed it all. She could hardly describe how she felt. Sure enough, she should never have investigated that Egyptian artifact. She must have been afflicted by Pharaoh's curse.
Clark had a long dream. In it, he returned to his childhood. But instead of dreaming, as he usually did, of classmates mocking him or his father comforting him, he dreamed of something else.
He dreamed of a lamb. It was born to a ewe in their family sheep pen. He had been there on the day it