Regret

Clark's anger slowly dissipated as he stood amidst the ruin of what had once been his home. The fields, once fertile and alive, were now a barren wasteland—blackened earth that seemed to mourn the loss of everything it had once nurtured. The house, where he had shared so many memories with his parents, was no more than a pile of smoldering debris, reduced to nothing but fragments.

He stood there for hours, his feet rooted to the ashen ground, caught in the weight of his own actions. He had set out with such noble intentions, to be a force for good, to make a difference in the world. But somewhere along the way, he had changed. *He* had become the one thing he swore to fight against. No longer was he the hopeful farm boy who dreamed of being a hero. He was something else entirely. He was the villain now, the one responsible for the death and destruction of everything he had sworn to protect.

The guilt gnawed at him, relentless and suffocating. Every life he had taken, every choice he had made, felt like a chain wrapped around his heart. He had been the one to bring this upon the world—he had killed it. He had killed *them*.

Shaking his head, Clark forced himself to clear his thoughts. He couldn't let the guilt consume him—not yet. Not now. And just as the darkness threatened to overwhelm him, a break in the thick cloud of ash caught his attention.

A patch of clear sky.

Through it, the sunlight broke free, spilling across the broken landscape like a lifeline. The warmth of the sun washed over him, hitting his face with a light so pure it almost felt like a memory of who he had been. For a brief moment, it was as if he could *breathe* again, as if the weight on his chest had lightened just enough to let him feel something other than pain.

He pushed himself into the air, his body propelled by instinct more than will. The rush of flight, the wind against his face, the speed—it felt like joy. A joy he thought he had lost forever. For those few moments in the sky, it was as if he was still the man he once was. The man who had wanted to save the world.

Minutes later, he reached Los Angeles.

The city lay beneath him like a smoldering carcass, the flames still dancing through the ruins—fires that had been burning for weeks. Thousands of charred bodies lay scattered among the wreckage. The ones who had stayed behind. The unlucky ones. The ones who hadn't managed to escape.

Tears welled in Clark's eyes as he hovered above the destruction. A deep, aching pain hit him like a fist to the gut, and in that instant, he could no longer contain it. The truth of what he had done was too much to bear. He wasn't a hero. He wasn't even human anymore.

With a gut-wrenching sob, he plummeted from the sky, crashing into the ground with such force that the earth itself seemed to recoil in pain. A crater formed around him, the impact sending shockwaves through the ruins.

He lay there, buried in his own pain, his body trembling as the weight of his actions crushed him. Clark Kent, a farm boy from Kansas, had done what no one had ever thought possible. He had destroyed his world. He had killed every last person he had once vowed to protect.

The hero was gone. And in his place stood the man who had destroyed everything.