Clark steadily made his way eastward, just as he'd promised himself, but not at the pace he'd initially he'd imagined he would have. Instead of rushing into things, he took it slowly, cautiously. During the summer, he camped out in wooded areas as much as he could, always by rivers or streams where he could drink and catch fish for his meals. He tried his hand at hunting small game - rabbits, pheasants, and the like - but was largely unsuccessful. He found nuts, berries, and mushrooms to supplement his diet, knowing from his farmland upbringing which were fit for human consumption and which were poisonous, though a part of him wondered if the poisonous ones would have any effect on him if he did partake of them.
For his shelters, he tried to find uninhabited caves, overhanging rocks, or built lean-tos from the forest brush and dead tree limbs. Once, he came across a broken tent some camper had abandoned. He discarded the busted poles and, instead, used tree branches he found to fix it as best he could. It sufficed, and it was nice to be protected from the rain that poured down in buckets for the following week, until the wind tore it loose one night and it flew into a thorny bush, tearing beyond repair.
Summer gradually faded into autumn. Clark was thankful that it was a fairly mild autumn and that he could continue to camp in relative peace and comfort. But the autumn did bring a new challenge - hunters. Some of the forested areas he wound his way through were crawling with hunters in camouflage greens and browns, with blaze orange vests or hats. Some carried rifles, others bows and arrows. Clark remained extra vigilant to avoid being seen by them. He neither wanted to run the risk of being recognized as a runaway nor did he want to be accidentally shot at, not that it would have made a difference, with his impervious flesh.
Winter was the biggest challenge. As the temperature dropped and the snow fell, Clark was at a loss as to what to do. The freezing temperatures didn't bother him - he'd never been bothered by extreme heat or cold, though he did wear his father's warm coat that he'd brought with him to Grandma Tildy's. But that didn't detract from the fact that he was tired of wandering. He just wanted to stay put in one place for a while, at least until the spring when traveling would be considerably easier. By January he'd already been stuck in three blizzards, and had trudged through snow in some places that had reached halfway up his thighs.
But he couldn't find a suitable spot, so he kept moving, until one evening just as the sun was going down. He wasn't exactly sure what state he was in, but after a week of making his way through open spaces and bustling suburbs, he was once again in the mountains and forest. He'd been traveling for nearly twenty-four hours, and was reaching the limit of even his incredible endurance. He was in desperate need of a place to settle down and rest for a while, but so far, he'd remained unsuccessful. He wanted a warm, dry, protected place where he could hunker down for at least a couple of days; his enhanced sense of smell told him that another snow storm was on the way.
He was hiking alongside a swift running, icy stream that flowed too fast to allow it to freeze solid. Up ahead, somewhere in the near distance, he could hear the tumultuous rumble of a waterfall. Suddenly, out of the growing gloom, a cabin appeared before him. At first, Clark was cautious, in case anyone was inside. But he heard nothing as he listened outside of the normal forest noises - a deer stalking through the trees, looking for food, a squirrel chattering angrily at his passage, a fox chasing after some small prey, a couple of winter birds tweeting to each other. Boldly, he got closer, using his newly discovered x-ray vision to scan the building for signs of life.
He found nothing.
Clark approached the door and it swung open beneath his hand as his palm met the wood. He stepped inside after stomping the snow off his shoes.
"Hello?" he called out, even though he knew the place was empty.
It didn't take much for him to realize that the cabin was completely abandoned. The place reeked of disuse and disrepair. Even the mouse droppings he found were stale, old, and white with age. He could smell the rot in the wood, deep set and unrelenting. It wasn't an ideal place to camp out for the winter, but it would do. At the very least, Clark didn't have to fear that someone would come along and take offense to the squatter that had taken over the place.
There wasn't much to the cabin. Just a main living space, two small bedrooms, a bathroom, and a kitchen. As Clark poked around, he realized that the place had once used a generator to run the few sparse lights, fridge, and running water. But the generator was rusted into oblivion, not that Clark had fuel to run it with anyway. It didn't matter. He would make do without the comforts of modern society, just as he had since he'd fled Grandma Tildy's house.
In one of the bedrooms, he found a plastic bin and investigated the contents. Somehow, against all odds, the bin had stayed dry and undisturbed by insects or rodents. In the dying sunlight, he took stock of what was inside, finding a few useful items. A dark green sleeping bag which was thick and waterproof. A rusted, but serviceable, hiking frame backpack, which would come in handy once the spring came and thawed the land, allowing Clark to continue on. A pocket knife, still sharp enough to be of use. A couple of flashlights and extra batteries. Clark tried them, but found them to be dead, so he set them aside. A box of matches. A first aid kit, not that he would need it. And a pair of glasses.
He tried the glasses on first, drawn to them in some inexplicable way. A thought formed in the back of his mind. He could use them to his advantage. Oh, too be sure, they were slightly ill-fitting, but he could make them work. The lenses were too strong to see clearly out of - Clark figured he could pop them out and perhaps cut new ones from an old, broken pane of glass that had been replaced in the bedroom window but never discarded. Instead, it stood forsaken in the corner of the room, so dingy it was nearly opaque. He smiled to himself.
"Perfect," he said in a near whisper.
The weight of the glasses would be a constant reminder to him to ensure that he kept tight control over his newer abilities, particularly his heat vision. And if he did accidentally use his powers while wearing the glasses, the melting frames and lenses would alert him to what was happening before things could get completely out of control. Satisfied, he laid them aside, planning to make the new lenses the next day of he got the chance.
Clark opened up the sleeping bag next and inspected it carefully, but it was in perfect condition. Not a spot of mold or tear in the fabric could be detected. He laid it out in the living room, before the stone cold fireplace. There was no wood at hand to make a fire with, and he was too tired to be bothered with it anyway. He climbed into the sleeping bag, closed his eyes, and was asleep in mere moments.
The morning dawned bleak and frigid. Clark headed out early, sweeping the woods immediately outside the cabin for broken limbs and dry brush he could use for fires. Feeling refreshed from so many hours of sleep, he worked at super speed, and before noon, he had a pile of wood stacked up outside the cabin large enough to last a month or more. He wanted to expand the stockpile even more, but knew that it was more important to turn his attention to food. The obvious choice was the stream. It wasn't very wide, but it was fairly deep - at least up to his waist, as he ventured into the icy waters. Using his hands, he caught several large fish - enough to last him a couple of days, so long as he buried them in the snow to stave off spoilage.
With some fish at hand and wood to cook it over, Clark finally felt like he could breathe a sigh of relief. That didn't however, give him an excuse to rest. He stopped to change into dry pants, then headed back outside. He searched around, looking for fallen nuts from the trees. He found more than he'd hoped to, and used one of his t-shirts as a makeshift sack to carry them in. There were a few game trails around and Clark set some simple snares.
Before he knew it, the winter sun was already setting, so Clark headed back to the cabin. He took an armload of wood inside with him, enough to last the night at least, and set them in the fireplace. He attempted to use his heat vision to start the blaze. He'd been working on it, little by little, almost every day. It was still fairly unreliable, but at least he hadn't accidentally started any more fires. Today, however, the ability failed him, and he was forced to use one of the matches he'd found the night before. They were cheap matches, he saw, and the first two he tried refused to light, no matter how many times he struck them on the side of the box.
"Third time's the charm," he muttered to himself as he took out another match.
This one lit easily, and Clark strategically placed it against the wood, setting it ablaze in a few spots. Within minutes, he had a cozy fire going, which threw much needed light and much appreciated heat to the darkening room. Swiftly, he prepared the fish, skewered it with a thin piece of wood, and roasted it over the flames until it was hot and flaky. He ate it slowly, savoring each morsel, and allowed himself a handful of the acorns he'd found. It was a veritable feast; his last meal had been more than a week before.
Sated, he cut the lenses for his glasses - thankful that this time his heat vision had decided to cooperate, even if it had been in fits and starts - and then slept again, thankful for the roof above his head as the snow began to fall.
***
It was a particularly rough winter. Snow fell more often than not. The temperature felt like it rarely broke above freezing. Clark kept himself as busy as he could, finding firewood, foraging for nuts, fishing with his bare hands, checking his snares. It paid off; he ate well enough that winter, even if he longed for variety in his food. He missed fresh fruits and vegetables fiercely. But mostly, he was bored and lonely. And despite how often he was outside, he was stir-crazy.
When he wasn't actively tending to his few needs, he worked on his powers. Before the winter was out, he finally felt like he had mastered his heat vision. In a way, out on his own, in the middle of the forest and away from people, it was almost kind of fun to perfect his ability. It was true that he had to be careful about setting the trees on fire, but with the stream at hand, as well as all the snow, he felt confident he could snuff out any blaze long before it could pose a threat to anything. He made a fun game of it - sitting up in a tree and melting his name into the snow below with his eyes, lighting his nightly fire in the cabin's hearth, melting blocks of ice in the stream, even reheating left over food in the mornings for a hot meal to start the day.
Despite his loneliness, he was content enough.
Still, when spring finally broke, he was more than eager to move on. He was thankful for the protection the cabin had given him during the long, cold winter, and he would even kind of miss the place. But he wanted to keep going, to find somewhere in the world where he could start building a life, even if it meant exposing himself to the possibility that he would be recognized as a runaway and returned to the halfway house. Although, he had to admit, that was becoming more and more unlikely by the day.
"I'm too fast for them to catch," he told himself as he walked, the salvaged hiking frame on his back, packed with the sleeping bag and as much dried meat and nuts as he could fit inside. "I'm too strong to be held."
He knew he'd never hurt anyone in an attempt to stay free, but he also trusted himself enough by then to know he could defend himself without running that risk.
"I'm in control," he assured himself. "I'm not a danger. Not anymore."
He stopped dead in his tracks, thunderstruck, as the revelation crashed over him.
"I'm not a danger anymore," he repeated in a low, awed voice.
He hadn't thought of himself that way before, not really. He'd known he was in control of his powers. He'd known he was comfortable now with the changes that had been taking place in his body since he was about ten years old. But he simply hadn't stopped to consider if his newfound control over some his more frightening and deadly powers rendered him safe to be around people yet. But now, standing beneath the spreading, still-naked branches of a birch tree, he knew it was true.
"Wow," he breathed in wonder.
But what did that really mean? And did he really want to delve into all the terrifying implications?
He had no choice. His mind whirred into motion.
"I don't have to hide anymore," he whispered as he forced himself to keep walking. "I could go back."
But even as he said it, he knew it wasn't true.
"No," he said, shaking his head. "No, I can't. It's too late. And what excuse can I give for my disappearance, if they would even take me back?" He sighed. "No. Going back isn't an option. I have to look ahead."
***
By the late spring, he found himself in Gotham City. He was now sixteen. He still couldn't do much better than minimum wage jobs, but more places seemed willing to hire a sixteen-year-old, as opposed to someone just who was just fifteen. He really wished he could just finish up his high school degree, but it was more immediately important to secure food, new clothing, and a place to sleep at night. So he took a job bagging groceries at one of the local supermarkets. It was a simple "mom and pop" shop, so they couldn't offer him much money, but the owners were able to pay slightly more than the minimum wage. On the downside, there weren't many hours that they could offer him, so he looked for another job.
Before a month was out, he was working three part-time jobs - bagging groceries, unloading shipments off trucks for a local furniture store, and stocking the shelves of a large craft store in the early morning hours. The work left him tired, but happy. He was making steady money, even if it wasn't much. But it was enough to allow him to replace his worn clothing, and buy some food for himself every now and again. It wasn't truly enough to live on, and he found himself partaking of the meals served at one of the city's soup kitchens more often than not.
And there was still the problem of housing. At only sixteen, he was too young to rent an apartment. He tried a few of the homeless shelters, and had nothing but trouble. A couple of times, he'd fallen too deeply asleep, so that even his powers didn't pick up on the fact that his money was being stolen. He was more cautious after that, but he was too young still to open a bank account. And he didn't really want his identity out there, in case he was still being looked for as a runaway. That was at the first shelter. At the second one he stayed at, a drunkard tried to pick a fight with him. The man had punched him in the gut, unprovoked, and screamed in pain as his fist smashed into Clark's steel-hard body. Clark had needed to feign getting the wind knocked out of him, but the ordeal had unnerved him and he hadn't returned to that shelter again.
At the third one, one of the people who worked there took an immediate disliking to him - for what reason, he never discovered - and actively worked to make Clark's life a living hell. He thought about fighting against it, but, for all his extraordinary powers, he felt completely powerless in the situation. He hated running away from his problems - it brought back all too vivid memories of fleeing Grandma Tildy's house - but he didn't see another option. Besides, it was no great loss to him. The shelter wasn't well cared for, and gave him the creeps. He went across town to another shelter, even though it put him at a commute time of over half an hour to get to his jobs.
The last place wasn't too bad. The staff mostly left everyone alone, unless there was a problem. Clark kept his wits about him and kept as low a profile as he could. He spent every available moment hoping to find an opportunity to better his life though. But fate wasn't so kind. After a mere two months on the job, the grocery store shut down. It simply couldn't complete with the big chain stores that were popping up all over the place. And the furniture store cut his hours after the boss' nephew was hired on for the summer.
Things were spiraling downward for Clark, and he began to think about where he might want to try next.
He was sitting in one of the parks one afternoon, on one of his days off. He was at one end of a bench, in front of a sizable pond, idly crumbling the remnants of a sandwich he'd bought for himself. He tossed the crumbs to the ducks that were swimming by and roaming around on the grass. It was a simple pleasure and Clark almost felt like things were okay in his tumultuous little world. For the moment, he could set his troubles aside and focus only on the serenity of the present.
And yet, even as he watched the ducks, there was a small part of his mind that was devoted to his situation. He was aware of the things he would need to replace if he was to take to the road again. His shoes, for one thing. They were getting a bit tight on his feet and the soles, though still sturdy, were wearing down. He had enough saved up, he knew, to get the things he needed, if he shopped smartly and found things on sale. Or even, he mused, found discarded by those who could afford to dispose of still serviceable goods.
"This seat taken?"
"Huh?" Clark snapped out of his thoughts. Then, as his mind caught up, "Uh, no. It's all yours."
"Thanks," the man said as he gracefully sat at the far end of the bench.
Clark looked around. The other benches were full of people out enjoying the warm sunshine after a week of dreary, rainy weather. He couldn't blame them all for swarming the park like they were. Most of them were men and women in business suits, all of them out enjoying their lunch hour out in the pleasant outdoors. Clark craned his neck up, looking at the impressive glass and steel buildings all around. The shortest of them had to be 20 floors, he thought without really counting.
"Nice day," the man commented.
"Sure is," Clark said politely.
"So much rain lately. It's nice to get outside," the newcomer mused.
Clark nodded. "I was just thinking the same thing."
A silence fell, for which, Clark was glad. He didn't feel much like making small talk with a stranger. He threw the last few crumbs of bread to the ducks, then wiped his hands on his pant legs.
"Sorry, guys," he told the ducks as a couple of them approached, quaking. "That's all I have. Maybe next time."
"Have I seen you around, somewhere?" the stranger asked, studying Clark a little.
Panic shot through Clark. "I...don't think so?" he ventured, his voice more of a question than anything else.
The stranger nodded. "Yes, I remember now. I saw you the other day, at the craft store. You were stocking the shelves with yarn."
"I...uh..." Clark stammered. It was true he'd recently helped stocking the yarn section, but that had been before the store had been opened for the day. How had this stranger seen him? "How...?"
The stranger chuckled. "I know. It was early, before the store was open. I was there on business, and it was easier to get it out of the way before the doors opened to the public."
Clark nodded. It made sense. Investors or representatives trying to get the store to sell new products sometimes came in before the place opened. He barely ever paid them any mind though, choosing, instead, to focus on his work.
"Can I ask you something?" the man continued.
"Uh...sure?" Clark replied warily.
"Do you like it? The store, I mean. The managers. The business model."
"Why?" he asked, eyeing the stranger a bit suspiciously now.
The man chuckled a bit. "Sorry. I'm not trying to be a creep or anything. I'm genuinely curious. My company is looking to affiliate itself with the store and I'm just looking for a little honest feedback from some of the people who work there. People like you. Because if the little guys - and I don't mean that offensively at all - aren't being treated well, then maybe my company needs to implement some changes if we decide to get involved. Or maybe we take our business elsewhere."
That relaxed Clark a little bit, though he remained a healthy dose of skepticism.
"The managers are really nice," he said after a moment of thought. "They expect a lot out of the people who work for them, but I can't blame them. They want their business to run smoothly. Who wouldn't want that?" He shrugged. "They've been more than fair to me. I can't speak for the others, of course, but I've never heard any complaints. They've given me a chance to make something of myself. I'm grateful to them."
The stranger nodded thoughtfully. "I see. How so?"
Clark shrugged again. "I came to the city, alone, without any real work experience and without any real reason for anyone to hire me, but they took a chance on me anyway. I've learned a lot from them."
"So, they've been good to you?"
"Yes," Clark said without hesitation. "More than I ever had the right to imagine they would be."
The stranger appraised him for a moment before speaking again.
"What makes you say that?" he asked.
"I..." Clark stammered. "I'm not sure I want to get into it with a stranger. No offense."
The stranger laughed. "Fair enough!" He stood. "As it is, I need to be getting back to work. Look...uh..."
"Clark," Clark supplied.
"Clark," the man nodded. "Thanks for the insight. It's much appreciated."
"Happy to help. Good luck with your business dealings, if you choose to pursue them. Tabitha and Paul are great managers. Your company will have an easy time, working with them."
"Good to know. And good luck to you, Clark."
"Thanks."
With that, the stranger moved on. Clark sat back into the bench, stretching his legs out before him, his hands behind his head. He looked up into the sky, putting the encounter with the pleasant stranger behind him. He still had a few hours before he needed to be back at the shelter, so he lingered in the park for a while. Then, as the sky started to turn orange and pink, he made his way back, forgoing the opportunity to grab a meal at the soup kitchen he had to pass by. He simply wasn't hungry. But he was looking forward to his early shift at the craft store. Somehow, giving his positive feedback to the stranger in the park had heightened his pride in working for the place.
To Be Continued...
