The Players: Bart and OPEN What: Being really damn confused. And Lost. Where: Some street, near a bar, Red Oak. When: October 27th, evening. Rating: TBD
The unexpected change of scenery made him stop before he was ready to stop. He skidded against pavement, kicked up dust and little rocks, and he pushed his weight down to let his body know that this was it, that there was no more moving for him. It hadn't occurred to him, because he had been so taken aback, that he was halting in the middle of a street, and that there were bound to be cars there, of course. The car in question, he gave half a second to, to see him there so quickly that once he was gone, the driver would blink and wonder if they had imagined the kid standing five feet away from a vehicle going too fast to stop in time.
Bart was supposed to be in Metropolis. Not in a town that could have been anywhere in the United States. For all he knew, he was on the other side of the country, with no idea how he got there, no idea why. There was a traffic light to his left, flashing green, an old lady with a little gray poodle to his right, the woman digging through her oversized purse, the dog yapping at nothing, her not noticing or just not caring. Bart took a single step back, unsure of himself, confused by where he was, confused by this town whose name he didn't know. He wanted to turn and run, to move again, to get out and show up where he wanted to be, to tell Clark what had happened, to joke that he was getting senile, didn't know his way around anymore. Idiot. Stupid boy who got lost and turned around.
Curiosity kept him from running. And if curiosity killed the cat, he hoped he was a dog, too smart to walk into a trap laced with catnip. From the darkening yellow-gold light in the sky, he guessed that it was going to get dark sooner rather than later, and that scared him just a little, because it had been early afternoon a minute or so ago, when he still knew exactly where he was.
Pushing a strand of hair out of his eyes, he considered his next move, the next step he would take. Like he belonged there, like he had meant to show up in front of a black Mercedes, Bart took one step and then another, moved down a sidewalk running the length of buildings, a trendy cafe, a shoe store, a place that was boarded up and dark inside. At the moment, he was unaware of how suspicious he appeared, the look on his face, distrusting of everything around him, of the lady with the loud dog, the traffic light behind him.
By the time he went still again, the light in the sky overhead had gone gray and he was standing near to what was obviously a bar, a seedy, run down bar, where somebody was yelling loudly about the price of gas. Like he cared. Like anybody cared.
"Time to go." He said it to himself, trying to motivate himself into blurring the hell out of where he was. Despite that, he didn't move, didn't disappear. As if he knew, when really, he didn't know. He had no idea.