What happened

Jack strutted around his newly aquired asylum. Cock of the walk. King of the mountain. It was his. Everybody who had disagreed with him were now dead. The others were... well. Marked. Clearly his now. Their faces carved in grusome ways. Some with hideous smiles. Some missing parts of their facial anatomy. Scarred. Ruined. Jack's.

The inmates who hadn't wanted to stay had been set free upon the city. Allowed out to roam as they pleased. They'd taken the clothes of the dead so that they might blend in better. They'd also taken with them the bodies of the dead, to place around the streets willy nilly. Jack knew some of the corpses would find themselves in compromising positions. He knew for a fact that at least one was going to be flung from the roof of a tall building, just to see what would happen to it, and whatever it landed on.

Whatever pleased them.

There were some who stayed, however. Ready to do as he wanted. They too had been ruined. Because he had to distinguish those who he could expend from those who he wanted to keep around. The more scars they had, the more mutilated they were, the more worthless to him they were.

Not a theory that worked with everybody, of course. On the outside of these walls were ones he wanted to keep forever and scar. Like Maxine and Barbara. And some who he wanted to just kill and be rid of without touching with his hands. Like Jesse and that Terry kid.

He whistled as he walked. Happy and satisfied.

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Since Gabriel had done-- whatever he'd done to her, made her vomit up bugs and slugs and all kinds of foreign articles that hadn't belonged in her body, Laura had been at a bit of a loss of what to do. Without Shadow around, she had no one to watch over, and now that she wasn't rotting anymore, she didn't have to occupy her time finding ways to cover up the fact that she was dead and rotting, and smelt, quite literally, like a corpse.

She'd continued to clean the cathedral, before Father Everett had taken her aside, and said that although he appreciated the help and the work that she did around the place, that maybe her skills might be better utilised out in the real world. Laura thought that he was getting a little bored, because Laura was doing all the jobs that the Father usually did, which left him with nothing to do besides ponder his own thoughts.

Which Laura conceded wasn't something that she particularly wanted to do. So when someone left a copy of The City Voice, the local paper, lying on one of the pews, Laura had pulled out the Careers section, and tossed the rest in the recycling bin.

By the end of the day, she'd circled a couple of potential jobs that she figured she was qualified to do. There were a few openings in Real Estate, but really, those were her last options. She hadn't particularly enjoyed selling people houses when she was alive, especially when she was usually selling them better houses than the one she lived in, and now that she was dead, she didn't really think she could fake the enthusiasm needed to really get anything sold. But that was where her background was, so she put them down just in case.

There was one working at a Morgue as a cleaner. Laura didn't much mind dead bodies, or cleaning, so it was definitely a potential.

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"Welcome to LexCorp, Mr. Luthor! Stocks are currently on the rise, bypassing Stark Industries and wavering on the mark with Wayne Tech, but -- Oh! We just jumped up on Wayne by two points! I have taken the liberty of reorganizing your schedule, pushing back your twelve o'clock to one so that you can have the extra thirty minutes for lunch. Be sure to let me know if the steak is medium rare. Last week they cooked it for ten seconds longer than what you prefer and I told them that if it wasn't right by this weekend they'd be moved out of food industries and into research. We're short on volunteers in that sector and what with the recent shift in..."

Lex had been in a perpetual state of shock since he stepped off that island and into the middle of the intersection. There was a fragment of his mind that continued to tell him that; 1.) he was dreaming, insanities brought on by a bad late night snack, 2.) he was dead, struck by hunger or dehydration on that worthless piece of sand, 3.) he was dead, the illustrious Man of Steel finally getting the better of him, or 4.) he was insane.

No. Not possible. He was Lex Luthor. Lex Luthor was in perfect mental condition. He never was and never would be insane.

Even if everything pointed to the contrary?

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Shortly after the fifth coconut had been thrown into the open sea, a continuation of his earlier actions that had been brutally criticized through pestering whines by his anorexically-annoying female companion on that deserted sandlot, the door appeared. To his good fortune, the woman -- and her little dog too! -- were out like lights by that point, and being a self indulgent billionaire with the poignant disregard for most other people, he didn't see any cause to wake them.

Now, Lex Luthor was by no means a newcomer to the world of the strange and fantastic. He did exist in a world where the lives of everyday citizens were served and protected by a flying fruitcake in spandex tights, and where evil criminal masterminds -- including and those not unlike himself -- were in a perpetual state of attempted global domination. He was, after all, on a deserted island because he had gotten the maniacal notion that a continent crafted of crystallized kryptonite would be a good idea.

So suddenly finding a door, semi hovering over the water just off the beach, with a knob and an open keyhole, wasn't extraordinary in the least. Just convenient. And he wasted no time in walking knee deep into the ocean until he came face to face with the door.

He leaned forward to peek inside the keyhole. At first there was nothing but an infinite blackness on the other side. But then there was something. He wasn't sure what. But it was something. And something was better than the nothing he had now. And being that the woman was inconsequential to him, easily manipulated females that were pleasing to look at were a dime a dozen these days, he didn't even give her a second thought.

He reached forward and turned the knob.

And found himself standing in the middle of a street. An intersection, actually. With a taxi cab speeding directly towards him.

"What the--?!"

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The streets of small towns in Kansas were not supposed to be poisonous silver-grey even beneath heavy, dismal rain clouds. Lex was sure of that. Smallville had never looked quite so unwelcoming as it did just at that moment, as he stepped into the alleyway around behind the Talon. He wanted to talk to Lana about some paperwork, and get some business cleared away before settling down with one of her (surprisingly good) mochas. His pleasant plans were slowly being infected with a viral, creeping nervousness, and Lex shoved his hands deeper in his pockets as though to ward off chill.

His hand rested on the handle of the service entrance lightly, afraid, suddenly, that something was going to happen-- that the knob would shock him, that someone would step outside at that moment. And around Lex everything darkened and squeezed as though the world had shut its eyes for a moment to sneeze.

Lex stumbled, the doorknob his hand was resting on suddenly no longer existing. In fact, the door no longer existed-- it was a blank, slate gray wall. He could see a Starbucks sign just around the corner, where the Talon's sign should have been. Lex sucked in a shuddering gasp, stumbling out of the alley and glancing around frantically. This was definately not Smallville. And, while he was used to really strange things happening in and around Smallville and Metropolis, this wasn't Metropolis either (although he recognized the highrise his penthouse was situated in).

"At the risk of sounding cliche," he said to no one in particular, half-hysterical laughter teasing the edges of his voice, "I don't think we're in Kansas anymore."

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