The Andromeda Galaxy, Krypton
The delivery room was a masterpiece of Kryptonian engineering—a seamless blend of crystalline geometry and sterile, liquid-metal surfaces. It was a space that felt both ancient and impossibly futuristic. Within these walls, the air hummed with the soft thrum of a geo-thermal stabilizer, but the sound was quickly drowned out by the labored breathing of a woman in the throes of labor.
Lara Lor-Van, a scientist whose mind had mapped the sub-atomic structures of the stars, was now focused on a much more primal, biological miracle. Sweat beaded on her brow, glowing faintly under the soft amber bioluminescence of the room. Beside her, Jor-El, a man whose voice usually commanded the respect of the High Council, held her hand with a grip that was uncharacteristically tight.
"Steady, Lara," Jor-El whispered, his voice a low anchor in the storm. "The life-signs are strong. He is coming."
Floating silently nearby were two service droids, Kelex and Kelor. Their multi-jointed arms moved with a fluid, haunting grace, monitoring the bio-rhythms projected onto the air in shimmering blue holograms.
"Dilation is complete, Mistress Lara," Kelex's metallic voice chimed, devoid of emotion yet oddly comforting in its precision. "Prepare for the final exertion."
For hours, the room had been a battlefield of silent tension. Then, a sound erupted that hadn't been heard in a Kryptonian birthing chamber for centuries: a raw, piercing cry. It wasn't the modulated chirp of a gestation pod; it was the sound of lungs tasting air for the first time.
Jor-El's breath hitched. With hands that slightly trembled, he received the infant as Kelex severed the bio-tether. The baby was slick, red-faced, and remarkably loud.
"A son," Jor-El breathed, the word feeling heavy and sacred. He moved to Lara's side, carefully placing the bundled infant into her exhausted arms.
Lara looked down, her eyes brimming with a mixture of agony and absolute adoration. She traced the curve of the infant's cheek. For a moment, the political decay of their world and the terrifying data on Jor-El's monitors didn't exist. There was only this.
"He needs a name," Jor-El said softly, kissing Lara's temple. "A name of the House of El."
Lara didn't hesitate. She had felt his spirit kicking against her for months. "Kal-El," she whispered. "His name is Kal-El."
As the parents shared a look of triumph, the infant in her arms blinked. His sapphire eyes, though blurry, seemed to take in the high-tech surroundings with a confused, frantic intensity.
What the actual… hell? the baby thought, his tiny brain struggling to process the sensory overload before exhaustion claimed him and he drifted into a heavy sleep.
—--------
(One Year Later)
(Kal-El's POV)
Reincarnation is a bitch.
There, I said it. One minute I was Kyle—an average teenager with a decent loving family, and a borderline unhealthy obsession with comic books—and the next, I'm being squeezed out into a world that looks like a high-budget sci-fi remake.
It's been a year. An entire year of being trapped in a body that lacks basic motor skills and, quite frankly, dignity. You don't know true horror until you're a mature enough person in your mind, but you're stuck waiting for someone to change your diaper. And the breastfeeding? Let's just say I've spent a lot of time staring at the ceiling and trying to recite the periodic table to distract myself.
But it's not all bad. I have a dog. Well, a Kryptonian dog. Krypto is basically a hyper-intelligent, white-furred ball of energy that follows me everywhere. Right now, I'm "crawling"—if you can call this uncoordinated waddle crawling—across the floor of our living quarters, trying to grab his tail.
"Easy, Krypto," I gargled, which came out as a series of wet babbles.
Krypto let out a playful huff and nudged me with his nose, sending me tumbling onto my backside. I laughed, despite myself. My new parents, Jor-El and Lara, are incredible. They love me with a fierce, protective intensity that makes the guilt of my "past life" fade a little more every day.
But there's a shadow over all of this. I know where I am. I know who I am. I'm Kal-El. I'm on Krypton. And if my memory of the comics serves me, this planet is a ticking time bomb. Every time I feel a micro-tremor on the floor, my heart skips a beat. I'm a baby in the middle of a planetary-scale disaster movie, and I have no idea when the credits are going to roll.
The answer came sooner than I hoped.
I was playing with a levitating toy block when the world suddenly lurched. It wasn't a tremor; it was a violent, bone-shaking heave. The crystalline walls of our home groaned, a sound like a thousand mirrors shattering at once. A heavy decorative spire snapped from the ceiling, hurtling straight toward my head.
"Kal!"
Lara was a blur of movement. She scooped me up a fraction of a second before the spire pulverized the floor where I'd been sitting. She held me so tight I could hear her heart hammering against her ribs like a trapped bird.
Outside the massive view-port, the city of Kandor was a nightmare. The ground was literally yawning open, swallowing entire skyscrapers. Rivers of molten orange magma began to geyser up through the cracks, turning the twilight sky a hellish, bruised purple. The screams were faint from this height, but the visual was enough to make my stomach turn.
This is it, I thought, clutching Lara's tunic. The end of this world.
The doors hissed open and Jor-El burst in. He was covered in soot, his ceremonial robes torn. He didn't say a word; he just pulled both of us into a crushing embrace.
"The core," Lara gasped. "You said we had a few weeks, Jor!"
"I was wrong," Jor-El said, his voice cracking. "The Council's mining... it accelerated the destabilization. The crust is collapsing into the mantle. We don't have weeks. We have minutes."
He looked at me, and for the first time, I saw total, unadulterated heartbreak in his eyes. He knew he couldn't save himself. He knew he couldn't save his wife.
"The ship," he said, turning toward the lower levels. "We have to go. Now!"
—---------
The lower hangar was cold and smelled of ozone. In the center sat a small, sleek vessel—the prototype star-drive Jor-El had been working on in secret. It looked like a silver seed, small and lonely against the backdrop of the crumbling world.
Lara placed me inside the cushioned cockpit. The tech was intuitive, sensing my bio-signature and adjusting the seat to cradle my small frame.
"Wait," Lara cried, her voice breaking. "He'll be alone. In the dark. In a different world entirely. He's just a baby!"
Jor-El gripped her shoulders, forcing her to look at him. "He will not be alone, Lara. He will have our legacy. He will have the yellow sun of the system I've chosen. He will be a god among them. He will live, even if we cannot."
I tried to reach out, to say something—to tell them I loved them, to tell them thank you—but all that came out was a soft, whimpering cry. I felt a sharp pinch in my arm as the ship's medical system administered a sedative to keep me stable during the high-G exit. My vision began to blur.
The last thing I saw was my mother's face pressed against the glass, her lips moving in a silent "I love you," and my father's hand resting on the launch console.
—---------
(3rd Person POV)
The ship's engines ignited with a silent, white-hot roar. The hangar roof slid open, revealing a sky choked with ash and falling debris. With a sudden burst of speed, the pod shot upward, a silver needle piercing the darkening atmosphere.
Lara and Jor-El stood on the observation deck, watching the tiny light of their son's ship disappear into the stars. They didn't move as the ground beneath them began to liquefy. They didn't flinch as the first waves of the planetary explosion began to ripple through the city.
Jor-El reached out, taking Lara's hand. She turned to him, and they shared one final, lingering kiss—a testament to a love that had outlasted a civilization.
Moments later, Krypton gave way. The core reached critical mass, and the planet expanded in a blinding flash of emerald and gold energy. In a matter of seconds, a billion years of history, art, and science were reduced to a cloud of radioactive dust.
But somewhere in the cold vacuum of space, a small silver seed sped toward a distant blue marble, carrying the weight of a dead world and the soul of a person who had been given a second chance.