....
The voice continued. "And I think it’s ti I visited my son."
He walked across the apartnt. Three steps. Each one exactly the sa length and rhythm.
He reached a small table and picked up a photograph.
The cara didn’t show the photo’s face. But Max saw Jonathan’s expression as he looked at it.
Saw the micro-expression that flickered across his face.
Not grief. Not love. Not longing.
Curiosity.
Jonathan added, now sounding amused. "I wonder... how long before he realizes?"
Max’s blood went cold.
Realizes what?
Jonathan set the photo down with such gentleness, but couldn’t pinpoint the reason.
He walked toward the door.
His reflection caught in a mirror on the wall as he passed–
–and for ONE fra, maybe less, the reflection GLITCHED–
Max saw it. Barely. His brain screaming that sothing was WRONG with what he’d just seen. The reflection had been–
–wrong geotry, angles that shouldn’t exist, a face that seed to exist in multiple places simultaneously, sothing purple and vast and AWARE–
–then just Jonathan again.
Max’s heart hamred.
What the fuck was that?
Jonathan reached the door. Put his hand on the knob.
Then stopped.
Turned his head.
Looked directly at the cara.
Directly at MAX.
And smiled.
Max wanted to look away. Couldn’t. That smile was wrong. Too wide. Too knowing. The smile of soone who KNOWS they’re being watched and is DELIGHTED by it.
"This is going to be fun~"
The way he said ’fun’ made Max’s skin crawl. The emphasis all wrong. Like soone who’d learned the word but was still figuring out what it ant.
Jonathan opened the door. Stepped through. Into a tropolis night that suddenly felt much less safe.
The door swung shut.
The cara was held in the apartnt. Empty now. Just that photograph on the table.
Max squinted at the screen, trying to see it.
The photo: Clark. High school graduation cap and gown. Jonathan’s arm around him. Both smiling.
Then–
–the photo MOVED–
Just slightly. Just barely. Clark’s smile widening. And widening. And widening. Stretching past human limits. Becoming sothing that shouldn’t be possible on a still photograph–
Max jerked back in his seat.
The photo was still again.
Had he imagined it?
CUT TO BLACK.
Then: energy.
Purple. Crackling across the screen in patterns that hurt to look at. Geotric impossibilities. Angles that shouldn’t exist in three-dinsional space.
The energy ford words:
[52]
[My na is Mxyzptlk! M-X-Y-Z-P-T-L-K!]
The purple energy lingered for a mont. In it, Max saw - or thought he saw - sothing vast. Sothing that was watching back.
Then darkness.
[Regal Seraphsail - Writer and Director]
The house lights ca up.
Max sat frozen.
His brain was trying to process. Trying to connect dots that felt just out of reach.
Was that even Jonathan Kent?
No.
Was that even Stephen Hawking?
Where is his calm and gentle expression he held throughout the film?
No he is not that anymore.
He is Mxyzptlk!
But who was he?
Damn it! He cursed for the first ti feeling lost and bad for not following MDC comics.
Still he didn’t care about anything and pulled out his phone and typed into Google:
[Significance of 52 in MDC]
52 is a significant number in DC Comics. The Multiverse consists of 52 parallel Earths. It represents all possible realities...
He kept scrolling.
[Mxyzptlk]
The results made him go still:
Mister Mxyzptlk - Fifth-dinsional imp who tornts Superman. Reality warper. Cannot be killed, only tricked. Often connected to the number 52 due to dinsional mathematics...
Max clicked on the Mxyzptlk wiki entry.
Read about a being who:
| Could reshape reality at will.
| Viewed Superman as a fascinating toy.
| Was immortal across all dinsions.
| Could perfectly mimic anyone.
| Fed on entertainnt, on novelty, on seeing new things.
| Had once beco genuinely DANGEROUS when he decided to play seriously.
There was an image. Comic book art. Mxyzptlk in his true form: purple energy, impossible geotry, that sa too-wide grin.
And in one famous story arc: "Whatever Happened to the Man of Tomorrow?" where Mxyzptlk had stopped playing gas and tried to actually DESTROY Superman psychologically.
Max’s hands trembled as he read the plot summary:
...Mxyzptlk grew bored of simple tricks. Decided to see what would happen if he pushed Superman to his absolute breaking point. Killed his friends. Destroyed his reputation. Made him question everything...
The article continued:
The only way to defeat Mxyzptlk is to trick him into saying his na backwards (Kltpzyxm) or to create a situation so genuinely unexpected that he loses interest...
Max looked back at the dark screen.
Jonathan Kent. Back from the dead. Perfect in every way except the ways that mattered.
A fifth-dinsional being who could BECO Jonathan. Who could rewrite reality? Who thought tornting Superman would be fun?
And Clark would have to PROVE it wasn’t his father. Would have to convince Martha. Would have to REJECT the one thing he wanted most - his father back - because accepting the lie would be worse.
Everyone would see Jonathan. Everyone would WANT it to be Jonathan. The world would NEED it to be Jonathan - proof that good people can co back, that death isn’t final, that hope wins.
And Clark would have to be the one to say: "No. That’s not him. I won’t pretend."
Even if it broke him.
Even if it ant losing his father AGAIN.
??Wait–
Stephen Hawking!!
Max looked around - wanting to say sothing, anything, to Stephen Hawking.
To thank him and tell him what his performance had ant, what this entire experience had ant.
But the seats were empty.
G15 and G16. Vacant.
They had left.
Disappointnt crashed over Max like a wave.
He had been so absorbed in processing what he had just witnessed that he had missed his chance.
Missed the opportunity to speak to his favorite actor, to tell him—
Wait.
There was sothing on the seat.
A piece of white paper, folded once.
Max reached for it with trembling hands, unfolded it carefully.
The handwriting was elegant, precise:
"Hope you enjoyed the film."
And below that, a signature: Stephen Hawking Sr.
An autograph.
A personal autograph, left specifically for him because Stephen had noticed his reaction, had understood what this ant to him.
Max stared at the paper, and the tears ca again, different this ti.
It wasn’t sad tears, not even necessarily happy tears.
Just... full tears.
The kind that ca when sothing touched the deepest part of you, the part that rembered what it ant to feel wonder.
He sat there in the empty theater, holding the autograph like it was made of sothing precious and fragile, and let himself cry.
For the first ti in ten years, Max rembered why he had fallen in love with movies in the first place.
And it felt like coming ho.
....
As Max ca out of the hall he realized–
What he had seen in the credit scene isn’t just a sequel tease.
This was a NIGHTMARE.
A villain Superman couldn’t punch. Couldn’t overpower. Couldn’t beat with strength or speed or heat vision.
A villain who’d studied him. Who KNEW him. Who was currently wearing the face of the man who taught Superman what it ant to be GOOD.
And who thought the whole thing was hilarious.
No matter how much he tried, he couldn’t unsee it now.
That glitch in the reflection. That impossible geotry. That smile that was just slightly too wide.
He pulled out his phone. Texted Danny, his friend:
[Don’t read ANYTHING online. Don’t let anyone spoil it. Stay through ALL the credits. And when you get to the end... look up ’Mister Mxyzptlk’ before you text . Trust .]
Then he walked out into the streets of a busy city.
Above him, stars. Distant. Cold. Indifferent.
And sowhere, in so other dinsion, Max imagined sothing purple and vast and ancient was WATCHING. Was WAITING.
Max shivered despite the warm night.
And understood: Regal Seraphsail hadn’t just made a Superman movie.
He had made a horror film disguised as a superhero movie.
And the monster wore the face of love itself.
....
anwhile—
"You left him an autograph." Ross observed.
"He recognized . Seed like a decent thing to do."
"Dont you get tired of giving those autographs?"
"I don’t usually sit next to people who cry through my death scene." Stephen opened the car door for Ross. "Did you notice? He forgot I was there. Completely forgot. That’s how absorbed he was."
Ross settled into the seat, and Stephen walked around to the other side.
"So..." He said once they were both inside and the driver was pulling away from the curb. "Was I right? Did your performance overshadow the film?"
Stephen was quiet for a mont, watching the city lights slide past the window.
"No." he said finally. "The film held. Everything served the story. Regal knew what he was doing."
"You sound surprised."
"Surprised? I don’t know, but impressed? Definitely."
"So do you know about the end credit scene beforehand?"
"I am half aware, but–"
"But it was never like what you have witnessed right?"
"You really did take a liking to that kid huh? Color surprised."
Ross ignored the comnt and asked. "Still think he bit off more than he could chew with the climax setup? One mistake in the next film everything will be naught for."
"Are you perhaps worried?"
"...."
Ross was quiet for a long mont.
"Fine. The kid is talented. He will be allright. Happy now?"
Stephen smiled. "Ecstatic."
"Don’t be smug. It’s unbecoming."
But he was smiling too, and they drove through the Los Angeles night in comfortable silence, both thinking about the film they had just watched and the audience that had reacted exactly as they had hoped.
.
....
[To be continued...]
★─────⇌•★•⇋─────★
Author Note:
Visit Patreon to instantly access 1 Chapter for free, available for Free mbers as well.
For additional content please do support and gain access to 13 more Chapters.
--> /OrgoWriters
User Comments
0 comments from readers