The passage of time had become a thick, gray sludge. The cycle of pain, healing, and humiliation was the only clock I knew. I had lost count of the paying customers, the fists, the blades, the brutal energies that had torn my body apart. I had been broken and remade so many times that I felt like a ghost, haunting a body that was no longer my own.

In the deepest, most silent corners of my mind, where the Architect’s torments couldn’t quite reach, a single, tiny ember of hope remained. Its name was Kal-El. My cousin. Superman. They could fool the world, they could capture Amazons and Kryptonians, but they couldn’t hide from him forever. He would come. I would close my eyes and picture it: the walls of this white hell shattering inward, his righteous fury a cleansing fire, the familiar blue of his suit the most beautiful thing I had ever seen. He would find us. He had to.

One day, the Architect entered my cell, not with a customer or a replica costume, but with an air of finality. He wore a triumphant, indulgent smile.

“My dear Kara,” he began, “I have sensed the last flicker of defiance in you. A childish, persistent fantasy that your cousin will swoop in to save the day. I thought it was time we addressed that.”

A massive section of the wall across from my cell became transparent, revealing a much larger chamber. And in the center of it, he stood. Kal. He was in his iconic suit, but it was wrong. The colors were dull, muted. His posture was slack, his powerful shoulders slumped. And his eyes… his bright, kind eyes were vacant, milky, and unfocused. A faint, sickening purple energy shimmered around his temples.

“No,” I whispered, the word catching in my throat.

The Architect had done the impossible. He had captured Superman. And he had broken him.

“Kal!” I screamed, my voice raw. “Kal, it’s me! Snap out of it! Fight him!”

He didn’t even blink. He was a statue, a puppet waiting for its master.

“Please,” I begged, tears streaming down my face. “Kal, you have to help us! Diana and me! Please, cousin!”

The Architect laughed, a rich, hearty sound that was more terrifying than any threat. “He can’t hear you, my dear. But he can obey me.” He looked at the Man of Steel. “Superman. Your cousin has been disobedient. Teach her a lesson.”

My blood ran cold. Superman turned his head, his vacant gaze locking onto me. He floated into my cell, the door sliding open for him. Even weakened, the sheer power radiating from him was immense. He was still Superman. And he was going to kill me.

He advanced. I scrambled backwards, but there was nowhere to go. His first blow was a simple, open-handed shove. It felt like being hit by a speeding train. I flew across the cell and slammed into the far wall with a sickening crunch. He was on me before I could recover, his hand closing around my ankle. He lifted me up and, with a casual, brutal twist, snapped my leg. The sound of my own femur breaking was the loudest thing I had ever heard. I shrieked, a sound of pure agony. He broke my other leg with the same detached efficiency.

Then he went for my arm. He grabbed my wrist and my shoulder and pulled. My humerus tore from its socket with a wet, grinding pop before the bone itself fractured. I was a broken doll, a heap of shattered limbs on the floor. The pain was a physical entity, a white, all-consuming fire that burned away thought and reason. I lay there, sobbing hysterically, my body a ruin.

Through the blinding haze of pain and tears, I saw Diana watching from her cell. With my one good arm, my right arm, I reached out towards her, my fingers trembling. “Diana… please…” I whimpered. “Please… help…”

The Architect stepped over my broken body, observing my pathetic gesture. “You still seek comfort from your fellow failure?” he mused. He looked into Diana’s cell. “Wonder Woman. A demonstration of compliance. Go to her. Break her other arm.”

I watched in absolute horror as Diana stood up, her movements stiff, robotic. She entered my cell and knelt beside me. I could see the tear tracking down her face, the agony in her own soul, but her body was not her own. She took my outstretched, unbroken arm in her powerful hands. Her grip was gentle, her touch a memory of the friend she once was.

“Diana, no, please,” I begged.

She looked into my eyes, and I saw a universe of regret. Then, with a smooth, practiced motion, she twisted my arm until the bone snapped. My final scream was choked off by a sob. I was completely broken, all four limbs shattered, lying helpless at the feet of my two closest friends.

The Architect looked down at me, then at his two mind-controlled heroes. He smiled, his masterpiece complete. He turned his attention to Superman.

“Your work here is done, but your mission is just beginning,” he commanded. “Go. Find every member of the Justice League. Batman. Flash. Green Lantern. All of them. And kill them all.”

My mind fractured. “NO!” I shrieked from the floor. “KAL, NO! DON’T DO IT! PLEASE! NOT THEM!”

Superman turned, his red cape sweeping around him, and without a backward glance, he flew up and out of a hatch in the ceiling. He was gone. Gone to murder our friends. Gone to dismantle our legacy.

I lay on the cold floor, a puddle of broken bones and limitless despair. I watched him go, my last hope becoming the instrument of my world’s destruction. The pain from my limbs was nothing compared to the agony in my soul. The Architect had won. He hadn’t just dismantled me. He had used me, and the people I loved, to dismantle hope itself. And I was left to lie in the ruins, listening to the silence where my hero used to be.