"Oh, have you considered that maybe this artist might've 'borrowed' from another sculpture without anyone noticing?"
The host and the rest of the panel burst into laughter.
But one of the guests, a man with glasses, didn't join in.
He spoke cautiously, "Well, there's a theory circulating online that the 'Mandela Effect' might actually be linked to the proton beam collider experiments that began in Europe this year. Some say the collider may be causing overlaps between parallel dimensions…"
Clark's colleague to his right scoffed, leaning back in his chair and glancing over. "Metropolis Morning Mysteries is getting crazier by the day, huh, Kent?"
Clark blinked, momentarily caught off guard. "Huh?" Then, realizing what had been said, he quickly nodded, "Oh, right, yeah… I guess it's meant to keep commuters entertained during rush hour."
He spoke honestly.
His colleague shook his head, glanced at the awkward yet towering country boy, Clark Kent, and decided to fully express his grand theory. "It's all nonsense! The 'Mandela Effect' doesn't exist! It's just our memories deceiving us. The human brain can be quite slow sometimes—"
He tapped his temple, signaling Clark to pay attention. "Sometimes we unconsciously repeat something several times, and then when we encounter it again, we get this 'I've seen this before' illusion. It's nothing more than a memory glitch."
Clark nodded appreciatively. "Exactly! That's the feeling. Most people trust their memory too much."
His colleague nodded approvingly. "In our line of work, you can't afford that. As media professionals, we have to trust our recorders more than our brains."
"Yes, you're absolutely right," Clark agreed.
He began preparing for the afternoon's field interview, placing the recorder into his briefcase, and then packing the camera into its bag.
Just as he gripped the old Sony camera, a sharp pain suddenly pierced his heart.
It felt like a thorn stabbing right into his chest, making him clutch at his heart.
... What was happening to him?
Clark's eyes suddenly became incredibly dry.
He looked at the camera, and in a daze, he had a strange feeling: the camera in his hands wasn't the one he used to have.
It wasn't this worn camera issued by the Daily Planet, used by countless colleagues before him.
No, it should have been a better one, a more expensive camera that belonged only to him.
But… did he ever really have one?
Clark hesitated and glanced at his palm.
The pain in his heart wouldn't go away.
He clutched his chest, and his eyes felt as if they didn't belong to him, dry and aching in their sockets.
He removed his black-rimmed glasses, intending to use eye drops.
While he held the glasses by their temple arms and rummaged through his desk, a sudden flash of realization made him pause and look down at the glasses that had been with him for most of his life.
... His hands began to tremble uncontrollably.
It felt as though something massive, long forgotten, was crashing around inside his heart.
The intense pain in his chest nearly took his breath away.
Staring at his glasses, a puzzling question slowly surfaced in his mind.
—When did he start wearing glasses?
And where had he gotten them from?
... He had no idea how to answer that question.
He couldn't recall what year of high school he had first started wearing glasses, nor did he remember how he had even obtained this particular pair.
It was as if the glasses had suddenly dropped into his life as an important prop—without origin, without source.
Rational thinking told Clark that they were most likely a gift from Martha or Jonathan.
But Clark Kent's intuition, deep within him, whispered that this wasn't the truth.
Yet, if this wasn't the truth, then what was the truth?
His friend—the brains of the Justice League, Batman—had expressed curiosity about Clark's glasses on several occasions.
There was no magical aura or advanced tech in them, yet somehow, once Clark put them on, they managed to blur everyone's perception of him.
Even Batman couldn't explain the strange phenomenon.
At the time, Clark had simply chuckled and told Batman that perhaps Kryptonian technology was involved.
But in reality, these glasses were just a pair of ordinary, well-crafted spectacles.
They had no special enhancements, no magical properties—they were simply a common accessory one could find anywhere.
How had they managed to deceive everyone's eyes so thoroughly?
Clark, hands trembling, put the glasses back on and suddenly stood up, striding quickly toward the restroom.
He almost sprinted there and his long legs whipped up a breeze that sent several freshly printed documents fluttering to the ground.
He reached the empty restroom, turned on the faucet, and removed his glasses, splashing water onto his face.
Handfuls of cold water washed over him, dripping down his jawline, and soaking the collar of his shirt in splotches.
In the dim mirror, he saw his bloodshot eyes.
He leaned closer to the mirror, staring into his own clear, bright gaze.
They were blue—like the sky over Reykjavik's coastline.
Pale, translucent blue, shimmering like glass.
...Suddenly, a wave of overwhelming sorrow gripped him.
The pain radiating from his chest was far worse than any injury he had ever sustained in battle.
This agony, indescribable and soul-deep, tore through him, forcing a low growl from his throat as he braced himself against the sink with both hands.
What on earth was happening to him?
Clark squeezed his eyes shut and collapsed onto the restroom's cold, tiled floor.
His head fell back against the exposed pipes, and he tilted his face upward toward the ceiling.
The incandescent light from the hanging fixture pierced through his eyelids, casting a kaleidoscopic array of colors in the darkness behind his closed eyes.
His chest heaved, breaths coming in sharp, painful gasps.
There was a name—there was a name pounding against his heart.
It was as if it had been branded on his heart a long, long time ago, an old scar that had never fully healed.