Lois Lane's Body Is Absorbing The Idol - And the God Within It

"It is an evil artifact," the Phantom Stranger said. "Venerated by the cult of a god long dead, who waits for their prophesied rebirth. Your prolonged contact with the idol has bound it to you...soon, when you have absorbed it fully, the time shall come when the dark god is born anew."

"I don't want to give birth to anything!" Lois said. "Get it off me!"

Yet even as she said the words, the reporter realized it was too late. Blue veins were visible beneath the almost translucent skein of skin that slowly stretched over the idol, and they disappeared directly into the stony surface. There was not even an edge of flesh to pick away at; Lois rain her hand over the skin, but it seemed to merge smoothly into the gravid bulge. One finger traced a stony spiral, and the reporter swore she could actually feel it...

"Cultists," she said. "I was looking for these missing women..."

"Sacrificed, no doubt, in an effort to unlock the idol's power," the Phantom Stranger said. "Perhaps they were not willing, as you were, to make contact with it. Look."

One gloved hand pointed behind Lois...and she turned to see where he pointed at.

Behind a dumpster, four bodies lay stacked. They almost looked like they were sleeping, those four naked women...but their chests did not rise and fall, and flies clustered about them, the features a little more withered than Lois had seen while researching them on social media. These were the four women who had gone missing.

"To reverse this dire prophecy is beyond even my power," the Stranger intoned. He drew himself up to his full height, a good foot taller than Lois, and spread his opera-cape in outstretched hands. "We must call on the aid of others if we are to rescue you, body and soul, from the evil that infects you...and more than your life is at risk, Lois Lane."

Lois blinked, her hands clutched oddly protectively above the idol embedded in her abdomen.

"What do you mean?" she said.

"We cannot allow the dark god to be reborn. If we cannot safely remove it...your life must be forfeit. Or the world entire shall tremble under a new dark age," the Phantom Stranger said.