3 Chapter Three
Obligatory Disclaimer : I do not own anything (except maybe OC characters) all characters, places, worlds, universes…etc mentioned here belong to their respective owners and/or companies.
This is purely a work of fiction. Not meant to offend or incite, but to entertain and (maybe) inspire.
SAY IT WITH YOUR CHEST
What does it profit a man to gain the world but lose his soul?
The teens filed out of the yellow school bus and gathered around the footpath where Mr Gijuan, our science teacher, waited. A dark skinned man with a round pair of glasses who I assumed would suit the role of an actor more than that of teacher.
"Midtown High students, we are guests of the Columbia University Science Department. I'll repeat that, we are guests in this place, so please behave accordingly. No wandering, no loitering, no leaving your trash lying around and please," Mr Gijuan turned his gaze to Flash, then to Parker and then to me. "Absolutely no pranks or fighting of any kind." He stressed the importance.
"Yes sir." Parker smiled. I nodded in understanding. Excitement bubbled under my skin, my teeth were trying to tap dance behind my mouth, today is the day.
"Remember it is a privilege to be here. Now everyone, proceed up the steps and into the building." Mr. Gijuan directed, a smile on his lips and a pep in his step, even he was excited to see the science department's interior.
Up the cracked but clean steps we went, on a walkway carpeted on either side by warm, emerald grass. The kind that looked nice to sleep on, on a sunny lazy afternoon with a lazy straw in your lips and peace in your mind.
This, it's sights like these that make me glad to be alive. There is no one definition for it, you just gotta live and experience it yourself. Enjoy it in the moment for that is truly all you have. Life is fleeting and sometimes cruel but it has beautiful moments too, moments I must appreciate for a time will come when I will be unable to.
I will do things, things I can't tell others. Friend or foe, family or not, I will do things I will never be able or willing to explain to anyone else. I was part of this world but my knowledge and experiences have rendered me alienated from it. I have secrets I will never speak of. That's fine, I choose to walk the path I'm on.
I may fall and if I can't get up then that is my fault. I may fail but that would also be my fault. No one can decide my life for me. I want to succeed or die trying. I am going to get to the pinnacle, I will kick and claw my way up to it. Come what may, I will weather the storm, slay the dragon, kill the god, destroy whatever obstacle stands in my way to it. And if I can't get there, I'll die knowing I did try my absolute best.
"Babe?" Liz called, her fingers wrapped over mine.
"..Yeah?" I pulled up a smile.
"You good?" She sounded concerned.
"Yeah, just got ptsd from the stairs." My tongue peeked through my lips. She chuckled at the dark joke, playfully punching my side, right on another sore welt. I grinned through the pain.
It looked like a hospital to me, the sight of pristine scientific equipment and scientists themselves in equally pristine lab coats manning the devices, taking notes and recording data like the nerds they were. The array of computer screens that displayed an endless stream of numbers, charts and models, I understood a very minute few of them, not what they meant but what they said, like one understands what a neon sign with flashing boobs over a strip club means. The trays of guarded chemicals and rare specimens made my arm itch. I wanted to mix and match stuff and see what could be made.
"That's cool." Liz said, gazing at the giant microscope behind reinforced glass.
"Really cool." I nodded.
"That is actually the most advanced electron microscope in the eastern seaboard." Peter said from behind, eagerly presenting the fact.
"Uh okay." Liz raised a brow. She was wondering why Parker was butting in. I understood that the boy was clearly excited to tell people about his interest, to share cool facts and communicate with his peers. Liz saw it as a tactless interruption.
"I didn't know that. Thank you." I smiled. I cannot bring myself to be mean to this fucker.
"I didn't either." Harry Osborn interjected, draping an arm over Parker. Since he wasn't on the bus ride, it's safe to assume he rode in on a private vehicle.
Liz frowned. She didn't like Harry, she told me once he looked like a rich creep, like his dad. I didn't care much for it, he had money, he flaunted it, used it to bed many of his female classmates and get away with certain unsavory things. But what do you expect from a boy with as much daddy issues as he had money.
"Good for you." I grabbed Liz and left the budding conversation.
"He's such a creep." Liz said.
"He?"
"Harry."
"Yeah."
"Do you know he tried paying Betty to spend a night at his place?"
"Did he really?"
"Yes really."
"That's crazy." I did not care. I had to keep an eye on Parker.
"Wanna come look at the spiders?"
"Ew no."
"Well I'm going to." I shrugged.
"I'll hang with MJ, come find me when you're done."
"Sure." We kissed. Her eyes were closed. Mine weren't.
Parker was by the spider display, he stood with a camera in hand, observing the see through boxes that kept the tiny insects away from freedom. His eyes lit up when he saw MJ, a smile blossomed on his lips. He made to approach her but his feet were weighed down by a mountain of anxiety and needless worry.
I hoped for his sake he would get over her and find himself a Gwen Stacy. She was more of a predator than an angel, regardless of how bright she appeared to shine.
While Parker mentally debated himself, a spider repelled down the ceiling. While the boy thought of what to say, this purple and black spider, this tiny dot steadily goes down its web, inches down his sleeve and settles on his arm.
The teenage boy does not sense the creature, neither does he sense the cold gaze on him. The disgusting swarm, a million murky, glinting eyes pointed at every thread of hair on his skin. I walk through intangible layers of cold dread and terror. There is something otherworldly watching this moment or motivating it. Every step I take makes my instincts roar; they tell me to hide from this attention, to avoid this horrid gaze, to run far away and leave Parker to deal with whatever curse comes with his spider.
His spider? Since when was it his?
In this fucking world with flying people and gods and aliens, who will save you? The heroes? Flawed humans like yourself? You would depend on the goodwill of others to ensure your survival? Fuck that noise.
Who then? The authorities? The ones who serve you justice with their pockets lined with the grease of the rich and politically powerful? Wait till you're in a position where their interests do not align with your existence, wait till then and find out the justice you will receive. Maybe you will have a marked grave when they are done with you.
So if I, the bastard that I am, want to stand atop people with ridiculous wealth, unimaginable affluence and influence, untold power and unmatched strength, come face to face with the terrible thing standing against my first step. Do I turn and run? Do I falter and beg for a morsel? Do I weep at the injustice?
No. I take it. I take it with my own two hands.
I walk into the dread. The million eyes turn against me. Do they know I feel them? Do they care? The scrape of innumerable claws cutting through dry flesh fills my ears. The stench of destruction pervades the atmosphere. Icy terror clings to my skin like a wet, frigid shower. The moment is here.
"Owh!" Parker whips his arm at the bite of the tiny spider. The insect scurries to the floor. I slap my palm over it, enough to trap but not to squash.
I speak before he does "A mosquito" It draws little attention; who cares if a teen was bitten by a common insect? Who cares if I slap my palm on the floor? It may be an eccentric way to kill an insect but well, other teens had a life filled with the newest fashion, games, and movies to discuss, with friends to gossip, with girls to leer at and actors to drool over. The scientists were busy actually working and focusing on their data and could care less about brats roaming in their vicinity, in fact they would sincerely appreciate it if we vacated the area as soon as possible.
"Uh, okay." Parker adjusts his glasses. He is a perceptive youth, he feels it's something more but there's MJ and she's looking over, he has to act cool.
Needles bite into my flesh, a hellish lance of pain bores through my palm, it ate into my wrist and crawled up into my veins and arteries, a barbed wire pulling through wet sponge, it was pure torture. I held the insect still and excused myself to the restroom while agony chased my being.
I found an unused stall and slammed the door shut behind me, I slowly opened my tingling, trembling palm, within the inflamed flesh, the mass of painful bumps, was the tiny spider sporting a thick black plating with streaks of red and blue which swirled into two void spaces on its abdomen, reminiscent of demon eyes. The spider was dead and curled up in rigor mortis. It surely took sweet revenge for its capture.
In a comic, one of Parker's classmates found the dead spider and ate it; it resulted in him being turned into a collective swarm of spiders. A swarm that could wear the flesh of people, growing stronger with every prey.
I needed every bit of supernatural or mutate juice this spider held. The bites weren't enough. Despite the revulsion, I threw the dead insect into my mouth. Its hard hairs scraped against my tongue, its flesh and ichor was ground by my teeth, its juices mixed with my saliva and rendered my tongue numb and tender. I swallowed the spider, saliva soup.
Immediately, instantaneously, I was assaulted by a pain that wrung my intestines. Cold sweat spread on my forehead. My eyes watered. I felt like a woman in labor trying to push out an elephant. My hands clutched my sides, my lips pulled back in a painful snarl that left my teeth exposed and clapping, enamel against enamel as saliva stringed down my lips.
Pain is relative.
I held the stall and shakily pulled myself to my feet. Hot breaths ripped past my lips, cold chills and hot flashes alternated with handling my body, I wiped the sweat from my eyes and walked out the stall. I soon rejoined my classmates, my backpack had some painkillers but I'd given it to Liz to hold. And she was nowhere to be seen.
Never mind then, pain would only make me stronger. A good thought to hold onto while I had a fork twist my entrails into noodles. I aimed to weather the pain, once my vision started giving and creating two of everything, once pain in the form of nails danced in my skull, once the words leaving my lips turned into dust, I quietly made my way out the lab, the floor was a bouncy castle, the sky was empty and colorless.
I could smell nothing but rot. I could taste nothing but blood. I could hear nothing but the crunch of brittle bones. Crack crack crack like steel boots on glass. These things were coming from me.
Upon making it out the university I hailed a cab that would hopefully take my stupid ass home. I say would because I could as well be kidnapped by the very same taxi driver. Every blink was beyond agony, I was in so much pain I started getting angry. Anger bordering on godly wrath, there was fire and then there's an inferno, I was white hot in rage. Rage that was enough to get me to sit up straight. Rage that made me tell myself to shut the fuck up and take it like a man.
I was going to puke soon, there was only so much of it I could swallow.
"Left turn there." I told the driver. That wasn't the way to my destination he was on.
"Kid I know where I'm going." The man rolled his eyes. Middle Aged, balding, olive skin with a button up Hawaiian shirt that exposed his hairy chest. What is it with drivers?
"I said left fucking turn." My voice sounded wicked, evil, steeped and soaked in vile sin.
"Fuck!" He swerved into the passage. Maybe startled at my voice, maybe finally receptive to the demands of his passenger. "I'm going where you want me to." He was sweating now.
"Thank you."
"Fucking mutie." He whispered. Whispered, but I heard it.
I wiped my eyes and red stained my hands. I was crying blood it seemed.
I was scared. What if I'd fucked myself up. What if I gave myself super cancer? Or what if I messed up my DNA by introducing the mutative properties of the spider into it? What if my body can't adapt and it's breaking down right now like someone hit with radiation, like a ground zero Chernobyl victim? What if? What if? What if?
"Shut the fuck up." I will face whatever may come. And I will face it head on.
8.8.8.8.8.8
Fukushimata no kajoor that's indish for WOW nice clock bro!
So the boy is getting his first power up or first disastrous curse. You know one thing that's set in comics? Powers have a cost. You get great powers but you also pay for them through a tragic origin story or something of the sort. I like to think of it in the vein of Fullmetal Alchemist, nothing is gained for free it must be through Equivalent Exchange. You get as much as you give. You obtain what you pay for. Sure you might not pay for it at the exact moment you get it, you might have already paid for it earlier or pay for it in the future even but you will pay for it. What will our boy pay? We'll see.
The Mj that stood by Peter was the Mj from the old comics, from the Romita, Dematteis days, hell even the Straczynski days. The sunshine Mj, the 'i got your back my boy' Mj, the one that could tell when someone else pretended to be spiderman or her Peter. I liked that Mj. I'm not sure who this one they have right now is but I don't think it's MJ.
I want to explore the struggle for power. The kicking and clawing for this thing to guarantee your survival in such an insane world. What would you really do? Tell me in the comments if you wanna.
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Till next time, Rain (the best ever) away!
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