Spider-Who?

Chapter Seven

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Chapter Seven

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The clouds were gloomy up in the evening sky, casting a drab shadow on the city below where Mary Jane Watson, once again, found herself on that same path to her Aunt Anna's apartment. Her stride was as fast as her thoughts - going a mile a minute.

He hit her. Her father actually hit her!

Mary Jane wiped hastily at her wet eyes with a swipe of her fingers, furious that she had resorted to tears.

No... she was furious at her father for causing all of this by hitting her.

As soon as she had gotten over the shock of the action that her father had inflicted, Mary Jane had immediately left the house. Her dad screamed at her, tried to get her to stop, but Mary Jane wouldn't allow herself to be deterred. In the end, he let her go. Probably realizing that she was better off without a deadbeat father like him.

So, that was how she found herself on the streetcar, riding to Queens from Brooklyn before she got off and was walking the streets the rest of the way. She needed her Aunt Anna... the closest thing that she had to an actual mother while her real mother was not mother at all. Because at that moment, she needed to be comforted. To feel safe and protected.

The sky above rumbled with rolling thunder and yet, despite that, the streets were crowded for the early evening, which wasn't that uncommon for any of the city's boroughs. But Mary Jane hardly noticed as she walked dazedly forward, completely lost in her thoughts.

That is... until the people surrounding her started to scream.

Mary Jane looked up, startled, to see a crowd of people running away from the intersection just a dozen or so feet ahead of her.

She stood frozen in her confusion as people bypassed her. Until one portly man clipped her on the shoulder as he tore past, knocking her over by the impact. She fell onto her back with a muted thud and a yelp that escaped from her chest - the fall resulting with a resounding ring to echo in her ears. The man did not stop to help her up, nor did he even ask if she was alright.

He just continued to run.

Mary Jane sat up so that her elbows were supporting the weight of her upper body, noting that she now had a few scrapes on her skin from where she landed on the hard pavement. Great. Just add that to the list of bodily harm she's had to endure tonight.

When suddenly, a strange sound met her ears...

It almost sounded like the rustling of leaves in the wind. But that wasn't quite right. She couldn't quite put a finger on why it sounded so familiar to her... until she saw it. That was when it clicked in her mind.

In the middle of the intersection ahead of her - the one that all of the people were in a desperate clamor to get away from - a large mound of fine sand sat. O-Only it was growing! More sand was being pulled into the pile as though it was drawn to it. It reminded her of some sort of magnetic force.

And watching the strange phenomenon was almost hypnotizing to witness as she stared in awestruck wonder. Frozen. So fascinating to her senses it was, that it was enough for her to contradict the action that the other citizens took with their instinct of flight by staying put.

The pile of sand kept getting larger and larger- until finally, it actually started to take shape... forming into that of a man.

Mary Jane gaped as the sand hardened, becoming more finite as the particles compressed together, transforming into something more defined... until she was staring directly at the face of one of the escaped convicts she had seen on T.V. not even an hour before.