La Arañita Asesina: A Spider-Verse Story

Prologue

He ran past all of it: the endless alleyways and apartment buildings and dark windows and those rickety metal staircases on the fire escapes. The raucous sound of running feet behind him grew closer and closer with each ragged breath he took.

The men behind him sounded close, and a glass bottle shattered against the wall on his right. He shuddered, yelped, covering his head. His feet kept pounding into the floor, carrying him on and on and on.

He had stayed out later than everyone had told him to. It was late. He knew this. It was Vieja York. It was midnight. It was the witching hour.

There was a special kind of curse on the city at this time of night.

And he couldn't have been more than fourteen years old.

The shouts and hollers behind him only made him run faster, his feet burning with each dun dun dun against the unforgiving concrete. A puddle every few meters interrupted the dun dun dun with a tsh tsh. Whatever the puddle was made of was making his feet smell like piss and gin.

He was about to turn a corner, looking for something to hide behind. His gaze darted left and right; his body ready to jump at the slightest sound. They were still coming. They were so close. Just turn the corner—

And that's when the tears sprang to his eyes. His arms and legs—hell, his entire body—tingled and ached and shivered.

It was a dead end.

He'd known he couldn't put up a fight. He'd known it since he was small. But now, confronted yet again by his own inability, he wanted to slit his own throat. The footsteps grew louder until they were right against his back. The voices were victorious. The laughter was horrific. He closed his eyes, covering his face, biting his lips until they bled, feeling tears on his face, wanting to do anything but live.

His throat caught, and he choked, feeling the collar of his hood going taut against his neck, yanking him backwards.

"Empty your pockets!" a voice yelled, kicking him in his knees, and sending him to the floor. His glasses cracked against his face, making his dark cheeks bleed.

"Gah!" he screamed, as his head hit the floor. He could feel blood on the side of his face.

"Señor, porfavor!" he heard herself screaming, begging. Tears fell out of his eyes, and his lips trembled. A foot on the back of his neck forced his head sideways, and he found himself looking up through tear-stained eyes.

"¡AYUDA! ¡AYUDA, ALGUIEN!" he screamed, feeling feet pelting into his side. He thought he would go deaf with the sound of his own cries for help. There was a warm, metallic taste filling his mouth, and he coughed.

But then he looked up.

His eyes widened as he glimpsed something darting across the moon.

A muffled BOOM resounded from somewhere, and everyone went quiet. Everyone heard it. Not everyone knew what it meant.

The assailants—there were four of them—looked at one another with skepticism. The one with his foot on the poor boy's neck eased the pressure, but still didn't relent. Every guilty eye narrowed with suspicion, as everyone's gaze turned to the rooftops.

"Shhh!"

"What is it?" one of them whispered, as another put a hand to his mouth.

Then a strange figure—a darting silhouette—flew over their heads.

A gentle breeze stirred their hair. The only sound was the distant honking of horns and the ragged breaths and intermittent coughs of the boy on the floor. Two of them cocked their guns, signaling for their companions to do likewise.