After sunflowers (ghostflower / gwiles)

Chapter 1

She is here.

It's the first thing that crosses his mind when he sees the blonde hair with pink tips at the ends walking across the central hall. Her hair is longer, and she's wearing a headband, but he's sure it's her.

So he runs, runs nonstop, trying to reach her. And he collides with everyone and apologizes incessantly, but it's impossible, there are too many people around, after all, it's the schedule change.

However, despite all the obstacles, he keeps running, but it's already too late; the hair turns a corner, and when he makes the same turn, there's no blonde hair anymore, she's gone.

And he stays there, in the middle of the hall, with everyone around going in all sorts of directions. Some pass by him, others bump into him, and others stare at him, but he doesn't care, because he just saw Gwen Stacy walking through the hallways.

How is that possible? Is it really her? It couldn't be her. And if it is her... why hasn't she come looking for him?

The answer is obvious: because it's not her. After all, there are thousands of women in this world, and the chances of one having blonde hair with pink tips in this school are huge, almost infinite, right?

He spends the rest of the afternoon distracted, calculating probabilities in his head and searching fervently in case the hair reappears. He's unable to pay attention to the rest of his classes. It even affects him later, as Spider-Man, to the point where he almost lets a thief escape on his way back to Visions. Luckily, he manages to recapture him in time.

Later that night, he lies on his bed, staring at the ceiling, thinking about the events of the day. Ganke, in the bunk below, has been asleep for a while, and he knows he should follow suit. Otherwise, he'll have to endure Professor James' displeased expression for being late to the morning Chemistry class.

He tries to sleep but can't, so after a few tries, he gives up. He even tries watching videos on his phone in the hope of drifting off, but nothing seems to help.

He doesn't know what to do, and he scrolls through video after video on his phone, but nothing seems to catch his attention. His mind is still fixated on that blonde hair. It must be his mind playing tricks because it can't be. Is there a way to check that what he saw today wasn't a product of his cruel fantasies?

He thinks about it for a while until finally, his mind lights up.

He jumps up and opens his laptop, immediately entering the school's virtual campus, right in the section where the student roster is. If it's really her, if she's truly here, her name should be there, right?

He scrolls through the list until he reaches the letter 'S'. His breath catches for a moment, stopping abruptly.

This is stupid, he thinks; she can't be here. How would she come back to life? No, that's not the question. Why would there be a version of Gwen in this dimension? Was it a cruel twist of fate? Or was he missing her so much that he was starting to hallucinate? Either way, he decides that it wouldn't hurt to look. It would just confirm his theory that he's about to lose his mind, which is nothing new.