Spider-Man | Doesn't Need Help

CHAPTER 27

  "It's here." Without waiting, I went up the stairs to the old basement.

  A basement I knew all too well.

  I didn't wait for one of the orphanage workers to come down with me, I went straight to the place where I knew I would find my things.

  And to think, a few years ago, this was where I was going through hell. In fact, this was where my destruction began, and Mr. Adams just finished it all off.

  I tried not to look at that one door at the very beginning, after descending the stairs. Because it was behind it that I thought too much and then gave up on many things.

  It's the one at the very end on the left. That's where you should find the boxes with your name on them. I heard a woman calling behind me, who was halfway down when I reached the bottom.

  "I still can't believe it, you know, Peter?"

  Mrs. Rosa, or Aunt Rosa as she was, as soon as she saw me today, she threw herself at me, almost crying with joy at seeing me. I was incredibly surprised, most likely that she was alive, because I didn't know who exactly was murdered that day, but once I understood, I was surprised by her reaction.

  The redhead seems to have forgotten what she did to me years ago.

  When I first got here, she was about forty-five years old and, frankly, she was awful. For a variety of reasons, she never liked me and, well, you could say she abused me. The punishments were harsh, but she topped them all.

  What I remember most vividly is the almost two weeks without food...

  I was seven years old then.

  Back then she still looked really good for her age, I remember her as a thin, tall and always well-dressed red-haired woman.

  And now she didn't look so good. Now her stomach wasn't so thin anymore, but slightly rounded, she was terribly hunched, and numerous wrinkles were appearing on her face. And the hair I once admired so much, despite what she did to me, was no longer so nice and long, and gray hairs were visible in many places.

  How much can you change in five years?

  "I remember perfectly the day he took you away. You were so poor, so scared, holding that diary of yours in your hands." She recalled, something I was damned tired of. "I was sure he'd kill you quickly; after all, he had no qualms about spreading such nonsense to little children, but..."

  "But he's alive, and he tried to kill me more than once. With all due respect, can you shut up? I don't want to hear it!" I snapped, turning to her.

  It was really so irritating to me. She'd always been a monster to me, maybe not as much as Mr. Adams, of course, but she was there. And now she talks about it all as if she cared about me and was going through all of it.

  I was also surprised that she worked here at all, because she hated children.

  The redhead stopped and lowered her gaze, and I, without waiting, entered the room she had shown me recently.

  The room was enormous and filled with nothing but cardboard boxes. Everywhere, along every wall, there were boxes of some kind and some not so kind, piled high, some reaching all the way to the ceiling.

  I took out my phone and started looking for my name on them.

  I didn't see, but I heard and felt that Mrs. Rosa had arrived and was now standing in the doorway, watching me.

  “I know, Peter, you’re mad at me for… all that,” she began, which shocked me beyond belief, but I didn’t show it.

  Seriously, she was into this now?