The Girl and the Superhero{Peter Parker}

Part 42 (Kenzie's POV)

          I regained consciousness slowly, but I refused to open my eyes. Something in me knew exactly what would await me if I let myself see it.

          Surrounding me would be an all too familiar darkness. The blackness in and of itself didn't scare me; I had never been afraid of the dark. That philosophy, in my opinion, was widely misnamed. People aren't scared of the dark, because closing our eyes is a defense mechanism. Humans don't fear the unknown as long as it remains unknown to them. It's the possibility that we could find out what's unknown to us that drives the terror into people's hearts. We aren't scared of the dark. We're scared of finding what's inside of it.

          Having said this, I had never been scared of the dark— yet, I was absolutely terrified. Because I knew.

          My hands, as I had expected, were throttled to the chair; rings of red, fiery irritation on my wrists screamed at me as I thrashed against the ropes that held me bound. While I struggled, I discovered that my ankles were secured to the front legs, and I had another rope wrapped like a seatbelt across my waist to the underside of the chair. Smaller cords of the same substance were drawn tautly at every other mobile point on my body. The chair itself, as well as the cords that imprisoned me, were made of the same metallic substance that had been used to secure my wrists and ankles during my first kidnapping excursion. I had no hope of breaking the chair or of freeing myself, so I had no choice but to sit and wait for something to happen. In a non-classic kidnapped fashion, I felt no gag around my mouth. I was free to speak, which almost scared me more than if it had been otherwise.

          If there was a gag, then that would mean that there was someone around who could hear me screaming. The fact that my hijackers would just let me scream meant there was and would be nobody there to care.

          Still shutting my eyes with incessant fervor, I made a mental note of the similarities and differences between what I was feeling now versus in my ever-present nightmare. In my dream, I hadn't felt the restraints around my ankles and waist. However, the chair was most definitely the same size and shape, as well as the positioning of my hands. Identical in both situations was the terror quickly rising in the pit of my stomach.

          Purely for the sake of keeping my mind from snowballing into insanity, I ran through my dream again in my mind, trying to pick apart anything and everything that might help me.

It starts off with me tied to a chair, hands behind my back. I wriggled lightly against the cords binding me, as if to make sure I hadn't imagined them. I hadn't.

          "Okay, okay, what's next?" I whispered almost inaudibly to myself, pressing my eyelids together with increasing determination. The three people. The buff guy in the middle, the lanky one on the left, and the curvy lady on the right. The man in the middle laughs, says some terrifying things, then he walks toward me with a gun.

          With the tears of fear brimming, it was all I could do to keep my eyes closed.

          I made an attempt at a stabilizing breath, forcing myself to think through the rest of it. He comes at me with a gun. I see Peter running towards me, yelling my name. And then a gunshot, and everything goes black.

          Great.

          I listened intently to my surroundings, but couldn't hear anything. The air around me was suffocatingly thick— musty, with a scent of polluted water that had evaporated. The silence combined with the air was almost deafening to the senses, leaving me feeling even more defenseless than I had been previously.

          The only way I was going to know anything was if I would open my eyes. I exhaled a shaky breath, mentally preparing myself to take in what I was about to see.