The Soul World

Old friends...

Five years earlier...

"'Sup Mr Delmar!" Peter grinned as he jogged into his favourite pre-patrol haunt: Delmar's Deli-Grocery. 

"Hey, Mr Parker," said Delmar, smiling at the teen, "your regular order?"

"Yes please. And these." He slapped two packets of gummy worms on the counter.  

"¡Ay, debes comer menos caramelos, o estarás gordo!  (You should eat less sweets, or you will be fat!)" Delmar joked in Spanish. He and Peter often teased each other, so much that it had become a routine. As he punched numbers into the cash register, Peter smirked.

"¿Si? Supongo saberías (Yes? I suppose you would know),"

Delmar glared at Peter, but before he could reply, he caught sight of something that made him knit his brows. Scowling, he stepped out from behind the counter and pointed at a person by the door.

"Hey! That kid stole from my store!" he yelled.  

As Peter looked round, a startled youth met his eyes before turning and sprinting out of the door, down the street and out of sight.

"I'm on it!" Peter tore out of the shop in pursuit, abandoning his sandwich and the shocked customers. The kid was fast, but he was faster. Dodging pedestrians, he chased the kid's distinctive yellow fleece through the streets and steadily closed the distance. People were staring at him. Belatedly, he realized he was running way faster than any normal teenager should be able to run. He slowed down slightly, and pretended to pant like he was out of breath.

When Peter looked back ahead, he only just glimpsed a yellow sleeve darting around a corner before it disappeared.  "Come on," he muttered. He swerved right, almost tripping over. Now that they were in an alleyway, he didn't have to hide his speed. He pumped all his energy into his legs, racing around another corner as the boy tried to escape him, into smaller alleys, where his speed became less of an advantage.

He turned again. It was a dead end.

Where was the boy?

Peter scanned the buildings around him. Looking all around him, he searched the obvious nooks and crannies. The boy was nowhere to be seen...

There was a tall fence at the other end of the path, which connected to the main road, but it was too high for the kid to have climbed in the time it took Peter to round the corner. 

"Where did you go?" he murmured. He sighed. Wherever the kid was, Peter wouldn't find him like this. He checked his surroundings again; clear.  Dropping his rucksack and sandwich, he pulled out his Spider-Man suit and began to change.

It was his homemade suit. A bit rudimentary, but it worked. Peter was proudest of his web shooters, having designed them himself, but he wished he could get an upgrade. Unfortunately, he wasn't Tony Stark.

When he had changed, Peter crawled up the side of a building to stick his rucksack out of reach. Suddenly, his Spider-Senses picked up on a quiet gasp below. He paused. Honing in on his hearing, he detected the shallow breaths of one who does not want to be heard, and they were coming from behind a large garbage bin, right next to the fence.

Jumping three stories in one leap, Peter followed the noise. There was a tiny gap between the fence and the garbage bin and there, crouched among reeking bags of trash and rat droppings, was the boy. He had dark brown skin and a mop of curly, black hair, which was now flecked with mud.  His yellow fleece was grubby and he was shaking.