There's a moment, in some peoples' lives, when you realize you weren't destined for anything normal. Sometimes, if you're lucky enough, you get two.
Discovering my powers was the first.
And Peter Parker was the second.
And everything that followe...
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What a weird thing it is. Being dead and all. I mean, if you can call whatever this is "being dead."
I woke up an hour ago. After withering away into dust and drifting off worthlessly. And now here I am. Sort of dead. Sort of alive. And sitting in the center of a shallow pond, consumed by a vibrant orange.
I tried walking further, to see if maybe something more would appear on the horizon. But I'm trapped in an endless nothingness. Nothing but orange, orange, orange, orange...
I'm beginning to loathe the color.
And oddly enough, through it all, my mind can only fixate on one possible thing—whether my best friend has been shriveled up into ash or if he's all alone, wondering where it is I've gone.
In the water, my face bends and curves and distorts until I'm unrecognizable. I stare down and glide my fingers along the surface. Maybe there was something I could have done. Maybe I should have told him to stay with me instead. Regardless, everything is empty now, dissolved like soggy corn flakes. Soul-rippingly quiet.
I watch the ripples diverge outward, expanding and expanding until they dissipate. My head radiates in pain, prompting my palm to move to my temple. There's an input being transmitted to my brain.
Broken fragments of voice. They dig into my scalp as someone else's memory transfers.
"Mr. Stark, I don't feel so good..."
"I don't wanna go. I don't wanna go. Please..."
"I'm sorry..."
They all overlap each other into an ear-splitting, discordant orchestra, pushing pushing on my head, wrapping it in barbed wire, constricting until the metal pierces, louder and louder, building louder, bursting my eardrums and then...
Silence.
My vision fades. A broadcast replaces it. NEO must still be connected to Mr. Stark.
I see a kitchen. He walks over to a shelf of ceramic bowls, drying them off with a dish towel. His hands grip tightly onto a picture frame.
An alibi photo. Peter and Stark in a mock ceremony for the Stark Internship. I took one of my own for Dad so he'd stop questioning where I was running off to all the time. But why would Mr. Stark be so sentimental about it now?
Wasn't Peter still with him?
Didn't Stark protect him in the battle?
Did the voice that I heard belong to...
Oh.
I stop breathing. My insides are hallowed out until I'm a shell. I'm refilled by dark, gooey, toxic heartache. I want to scream out at the stupid orange sky. Instead I settle backwards into the water. Then float there like an unraveled thread.
