Secret World

9

"Hey Echo!" He called out, waving his hand in the air even though I had already seen him. I sped up a bit, throwing a casual glance over my shoulder toward the car only to see Happy shaking his head as he pulled away.
"Hey Peter." I smiled back and stopped as I got closer. "How was school?"
"Meh, it was school. You know how that goes." He shrugged as I followed him away from the building down the street. "How was the rest your of night?"
"Actually, that was the most sleep I've gotten in a couple years." I chuckled softly, looking down at the ground.
"Seriously?" He asked taken back as the both we walked on the sidewalk, the exhaust from cars passing us lingering in the air.
"Yeah, I've been on my own for a while." I admitted, I could feel my heart slowly started to speed up. I crossed my arms in front of my chest out of instinct.
"Really? Like what did you do?" He asked, looking over at me. I bit my bottom lip, trying even think of where to start. "You know what?"
Suddenly he darted in front of me, causing me to abruptly stop so I didn't walk into him. I stared at him as he grinned at me, he had his thumbs under the straps of his backpack giving him almost a comical look.
"Let's go have fun, we can go an arcade or movie.. or we can just walk around. Whatever you want." He beamed, I couldn't help but smile back.
"Peter, I don't have any money. And the idea of movie where it's dark doesn't exactly thrill me." I replied with a sigh, he gave a small shake of his head as he pull one hand away from his backpack and held it up.
"I have some money, and as I said I know an arcade. We can play some games, and just hang out." He told me. "So what do you say?"
I bit on my lip trying not to grin, it had been years since I had had a care free day. One that wasn't interrupted by the thought of the shadow creatures or running from people. At least here nobody knew me, here I had someone that maybe I could rely on. I nodded my head to him and watched his smile grow.
"Arcade it is." He hooked his head and stepped off to the side.
We wound through the streets, Peter talked about the various studies he was going through. The kid was smart, hella smart. Making me feel kind of left out on the things I missed having been pulled out of school when I was. The fact I never actually made it to high school.
     Peter was very animated as he talked, his face always so full expression.
     "So, I have a question." I spoke up, his eyes wide as he walked backwards in front me.
     "What's up?" He replied.
      "So that first day, the one where you found me in the street." I started, braving myself to put myself out there a bit more.
     "You mean the one where you called me Spiderling." He nodded.
     "I looked up the snap, as I'm sure you could tell. Are you the guy they called Spider-Man in the news reports?" I asked, I could see the neon sign behind him that shouted movies and arcade.
    "Don't tell anybody." He quickly stated, stopping in his tracts.
     "Peter, who exactly am I going to tell? The people I stayed with last night? I'm sure they know, am I right?" I replied.
    "Okay, maybe you have a point. But, I mean, if you run into anybody you know." He winked and gave me a nudge as we crossed the street.
"Ha ha, web boy." I shot back, following him inside.
"So, all joking aside, what was your world like?" He asked, we walked around the arcade, kids loitered about, the dings and music of the games played over the music coming out of the speakers. The lights were slightly dimmer but it wasn't dark inside.
"Depressing. There was war everywhere for the most part, I guess not to much different from here. Besides there isn't any aliens or robots to blame it on. Super hero's don't exist, I wish they did." I shook my head as he dropped some change into a pin ball machine, he offered to let me play first by motioning. "Let me see how it works."
"You don't know how to play pin ball?" He asked, his eyes widening again and he purposely dropped his jar lower.
"Never had a chance. I've been on the run for the last four years." I shrugged.
"Alright, you watch me, and tell me more about your world. Then you try? Deal?" He stuck his hand out, I took and shook it.
"Deal." I replied, watching as the ball rolled into place.
"So can I ask though why you've been on the run the last four years?" He asked, his eyes glued downward as he pulled a leveler back and let go causing the ball to shoot forward.
"Well, it's cause I can see things. Like I told you, but also.. I see creatures, these things in the shadows. My mom couldn't raise me because she didn't know how to deal with it so after sending me to mental institutions she sent me to live with my Aunt and Uncle." I told him, watching as he hit the buttons on the side, causing the little paddles inside the machine to flip any time the ball came near. "She was awesome, she was the one to give me the name Echo. Unfortunately late one night, someone shot her, the P.D. said it was a mugging gone wrong but I just couldn't deal with it."
"I'm sorry Echo, the same kind of thing happened to my uncle." Peter replied, his words were sincere, as he continued to watched what he was doing.
"It was about that time word got around school, and the some guys from the government showed up at our apartment. They talked my Uncle into me going with them, and they ran a bunch of tests on me. Late one night, I had just about had it." I tried to explain, trying not delve to far into the past where it hurt. "I had been screaming in the metal room they locked me in, and went to test the door knob and it was unlocked. It was weird, the entire hall was empty and dark, it's the only time I didn't the shadow creatures but I didn't wait around."
By this point Peters game had stopped and he was leaning his hip against the machine and just listened to me. Nodding while I spoke.
"I took off, got a prepaid debt card, panhandled, did some illegal stuff, like opening cards in others peoples names. Did everything I could to stay alive. I was squatting in a house for a bit, but.." I shrugged, I took a deep breath as I looked around. He stepped to the side, grabbing my arm and pulled me toward the machine.
     "Let me just say, if aliens wind up
implanting eggs in my chest or something and I eat one of you, I'm sorry." I heard his voice crystal clear even though his lips weren't moving. Peter raised his eye brow as I must've made a face.
     "I don't want another single pop culture reference out of you for the rest of the trip. You understand?" I recognized the voice as the one that said Spiderling before.
     "I'm trying to say that something is coming."
    "Seriously, you made a reference to Aliens?" I asked chuckling as I stared at him.
    "What?" He asked genuinely confused.
    "You were talking about eggs implanting in your chest." I giggled even harder. "I gotta know what brought that on."
     "Oh, when I was on a spaceship in space." He replied dead serious as he moved behind me to the other side. "Me and Mr Stark and a bunch of other guys were fighting aliens on their ship or donut, whatever it was."
     "That must of been intense." I replied looking at him wide eyed.
     "Dude, this alien kind of looked like Squidard, and he could make these crystal like knife things and move things with his mind. We ended up cutting a hole in the side of the ship like in that movie and sucked him out." He told me excitedly, I just stared in wide eyed confusion.