A New Hero - Peter Parker (BOOK 1) | Spider-Man: Far From Home

Chapter Twenty-Five - The Lost Friend

Content Warning - Grieving, mentions of death etc

Dying was complicated.

No matter how much you might crave release from the darkness, your body will fight against it. Where your mind will want to succumb to the cold, emptiness of death, your body will hunt down the sliver of fear hidden in your thoughts and cling onto it like a lifeline.

You may wonder how can you go on with these demons haunting you - how can you face the road ahead, knowing something is missing - knowing someone is missing? Wondering when the pain will end - when will this overwhelming grief leave you so you can get past the misery that lingered?

Why did this happen to you? Why are you the one that has been left to pick up the pieces of your own broken heart, mind and soul? After losing so much, what reason is there to go on? What cause is there left to fight for?

Who could possibly understand the magnitude of the pain you are feeling? Who could be the one to help pull you from the depths of this darkness?

Where do you go from here without any one leading you? Where will the next path you choose take you when there's nobody on the journey beside you?

You may wonder a lot of different things. Some may overwhelm you. Some will overwhelm you, but it's important to find your direction. Focus on the next breath you breathe, the next step you take, the next choice you make, and keeping focusing on the next motion you create, even if you're treading water and fighting against a current that's sure to pull you under.

Just stop. Just focus. And Breathe.

Clara stirred, feeling rough gravel pressing into her cheek as she lay across the floor of the construction site. She felt disorientated as her eyes peeked open, for a moment hoping and wishing that it had all been a dream.

Her stomach twisted as she caught site of the train tracks not so far away, the memory of Peter crashing down onto her. Clara shook her head, suppressing the nausea as she tried to do the same with her emotions. 

"Just breathe." Clara told herself, pulling herself into a kneeling position, the skin that wasn't covered by her ripped jeans cutting against jagged stones beneath her. She pulled oxygen into her lungs through her nose, letting it leave out of her mouth. Inhale for two seconds, exhale for four.

She steadied herself, watching as blood continued to trickle onto the ground from the cut running along her forearm, a small patch of red staining the dirt. "It's just pain." She said through grit teeth, her eyes brimming with tears again as the wound stung. Clara raised a hand to wipe away the dust and dirt clinging to her cheeks, smearing a grainy paste made of salt water and dry mud across her skin instead. 

"Find alcohol or even just water, clean the wound." She ordered, lifting herself from the ground. The sun was still on its incline, so she imaged it had only actually been one hour or so – maybe even less, since Quentin Beck's group left. That is unless she had been there for a full day. 

She left the knife she had managed to grasp on the floor. She wasn't going to need it now, and she could hardly carry it around the streets of Berlin.

Clara wasn't sure what had made the man leave her there. Maybe he had thought as much as she did that she was going to die of grief alone? Or, more likely, maybe he had given her enough of the drug to poison her.

She dragged her feet to the railway, forcing herself to look from where she stood to the tunnel a few hundred metres away. Clara wasn't sure whether she should have felt relief over not seeing Peter's crippled body strewn along the tracks, or what it meant that he wasn't to be seen. 

Either way she felt her stomach, a wave of bile spilling from her mouth to hit the floor in front of her, splashing on the metal rails, droplets of vomit landing on Clara's shoes. She stared at them, feeling tears brimming her eyes again as her bottom lip began to quiver. 

Peter Parker was dead, Quentin Beck was going to kill her classmates, Nick Fury had no idea any of this was happening, and Clara Wilson had sick on her shoes. 

She yelled out, kicking the steel beams as she felt a hopeless anger rip through her. She immediately regretted it as she was met with pain. Swearing aloud, she clenched her fists, refusing the urge to do it again. Why did he have to do this? Why did Peter leave her alone?

"Stop." Clara growled, feeling herself spiralling. "Just breathe."

She knew the thought was idiotic and selfish. All she wanted was to be back by his side and fighting another battle together. Clara looked down the tracks, staring into the darkness of the tunnel. But that would never happen again. Because Peter Parker was... 

"Alive." She mumbled, watching the shadows. "Peter's alive. He has to be alive." 

His body wasn't here, so he had to be alive, right? Her mind processed the idea as a thoughtful frown grew on her face. He's sticky, she realised, remembering the first time she had seen Peter as Spider-Man on the trip, and how he asked what he could've done to help Mysterio. He must've found a way to get onto the train, and he's going to the next stop, she thought. 

When he get's there, he's going to need to find his way home. Clara nodded, her mind finding a direction for her to move in. Clouded in grief and denial, it had found a way to distract Clara from the reality of the loss she would have to face eventually. But not yet. 

Now, she would do what was needed of her and keep on carrying on - just one step at a time. 

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