𝐄𝐏𝐇𝐄𝐌𝐄𝐑𝐀𝐋 | peter parker

xliii. colorful eyes

And I was falling.

I passed the portal already, but the wind was still pulling me downwards, my hair now flying with my downfall.

I look around me, then beneath me. Oh.

There was the ocean that I about to crash into.

I silently pray Peter's downfall for his actions as I squeeze my eyes shut, preparing myself to crash in the water.

Except that I didn't.

I was suddenly still in my place, and I was no longer falling towards the ocean.

I slightly open my eye, peaking around to see if I'm still familiar with my surrounding.

I wasn't, either.

I was in a middle of a deeply advanced in technology city, which was surprisingly empty.

No people, no sounds, no vehicles.

I tilt my head to the sides, taking in new neighbouring views of the unknown.

I was standing in a green park, that seemed to be beautifully designed, with flowers and trees everywhere, along with the lonely, unoccupied benches, and the empty fountain.

"Hello?" I call out, hoping to hear any possible response, in which I didn't.

Instead, I spotted a sign.

The fountain was suddenly full in water.

"HELLO?" I shout again, but this time, at the top of my lungs.

The wind was whooshing towards me again, only that it wasn't dusty air like on the above battle field.

It was a pretty normal howl of wind.

"Isn't it too peaceful here?" a voice then speaks up, causing the strong wind to calm down.

I turn around behind me, only to meet the one and only.

Doctor Strange.

"Oh my God, hi!" I exclaim in happiness, as it was the last thing I expected to ever meet someone I acknowledge of here.

He was wearing his red cape, obviously, which was flying him around the free space.

"What brings you here?" Doctor Strange queries, before landing right next to me on the grassy floor.

"Peter's bitchy, idiotic, and stupid actions"

He grins. "I must say that it's the same case for me, sadly"

"Yeah, Mj told me everything"

Doctor Strange looks over at me. "I see you figured it out, am I correct?"

I slowly nod my head, agreeing to his statement. "But, I'm pretty sure I'm still not fully capable of it, you know"

The man chuckles. "Well technically, these are the consequences of your own bitchy, idiotic, and stupid actions"

I widen my eyes, before laughing at Stephen's statement. "I guess you're right. It was a stupid action" I sigh. "I don't know what got into me, back then"

"Curiosity killed the cat, right?" Doctor Strange furrows his eyebrows, still eyeing me. "Except that you weren't the cat in that case, you were just a kid, who only intentioned discovering what the world offered"

I take a deep breath, resting my eyes for a few moments, as I nod at him.

"This place is magical, Wong!" the little girl exclaims, as she dances around in her space, looking all over the place.

"Will you show me the library now?" she asks him, giving him a smile she knew for a fact, that he couldn't resist. "Pretty, pretty, please"

Wong looks down at the little girl, perfectly knowing that he can't ignore her urge to visit his library, ever since she first visited Kamar-Taj, under the Ancient One's wish to meet her.

He finally gives in. "Fine"

The girl beneath him squeals in excitement, clapping her hands together as she jumps up and down her place.

"Under one condition" he continues, and the girl stops jumping for once, listening carefully about what he's about to say. "You must be silent, and touch nothing you see. This place here is dangerous"

The girl nods in excitement. "Yes! I won't! I'll behave!"

Only if she knew that that visit would change her life forever.

I open my eyes at the end of the memory, looking back up at Doctor Strange.

"What happend to Wong?" I query, remembering all the days I spent with him as a child.

Doctor Strange shakes his head. "Nothing much, to be honest. He's still the same, I assure you. Nothing has changed"

"All these days, this library actually existed and I never got to visit it until now!" the little girl exclaims excitedly, twirling around the place, her hands in the air.

She kept on walking throughout the library, repeating Wong's one consequence in her head.

Until one thing caught her ultimate attention.

It was unexplainable for a little child, but she thought it was cool, like nothing she's ever seen before.

There were star-shaped blue sparks in the 'restricted section' area of the library, which the little girl didn't notice.

But if it hadn't been already obvious, even if she read the sign, she would've still walked in.

It was the most colorful area of the library, as it was full of books with colors that grabbed her attention. Pink, purple, and indigo too.

And with the potions floating around the space, and the open books, with flying papers.

It was the most magical place her eyes ever experienced.

"The most colorful insects were said to be the most poisonous, but I never believed that, you know. Because colors actually fascinated me. Until I went into that part of the library in Kamar-Taj. And I knew for a fact that my sources weren't wrong"

The little girl didn't break her promise to Wong.

She didn't touch anything.

She didn't do anything wrong.

She only looked in the wrong direction.

But Wong was blamed. Then so was she.

And for what? For meeting the eye of the doomed.

The eye that changed her life forever.

"It's still scary, actually. Everytime I think of it" I slowly speak up, dipping my head down, "I still see that eye in my dream, sometimes. A-and it makes me feel things too, you know? Like.. I don't know how to explain it, but - for example, Peter's spidey sense? That was also one of the effects of the spider bite? Yeah well, it's similar to my case. It warns me, sometimes. And at first, back when I was a kid, I didn't trust it. I never did. Because I thought it cursed me. And I still think so, sometimes, but also, not really?"

"Stop! Stop! Get out of my head!" the girl sobbed, as she sank down to her knees, her eyes now red and puffy from all the tears.

"That's why, Irene, it makes perfect sense to say that it was a set up" Doctor Strange explains. "The effects that eye had on you would've been deadly different to any other person" he continues talking, "and no one ever found out the truth behind your birthgiver's disappearance, either"

"Theoretically, your birth givers wiped the minds of everyone in the world that has ever heard of them, or even read their names somewhere, by a deeply powerful magic spell, the Runes of Kauf-Kaul"

I scoff to myself. "I bet they didn't"

"Sometimes, Irene, it is for the better if the unknown remained unknown" Doctor Strange ends up his talk, until he raised his arm to my leven and added.

"Now, shall we?"