The following is a preview for the direct sequel to this story, Spider-Man: Nobody Home!
Spider-Man along with Raven, Nightwing, and Batman stood inside a waiting room at Arkham asylum. The three Titans waited quietly behind the Bat as he set up the appointment they had come for at the front desk. Fear and unease filled Peter as he anticipated what he was about to find. Would this person be of any help to them if he was locked in a place like this?
The four of them quickly started down the hallway to the left of the desk. They walked past room after room down the silent hallway, without so much as a syllable heard from the other side of them. Eventually they stopped when Batman found a door with a name card next to it that read, 'A. Leigh'.
"This is it." Batman nodded to Peter. "You go first."
"Me?" Peter replied with surprise. "But YOU'RE the interrogation guy, not me."
"This man is in a fragile state." Batman argued. "He'll be more cooperative with something familiar."
Peter shrugged at that. "I guess you're right." He replied, and took a step closer to the door. "Here goes nothing, I guess."
Peter opened the door, only to see an all white room with padded walls and a single mattress on the floor. A man hunkered down in the corner of the room, his arms bound in a straight jacket. Peter took a few steps into the room with the other three, stepping inside and closing the door behind them.
"M-Mister Leigh?" Peter called, only to be met with silence from the man. Peter hesitated, before making a few more uneasy steps toward the man. "Allen Leigh?"
"You're not real." The man grumbled. "Nothing is real."
Peter gave his companions an uneasy look, but they gave him an encouraging nod.
"Mister Leigh... It's me... Spider-Man." Peter said.
The man's head lifted at that. "Spider-Man?" He looked back at him, revealing him to be a blonde haired green eyed man in his mid thirties. "You're not real! YOU'RE NOT REAL!" He screamed in terror, trying with all his might to scramble away from the four heroes.
"Easy easy!" Peter said with his hands held out. "I'm not gonna hurt you. I just wanted to ask a few questions."
"I followed your trail." The man said with an insane laugh. "I followed you into eternity. I did it!"
Peter looked back to his friends with an uneasy shrug as the man rocked back and forth in the corner of the room. Then he turned back to the man.
"Mister Leigh." Peter began. "I wanted to ask you... About the rooms."
"Rooms!" The man screamed with terror. "Room! Rooms! Rooms! Everything is a fucking room!"
Peter felt immense pity from seeing the man this way and felt bad for simply speaking to him.
"Mister Leigh-"
"I had a home once." Leigh continued in an ominous tone. "A manor overlooking the sea."
"Mister Leigh." Dick began, before he too was interrupted.
"Upon the world, this was a vestige." Leigh continued, staring incoherently at the floor. Peter and his companions went silent as they continued listening to the man's ramblings. "Calling forward onto strangled ears... But when the skies turned dark, the house was taken by the sea... A pillar truncated... Cast down to the seabed with all the other forgotten things." Peter looked back to Dick and Raven, who both shrugged with confusion. "But I remember... Fleeting shells sinking ever slowly... Folding downwards into themselves... Forever tearing along the seams of the sky... Until nothing remains except the eternal ghost... And you ask yourself... Could there be anything greater than this?"
"It's no use." Batman replied with a grim tone. "He's gone." He waved for the young heroes to follow him as he turned to leave.
Peter stopped and looked back to the man, who now held an uneasy eye contact with him. "You have ALWAYS been here."
A/N: To read the rest of the story, check out Spider-Man: Nobody Home! Available now!