The car ride is long as I'm travelling down from the traffic-filled roads of New York, over to the quieter neighborhoods, never keeping my eyes off of the small but fast flying Spider-man above the buildings. But before getting in the car, I had decided to call my brother first.
"We're from the police department. We've got this place surrounded." Said the officers that had begun surrounding the Library building at the time. The phone call had lead to voice mail after numerous rings.
"Nate, are you okay? You weren't anywhere near the Library, were you? Never mind. Just stay home." I had felt like our mother... "Uh..." I wanted to add something less suspicious, but I thought of nothing. "Okay. Bye." Was what I ended with.
Now, I stand at a closed—or abandoned?—Carnival, and notice the dusk state of the sky for the first time.
There is no one in the Carnival but an old gent who appears to be reading a newspaper. I pause at the gate, the greenery is already charcoal and two-dimensional and the grey path is melting into the night. I shiver despite the humid air at the sight of the closed, abandoned looking park. For what used to be a festival filled with laughter and joyous families, a place where you would pay money to go, now looks like the set of a horror film when it's silent at dusk. But that man, just sitting there, how can he even see the print on his paper? I resolve to walk quickly; the cheap black runners I'd bought moves quietly over the tarmac until I step on a twig or dried leaf left over from fall. It's almost dark and the air is humid, which somehow exerts repulsion on me, especially with the yellow lights that subtly illuminates the area with an eerie atmosphere. The sounds of rusty metal that clashes together against the wind is haunting. The scenic view and the feel of an empty, closed Carnival no doubt sends off an omnibus vibe. Without letting my imagination go anywhere in that department, I keep it focused on the sound of either Spider-man or the Goblin.
I don't want to stare but my eyes repeatedly flicks to the man, so still, so decrepit... until the menacing laughter of the Goblin echoes from the building far back, and the expression of the man's face looks like pure terror before he scatters off. And as he runs, so do I, although toward the danger rather than away. Oh, the irony. The sounds of that unpleasant, devilish voice had come straight from the brown, bricked tower that is bearing an oversized, defective clock at the top of it. Walking silently into the big, bricked tower, I stop beside the two doors that lead inside a stage room. I hear it. He is... talking to himself, but his voice sounds different as you can easily distinguish which is the Goblin's and which is Norman Orsbor—Holy shit! It is Dr. Osborn. I lean in closer to the door, intrigued to hear. Another side of my mind is thinking; where is Peter?
"Hundreds of people - you killed them!" cries Norman Osborn.
"We killed them!" hisses the Goblin.
"We?"
"Remember? Your little "accident" in the laboratory...?"
"The performance enhancers..."
"Bingo. Me! Your greatest creation. Bringing you what you've always wanted: power beyond your wildest dreams and it's only the beginning. There is only one who could stop us, since he refused to join us..."
Peter was invited to team up with this guy? I shake my head. Oh no, it's not like I would have liked to have known this. Thank you so much Peter for the details!
I take a peak through the gap of the door and watch Norman's fearful face, and then the Goblin bares his teeth in an utterly manic grin as he turns around to a place I can't see.
"Why don't you just give up?" The Goblin shouts.
"Because I know your secret. I know whose face is behind that mask." Says Spider-man.
The Goblin roars an echoing laughter in the empty room. "We all wear masks, Spider-man. But which one is real? The one that hides your face, or the one that is your face?"
"I think you're misinterpreting the definition of mask, Gobby." He jokes and the Goblin growls at the sarcastic remark. "But I appreciate the metaphorical meaning, very deep..."
Spider-man dodges an old piano that flew harshly at him, and sticks onto the opposite side of the wall.
"Does... Harry know about this?" Spider-man asks, the concern obvious in his tone. The Goblin ignores this, having enough of the questions and flies in for an attack. I flinch whenever his sharp knuckles power through the brick walls whenever Spider-man dodges them.
"No parents," Goblin hisses, "No uncle... you're all alone."
He's not alone.
He took the fight lightly as if it were a joke, like he always did, until the Goblin spoke those words, and they both come crashing through the door, revealing me.
They both stare at me in shock. All signs of amusement is gone on Spider-man from the vibe of his now stronger, more determined movements. When the Goblin starts to take the sudden move toward me, Spider-man uses his webs to pull and sling him backward, away from me. But his eyes are still on me when the Goblin batters his hard metal arm across his face, causing him to be thrown to the ground. He looks up at me almost immediately, and I notice that his mask is ripped a bit around his left eye. I feel horrible. The guilt is like gasoline in my guts.
"No!" I hear Spider-man shout before I am taken into the air by the Goblin. He's fast and swift as we glide through the air, the movements always looked rather graceful on his board, yet I feel like my body has to bend and shape in ways that hurt my poor flexibility skills as we fly. I'm not surprised, as I expected this to happen beforehand. Where I had stood, there was no point in running, which would only be a waste of breath. Instead, I had thought quickly this time and shoved my arm into my bag and grabbed hold of a particular metal weapon... which I am now still searching for. Spider-man continues to chase after us and my hair is constantly thrown at my face against the wind.
"Let her go, Norman!" shouts Spider-man.
"Norman's not here!" he screams in utter fury.
"Pe—" Shit, I almost said his name. "It's okay!" I try shouting to him. He's close behind, but the Goblin is faster.
"Okay!" The Goblin repeats. "Not yet you wont be!" Goblin roars in a loud cackle and stops mid air. "Tell me, Spider-man, does she hold any sentimental value to you?"
"No, just in the wrong place at the wrong time—put her down!" Spider-man lies.
After a struggle—since my bag is crushed uncomfortably to my side—my hand finally clasps around what I've been looking for. I take out the gun I kept from my Dad, which was only meant for emergencies of course. Nobody knows I have it. I had picked it out of the box that was placed carefully under the seat of my car before I came in. I assume Spider-man can see it in my hands, but I can tell that the Goblin hasn't noticed just yet. Scanning my eyes over his hover board, I notice the bombs that are stored in it, and I take note on where it would be to demolish this piece of annoying thing, without actually blowing us all up. Like the fool I am, you can imagine that happening. I quickly bend over and aim for the fiery, blazing green fire at the back.
The Goblin howls as I successfully fire at his board, and the right side of the machine starts to malfunction and fall apart. Everything is starting to go black. I find myself falling in this darkness, hurtling to an invisible floor, a floor that would most likely kill me if I continue to fall at this speed... though I'm of course, gently dropped to the ground by a swing of a web. I watch the Goblin drop to the floor and explode with anger from the other end of the room, his broken hover board in his arms.
I didn't hear it at first; the noise far back is buried by the ugly screaming howls of the Goblin. But Spider-man's head turns to analyze the building, and I hear it again... a strange, high pitch wailing. The sound is unfathomable. It's a sound that is like a million of things, and nothing at once.
"Can you hear that?" I turn to Spider-man beside me with widened eyes.
"Yeah." He replies.
I feel a cold breeze and notice that I now stand alone. Glancing back at the Goblin, I find Spider-man seizing him against the ground with his strong webs.
"What is that?" He asks furiously.
The Goblin begins to laugh, and Spider-man throws off his green metal mask. I walk closer to get a better look at Norman's face. He's still smiling. There's a terrifying resemblance from his creepy grin and the mask's incredibly large one.
"He's... coming!" He cackles again.
"Who?"
There's the screeching sound again. I come to find myself stepping backwards. Spider-man turns behind him to check that I have hidden, and nods when he sees that I have. My father's gun had fallen on the other side of the room. Damn it.
I watch—from a large stack of boxes—a dark figure stand in the entrance, and it's beginning to walk in slowly. When he steps out of the shadow, his face mirrors the face of Spider-man, only black. They're almost identical if It weren't for the color, and... His face grows a mouth that was just a second ago nonexistent, and he screeches that horrible noise we were just hearing... that, too. They're the same, but not quite so.
"Denying my offer has been the wrong choice for you, you will come to see. But I don't mind all too much! I have someone better... in your place." Goblin speaks slow and deep, and he ends his speech with a hoarse laugh.
Spider-man continues to stare at the dark figure curiously, as the Goblin continues.
"This one was created by myself, but what I didn't have to create is his rage, and hate for the famous Spider-man. There's nothing more powerful than the determination of revenge. His name; is Venom."
"Yeah, yeah. Let mommy and daddy talk for a second." Spider-man shoots a web that wraps around the Goblins mouth to shut him up.
"Venom, huh?"
"I have been looking for you." The black figurespeaks a thousand voices at once, all the octaves and pitches harmonizingtogether that make the hairs on my arm stand. "But we've got to admit," Venom studies him up and down. "We're unimpressed."
"Yet, look where the inspiration came from." Spider-man gestures to the black figure's suit which mirrors his own. I'd laugh, if I weren't so terrified and confused. "Who gave you the permission to look like me? And then... not?"
He attempts to rip the suit off of the black figure with his webs, and it rips apart only a little, but the black crawls like a real spider back up the body and attaches itself back on.
I stare in utter dismay. Venom, it's no longer a black figure of a man as it grows wider and taller as if the dark particles of the suit were multiplying rapidly by the second. It screams with its new, gigantic mouth, its teeth and tongue flashing like a shark and a lizard in a very, very big standing form. Spider-man shoots his web at its mouth and the noise shuts off, for only a second, until another mouth appears inside the black stomach. He hesitates in shock just as I have. There's got to be someone in there, right?
Spider-man most likely thought of the same thing, as his first move was to pull apart the black creature. Is such a thing possible to create in a mere science lab? It can't be! Screams and crashes of the bricked walls echoed all around the room and my whole body is tense as I watch them. I catch the sight of brown hair a few times among all of the darkness. Or at least I think I have. Could it be Harry? No, Peter would know by now if it is. But it's the only option I have in mind. Who knows what Norman could do to his son in this state? I jump when Spider-man crashes to my side, and he struggles to pull himself up with exhaustion.
"What the hell?" I whisper to him from behind the boxes.
"Definitely organic, alive, and jumping from host to host... like... a symbiote!"
"Like... in biology last semester?"
He nods. "Yes, someone seems to be in there but I don't know who... Here's my time to kick his ass for taking my suit design idea."
"Peter, be careful. You don't know what he's capable of... Could it be Harry—ah!" A scream escapes my throat when the symbiote lurches on top of the boxes, staring down at us with a screech. It looks at me for a moment, and shuts its mouth, but it doesn't make any sudden move to do anything else as it looks at me, in fact it appears to be rather harmless before it snaps out of its trance and jumps to attack me, but fails as Spider-man pulls him away with his webs. He let me go quite easily. Revenge. I remember Norman's words. This isn't about me.
Norman. An idea occurs in my head.
I run out from behind the boxes and over to the other side of the large building, and I nearly figure it's a bad idea when Spider-man and Venom end up coming to my direction as well, but they land just in front of me. By the way they fight, Peter should end up with broken bones by now if he weren't as strong as he is, and I can't help but flinch whenever he gets smashed against the building. He swings Venom through the brick wall and half of the building nearly collapsed. A large hole is now remaining from the impact of the throw. Venom is outside. My plan is becoming clearer and clearer now.
"Meredith, I mean it this time when I say it—this is your time to run. Get out of here. I'll take care of it." Peter sounds awful, he speaks between each breath and by the way his revealed eye droops, he is just about to pass out. I just look at him silently and he leaves, out through the large hole. I'm not going to ignore my plan.
Taking one of the Goblins explosive balls, I run outside into the Carnival and shout, "Try and pull it apart from him!" as loud as I can. Spider-man doesn't turn my way but listens anyway. I'm beginning to think that it wouldn't work, as Venom starts to fight with such rage that he looks impossible to defeat.
"Can't we just talk?" Asks Spider-man, struggling to keep out of Venoms grasp and strong, black webs.
"Talk? Argh! You killed him!" Venom wails in rage.
"Who?"
"You know who! You will perish, you have to!" he cries with his numerous voices. When Venom speaks his words, it seems to act like a distraction because at the last word, Spider-man pulls on the black so far back that I can actually see the back of the figure inside it. Pressing on the button of the bomb, I throw it toward the thrashing black creature at the last second and run as far as I can. The hot force pushes me forward and I fall atop of my forearms harshly against the ground. Turning immediately, I see that Venom is currently on fire. Venom keeps pulling the man who is trying to get away from the fire, and they go back and forth at being separate, and being joined in by force of the black symbiote and they thrash about together in a heap of madness.
I catch Spider-man running toward me as fast as he can. "Meredith!" He shouts. Coming from inside the building, the broken hover board comes flying toward me, and when it finally hit, I cry out in pain. It's all fast, but I feel a stab at my side and I scream Peters name. It lifts me into the air and I eventually manage to separate my body from it. I land quickly on top a large Ferris Wheel, grabbing hold of the rusty white bars as hard as I can. I can see Peter swinging to get me, but the Goblin reappears and grabs hold of him. I watch them fight in horror. Peter was the one in pure rage now for the first time tonight as he fought the Goblin. He finally throws the Goblin unconscious and pushes him toward the tower where Venom is inside—possibly still whirling about on fire.
...
I look once more to the boy I love and he looks up at me, kneeling on his knees and struggling to get back up. I look down at him from above, sitting on top of the Ferris wheel with no chair and nothing to hold onto but the bars. My lips form his name, but nothing came out. It was barely a whisper. He had looked as if so close to dying, my face crunched from the amount of tears that dried up my cheeks. The fight I just saw him go through had been more painful to watch than the cut in the side of my waist. He had always reassured me that he didn't feel pain as much as I thought he did, but that didn't do anything to stop me from worrying. His mask is off and I can see his beautiful face, the face of Peter Parker. I picture him with those nerdy glasses he used to wear, and despite the pain coming from my wound; I smile. Clutching onto the side of my hip where a deep gash slashes into my skin, I watch Peter as he fights the urge to pass out and begin to stand. I shake my head at him but he still struggles to get to me. His dark chestnut hair is sticking up in every direction in a gravity defying mess; the hair that I love to run my fingers through is the color that matched the brown in his eyes. Two, three shoots of his webs, and grabbing hold of the bars; he pulls himself up and starts climbing the Ferris wheel. I cringe every time he looses his balance and nearly falls, leaving blood handprints on the white bars from his ripped Spider-Man gloves. Crap. I just wish I could fly down, watching him climb to get me, in the condition he's in, is utterly unbearable.
"Mere!" he shouts to me. "You're gonna have to jump!" Oh, god. Oh, god. He knows how I'm not good at the height stuff. "Can you do that for me?" his voice is strong, and showing no signs of weakness. It could just be a mask to reassure me he's fine, but I nod anyway. Closing my eyes and gathering all the stupid bravery I have left, I push myself off into the air and watch as Peter jumps, too. With his hands out, he wraps his arms around me and cocoons me into his arms. Spinning twice, three times, we land.
With his back to the ground, and me unharmed.
...
The tower begins to collapse; first the clock dings and the top of the building begins to fall apart, now progressively the bricks start to collapse down on each other in a heap of mess. I stare at it with wide eyes, and my gaze flicker to the hole in front of me, that entered inside the room.
I can see the Venom being burned apart, and slowly the creature recoils like it can feel the heat, wrinkling around the burn. And there, the man that stands beside it is watching me. The boy. I can't believe my eyes.
I stand staring at the hole in the collapsing building and at my brother, Nathan, as he's about to be crushed along with it.