He sat up in bed with such speed that the icy winter air buzzed in his ears. His other senses returned slowly. The blackness around him separated into misty shades of gray and blue. There was the tingle of January wind on his skin, as it blasted through the far open window.
Open window?
Peter Parker swung his legs over the side of his bed and pushed himself up. He had thought himself a much wiser man than to leave any windows open in his New York apartment. He made his way across the room cautiously, sliding his feel across the wooden floor, rather than risk stepping on something small and sharp. Along the way, his sense of smell returned, as bums burned garbage in the street below. Peter brushed aside the billowing white curtains and looked up at the open patches of night sky: black and starless. It was beginning to snow.
Peter wrapped his arms around himself, shivering as a gust of wind showered his face with flurries. Unexpected was the moisture in his palms, at the touch of his sleeve. Peter stepped deeper into the moonlight and he looked down at his sweater. It was sopping wet, sticking like a second skin. So saturated was the blue fabric, it had turned purple. Peter staggered backward, catching one of the curtains with his trembling fingers. It was enough to steady him as he turned toward his dresser.
A thin shadow passed across the wall. Without sound or wind, the window behind him slid shut. Peter spun around, squinting feverishly. The ghostly dances of the fires below flickered in the panes of glass and the frigid air was sour in his mouth. A bead of sweat rolled around his eye and down the length of his nose. "Who's there?" a voice called into the darkness, and, although it was his own, Peter was suddenly drowning in confusion and panic. "You know who I am!" he screamed in reply to himself, the words bursting through his locked jaw and rigid lips, with a searing pain that left his face numb.
He took his own chin in his hand, forcing his face to the mirror hanging over the sink on the opposite wall. The image that stared back was nothing but his own, dripping wet and pale. His lips were nearly as white at his chattering teeth. Knots of stringy hair clung to his forehead, like the twisted fingers of some nightmarish creature attacking from behind. In his clammy palm, the heat of his face was like glowing metal. Peter lurched forward, thinking solely of a desperation for water, but the floor seemed to tilt beneath his feet. The walls of the room closed in, circling and bobbing like vultures awaiting his final breath.
The last thing Peter saw in the mirror--before the floor was all that existed--were a pair of white eyes, staring at him from behind the window. He clawed at the wooden floor with his fingernails, screaming for help as the room tried to shake him off. If he leg go, Peter knew he would fall; and he knew there would be nothing below to catch him.
How long he remained that way, spinning and scraping, Peter did not know, but everything stopped with the abrupt force of a rusty braked roller coaster, all but throwing him forward onto the wall. He stayed down, filling his lungs so deeply with the bitter air that his ribs could not meet the demand for room. The metallic taste of blood seeped into Peter's mouth. He was ill, he knew; very ill, and the allure unconsciousness was seductively sweet. He surrendered to the weight of his eyelids, as his breath became shallow, passing through his parted lips with an unanticipated, but gentle heat. Perhaps he was even smiling, as he embraced the floor, learning from its stillness.
Peter closed his eyes and relinquished control to the fever. It could have its way with him until morning. In the hours that followed, he was thrown violently in and out of sleep; but while his dreams were spent in a endless, black void, the time he spent awake were moments of ID awareness. He was not alone. There was a presence with him: it was the fever, it was a ghost, it was a living person with a past, present, and future. It touched Peter with icy fingers, it kissed him with a warm mouth. From great heights, Peter would fall into sleep, and the presesnce would leave him. When he awoke, he discovered it waiting patiently for his return.
At sunrise, after a particularly long period of senseless dreams, Peter woke to find the visitor gone and his fever broken. He pushed himself up to his knees, tugging his damp clothing until it separated it from his skin. He pulled his sweater over his head and knelt on the floor, surveying the damage done to the room. A glass had fallen from the sink and shattered, without his realizing it during the night. His blankets had been thrown from the bed into a pile on the floor, but the window was shut and locked. He rubbed his eyes and took hold of the rim of the sink, pulling himself up to the mirror. Blood had returned with ferocity to his lips and cheeks.
He was alone, but Peter knew that once he was dressed and ready for the day, there wouldn't be time to think about it. Life had a way of doing that to him. So, he gathered the pieces of glass, sorting out everything he could remember about the pervious night. He wondered if maybe he had been dreaming the entire time, and that he really had been alone. The fever was probably high enough to produce a detailed hallucination. There was nothing in the room that suggested any visitors. Of course, Peter Parker knew from experience, that if something had taken an interest in him, it would likely find him again.