The photo shoot seemed to drag on for eternity.
Gwen Stacy, with an obviously forced smile plastered over her face, gently caressed the photo copier on which she sat on. She briefly wondered if she looked as big of an ass as she felt she did. She was groping a goddamn copier for chrissakes! Did they even need people in these photos? The photographer however did not complain and seemed not to notice the stiffness in her motions. "Okay I've got a secret Gwen… IT'S MY COPIER!"
Gwen widened her smile, glancing up at the clock on the wall. She was almost done and she be walking out of this place with the two-hundred dollars tucked safely away in her purse. She flashed the camera a dazzling smile, flashbulbs going off around her. The photographer, Mario, was ecstatic, a huge grin threatening to split his face apart. But Gwen watched his smile flicker and fade as he adjusted the camera.
"What is that.. thing.. doing in my background?" He stomped his foot on the tile in annoyance. All eyes turned toward the windows, which had featured a spectacular New York City view, eighty-two stories up off the ground. Gwen craned her neck as the midday sun glared against the large glass windows behind her. Shifting her weight and easing off the copy machine she took a step toward the window watching as what appeared to be a large steel beam swung through the air. Gwen stared. What the hell… she thought and then as horror seized her body, she saw the beam drop down, lurching toward the window.
Everyone threw themselves onto the ground as the girder sliced through the glass, shards exploding everywhere. There were screams. Gwen lifted her head up cautiously. It was gone. And the wreckage it left behind had been monumental. The entire office had been torn apart, light fixtures hung loosely from the ceiling, sparks flying from the open circuits. Gwen pulled herself up inspecting her body for cuts or scrapes.
One of the other models lay beside her and Gwen helped her to her feet and she did the same body inspection. A light breeze now rustled Gwen's hair, papers being sucked out into the clear blue sky. It seemed the intermediate danger was gone. Gwen and the other woman, Dehlia I think Gwen thought, began to turn around as it was painfully obvious that the photo shoot was finished.
"It's coming back!" Mario had been the first to notice as he looked over his camera making sure it was still in working condition. Now he stood with a trembling finger pointed toward a looking shadow, eyes wide as saucers.
Dropping down in a full arch, the crane fell out of view as it disappeared below the eighty-second floor. Gwen decided she didn't want to stick around to find out where it was going and if it was going to strike again. Turning on her heel she ran thinking where the fuck is the person operating it? Below her she could hear the windows blow out as the head of the crane collided with the glass and the support structures.
Gwen inched her way around a desk just as the supports gave way on the floor beneath. She was thrown forward as the ground swayed and titled at a clean forty-five degree angle. Dehlia had managed to snag the helping hand of Mario as the rest of the tile crumpled under the weight like a thin sheet of loose-leaf paper, desks and chairs and everything else that wasn't bolted to the floor flew out the large opening. Gwen let out a high-pitched shriek as she slid back the whole threatening to swallow her whole. She slapped her palms uselessly against the tile but this slowed her down for only a short minute before she slid away, kicking and screaming.
At the last possible second her flailing hands found the telephone cord which had fallen from a desk. Gwen's leather boots found the edge of the collapsing flooring as the cord stretched out to its limits. Maybe it will hold and someone can climb down and rescue me she thought hopefully. But the cord snapped and with a scream Gwen was yet again falling toward the edge.
In her last desperate attempt to save herself from certain death, Gwen dug her fingernails into the edge and she jerked to a stop again, her feet dangling over the open air. She dared a look back over her shoulder.
Gwen Stacy screamed.
This is it, I'm going to die. She thought grimly.
The next five minutes or so were painfully long as Gwen's arms screamed in pain and her legs pumped the air that led to an almost ninety-story drop. Every five seconds she glanced down at the busy intersection, where traffic had come to a screeching halt when the debris had fallen onto, and into the paths of the moving vehicles. She could see the police cars below and tiny specks that were civilians. Maybe Dad's down there; she thought and concentrated on the image of her father's face.
She looked away, the muscles in her arms weakening with each passing second. She desperately hoped the rescue team would reach her before it was too late. She looked up, hoping against hope to see them dash through the doors and release a rope or whatever the hell they did. But instead her eyes widened and she choked out a scream when a large file drawer rolled down the slope and collided with her frail body.
She plummeted, dropping two stories before she reached out and grabbed onto the remaining section of the busted window frame. As soon as her added weight pulled on the frame she saw tiny bolts and rivets eject forward and all at once her only hope of survival swung out over the intersection, Gwen clinging with only her fingers to support her. She screamed again, swinging her legs back and forth, beyond hysterical.
Everything seemed so loud now. The falling apart of the building, the faint howl of the sirens below, the even fainter screams of bystanders of the street and the whir of the oncoming crane. Gwen looked down, eye's eyes widened, hot tears streaming down her cheeks and the crane bulldozed upward, ripping apart the exterior of the building.
Giving her last ounce of strength, Gwen attempted to heave herself up from the frame of the window, thinking franticly that maybe she could jump from the frame onto the floor getting her back to where she started again. But the crane had reached her, slamming into the building, rocking the beam and jerking Gwen from her precarious perch.
With what she was certain was her final scream she fell, wind whipping her face, the tears streaming down now in a steady flow. She was sobbing, kicking her legs, waving her arms, screaming, all useless in her attempt to survive the fall. She thought of her father, her mother. She thought about all the time she'd wasted at Empire University studying to be a scientist. It would be no help to her now.
And she thought of Peter. He was so out of place in her thoughts she was surprised she'd even remembered him. Now she'd never get to see him again. Her view of the sky was blocked by a falling chunk of masonry. She closed her eyes. She had stopped screaming. She had stopped fighting.
A strong pair of arms wrapped around her body, gently all the same as if she was hugging a family member, or a friend or loved one. Gwen opened her eyes.
Red and blue.
Oh my god she thought giddily it's Spider-Man!