Chapter Four: The Sandman

Posted Oct. 10, 2018

Miles panted as he landed from his climb up the side of the rickety warehouse. He was wearing a hoodie with sunglasses to disguise his identity, but he'd chosen a rather desolate area to practice his spider-powers, so that probably would not be a problem. His phone buzzed as he rubbed his arm. He already knew he had stronger muscles than the fourteen year olds around him since he'd gotten the spider-powers, but clearly he'd have to work up more muscle if he was going to seriously think of himself as a spider-man.

Swiping his password in his phone he read his dad's message.

"What's up? Library too boring for you?"

Miles slapped his forehead, his dad was off work by now and he'd missed him. But… maybe he could get home faster. The library was out past his school and the building he was hanging out in was a couple miles closer than that… maybe he could beat his dad home – especially with the traffic. Spiders could run fast, couldn't they?

"I'm at home, dad," he texted back.

"Already kid?" his dad replied. Miles cringed, he tried to be a good kid, but how could he be a spider-man if he didn't have a secret identity? The other one had to do it too – unless he was a hermit that lived in a sewer or something and never had to answer to anyone about where he had gone.

Miles started running down the street, backpack thumping up and down on his back. The sharp corner of his algebra textbook was digging into his waist. He stopped for a second to rearrange his backpack and looked up around – he wasn't in a very good part of town, signs on the businesses that were still open hinted that they offered illegal things.

He kept this area on his checklist for when he got stronger, right now, he knew he couldn't take out all of those burly dudes at once, maybe one or two, but not all of them. He sped off, and was almost home when he swerved his head over to the sandy bank near the Hudson River. Somehow he knew that something over there was wrong, but he couldn't see anybody. He leapt over a tall chain fence without thinking, Maybe I'm getting used to these spider-powers, he thought. He strutted onto the beach, glowing with confidence. Then he felt it. It was a weird feeling on the back of his head, like someone was watching him.

He had felt it once before, and had moved away just in time before a car had nearly hit him.

Quickly, he looked down at the sand; it couldn't be quicksand since his feet weren't sinking. He stomped on the sand a couple of times, but it felt like it was moving. He jumped to the edge of the sand, delighted at the firm feeling of the wooden pier under his feet.

He gasped as the feeling in the base of his skull got worse. He instinctively whipped around, just in time to see a figure rising out of the sandbar.

The figure kept rising as more and more sand poured off it, but Miles still couldn't make out who it was. The man must be massive, eight, no, nine feet tall. Miles was staring into the man's empty face – it was so creepy that it didn't have eyes yet stared directly at him.

"Who are you?" Miles asked, scooting back, gaze still fixed on crumbly face.

"No one cares who I am," replied the gravelly voice.

"But how are you doing this," Miles said, waving his arms wildly around. "Are you one of those people who was turned into dust?"

But the man of sand didn't say anything, instead he stretched his arm menacingly forward. Miles turned on his heel and started running to the end of the pier, but the sandman followed and soon it grabbed Miles' backpack, and Miles' feet left the boardwalk as the sandman dangled him by his pack over the water.

"Hey!" Miles shouted, trying to kick his feet onto the sandman's arm and slipping his arms out of his backpack. He didn't want to lose his backpack to this monster, but he couldn't fight while hanging from the sandman's grip like a clumsy kitten being carried by its mother.

"You step on me like you are him," the sandman said.

"Look. I don't know what you're talking about," Miles said as he kicked uselessly at the hand.

"You have the powers – the sticky feet – you are him," he scoffed. "The Spider-man."

Miles grunted, kicking more sand off the sandman's hand as he used his spider-powers to cling to the sandy arm.

"Um, maybe if we just talked about this?" Miles said.

In response the sandman reached for Miles with his free hand. Before Miles could think they were sinking and sinking into the beach and Miles barely grabbed a breath before he was pulled into the ground. The sand scratched at his face and got in his ears and his shoes. Just when it was starting to feel hopeless, Miles remembered his other superpower, the venom blast power! Quickly he tried to remember how he'd done it. Was it sort of like rubbing a balloon on your head? He couldn't remember but he had to try something. His hand felt tingly with static as he shoved it as far as he could into the sand.

Then the sand leaped like a volcano, and Miles was tossed, gasping for breath, into the air. He landed with a smack into the mud beside the river, mud sticking to his clothes, he stood up and waded as quickly as he could to the boardwalk.

He'd gone some distance down the boardwalk when he turned and saw nothing.

There was nothing.

It was just as the sandbank had been before.

"Oh no, oh no," Miles said, shaking his head and causing dust to fall out of his hair. "What if I've gone and killed him?"

Now that he had a moment to pause and think he realized that maybe this "sandman" dude was the perfect way to solve the crisis. They could find out what made him survive. Maybe whatever was still holding this guy together could be researched and they'd find a way to bring everyone back. No, that was no good. He doubted his mom would like it if she returned as sentient dust or sand.

But… the earth had some seriously brilliant minds. Forget going upstate, if he could capture this thing and get it to the Wakandan Embassy, they could analyze it and find a cure for this sandman. Then they could probably find a way to bring everyone back! Everyone could come back fully human! If only he could catch the sandman. He stared holes into the sandbank.

Maybe he could find a way to speak to the sandman. Maybe if the sandman wasn't so upset. He spider-crawled to the end of the pier, and, against his better judgement, patted the sandbank with his hand.

Nothing happened.

So, Miles tried again, this time pounding on the sand with his fist.

The sand pulled away from him, ridged like pictures of sand dunes being blown in the desert. But Miles couldn't feel any wind.

"Hey," he shouted. "I know we got off to a bad start, but I need to talk to you."

Silence and stillness. The sandman was waiting for him. There were only two ways off the boardwalk; either Miles walked over the sandbank and risked being trounced by the sandman, or he had to swim across the Hudson. Neither were very appealing. Maybe he could wait the sandman out.

So he waited.

He had waited about twenty minutes when he patted the sand again. "Hey, I'm still here and I'm going to stay here until you talk to me."

He thought for a second. Back before all of the tragedy, he had been Youtube searching for clips of the Spider-man. Mostly he only found videos of people talking about meeting Spider-man, but the main thing they said was that he talked a lot when he was nervous. He'd joke about the baddies while he fought them. Well, Miles might just try talking the sandman to death.

"Listen," Miles continued. "I know you said I was like him; now, I'm not sure what you meant. I'm not Spider-man. I think I might have spider-powers like him, yeah, but I'm not him. I think he's in Wakanda, with the rest of the Avengers." He sighed. "They're trying to solve this crisis and bring everyone back.

"I don't know how you survived turning into dust, or sand, or whatever, but somehow you're still here! And if you could survive, maybe we could get the other people back too."

Miles took a swift glance up into the sky, careful to glance back immediately at the sand to avoid being taken by surprise by the sandman again. "Maybe we're this close – this close – to finding out how to cure you."

Miles took a step back and took a deep breath. "But if you never even let us help you, we can't even try."

He started pacing, "Look, man, I'm just trying to help!"

The sandman's head reared up out of the shoreline and grainy eyes bored into Miles' eyes. "I was turned to sand before anyone was turned to dust. No one cared about me then, and no one will care about me now."

"But-but-but," Miles said, thinking hard. "Everything's changed. If something's different about you then you don't have to hide it anymore. You can use it for good."

"Listen, kid," his scratchy voice groveled back. "When people see me, all that they see is a monster."

"No," said Miles.

"But your hero made me a monster."

"My hero?" Miles shivered.

"Spider-man," the sandman replied. "One evening, I was walking on the beach by Coney Island. I was picking up trash – collecting it to recycle – so I could buy a present for my daughter. Then all of a sudden I heard a massive roar. I looked up and saw Spider-man crashing an airplane into the beach. It broke apart as it rammed past me. Fire and boxes flew everywhere."

The sandman looked around, nervously, "I didn't have time to run. My clothes were burning and my hair was burning and I was trapped under debris and boxes. Then, these glowing things were falling out of the boxes – they looked like that Chitauri stuff – and they started exploding. I don't know what happened after that. When I woke up I was as I am now." He stared at his sand hand as he let it melt away. "At first I couldn't figure out how to move. I was trapped in the beach, watching as Spider-man went around pretending to be a hero and gathering up stuff for Ironman."

"That," said Miles. "That's awful."

"It was Spider-man's fault. I can tell you have spider-powers too."

"I'm really sorry that happened to you," Miles said.

"Sure. Sure. Anyway, I'm not coming with you," the sandman said.

To say Miles was disappointed was an understatement. But maybe he was going about this from the wrong angle. "Your daughter, have you been able to see her?"

"No. She disappeared. And before that I didn't want to scare her."

"I lost my mom, I, um…" Miles shifted on his feet.

"Look, just leave," the sandman replied. He began to move down the bank, away from the pier, away from Miles. Despondently, Miles headed home.

When he got to his street he checked their mailbox. It was empty, so his dad must've already gotten the mail. Pulling his hood over his face he glanced both ways before stealthily leaping onto the side of the apartment building. He crawled into the bathroom window and started the shower. Hopefully his dad hadn't noticed his absence.

"MILES!" his dad called through the door. "When did you get back?"

Miles pretended he couldn't hear his dad over the noise of the shower as it pulled all the bits of sand from his hair.

A/N: So, I was feeling upset over Infinity War and I started re-watching the Maguire Spider-man movies. I was watching SM3 when I got to the end and the sandman just drifts away in sandstorm through NYC. The intent is different, but the effect looked the same as our heroes turning to dust in Infinity War.

Anyway, if you're reading this story, and possibly read my other fanfics, you can probably guess I write too much for tragic characters. The sandman is such a tragic character.

I hope you liked this chapter. R&R!