I felt like I had been hit by a Mac truck.
The world was dizzying. Sickening. In Peters sleep like state he felt able to think and remember. Was he dead? Asleep? Or .. was he somewhere else. He remembered his parents. Before they had died. He was only six when it happened. Plane crash. They were on their way back to the states, and the plane engine gave out. 124 died. 2 of them knew and loved and cared for Peter. He had been staying with Aunt May and Uncle Ben, when they got the call. He stayed living with them ever since. He didnt want to die. Not now. Not here. NOt with that stupid spider. He would have cried if it were possible. Then suddenly, he felt a -
"CLEAR!!!!" Parkers body convulsed. The difibulator sent a tremendous shcok through his system, and his eyes snapped open. Air filled his lungs. He looked up at the gasping for air. He was scared. Didn't know what to think. What to say. Norman peeked down at him. "PARKER!" He patted the boy on the back. "CONGRATULATIONS! YOUR ALIVE!" Harry was standing there smiling, releived. Norman Smirked. "I wasn't sure where you lived, or what your number was. So I never called you parents." Pete breathed heavily. "Thats... ok. My Aunt May would have been worried sick." Norman looked over at the window. "Its getting dark. You rest. And we'll get you home in a little while. We just need to run blood work. Make sure your fine." He looked at the doctor and gave him a suspicious little nod. The doc nodded back, his dark sunglasses covering his eyes. He walked over to Peter, and got ready to drain a sample. "This will only hurt a little bit Mr. Parker." He took the blood from Peter. And was on his way.
Osbourn walked down the hall behind the doctor with the sunglasses. "You MAKE SURE I get these results Otto." The man nodded. "Do not worry Norman. It will be fine. If my theory is correct... the spider's venom may actually awaken this boys X gene. Or kill him. Maybe both." Norman laughed. "Well I don't want a law suit on my hands." Otto laughed. "right now. A law suit is gonna be the last of your worries." Norman peered at the doctor. "Listen Octavius. If you DARE go against me and THIS company. I WILL make your life hell. And that little project of yours? I'll cut the funding in the blink of an eye. You understand me." Otto nodded. "I understand."
Peter felt sick. He wanted to go back to sleep. But somehow he could not. It was too hard to do. Harry smiled at him. "Hey Pete. You feeling ok ?" Parker shook his head. He felt like shit. Only for the time being though. Unbeknownst to him though, deep down inside him, his body was changing. Neurons were firing, he was slowly begining to mutate. His X gene had become undormant, and witht he combinations of the spiders, irradiated venom, they formed a gene all their own. Peter was sweating. It felt as if the muscles in his body were tensing up, and releasing. Quickly intensely. Sleep suddenly came upon him.
When he awoke he was alone in his bed, at home. "Uhhhh..." Aunt May walked into the room. "PETER! YOUR AWAKE!" It was the next day. But he barely realized that. "OHTHANKHEAVENS!" She spoke in a very cluttered manner. "Mr. Osbourn said you had an accident. The nice doctor said you would be fine though. How do you feel?" Parker moaned. He thought he was going to throw up. He stumbled out of bed. But fell to the floor. Vomit spewing from his mouth. He was getting dizzy. Frustrated. And again he was out like a light.
The next time he came to was that evening. Peter felt as if he was dying. His body was changing, and the effects were terrible on him. Vomitting. Diareah. A fever. He wasn't sure but he thought he was losing quite abit of weight. Of cours ehe had no problem with that. Seeing as he was always somewhat overweight to begin. Maybe the loss would be good. He was hallucinating though. The dramtic loss of body fat, lack of nutition, the fever. It was all taking its toll. And a terrible toll it was. The sweating was endless. Eventually he missed to week from school. Of course catching up was as simple as anything to him. Someitme around the second week he got better. Visits from Doctor Octavius and Norman Osbourn were constant. And everytime they came, Peter thought he saw something on their faces. SOmething that told him they were up to no good. It was a frustating feeling. He didnt want to die.
Once he had started to get better though, it came in buckets. In fact. He was better than ever. IT FELT GREAT! He had energy. Stamina. Everything. Some if it, he never even had before. In fact he had lost a substantial amount of weight to boot. 25 pounds. The doctor had said it was a miracle that his body hadnt had some sort of breakdown, due to the sudden weight loss. Harry visited him constantly. Peter was glad to know that he had at least made some sort of real friend for once in his life.
The energy I was filled with was substantially unbeleivable. It was like I had suddenly become this athlete or something. Everything changed for me. Then one day, I noticed something in particular. If you felt what I felt that day.... you would have noticed to.
It was crazy, but several days before Pete was gettign ready to head back to school something happened. He was laying on his bed. Reading a comic book. When his body convulsed. He had no explanation for it. But it kept happening. His muscles tensed like crazy. This had happened every so often since the spider bite, but now it was the most intense. of all. Blood pumped and rushed through his body. Everything cringed and ached, he thought he was going to burst. Felt like he was going ot die. He screamed out in pain. Holding his sides. Aunt May's footsteps hurried upstairs "PETER ARE YOU OK!" She burst into the room. And found Pete on the floor. Laying there. screaming in agony. "BEN!" She called to her husbands. She went to touch Pete, but out of reflex his hand shot up, and smashed to pieces a bed post. She was shocked, afraid. Ben came into the room. and saw what was going on. He moved towards Peter, to help him. But Parker scurried away. His back arched, his muscles practically exploded. "STAY AWAY! I DONT WANT TO - AHHHHHHHHHHHH!!!" HE cried out. Digging his hands into the wall. He did not realize it though. He thought perhaps it had been the floor. When he started to crawl. His fingers smashed through the dry wall, paint chips all over the floor. His other hand moved up. Some kind of liquid seemed to excrete slightly from his finger tips. He was crawling. On the wall. Aunt May screamed in terrible fright. Ben stared, astonished. Pete was uncompletely unaware of waht he was doing. "ARRRRRGHHHHHHHHH!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!" He screamed. Painfully. Tearing chunks of wall out. People down on the street could hear. They looked at the house. A group of neighbors were gathering. Pete, not in control of himself, leapt towards the window. SMASH! Glass shattered, but he moved so quickly that the mob had no more than a glimpse at him.
He landed ont he roof of the house next door. It was all instinct driving him. Nature was calling him. He took flight across house tops. Leaping from the peeks, as a spider would. He could see the world around him, speeding by. How fast was he moving? He landed on a rooftop, in a spider-like stance, hands clinging to the roof. Feet keeping a grip. He was barefoot. And from his feet excreted the same liquid that came from his hands. He scuttled around. Now he was becoming concious of what was going on. He began to breathe heavily. It was frightening. He could see, in the distance, the group of spectators. Of course, he was too far away for them to identify him. That is if they hadnt seen him go out the window. What was he to do? He didn't know what to do. He just ran, crawled rather. Like a bolt of lightning throught he sky. He moved, awkwardly, yet agile. He barely knew what he was doing. Except deep down, his gut, his instinct told him what to do and how to do it. And so the spider headed towards the wild. The URBAN jungle,
' I really had no idea what I was doing. All I knew was that I had to escape. I needed to see the big buildings. Scale them. Understand myself through nature, although a city isn't exactly nature. Of course, to a spider... it is.
Peter was perched atop the Chrysler building. He had been running, and jumping and crawling for hours. Yet he had not tired of it. He looked at the city below him. It was beautiful. He then turned his gaze towards his arm. There was a gash there, he had gotten it on some barbed wire. That had been a half hour ago. Of course now, that gash had closed. In fact. Before his eyes it was slowly dissapearing. He could not explain it. He sat. To think. To know. To understand. The wind blew in his face, messing his hair. In the distance the sun had begun to set. Everything sank in. He formulated, ideas and theories about these abilites. Like any normal scientist. Of course, the gut instinct that led him was now telling him what happened. And with only some of his inginuity, and remembering several books he had once read. He came up with the most logical theory. Plain and simple:
A man by the name of Proffesor Xavier, a leader in the mutant community, had written several books all of which I have read. So remembering the X gene he talked about so avidly I came up with an obvious solution. Doctor Bruce Banner had an accelerated X gene due to his gamma exposure. Which turned him into the Hulk. Well I had an accelerate X gene due to the spider venom which had slowly made its way through my system. The venom had suffered massive irradiation, which could have killed me easily. But didn't. I have led myself to beleive that my X gene had already been more awake than a normal person, and it counter acted with the spider bite. My X gene perhaps would have only awakened in my children, assuming I had any. Since the bite and the gene combined though, my evolution was sped up faster than a normal mutant. Any ability that I would have taken on as a regular mutant was enhanced, and then spliced with the spiders mutant abilites. So basically, I evolved into a Spider-Man. I had become remarkably fast, agile, strong, and durable. My skin had grown thicker than the average person, and my ability to heal was accelearted SO rapidly that I could mend broken bones properly within hours. In fact my eye sight had even been enhanced. I no longer needed glasses, in fact I was more than capable of seeing farther than ANY normal person. Everything had become so detailed. Truthfully the world had become a much scarier place, but at the same time I was having a total blast with the fact that I could scale buildings. Bench press cars. And dodge bullets. It was like being NEO.
Of course those were not the ONLY things I was capable of. No. My senses, and mind had become sharpened to such a degree that I borderlined on being precognent. The world around me was so intense, that I could sense danger lurking for up to a minute away. It gave me speed and agility such a boost that by normal standards I was UNTOUCHABLE. I called it my "spider-sense". It was as if I had eyes in the back of my head. Of course, tell that to any one of the mutants who have kicked my ass in the past. They'll laugh.
Peter didn't want to return home. But at the same time he did not want to scare Aunt May and Uncle Ben. So he scavenged for change. and made a phone call. Uncle Ben picked up. He sounded shaken. "He- Hello?" Peter hesitated for a moment. "Unc-Uncle Ben?" UNcle Bens voice cracked. "PETER!? OH MY GOD! PETER ARE YOU OK!? WHERE ARE YOU? ITS ALMOST MIDNIGHT!" Peter broke in. "I... I'm in the city Uncle Ben. I'm to scared to come home. I don't know what you must think of me. I don't even know what to think of me. I... I'm a freak. But.. Im not coming home. Not tonight. Maybe not even soon. But I will. Eventually. When I have the answers I want." Uncle sounded as if he was crying. " Peter... please. Your Aunt had a heart attack. She di-" Pete broke in. He didnt know what to say but he felt he needed to to say SOMETHING."SHE DIED!?" Ben stopped Pete before he could go off on a tangent. "NO! NO! She.. She... shes in the hospital. They said shemight not make it. She was too old Peter. Her body could hardly handle it." Peter twitched. How could he have done this. It was his fault. He had put Aunt May in the hospital. He could have killed her. There should have been something he could have done. Anything. "Please insert another twenty-five since if you wish to continue talking" The telephone chimed in. This snapped Peter into awareness. "Uncle Ben. I... I'm not coming home. Not yet. I love you...." He hung up the phone. And looked at the city around him. It was cold. The streets were dead. He was barefoot, in a t-shirt and sweat pants. He felt so alone. He headed off towards an alley, and leapt onto a wall, getting ready to climb up it. When he noticed a flier that said. "Win money wrestling! UP TO FIVE GRAND IN PRIZES!" Pete's eyes flared. And he smiled. Easiest five grand he would ever make.
