When I looked down at the world I was falling into, I immediately realised two things: the buildings were crumbling and falling apart as if something really bad had happened and I couldn't see anything moving. No cars, no people, no pigeons, nothing. Not a single thing.

I swallowed, I really hoped I wouldn't meet whoever had made it this way. Or maybe it was from erosion over time and it had happened a while ago? One could hope, and I was hoping really, really hard.

Now that I thought about, I really hoped the buildings would hold together enough so I could build a web net. But, from the state of them, I had a feeling that wasn't the case. I bit my lip, now was a good of a time as any to try out my parachute making abilities.

Without delaying to worry about it, I placed my finger on the nozzle and began shooting. The web went around my finger in four streams which met at the top and a moment later I was jerked up, my descent slowing down. I grabbed the webbing and held on tight, relief flooding through me. It had worked! I didn't have to waste that much webbing on building a net! I would definitely use this method next time. Maybe I would even have lots of webbing left after this whole adventure?

From my bird's eye view, I looked again for any movement, any at all, but there was none. There was… nothing. Wait! Oh never mind, it was just a tree.

It was almost eerie looking down at the familiar landscape without seeing anything alive. It was wrong and creepy.

Something bad had happened here, something bad enough that there was nothing here. The top of a skyscraper was approaching, and I braced myself to land. With an oomph, my feet touched the ground and my parachute fluttered out behind me, sinking to the ground. I paused, checking that my spider-sense wasn't warning me that the building was unsafe (it wasn't buzzing) before walking over to the edge of the building. I kept a hand on the parachute, ready to use it just in case the building gave way beneath me.

The streets were clean, with the occasional bit of rubbish blowing around. Maybe that was creeping me out too? I would have thought with all this destruction there would have been more rubble or rubbish around. But for the most part, it was in okay condition. There was only the occasional piece of glass or rock on the pavement.

I wondered if I would hear a pin if I dropped it from this high up. It was a good thirty stories, so normally I wouldn't, but with how quiet it was…

Didn't matter anyway. In any case, I could use this silence to my advantage. If I yelled, anyone or anything would be able to hear me from a few blocks away… probably.

"Hello?" I called, my voice echoing sadly around. I tried again, even louder. Suddenly my spider-sense went off and a shiver went down my spine. I looked around for the source of it but couldn't see anything. That was… weird. It was probably the building. Probably. Maybe.

I decided to shrug it off and admit to myself that no one was around. So there wasn't anyone to ask what had happened but that wasn't the worst thing in the world.

Now, what would I do while I wait? Well, I had food, water and stuff to keep me warm. But I didn't have proper shelter or a fire. Well, I could take shelter in any number of the empty buildings around here but I had nothing to start or keep a fire with. A fire would be nice, and I could heat up something good to eat. What could I burn? And I didn't have a match to start one with. Well, I could go to a mall. There would hopefully be some clothes I could burn and there was a pretty good chance I would find a lighter there.

Now with a plan, I began webbing towards the closest mall I knew.

I couldn't help but let my mind wander back to the issue of what had happened here. What villain would do this? To the point that there was no life here? I would never understand villains that wanted to kill everyone, they always seemed to want to blabber a thousand words to you before killing you. So wouldn't they be lonely with no one to talk to besides themselves? Maybe it was a natural disaster? Or… New York somehow became unliveable? Like it was radioactive or something, which would mean I should leave. Yet, I knew if that was the case there would still be animals around. They might just be mutated in some weird way, but definitely not how it is now where they are gone entirety.

A few minutes later I was standing at the entrance to a mall. But… there was wood blocking the doors from the inside as if someone had barricaded themselves in. That was bizarre, but it gave me hope that there were other humans around. Because why would it be on the inside? If they had been closing up it would be on the outside.

I knocked on the glass as loudly as I could without it breaking. I waited a few minutes, and there were no sounds coming from the inside that would suggest human life. I snorted to myself, who was I kidding? This world was dead. However long I spent here would be lonely. I would just find a different way in here because it would be too creepy to break stuff when a pin could drop and you would hear it a block away. I also didn't want to alert some villain, you know, in case there was one around.

I eventually found another way in through the roof and as I walked inside I felt my spider-sense begin to hum. I paused, was the building going to collapse or something? I stopped in place and looked around, only for the humming to increase. I crossed my arms nervously, I didn't like this, I didn't like this one bit!

Suddenly my spider-sense yelled and I dropped to the ground, swinging a leg out behind me as I did so to knock whatever had caused it to the floor. I turned around pinned them down only to gasp in shock when I realised it was another human being. I did not expect one in this universe!

Then my Spider-sense gave a very loud warning, and I felt something cold and distinctly gun like pressed against my head. I instantly let go of the guy and held my hands up in surrender.

"Um, I'm really sorry about that, I didn't realise that there was anyone else here. Why is New York so quiet anyway?" The gun was pressed harder into my head, "and I'm going to shut up now." I bit my lip and resisted the urge to babble more.

"Told you it wasn't a zombie," the person on the ground said smugly.

My jaw dropped as the pieces fell into place, "You had a zombie apocalypse here? Is that why everything's so… quiet and crumbly?"

"Were you in a coma for the past year or something, kid?" A person behind me said, who I could tell weren't the person pressing a gun to my head as they were definitely too far back to do that, their disbelief obvious. I wanted to look at them but the gun was still pressed against my head so that definitely wasn't something I wanted to do.

"Um, well actually it's a long and quite unbelievable story… Do you want me to sum it up as best as I can?" I asked.

There was a pause where no one said anything so I quickly began to explain. "I'm currently going on a Universal trip, literally. See a Tony Stark thought he was sending me to my universe but ended up sending me to ones that definitely weren't mine. And that's how I'm here. I'll be leaving in maybe a few hours or days."

"Tony Stark? Who's Tony Stark?" One of them asked.

"Did you not have him here in this universe? Well, he's really smart. He made his own suit of armour, and an AI. Isn't that cool?" I explained.

There was a pause where they seemed to process it before one of them sighed and went, "I don't think he's lying. I mean, why make that your cover story when you could have said something really plain and simple like you've been travelling on your own."

"Couldn't have said it better myself!" I piped up.

One of them sighed and went, "Alright, fine. Come on kid, we'll bring you into our base."

"Thanks so much. A mall is a great place to hide out, by the way. Good thinking. Also, please tell me about what happened in this universe. I'm really interested."

Ten minutes later I was sitting in one of the shops. It looked like a Target of some kind, but I wasn't quite sure because the sign outside was gone and all the clothes hangers had been moved into the corners so that tents could be set up.

There were about ten people, including the three I had already met, hidden in this shop. The shop's barriers had been put down and I was currently sitting on a pile of clothes. It was a little bit lumpy, but otherwise, it was fine.

"So, what are you doing 'travelling universes' as you said? And what's up with that costume?" Edi asked. He was the one who I had pinned to the floor.

"I'm a superhero, it's kind of a thing we do?"

"Wait, hold up, you're a superhero?" Ted said, turning around to stare at me with wide eyes. He was the one who had pointed the gun at my head.

"Yeah? Don't you have those in this universe?" I questioned, tilting my head.

"We did, but most of them died pretty quickly. We had a few villains too, but only a few remain if I'm correct." One of the ones who had yet to introduce themselves commented.

"If you're actually a superhero, what are your superpowers?" Kim asked curiously. She was the third one who had been there.

I grinned. I thwiped a web at the ceiling and climbed to the top. I maneuvered my body so that my feet touched the ceiling. All of them were staring at me curiously, and I grinned cheekily. I let go of the web and a few of them gasped. Most of them had at least had their jaws dropped.

I began to casually walk along the ceiling. "So I can walk along ceilings. My webs aren't a part of me, but they're pretty useful. I also have this thing that I call a 'spider-sense.'" One of them snorted. I choose to ignore them. "It basically warns me of an attack so I can dodge it. Like when Ted pressed the gun to my head I sensed it coming. I didn't do anything because it didn't initially deem you a threat so I didn't have time to do anything, but my spider-sense did warm me."

I grinned before camouflaging, which lead to some interesting faces. "I can camouflage, and I also have this venom blast thing, which is really painful so I've heard."

Finished with my little parade, I un-camouflaged and jumped down to the floor. "So, that's me. Now can you tell me how your zombie apocalypse wiped out most of New York?"

"Well, we don't know where it came from, but the disease started out in Europe. It had devastated the majority of the population there, Asia and Africa before it got over here. At first, we tried to fight them with bullets, but they were fast." Kim began to explain.

"My theory is that the disease took over the mind and made them lose control of their strength, and what would normally limit most of us in terms of, say, speed, wasn't their anymore. Oh and I'm Jasmine." Jasmine said.

"So, basically they were humans with nothing to hold them back?" I frowned.

"Basically," Kim confirmed. "It was near impossible to beat them with guns unless you shot them in the brain. Shooting them anywhere vital would slow them down a little bit but anywhere like the arms and legs wouldn't slow them down any."

"So how are you guys not dead? And why isn't there any zombies wandering around?" I asked, glancing at the front of the shop.

"They decayed. Because of all the damage that was being down to their body and the fact that the disease killed the brain to take over their bodies, their bodies would break down. Bugs would begin attacking the body until finally, the zombie couldn't move. After the first three or so months, there were only a few hoards left. I personally had been hiding in a bunker so when there were only a few stragglers left I came out to find what had happened to everyone else. I'm Jude, by the way."

"That sounds… horrible. I'm pretty sure I would have died already if I was in this universe." I half-joked, laughing nervously.

There was a pause where everyone seemed to reflect on their past before Edi spoke up. "You never got around to explaining how you're here."

"Well, in a huge battle with a bunch of my clones a teleporter malfunctioned and I ended up in a whole different universe. That universe's Tony Stark tried to send me back to my universe but he did something wrong so now I'm jumping around the different universes until I get back to mine. So far if you include the universe I went to after the teleporter went wrong this is my fourth universe. The worst one so far, if I'm being honest." I said. I grinned down at my feet, "And honestly, that doesn't even explain my whole adventure leading up to here. Whoo boy, if I told a few weeks ago me that you would be even further from home they probably would have cried by now."

"That… is quite something." One of them said.

"Being a superhero is really weird." I agreed.

I ended up sleeping on a pile of comfy clothes in one of the tents. There were always two people on watch, which was both reassuring and worrying. I had volunteered to take watch, but my offer was turned down. I could understand why they said no, I was new so they probably wouldn't trust me and I wasn't experienced in killing zombies. I wasn't even sure if I could...

In the morning I woke up to the sound of people shuffling around outside. Unfortunately, I realised I was still in this universe.

I was about to climb out of the tent when I overheard something strange that made me pause.

"We can't tell that kid Miles, you saw how young he was! Imagine if it was your son or daughter," someone hissed.

What sounded like Ted spoke, "We can't face it on our own, and it'll just haunt us for as long as we live if we don't use this opportunity. It will probably kill us!"

"It's not right, but… you're right. Maybe they'll have a better idea on how to beat the lizard than anything we've tried before." Another person admitted in defeat.

My eyes widened. They had a lizard, the lizard here if I was correct in my assumptions, and they wanted me to help with it. I couldn't say no, their lives depended on me helping. No normal human being would be able to beat them in a close combat fight. Heck, I don't think I'll be able to beat it.

But… I would have to try. Think, think! It was unlikely my webs would hold them back, but they were a reptile. Reptile's slowed down because of the cold, so if we got something cold enough to slow him down and then we changed him back or… killed him, they would be free of him.

I walked out of the tent and immediately there were five eyes on me. I smiled nervously, "I, uh, overheard your conversation. I'm willing to help you."

One of them grabbed my shoulders and looked me square in the eyes. "You realise you could die, right? You could never go home. We can figure this out on our own."

I looked at the ground, took a deep breath and looked at all of them. "I know more about the Lizard than I think any of you do. And even with all the information I can give you, there's still a highly likely chance that we won't win. But I'm a superhero, it's in the job description to help."

"Then what do you think we should do?" Kim questioned me.

We spent the rest of the day planning our attack. We made three plans, which all revolved around when I would switch universes.

The first one was if I stayed around for the whole assault. We would get down there, I would attack them with ice (like the ice bucket challenge) before holding them down with webbing and if the webbing didn't work I would wrestle them down and keep them still long enough for a powerful anaesthetic to be administrated. We would then figure out if we could revert him back to Curt Connors, but there was a likely chance we wouldn't be able to. So if we can't we tie him up in chains and chuck him into the sea. If he could breathe underwater than we would figure out what to do from there. Probably slice him into pieces.

The second plan was if I left during the fight. The plan would be relatively the same, except for when I sense I'm about to leave. I will web the Lizard up with all the webs in my web-shooters and then the group goes and chops off his head. They would then slice him up into little bits before chucking him into the sea.

If I wasn't there at all… they would bait him out of the sewers before throwing as much ice as they could at him. They would then slice him up into little pieces and throw it into the sea. If it seemed like they wouldn't win, they would retreat into groups of two or threes and hide out until the next day where hopefully it would have given up.

I couldn't lie, I was upset that we couldn't figure out a way to stop them without killing them in nearly all of our plans, but I knew why it was necessary. One life for the survival of mankind. It was realistic to sacrifice their life when I looked at it that way. That didn't mean I was happy to do it.

That's how I ended up crouched in the middle of the street, with cooked rabbit right by my foot. We needed to lure him out, and this was the best we could do in the circumstances.

I idly stood there, my bag on my back with webs smothering it to keep it safe and in place. On my other side was a huge bucket of ice. At five other key places were some more buckets of ice. There was three in the buildings around me and the other two were 20 meters in either direction away from the entrance to the sewer.

Hiding in shops on the ground floor, with their smells hopefully disguised by a combination of soap, detergent and perfume were the surviving humans. If the lizard smelled them, they wouldn't be able to hide or sneak up on it while I fought it.

I was ready, if anxious. I mean, I knew that the lizard was hungry. It had eaten nearly all the zombies and animals around here. It would likely see me as food, too. But I had fought some crazy villains before, I could do this. Maybe. Hopefully.

I heard the entrance to the sewer creak and I braced myself. Slowly, very slowly, the lid was moved up until two slitted yellow eyes were staring at me from the darkness.

"Foooooddd," it whispered, so quiet I wouldn't have heard it if it wasn't for my enhanced senses.

"Come out and get this yummy food," I crooned as I reached down and picked up the bucket of ice.

My spider-sense yelled at me to move as the lizard jumped out of the sewers. I chucked the ice at it before diving to the side. The lizard ignored me, instead, it grabbed the rabbit and swallowing it all in one bite.

I didn't let myself pause in hesitation, or else I might have frozen up in terror. That rabbit was the width of my thigh! Instead, I lunged for the lizard and zapped him before leaping into the air and webbing myself over to a building. It turned to growl at me, but before it could make a move towards me, it fell to the ground as my venom blast took effect.

I waited a moment, watching the heavy breathing and twitching before jumping down to the ground. I walked over, cautious but still confident. I extended my hand to wrap it up in webs but just as I pressed down on the nozzle my spider-sense screeched at me.

Before I could even attempt to get away it grabbed my leg, pulling it towards itself and forcing me to the ground and bit into me.

Hard.

I screamed in agony, feeling and hearing my bone crunch. Adrenaline and panic taking hold I kicked it as hard as I could, forcing it to let go of my foot. It growled at me but before it had the chance to attack me again I flipped myself upright and at the same moment shot a web at the nearest building, pulling myself up as fast as I could.

I stayed there, just out of reach of the creature. Oh god, oh god that hurt. I was scared to even look at the wound. I knew that when I had gotten it off of me I had also caused the teeth to be dragged through my flesh. Swallowing down my fear I lifted my leg a bit higher and shot some webbing around it, using it as a make-shift bandage. From what I had seen, the muscle was a bit loose and it was bleeding heavily.

I looked back at it, how the hell was I supposed to beat it when I hadn't even had the chance to move out of the way before it had grabbed my leg? I had to fight smarter, or something.

The pain wasn't helping me think properly.

I focused back in on the lizard, it had been watching me before but it was now sniffing the air and licking its lips. Oh hell no, it might be picking up on the survivor's scents. I didn't have time to plan, this was a fight, not an exam.

Swallowing down my fear, I swung back down, grabbing a bucket on the way, and as the swing went over the lizards head I dropped it onto its face. It landed it open side down, ice falling onto its body. It roared its fury at its temporary blindness, and I used it as an opportunity to swing around and kick it squarely in the guts.

The blow was hard enough to send both of us falling on to the road and I immediately tried to web up its arms or legs. I wasn't fast enough. My spider-sense went off shrilly but I only had enough time to try and get off of it before it had backhanded me through the window of a shop. The crash forced glass into my back, further embedded by me rolling several times before I came to a stop.

I felt light-headed. I was losing blood, wasn't I? Through the pain, I struggled to get back up again.

I was so in over my head. There was no one but the survivors to help me. But I couldn't stop fighting. They would die. But I might die at this rate.

The fate of humanity in this world was more or less laying in how hard I fought. There were no other super-heroes but me here.

I wanted to cry.

I got to my hands and knees, shaking badly. I absently reached up to my chest as I saw blood pooling on the ground. I felt something warm and sticky there. I was bleeding from my chest.

I heard something crunching, probably the glass. Why would the glass be crunching? I looked up in time to see a green scaly hand reaching for me. I tried to jerk out of the way but it grabbed my head and lifted me into the air.

Its palm was covering my whole face. I couldn't see, I couldn't breathe! I can't breathe! I can't breathe! I can't breathe!

I thrashed frantically, punching the hand holding me and trying to kick out at anything. As I desperately tried to venom blast it, do something, it grabbed that hand and pierced its claws into it.

I didn't have the breath to scream, but tears fell down my face.

Something must have happened because there was a twist of gravity before I hit a wall with a wet thunk. I fell to the ground, twitching and gasping for breath, but my vision was swirling and I struggled to find the will to get up and continue fighting. I didn't have the energy, but I had to.

My spider-sense went off again as the Lizard was suddenly upon me. It's claws digging into my chest as if it was trying to tear a chunk out. My voice went hoarse with my scream.

I felt warm, I felt cold, I felt a buzzing energy fill me up as I grew weaker from the pain

Everything was numb, everything was painful.

Everything was overwhelming.

There was a feeling of something happening, something from me, and I almost passed out as there was a loud bang and the sound of things hitting the ground.

I lay there on the ground, twitching and gasping for breath, vision swirling and growing steadily darker.

I heard someone scream, the whirring of some sort of machine, a cry of pain and then something being splattered across the room.

There was something touching me. I tried to protest it, to move them out of the way. Was it the Lizard? I had to fight them, I had to-

To-

Something was being pressed into my side. I hoarsely whimpered in pain.

I don't want to die, please don't let me die, I'm going to die, I want to go home, I can't die like this, I'm sorry, I'm sorry, I'm sorry.

Then everything went dark, despite my best efforts to stay awake.