She shot through the dark like a bullet, her steps silent as she sped through the shadows, one after another, the wind whistling in her ears -
Over a rooftop,
Dashing along the walls of an alley,
Slingshot herself through the supports of a water tower, gaining a burst of speed,
Rolling and sprinting across a building in fast strides; sliding, vaulting, kicking off objects in her surroundings -
She saw it, a shadowy figure in the distance, sticking to the shadows as well. The moon above was only waxing, little light to be seen through the city, but that didn't mean it made the figure or her invisible. She played the same game as she followed, trying to speed up, trying to get closer.
In the distance a police siren went off, it wouldn't be long for the Spidermen to show up in the area on their way to the crime scene. She had to deal with this herself, they wouldn't be able to handle this problem, even with the two of them.
She couldn't entrust this to them.
The figure in the distance heard it, too. Their efforts doubled, forcing her to catch up, being only able to stay behind at a distance and never getting close enough to encounter the figure.
But she had to!
She was the only one who could stop it,
The only one that could.
She pushed herself -
Putting herself in a full forward lean with her arms back, hovering near her sides, as she dashed forward, saving energy for the chase,
The wind howled at her ears,
Leaps became bounds over two roof tops,
She zipped herself, utilizing the capability to reel her webs in her body to propel her forwards to grant her more bursts of speed - one, two, three,
She zipped a fourth time to to throw her body forwards as though she were flying in the air. With her arms out straight, her hands found the floor of a roof, and using her momentum she bent her arms and legs then shoved with her arms and kicked out with her legs, focusing the exertion in her muscles. She sprang out, flying over a three-story rooftop, reaching to an incredible height. She was falling towards a water tower. Slapping its side with her hand, she used her webs to catch herself to slow her descent and effectively vault down to its rooftop.
She raced on -
Yet still, she was no closer to the figure than she had before.
It was her,
She had the same capabilities as her, after all.
There was no mouse -
A cat trying to catch another cat, cheetahs in a jungle of concrete and metal and artificial lights.
She heard a cry split the air in the distance -
No...
Another one?!
Closing in from where the cry came from, she landed silently in an alley. Greeting her were cocoons stuck to the sides of the long alley walls. Webs in patches sticking to the floors, walls, some even crossing to connect the two walls. The putrescence said hello by assaulting her nostrils with its potency - some of the cocoons were open, their darkness hiding insidious truths, from which stuck out limbs and from dripping a dark red. The fates of those inside these cocoons were evident by the red spots on the white of the webs, some darker, some brighter - crimson or dark pools under neath them.
Again...
Yet again, she was too slow to stop her...
However, that scream - there was still a chance to save her latest prey. She had to be fast, but with the considerable amount of crossing webs along the alley, she had to be careful.
She was already beginning to show signs of behavioral traits, making defenses against threats out of instinct.
She crept as quickly as she could, taking care to not run into any of the webs.
But the deeper she went into the alley, the more cocoons there were and more horrid the smell became, rapidly rising to a stench that forced her to cover her nose every now and then. With the limbs that peeked out from the cocoons, it were as though every victims of her's was telling her to stop, turn around the way she came, run and don't look back.
But she continued deeper and the structure of the cocoons began to thin, the stench becoming a force of nature that could no longer be detained or ignored -
More limbs,
Clothes,
Heads -
They were all staring at her,
She could almost hear their pleas from their shadowed or obscured faces -
'Run! You can't stop her! Run! Before its too late! You can still escape! Run!'
Thinner,
Thinner,
Until the bodies were plainly sticking to the webs like trophies. One web had two teens, both girls, one blonde with glasses and the other with dark hair and tan skin,
Another, a teenage boy with his mother and the third person looked to be the son's girlfriend.
The webs were so ubiquitous now that there was a sort of canopy above blocking out the light and bringing the dark.
It didn't hide the fact that she had finally caught up to Her,
It didn't hide that she was too late -
Kneeling over the body of an asian man in perhaps his thirties, a girl in a red hoodie kept dipping her head down with her back towards her.
There was a wet squelching sound. Red was spread out over the top half of the asian man's torso, even a few splotches having made it to his neck and face, which held a blank accusing stare at her.
The sleeve of the Girl's hoodie was in tatters from the large swelled and elongated form of her arm, veins dark on the skin, of which in some areas were peeling off, other areas being stretched thin from abnormal bone protrusions underneath. All the bones in her hand seemed to have fused together. Her hair was in great disarray like frayed wires, and some places were thinning out where red cuts could be seen at the scalp.
Her head kept dipping,
The squelching continued.
She crept closer -
"Haagghh... Haagghh... Ha-haagghh..." The change was starting to affect her voice, sounding deeper -
Or was it the instinct finally bleeding into her mind and it was just the sound of it finally taking a breath?
The Girl's head jerked.
She had heard her.
Slowly, the Girl turned her head to look over her shoulder -
What was the face of a beautiful teenage girl was twisted by the swelling of flesh and the bulging of bone,
From what remained of her mouth, there looked to be the beginning of mandibles wiggling, squelching from the blood.
The Girl stared at her, with the five eyes that were on the side of the face that she could see, a sixth growing out of one of the cuts on her face.
But in the socket of where the remaining normal eye was, she could feel the intent in the stare the Girl gave her,
It cried out -
Help me.
The Girl's body suddenly lurched and she doubled over. Her body shuddered violently as though in seizure. The Girl thrashed her head back and forth, her still remaining human arm clutching clawed into her hoodie, her remaining human eyes shaking and leaking a river of tears, until a black protrusion burst out from her back,
Another,
And another,
Red flowed freely, coating the red hoodie into bright crimson,
The protrusions extended, elongating themselves into spindly legs. The pointed ends then clawed into the ground and propped the Girl up, lifting her up to the sky. With her head hanging upside down, the Girl's eyes pleaded again to her.
Please...
Someone...
Anyone...
The black spindly legs clawed at the ground, propelling the Girl to her at heart-stopping speed. The last thing she was saw was the Girl's eyes screaming in despair that another victim was going to be made.
That was when Cindy's eyes opened wide, and they stayed wide as she stared up at the ceiling, her mind reeling as it processed what it had experienced.
She didn't move,
She didn't breathe,
Not even when her father was calling her, telling her to wake up and that she would be late for school.
There came a knocking at her door, "Cindy? Are you okay?"
She didn't answer.
"Cindy? I'm coming in, okay?"
Her door opened,
She still didn't move,
Not even when her father entered her room and saw her in her green pajamas that had a vibrant red collar hem.
"Cindy?" Her father reached out and cupped her cheek, "Hey, hey... Sweetie?"
It were as though a dam had broken inside of her, the tears flowing too fast for her to comprehend that she was crying until her face scrunched up and she began to sob.
"Shh-shh-shh - you're okay, you're fine," Albert helped her to sit up and brought her into a hug, "Its okay, lean into me, I'm here, sweetie. I'm here. I'm here."
Cindy could only continue to sob as her father stroked her head and continued to hold her. She didn't even realize she was ruining his shirt by how hard she was clutching. It felt like she was crying forever, but even tsunami's receded, and when the high of emotions did, enough for her to regain enough composure, she saw the wet spot on her father's shoulder go all the way down over his breast.
"You okay, sweetie?" Her father said, keeping a hand on her shoulder.
Cindy stiffly nodded.
Her father stared for a moment, then said, "...How bad was it?"
"...I... I..." Cindy looked at her father,
Her father didn't stop looking at her that way - the way a father showed how much he loved his daughter with only one look. It was a strange paradox that the only thing that Cindy felt from it was pain.
"I... I... killed... someone." Who could say that they killed their parent in a dream, even if it was out of her power in that dream?
Not Cindy.
Not to her father.
Her father paused for a moment, "...Was it me?"
Cindy shook her head, hoping it didn't give anything away that she was lying.
Cindy sniffled, still riding out what remained of that intense emotional moment.
"Want to go to school?" Her father said, already reaching for his phone in his pocket.
Cindy nodded.
"You sure?"
Cindy affirmed by nodding again.
Her father checked the time, "Think you can get dressed in ten minutes?"
Cindy smiled, with her tears it seemed sad, but she knew her father could see past it, "You know I can do it in five."
"Yeah, but traffic won't agree with that. Too late to go on foot, I'll drive you there." Her father stood and walked out the door, "I'll get your breakfast ready, just hurry!"
"Okay!"
"I love you, sweetie!"
Cindy opened her mouth to reply, but paused, "Y-yeah!"
She took a moment to sigh and look down absently at her lap before wiping her tears and going to get her clothes to wear for the school day.
"You know who he is, don't you?"
"And what if I do?"
"Tell me! What he did to my son -"
"Not, what we agreed on, Norman. My bargain, and your's. Ensure my project goes in fruition, and I'll see what I can do for your son, and that project of yours."
"Otto..."
"Funny that you're the one glaring at me, Norman. Its because of you that everything that has happened in the last year. Martin Li, Devil's Breath through me, I wouldn't even be surprised if your efforts were the cause of the second Spider man. You have the glass, Norman. But the sand is falling out. You have the power, yet you're breaking apart. Poetry has never been so sweet. What other skeletons do you have in your closet?"
"Enough."
"Ha! I'd wager. This... Black Widow, funny name."
"I didn't name it."
"First the red symbiote, now this. Children, Norman?"
"Don't start. Something completely out of my hands, wasn't my responsibility but I offered a hand anyway."
"...That's not like you."
"Life isn't random as much is it runs in patterns."
"This red symbiote... These pictures... No wonder you didn't give it to your son."
"Of all the things... Scorpion, Vulture, even a goddamn Lizard then Martin Li and his demon obsession. But, that thing... There was no question."
"Desperation makes us fools, Norman. As we later saw. These symptoms... hmm... Do you know the man that took the red symbiote?"
"A serial killer, a psychopath cult leader. Keeps changing his name and is able to blend in like a snake."
"I'd wager with the red symbiote he could do more than that, any direct cause for the symptoms?"
"We checked water filtration, air conditioning, even food distribution - no safety hazards."
"These red knives... They're never recovered?"
"They always disappear, without a trace."
"...Hmm. Its possible. Yes, in all likelihood. Those blades never were knives to begin with."
"...What?"
"Getting slow, Norman. We've seen what that black symbiote could do on a large scale. Its likely that red symbiote could do the same, but... If what you said was true, if that one was more parasitical, then its possible the red one is more mutual. We've seen what the black one could do, so of course the red one with that deranged man would be more covert."
"Those knives are the symbiote..."
"Parts of it, that would explain why the knives would always disappear. They moved on their own."
"My god..."
"How many victims have been detained?"
"Close to two hundred now."
"What are they doing?"
"Nothing. They're merely staring at us behind the glass."
"Hmm... How fast are these cases popping up?"
"They've stopped. That's what's so worrying."
"...Get that facility up and running. I'll do what I can here. Unless you're going to go behind my back, again."
Norman stared for a moment, not answering but acknowledging before stepping away from Octavius's cell, the heels of his shoes clicking against the metal grating.
Octavius waited until Norman's footsteps faded into the distance before turning over the file to look at how much information there was on 'Black Widow'. There were many things, but the photos drew him in by how recently they were taken. A teenage girl walking through the streets of New York or walking into her school. One photo had her crawling into an rusted water tower.
"Cindy Moon..." Octavius said, "Are you really sympathetic, Norman? Or... are you just waiting for the right time? Lying is what you do best, after all."
He stared at the photos of Cindy,
Then at the photos of Black Widow -
He began writing in a notepad.