I opened my eyes. A mixture of natural and soft white light greeted me, along with the smell of hand sanitiser, and the soft steadying beeping of a heart monitor. I closed my eyes again sinking into the comfortable bed beneath me.
I was in a hospital room.
I felt good, a little tired, but otherwise completely fine. It was weird. Almost like someone had taken my entire body and just squeezed any aches and pains out of it. I opened my eyes again staring at the ceiling before looking down at my hands. I flexed my fingers, feeling a newfound strength within them. Was this the symbiote thing, or something else? I didn’t know, it just felt different. I’d lifted that really big rock off Peter. If I could do that again? I wonder what else I could do?
I leaned back in my bed, before glancing to my side. My bedside table had cards on it. Three cards. Wait, how long had I been here? I sat up, careful not to pull at any of the wires, and grabbed the biggest one.
Oh, it was from my homeroom. They’d gotten everyone to sign it. That was pretty neat. But didn’t they only usually do this for serious situations? Geez, I’d probably been in here for at least two weeks then. That was kind of concerning. I wonder what had woken me up? I shrugged and moved onto another card. This one was smaller than the first, but had a nicer texture. It read get well soon on the front.
I opened it. I read over the message and grinned to myself.
Thanks for the help! Get well soon. If you ever need anything just call. xxx-xxx-xxx. We should probably thank you in person and talk about things.
* Spider-Man and Spider-Woman
I was definitely calling as soon as I could. They were probably ok considering they’d left me the card, but it be better to see them in person. I set the card down, and then reached over to the smallest one. This one wasn’t store bought, it looked hand made, with a mixture of a well-drawn sketch of a house and sky with a cartoonish sketch that looked like it’d been drawn by a six-year-old. Three people jumped with joy in the centre of the drawing, that looked suspiciously familiar.
I grinned. I didn’t need to open it to know the final one was from Ryo and Dad. I opened it, carefully and my smile widened as I saw the contents. Ryo had drawn a picture of Med Bay healing what was probably supposed to be me, next to a quickly scrawled.
LOVE YOU! GET WELL SOONE SOON! RYO!
I smiled, then looked to the rest of the card. Dad had drawn a picture of an apple, and beneath written a heartfelt message.
Yu, I hope you get well soon and return to us. As a parent I’m disappointed something like this happened, both at you and at myself. But as your father I’m just glad you’re safe now. When you wake up, I want to talk to you. We haven’t done a lot of that recently, and I apologise. Communication is essential when it comes to family, and showing our love for others. Since we cannot talk yet, for now your brother and I have given you this card. I hope one day that you can reread it when your old and greying and be reminded of how much love I and your brother held for you in this moment. Hopefully by then, you’ll have more than enough memories filled with our love that this is simply a sidenote logged far away in the back of your mind.
Please wake up soon. I miss you.
With lots of love
- Dad
I stared at the message; my eyes suddenly wet. Wiping at my eyes, I held the card away from my face, careful not to let any tears drip onto it. Then I set in down carefully, sniffling. I held my head back and smiled as I stared at the ceiling.
“Talk about emotional” I mumbled wiping my eyes as I chuckled. After my tears had passed I picked the card back up again. I stared at the card for a while, flipping between the front and the inside, taking it in before finally setting it down on the counter.
As I did, the door to my room opened, and Ryo stepped in followed by Dad. Both their eyes widened as they saw me and they froze for a second. I wiped at my eyes, and suddenly Ryo was hugging me tightly. I hugged him back as he buried his face in my chest. Dad smiled at me as tears welled up in both our eyes, then he stepped forward and pulled us both into a hug.
“I missed you” he said.
“I missed you guys too”
-
I kneeled in front of the butsudan, placing an apple next to the burning incense, before closing my eyes and pressing my hands together in prayer.
“Good morning mama. Hope everything is ok” I said. I paused unsure how to follow up.
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“It’s been a weird few weeks, that’s for sure” I chuckled. ”I’m not even sure where to start. I got discharged from hospital two days ago. It’s really nice to be home. Dad took the day off work yesterday, and me, Dad and Ryo spent the entire day watching movies, and playing video games. It was fun. Dad was a lot better at Mario kart than I expected” I said. “What else? Oh, I met Spider-Man. The real Spider-Man. He was cool. And so was his clone. Jess. She had a few problems here and there, but I think she was just confused. She meant well, and I’m pretty sure she saved my life more than three times. I got to know her better than the actual Spider-Man. Oh yeah, I am supposed to call them. There’s probably important stuff they want to talk about” I said. My mind wandered, thinking back over all the events I’d taken part in or witnessed.
“Ah, I guess I should probably explain things a bit. There was this whole evil scientist plot thing that I got caught up in. I was trying to help Jess find Spider-Man and we uncovered it together. Things went a bit awry, there were like two big explosions and I- maybe I shouldn’t tell you that… but yeah things turned out well in the end. One of the lead scientist guys, Dr Octavius went out and announced everything on TV after it all, before turning himself in. He knew Spider-Man, so he probably convinced the scientist to do that somehow. It’s caused a real mess for all the bad guys. A lot more people know who Wilson Fisk is now, and Alchemax, the state Senators, the police and tonnes more people are being investigated, though apparently, they haven’t found anything but a few documents yet. Right now, only a few scientists and mostly policemen have actually been arrested, but they’ll probably get a lot more people in the next days. Supposedly experimentation on clones is technically legal, but people are saying when it goes to trial the ruling could end up setting a new precedent. I think part of the reason it got so big is because so many policemen are getting arrested”
I paused again, my smile fading slightly as my mind drifted to the Captain who’d grazed my ear with a bullet, and then to the rest of my injuries.
“I should probably tell you that I got hurt. A lot. but I’m okay now!” I laughed awkwardly. “I really never have felt better”
I went silent again, opening my eyes to glance at the photo of mum before closing them again.
“I saw… you. It wasn’t really you, but… I don’t know. Probably your image made from my memories. It was still nice to see you, even if it wasn’t really real. I think if I could, I’d like to make dinner with you again some time, even if it isn’t exactly possible. I… I miss you. A lot”
I looked up staring at mum’s picture for a few seconds, before wiping my eyes.
“I should probably get going. It’s my first day back at school in a while, and I don’t want to worry Dad by already getting a late” I said, laughing. “Love you Mum. I’ll talk to you later”
-
School was as lively as ever. I’d showed up to homeroom and everyone had been more excited than I’d expected to see me. I’d thanked everyone for the cards, and then just relaxed until it was over. And now I had a maths class. I grumbled. The allure of things returning back to normal was starting to fade.
“Hey. I heard you were caught up in that huge explosion” a voice said behind me. I turned to see Emma.
“Ah yeah. I’m all better now” I said with a bright smile.
“That’s good” she said nodding. She looked tired, worn out.
“You alright?” I asked.
“Huh? Oh yeah. I’m fine. Just a bit…” she shrugged. “Sorry if this was weird, I haven’t really spoken to you like this”
“Oh it’s fine. I haven’t seen you at climbing, She didn’t get caught up in the explosion too did she?”
“Oh, no. I probably won’t be going back…”
“R-really?”
“Yeah. I… uh… I’m moving to Chicago, to live with my Uncle”
“Eh?”
”It’s fine. It’s not a big deal or anything”
“Is everything really ok? Did something happen to your mum or something?” I said concerned. I paused, realising how intrusive I was probably being. “I-if it’s personal you don’t have to tell me or anything”
“No it’s… did you see all that stuff that Dr on the news admitted to?”
“Yeah?”
“Well… my mum was one of the scientists that conducted one of the experiments. Crazy, right?” she said, forcing an awkward chuckle as she looked around. The sounds around us faded as all my attention focused on her.
“W-what?”
“I know right, totally out of left field” she said forcing another chuckle. Her smile faltered slightly. “I probably shouldn’t be laughing though. Sorry, it’s all a bit confusing”
I stared at Emma blankly, unsure what to say.
“I’m leaving today actually. Afterschool. I just wanted to say bye or something before I go”
“Oh… ok”
“It was nice speaking to you occasionally. It would’ve been nice if we could’ve been friends. Maybe one day we might catch each other at a climbing gym or something” she said, forcing her smile again.
“Yeah” I said, the situation still feeling surreal. She stood there awkwardly for a second before giving a small wave.
“Bye Yu”
“B-bye Emma”
She turned and walked away. I watched her go, silent, before quickly turning back to my locker. I frowned then looked up again, searching for her. But it was too late, she was gone, disappeared amongst the crowd of students. I stared longingly out at the crowd not sure what to do, before finally sighing, grabbing my books and making my way to class.
-
I walked home from school slowly. The bus had been packed, and I didn’t feel like enduring a journey like that even if it would be short. I needed to think, and that was a lot easier out in the open air. Plus I'd walked home fast so Dad wouldn't get worried. Given the traffic, I might even get home faster than I would've on the bus. I let out a small sigh. But that wasn't what I was worried about.
Seeing Emma like that had really put things into perspective. I’d been going around these past few days, feeling on top of the world because I’d helped “fix” everything. Just because they day had been saved, didn’t mean there weren’t innocent people who hadn’t lost. People like Emma, or the people whose houses had been destroyed by the explosion, or all the people that’d been hurt or injured by the experiments directly or indirectly.
I looked down at my hand flexing my fingers. I’d been ignoring it, but it was definitely still there, that newfound strength. My mind wandered as hundreds of possibilities swirled through my head.
I couldn’t have prevented this, but what about in the future? Wouldn’t this new power help me stop things like this before they happened? Limit the number of people affected by events like this? I mean who knew what the future had in store for us. Even if I wasn’t anywhere near as strong as the others, I wanted to help. I knew what it meant, how risky it could be; but what if something happened to someone I cared about, to Ryo, or Dad because I just choose to live normally?
I let my hand fall to my side and looked up at the sky. A few clouds floated above a cool blue that steadily darkened, as the winter sun dipped towards the horizon, casting a beautiful pattern of lights and shadows across the buildings above. It was a nice day today. I smiled slightly and felt around in my pocket before pulling out a five-dollar bill. I twisted it between my fingers feeling the rough smoothness of the paper like texture. I’d get some change, find a payphone then give Peter and Jess a call.