Wednesday, November 1st, 2006, began with an annoyance that didn't leave me alone for a single second. From the moment I opened my eyes in the morning, I felt a constant, nagging tingle at the base of my skull. It was an uncomfortable vibration, as if the air held a strange heaviness.
During classes at Midtown High, that sensation kept me in a foul mood all day long. In my head, the chibi versions were just as baffled, and for the first time, they had no desire to fight or crack jokes. The original mini Peter rubbed the back of his neck in annoyance, his lab coat all wrinkled. "My head itches, boss... this doesn't feel right," the little angel Peter murmured with worry. Beside him, the college devil paced in circles, arms crossed and brow furrowed. "There are no threats nearby. Our senses are pushed to the limit, we can hear everyone's heartbeat in the room and there's no immediate danger. I hate not knowing where it's coming from."
After school, I had to tutor Liz Allan at the diner. Following what happened in our first tutoring session, she had shifted her attitude a bit. At least she no longer looked at me as if I were a plague. She sat across from me, and although she still fiddled with her phone every now and then, she was making a real effort to understand the notes I had prepared for her.
"Look, Petey, explain this to me one more time because I'm going crazy," she sighed, resting her chin on her hand and looking at me with a mix of frustration and shyness. "I promise I'm trying, but my brain just completely shuts down with this."
Despite the annoyance of the buzzing in my neck, I gave her a kind smile and pulled the notebook closer.
"It's not that hard, Liz. Just look at it like it's the blueprint of a building. Every part has a specific job to keep everything running, just like cheerleaders in a routine," I replied, using a calm tone that made her smirk.
"Well, put that way, it makes a little more sense," she admitted, locking eyes with me a second longer than usual. "Thanks for not telling me to get lost after how bratty I was on the first day."
We were starting to get along, breaking through that stupid school hierarchy system, and for a moment, I enjoyed that small social victory. However, the damn buzzing in my head wouldn't let me fully focus, forcing me to cut the session short and say goodbye earlier than planned.
That night, I had dinner alongside Aunt May and Uncle Ben. Watching them smile and listening to Ben's advice about the value of perseverance gave me a breather. When I went up to my bedroom, I put on my black and red Spider-Man suit and leaped out the window. I thought the adrenaline of swinging across the rooftops would quiet the buzzing in my head. I roamed Queens for a couple of hours, stopping a few minor robberies in the alleys. I was an absolute son of a bitch to the criminals, dumping my daily frustration onto them and leaving them bloody, but even watching them beg didn't turn off the damn tingle.
Around eleven at night, I decided enough was enough and headed back toward Forest Hills. I was swinging at high speed, moving through the crisp autumn air between residential rooftops, just about four blocks away from home.
Suddenly, the subtle tingle at the base of my skull twisted into an explosion of absolute pain.
It was such a brutal, sudden impact that the world around me bled into a harsh, neon red. I let go of my web mid-flight and crashed to my knees onto the tiled roof of a neighboring house. I grabbed my head with both hands, burying my fingers into the sides of my mask as a scream of pure agony choked in my throat from the pain. It felt as if thousands of white-hot needles were drilling into my brain all at once, forcing me to curl into a ball on the ground, trembling violently under the sensory torture. My spider-sense was howling like a siren, a deafening vibration pointing straight toward my own home.
It took me a couple of seconds of sheer shock to process the reason, and in that instant, an icy chill ran straight down my spine. In my past life, I had been a Marvel fan, but I had never cared enough to read the classic 1960s comic books. Furthermore, in that first life, even though I lived well and was surrounded by my family's affection, we always barely scraped by at the end of the month. Money was tight, and there was never any room in the budget to spend on personal luxuries like vintage comic book collections.
My entire foundation of the web-slinger's origin came from the movie adaptations. In my memories, Uncle Ben always died in a dark street or on a central avenue after getting shot by a robber Peter had refused to stop. That was why I had spent my time patrolling the city streets, mostly Queens.
I never knew that in the original comic book history, the goddamn killer broke straight into the Parker home to rob it.
"No, no, no!" I choked out, feeling the panic in my own voice.
Both chibis manifested, utterly terrified. The original mini Peter screamed with eyes wide from the absolute horror of losing his aunt and uncle, while the mini college student was furious for not predicting it and blindly trusting what he already knew. I had been protecting the city streets, but I had left the most important place completely defenseless.
I planted my feet with a savage strength that cracked the tiles beneath my boots and propelled myself forward at high speed, firing a web in sheer desperation. My heart hammered with wild violence, mixing the deep love I felt for my aunt and uncle with a manic rage that froze my blood. If that goddamn lowlife touched a single hair on their heads, I was going to make sure he wished he had never been born.