Prologue
Aftermath part 1
Aftermath part 2
Aftermath part 3
Aftermath part 4
Aftermath part 5
Aftermath part 6
Emily part 1
Emily part 2
Emily part 3
Emily part 4
Emily part 5
Emily part 6
Emily part 7
Cinderella part 1
Cinderella part 2
Cinderella part 3
Cinderella part 4
Only Human part 1

FAITH IN HUMANITY
Only Human, part 2
24th February 2003:

Peter reached Harry’s house at a quarter to nine. Harry opened the door for him. He was dressed, which was something, unless he’d just gone to sleep in yesterday’s clothes.

“Hi, Harry…”

“Hey,” he answered. He looked rather depressed. Only to be expected, really. He walked through to the sitting room and Peter followed him. They sat down on the sofas, opposite each other, and Harry said, “Wonder what MJ feels like right now.”

“What?”

“The Goblin tried to kill her and now he’s dead.”

“Oh.”

They wandered through the living room. Harry started talking again.

“He’s ruined my life, the wallcrawler. He really has. I want to fucking kill him.”

Peter groaned inwardly. He should have seen it coming.

“You been drinking again?”

“No.”

“Harry, maybe you should see someone,” Peter said. “You’re…it’s just…I’m starting to worry about you.” It sounded useless and it wouldn’t work, but at least he’d said something.

“I know what you’re gonna say,” Harry said. “MJ said exactly the same thing at my birthday party. About the drinking. You’d have known if you’d showed.”

“Well,” Peter said, but realised there was nothing he could say. It all seemed pointless all of a sudden. Even if Norman had never died- if he’d managed to cure himself, or had just plain decided not to play around with chemicals in the first place- where would Harry be now? Probably still doing with his life only exactly what his father wanted him to do, just like he was now.

It was then that he thought of something.

“Harry, stop drinking, alright? This is getting stupid,” he began.

Harry shrugged, but he stopped moving- he was shifting towards the alcohol cabinet- and turned around.

“I can’t help it,” he whispered, and Peter figured that by it he meant everything. “I just…I know what you must think of me. I don’t know why you haven’t run away already…”

Peter shook his head, got up, put his hand on Harry’s shoulder and steered him away from the cupboard. “I’m not going to run away…and I want to ask you something,” he said. He waited until Harry had sat down, and then he said, “Okay. What about your mother? What would she want you to do?”

Harry just stared in a baffled sort of way. He opened his mouth, and then closed it, and then managed to say, “Peter. She died ages and ages ago.”

“I know,” Peter said. “But if she was still alive, what would she want you to do?”

Harry looked at him like he belonged in a mental home or jail, and said, “I don’t know, do I? Because I’ve never known her. That would be like me asking you what your parents would do…”

Peter had to admit that was true, but he wasn’t going to give up so easily. “She’d want you to be happy, I figure. And you’re not happy. And, you know, no-one’s murder is gonna make you happy either.” He put slight emphasis on the word murder. Harry noticed.

“I…I don’t think I’m ever going to know…” He ran a hand through his hair, and blinked. Blinked several times. Peter waited. Harry did nothing.

“Peter…” he finally said, but nothing after that, and Peter figured, weirdly enough, that that was a goodbye of some sort. Because how could it not be…this boy, this man, his best friend, was out to kill him. No…his best friend was out to kill someone, which was just as bad. And he could do nothing to stop it.

Or maybe he could, and he wasn’t.

*****

When he got back to his apartment, he headed straight for the phone, and dialled MJ’s number.

“Hey,” she said, picking up. “Who is it?”

“It’s me. Peter.”

“Hi!” she said. She seemed geniunely pleased to hear him, although oddly…guarded, too, in a way. “What’s up?”

“You’ve read the news, right?”

“Oh,” she said. “That.”

“Yeah. Are you okay?”

“I don’t know,” she answered. There was a pause, and then she said, “It just…seems a little off to me. The whole thing.”

“What?”

“That man…Hamilton, was it?…I sort of get the feeling they’re using him as a scapegoat or something.”

“What makes you think that?” Peter asked, trying much too hard to keep his voice light.

“I don’t know. It’s just a feeling,” she said with a sigh. “But, yeah, I am okay. I don’t feel fantastic, but…yeah.”

“Listen, you have to come over and see me sometime. Or I’ll come see you.”

“Okay. Awesome.”

“I will, alright? I’ll see you around.”

“See you around,” she answered.

“Bye, Mary Jane.”

“Thanks for checking up on me,” she said, just before she hung up.

*****

Ursula Ditkovich’s diary, 10th March 2003:

One day I want to tell a story. I don’t know why. When I was younger I wanted to write historical fiction (is there a name for that? a historical fictioneer?), just because it sounded like fun, learning all the facts and then putting your own spin on them. Ursula Ditkovich’s thoughts on history. I am not yet a historical fictioneer.

I don’t know what will happen to me. I might get married, I suppose. If I meet the right guy. But it’s just, kinda, living here with my dad and hearing him talk about my mom, it doesn’t show marriage in the best light.

I haven’t done anything today.

******

20th March 2003:

Ursula sometimes thought she lived in the little things. The really little things. Flowers in vases, multicoloured inks in pens, the creaking of doors. Every night she listened to Peter’s door creak open and closed, until one day it stopped. She would hear it creak open and hear Peter leave, and never hear him return again, yet the next day he would be back in his room.

This time, however, she had heard him walking up the stairs, heard the footsteps stop, and heard the noise of someone falling. She waited in her room, uncertain, and ventured out.

As she had suspected, it was Peter. He was lying on the stairs- she thought he was breathing, but he wasn’t moving. She wasn’t sure what to do. Maybe he’d fainted. She had no idea what to do when someone had fainted. So she crouched down next to him and shook his arm slightly.

“Hey, are you alright?” she whispered.

He jumped up like a shot, as if someone had just yelled his name. “What?” he asked dizzily…and then he saw that it was only her. “Wait…did I fall over? Here?”

She nodded.

“Damn. I’m sorry.”

“Don’t be sorry…” she said, but Peter had pulled himself up and limped towards his bedroom. He smiled at her as he went in, but that was it.

*****

The World And Superhumanity by Anna D. Webb:

And the fact remains: why shouldn’t people elevate superheroes to the level of gods? They fit half of the critera, after all. They have powers beyond what we can achieve, they work in mysterious ways, and they have performed miracles; saved lives. All the good traits of a god, without the problem of proof.

Recently there was a car crash in Manhattan: the car sped out of control, hit a wall, and burst into flames. Tens of concerned onlookers rushed forward, but by the time they found the car, Spider-Man was already there, holding the car’s youngest occupant- a three-year-old- in his hands. He handed the child to the nearest person and swung away- and then, from behind the burning car, the child’s parents stood up, dazed and frightened but unhurt. Spider-Man had snagged them with his webbing and yanked them from the car just before it burst into flames.

One gets the feeling that a deity would have saved only the child…

*****

10th April 2003:

Peter had woken up early- seven o’ clock in the morning. He’d had a good night’s sleep for once, and he had taken the opportunity to think things over. Not everything, just things.

Had it really only been a couple of months since the anniversary of his uncle’s death? It didn’t seem right. He did, after all, think about his uncle every single day, relentlessly- sometimes he thought it was on purpose that he rarely had time to think about other things. But of course that wasn’t true.

He couldn’t remember what day the funeral had been. Somewhere around this time, except a year ago. He had purposely tried to forget, and clearly it had worked.

Who had turned up to the funeral? He could just about remember that. MJ was there, she’d given him a hug and cried quite a bit. He’d gone to sit next to her. Harry had been there, pale-faced, telling Peter how sorry he was, how there were so many evil people in the world these days…

Even a few people from high school had come. Liz Allen and Flash Thompson…

He also remembered, a few weeks afterwards, he’d found himself really hating Flash Thompson- if not for him and his stupid car, Peter wouldn’t have wanted a car of his own and would never even have been in the wrestling arena that day. Of course, the rational part of his brain soon made him see sense- Flash may have been a bully, but he hadn’t caused Uncle Ben’s death any more than MJ had. All the same, it had hurt to see him and MJ together, really hurt, gnawed at him during the rare intervals where all the other things that gnawed at him (like they were doing now) had gone off for coffee or something…

He went back to sleep. Clearly, he needed it. But barely a minute later, he was woken up by the telephone. He leaned over and picked it up.

“Hello?” he said.

“Peter!” came MJ’s happy voice. “You’ll never believe this- I’ve been offered a job modelling!”

“You have?” he said, still tired. “MJ, that’s great!”

“I know!” she said, hyper. “My god, I can’t believe it. I never thought this would happen. I’m gonna phone my parents, too- I’ll call later, okay? We ought to go somewhere.”

“Definately,” he said, while wishing she hadn’t said that. She would call the house and he wouldn’t be there, and he would have let her down again.

“Okay. See you later!”

She hung up. Peter said “Goodbye,” into the empty phone, and hung up as well.

*****

Peter waited for her to call for a good portion of the day: he did his homework while sitting on the bed. He figured it probably looked pathetic, a guy sitting waiting for a call from a girl, but he didn’t care. He was almost relieved that that was the biggest thing on his mind.

Until the day began to move on- before he knew it, it was two o’ clock. He’d finished all his homework, and now a familiar feeling was making itself felt: it wasn’t quite guilt, but it was making him feel almost sick.

It felt horrible.

He went to the window. How does everyone else do it, he thought, hanging around all day and knowing that it’s very likely someone will die within a matter of minutes in an incident that could’ve been prevented? If they were there, if they took down the guy with the gun or tried to stop the fight-

He turned away from the window in irritation.

Because they don’t have enough power, you idiot- only you do.

He made up his mind: he’d wait ten more minutes for the phone to ring and then go out. He had a job to do…

…and now that he thought about it, wouldn’t it actually do him some good to get a real job? Considering that he was getting more and more broke every day.

He ought to raise enough money to buy a cell phone- that was a pretty good idea now he thought about it- not to mention impossible.

He counted down the minutes, one by one. He slid the chest containing his masks out from the cupboard. If I miss her, he thought desperately, I’ll just tell her I was out looking for a job.

Ten minutes passed. He went out. As he went out he took a glance at his calendar- the sixteenth was circled: MJ’s Birthday.

*****

As he swooped down into town, he saw the blackened wreckage of the ice-cream palour May had taken him to. He would later discover, reading the newspaper, that it had been burned down by a bunch of arsonist kids- such a little thing to happen, but just one little thing that he hadn’t prevented was normally enough to ruin his day.

*****

The World And Superhumanity by Anna D. Webb:

This is of course a dangerous road to walk on. As many who speak on this subject have noted, we’ve entered a new age of humanity, but beyond all else we must remain human ourselves.

This depends, of course, on how one defines ‘human’, and whether one defines it as good or bad.