The skies burned a deep brick red. Smoke bellowed through any structure left standing. What was Brooklyn is nothing more then glass and sand settled on gravel and rock. Blood was splattered on what was once pavements. The wind made a bone gloomy whistling noise as it blasted through debris and one or two trees that still stood...barely.His vision was blurred. Hunger, he quickly came to realize was more paralyzing then the destruction of an entire city. He needed food. His mind had shut down days ago, he senses as highly tuned as they may be were reduced to flashes and ringing across his mental state. Peter propped himself up against the nearest wall. His boots were shredded. He could see the bruising on his toes and foot. His suit was torn, exposed knee caps were caked in scar tissue and sand, blood speckled across the wounds. His gloves were long gone, right hand sleeve was torn at the forearm. He looked for his mask, it was nowhere to be found. The wind must have carried it away, it could be anywhere now. Peter Parker helped himself to his feet. Hobbling out from under the bridge he squinted at the sunlight, what little of it that came through the smog covering the skyline.
"Well spidey, at least 'yer got 'yer health" he mumbled to himself as he made his way to a fallen cable. He started climbing.
When the bomb ignited, the Avengers were right beside it. The didn't stand a chance. Nobody saw the bomb-truck. Mysterio was too much of a perfectionist to allow a foul-up. The truck was parked right at the exit of the Avengers tower. Nobody was the wiser. Mysterio didn't create a diversion for the Avengers, he was the diversion. The hulk had his hand on the illusionist's dome just as the bomb detonated. 40 megatons, is what answered the age old question of "what can kill the hulk?"
Wasp and Ant-man were the nearest, poetic that they died together. Tony stark managed to blast the mighty Thor out of the immediate blast range but it was too little to late. The great Iron man could have only seen the almost lifeless body of the Asgardian fall limp to the ground before he was engulfed in the blast. When the Asgardians came for Thor he was barely alive, God or not. The rest of the city soon followed. At least Captain America said his goodbye as he died on the steps of City Hall, lesser can be said for the fate of nearly a hundred or so heroes and more than eight million civilians lost their lives. The Amazing Spider-man was one of the lucky ones.
Peter was underground when this happened. The lizard had gone mad with rage at the lost of his research during the Civil War. He had been obsessed in restoring his formula and was testing it on high-school kids with special needs. Six had died before Spider-man got to the scene. The battle raged in the sewers beneath Queens when the bomb went off. The next thing he remember, Peter was lying in a pool of sewage and blood, the lizard on top of him. Dr Connor was not so lucky. A huge slab of road had caved in and completely smashed the face of the infamous Lizard. Peter had been protected by the Lizard's body. The irony of it all, Dr Curtis Connors, before his alter-ego the Lizard took over, always told peter that his research was going to save lives like his in the future.
Fifteen days after the incident New York City was a concave valley of death. The last to die was Luke Cage. Though he somehow managed to survive the initial blast the force has caused almost all his bones to break within his body. He was begging Peter to end him. The friendly neighborhood Spider-man had to kill a man for the first time in his life.
Hunger gripped Peter, paralyzing him. He could barely move let alone climb, but he persevered. At the top of what was once a tower of the Brooklyn bridge, peter could see the destruction in all directions. Not a single building stood. Just mountains of dirt and rubble. Smoke and bodies. So many bodies. Hand and legs and heads and even organs. Everywhere. Peter looked at his hands, his web-slingers were destroyed, his hands scabbed and burnt. Peter had no choice, he was going to have to get the the Avengers tower, ground zero. The underground portion of the base was nearly eight hundred feet below the ground, it had to have some supplies. He was weak and he had to eat to get his strength. This was a dangerous environment, his spider sense had been going off like an alarm for the past three days. There was no apparent danger, except the environment. Falling bricks, electric cables and even exploding cars and gaskets. Peter had to move and he had to do it now.
Jumping from one fallen cable to another Peter made it across the bridge. There were no buildings to crawl on or webbing to sling from. The Amazing Spider-Man felt far from his namesake. Peter walked as fast as his feet could carry him, his spidey sense ringing so loud he had to squint. Peter avoided rubble and exposed cables. He trudged across broken pavements and fallen trees. There was a faint acidity in the air. Fallout? No way to know until he got the the base, Peter thought. The smog burned his lungs and stung at his eyes. Peter pushed on.
Times Square was hollowed. The displays were shattered on the floor, the glass bits glittering against the reddish sunlight. Peter stuck to the walls and large rubble to avoid too many glass edges. The lifeless body of Kitty Pryde's body rested against one of the felled wall segments, her hip half stuck in the wall. Shadow-cat. The X-Men were here. A few feet in front of Kitty, Night-crawler laid squashed. He must have tried teleporting people to safety before finally tiring and losing to the world crumbling around him. Tears rolled down Peter's cheeks. These were his friends, heroes. They did not deserve this.
Peter made it past Times Square and found himself in the ruins of what was Wall Street. Spidey sense exploding between his ears and hunger clawing at his insides Peter had to take a break. He had been walking for hours on end. Thirst numbed him. Peter crashed to the ground and hung his head low. Hell this was hell. Aunt May, MJ, even J. Jonah, all gone. Everything his life had been built up to be to this point had all been a waste. The Civil War that ravaged the super-hero community. Cap's death. Tony turning to the bottle and crippling the country financially. All a waste, a shame.
Peter felt something wet drip on his head. It must be the ruptured plumbing. He looked around to find the source, thirst driving him almost insane at this point. He felt another drop fall on him, spidey sense tingling. Peter was too weak to be alert, he scanned the darkness beyond him, nothing. Peter tensed. He felt another drip graze his cheek. He touched the liquid. It was dark, cloudy. That was all he could make out from what little light around him. That's when he heard it, the low growl.
It was not of this earth, that growl, but Peter Parker recognized that grow anywhere. He could recognize it a mile away and that's what he had been doing. His spidey sense was going crazy because spiders are alerted when a predator is near. This was Spiderman's biggest, baddest predator.
"Phhheeeterrrr PPPaaaakkkkaaaa...."
Peter struggled to his feet. This cannot be happening. A "whoosh" and a leathery, slippery black goo pinned his right hand to the wall. Before he could react his left hand and shoulder was covered in that goo, slamming him against the wall. His legs were bound, again with that black goo and Peter was motionless. He struggled, normally almost fifty times as powerful as the average man, Spider-man was but a ghost of his glory days. Ripped by hunger and fatigue, thirst and exhaustion, Peter Parker was all but a fly trapped in a spider's web. The irony. A deep breathing could be heard. Peter stopped moving. His body slacked.
"Peeter Phaarrkker..." the voice rasped.
A heavy breathing, deep and fast approached Peter. The last thing Peter saw was visions of his uncle Ben. A hero from a lifetime ago. Aunt May, MJ...oh sweet, sweet MJ. How he wished he could see her one last time. But he knew, it was a world of predators he lived in. The strong eat, the weak get eaten. The last thing Peter Parker, the Amazing Spider-Man saw as his vision drifted away was a long wet tongue lashing through silvery needle-like teeth.
The last this he heard was "WE...ARE...VENOM!"
