Peter Parker's Arc

Chapter 1 of 1

Peter crouched low on a rooftop ledge and listened. Most nights, the neighborhood talked back to him — a shout, a car horn, the scrape of a shoe too close behind someone walking home. Tonight, nothing. He held his breath and waited for the usual signs. None came. The silence pressed in, heavier than any noise, and he knew the math wasn't adding up again. He dropped down to street level and froze. The pavement below him was burned. Wide rings curled into the stone, one inside the next, like something had landed hard and spun. Small blue shards glinted at the edges. No people. No cars. No stray cats. Someone had cleared the block on purpose. Peter pulled back into the shadow of a doorway, heart hammering. Whatever did this was still close, and now he knew it. He looked up. The traffic light above the intersection hung dark. Its bulbs were dead. The plastic housing was cracked clean through. No hum, no click, no color change. The whole grid here had been killed on purpose. Peter felt his stomach drop. Someone had wanted this corner blind. He stepped closer to the burned rings and saw it. A small blue button lay on the stone. Plastic, bright, woven through with a thread of human fabric still clinging to it. Torn off in a hurry. Peter picked it up between two fingers. Someone had been dragged through here. The silence wasn't empty. It was a warning he had arrived too late to stop, and now he had a trail to follow.