Spider-Man's Arc

Chapter 4 of 10

Twenty-one spiders still clung to Spider-Man's suit. His legs shook, but he pushed deeper into the tunnel. The two wizard dogs padded ahead, wands glowing, painting the walls with light. He needed that light. Without it his spider-sense went blind, and blind, he could not bond a single new spider. So he followed the glow and reached for spider twenty-two. The tunnel narrowed. The air grew cold. Ahead, the wands dimmed. Not all at once, but slow, like candles running low. The one dog with round goggles whined and shook its hat. Its wand sputtered. The other dog's light shrank to a weak blue spark. Spider-Man stopped. The wall of spiders faded into shadow. His spider-sense fuzzed and dropped. He reached for a spider he could no longer feel and caught nothing. The deeper he went, the darker it got, and the wands were failing in the cold. "No. Not now," he said. He knelt by the goggled dog and cupped its wand in both hands. The light flickered against his palms, then died to an ember. He had one plan left. If light was fading, he needed a stronger light, and he needed it before the last spark went out. He pulled off his mask and breathed warm air across the wand's tip. The dog leaned into him. Spider-Man rubbed its shoulders fast, the way you warm a cold thing back to life. The dog's tail thumped. Its ears lifted. Slowly, the wand brightened. The second dog pressed close, and its wand caught the glow and grew. Light bloomed down the tunnel. The far wall lit up, thick with spiders. Spider-Man's spider-sense snapped back on, sharp and clear. He felt them all at once, hundreds of small lives crawling in the dark. He reached out. One spider dropped from the ceiling onto his glove. Bond twenty-two. Then twenty-three. The dogs stayed warm and bright beside him, and each new spider settled onto his arms. But the deeper wall stretched on, curving into black where the light still could not reach. And the dogs shivered. The goggled one pawed at its wand again. The cold down here was too much for them. He could keep the light alive with his hands and his breath, but only for one dog at a time, only for so long. To go deeper, he would need a light that did not fear the cold. Spider-Man stood with twenty-three spiders and two tired dogs. He had beaten the dark for now. But the tunnel ahead swallowed the glow whole, and his warm light had a limit, just like his bond.