𝐝𝐞𝐣𝐚 𝐯𝐮, peter parker

lxiii. scars of your love

chapter sixty-three
scars of your love

WHEN NINA saw the news, she thought she was dreaming.

Most people used the phrase as a way to explain excitement▬they could not believe that this wonderful thing possibly could happen to them. Nina meant it in a literal sense. In a terrible, dreadful literal sense that made her hitch a silent gasp of horror and quickly tried to wake herself up in every possible way. She shook her head, lightly smacked it, ran to the bathroom to splash water on her face before checking her phone▬and she was so terrified that her dreams had suddenly changed from nightmares to manifest during the daytime. So terrified that she will never be able to tell the difference between fiction and reality. Every step she took would be a new dream, a new tragedy, a new horror-filled experience that haunted her daily.

There were some things she could forget, some things she could feel a similarity▬but there were some things that she could never forget, no matter how hard she tried. Nina Hart could never forget those lenses that followed her as she fell, desperate to make it to her in time. She could never forget the feeling of freefalling off the Manhattan Bridge as she listened to the manic cackle of a horrific monster. Nina Hart could never forget the sound of her own scream.

She could not forget the feeling of metal arms pulling her away from the cafe in her dreams and dragging her, screaming and struggling. She could not forget the face of the man that held her captive▬the face of Doc Ock in her dreams ...

The face of that man on the bridge.

The same face.

The same brown hair, the same narrow jaw, the same malicious grin, dark trenchcoat and sunglasses. The same metal arms with pointed, vicious claws▬Nina Hart could never forget.

But she had to be dreaming. She must be dreaming. Because he was not real. Doc Ock was not real. Just like the rest of them weren't real. Dreams were dreams. That was fiction.

Then she read about the explosions that followed. Headlines and headlines of the green flying silhouette in the smoke of the bridge with a vengeful breath against Spider-Man.

Nina had locked herself in her room, too scared to look at the television anymore. Too scared to think▬she was dreaming. She was still dreaming. This was all just another dream, and when she woke up, nothing would have happened. This wasn't real.

She dreamt about that green silhouette perhaps the most; dreamt of his horrific laugh until she heard it even when she wished she did not. He was the monster under her bed, the monster in the shadows▬the monster she stared up at as she fell ... and she fell ... and she fell ... Whether it was him, or another version of him ... Almost every dream, it was he▬her monster▬that dropped her to her death.

He couldn't be real. None of this was real.

Nina was dreaming again. She had to be dreaming.

Or maybe she willed herself to dream it because when she opened her eyes again, she was no longer in her room.

Nina glanced around, frowning when she found herself standing in a long hallway. Polished tile was at her feet, the walls a cream-white colour▬there was a stench in the air; one that slightly burnt at her nose. She quickly realised she was standing in the corridor of a hospital ... but ... she didn't know why she was in the hospital.

Which struck her as strange, because not only did she feel herself drift off so quickly▬from what seemed like one dream to another ... at least, she hoped▬but also she felt so alert as herself. She did not find herself immersed in the world of the dream as quickly as she always did. Nina could still think so clearly about what she had just left▬about the explosion on the bridge and of Doc Ock.