Permanent

chapter five

That night, just to top everything off, he had a nightmare. It must've been caused by the fire because his nightmare took him back to the day Peter Parker technically died.

He was about to leave when the fire alarms went off. He'd had his headphones in, so he couldn't hear the fire and the alarms had to be pulled manually. It normally would've worked out fine, except whoever pulled them pulled them about ten minutes too late and the fire had been burning for a while now.

The library was big, and he sat the farthest from the front entrance. It was made out of wood so it burned. Fast. Not to mention, the building wasn't too stable, so it would start falling apart soon.

Everyone had already evacuated, but he didn't hear since he had his earbuds in. He was on his own.

The entrance was blocked by fire, and a few wooden beams had fallen from the ceiling. The fire seemed to be spreading towards him rapidly, and without a second thought, he ran up the stairs to the second floor. He wasn't really thinking straight at the moment though, and of course, there was no exit on the second floor. Not like it mattered. There was nowhere else to run.

The fire had spread to the bottom of the stairs and was eating away at the already unstable wood though, so he couldn't go back.

His only option now would be to go out a window. Running towards the closest one, he saw it was one on the back of the building that faced an alley.

With a deep breath, he climbed through the window. He put his hands on the windowsill, and as slowly as possible, lowered himself down so he was hanging there.

His backpack added extra weight to his back, but he managed to hold himself without slipping. With yet another deep breath, he closed his eyes and counted to three.

The ground seemed more daunting now. He held his breath and forced his eyes to stay open as he let go of the window, falling to the ground quickly.

It wasn't too far of a drop, but he had a talent for getting hurt and the fear of being in a burning building didn't help much either.

Gasping, Peter quickly sat up looking around him, only to find it was daytime and his alarm was going off. He winced at the sudden movement though, a stabbing pain going through his ribs.

He sighed and slowly moved to turn it off. His whole body ached and he felt nauseous, probably from the lack of food, but he had to get up.

Last night he hadn't even had time to change out of his Spider-Man suit before falling asleep. Changing out of his suit, he did his best to brush himself off before heading to the rec center to shower.

He still had a good amount of ash from the fire on him though, so he got some weird looks limping into the rec center. He was used to it though and continued on.

He took a quick shower, brushed his teeth and hair while he was there, and left for school. Before he got dressed, he turned around and looked in the mirror to see a huge, dark bruise on his back from the fall. Of course, there was also one surrounding his ribs, but he was expecting that.

Normally, it would've been healed by now, but it'd been days since he'd had any sort of substantial meal. Every time he moved, a flare of pain was sent through his ribs, back, and the burns he'd gotten. His ankle was hurt too and he was limping.

Somehow, he made it to school though. Ned and MJ were at his locker again this morning. He walked up to them, doing his best to conceal his limp.

"You'll never guess what happened at the internship yesterday," Peter said walking up to them. Ned just listened and MJ rolled her eyes at the lack of any greeting but still listened.