The Next Day
The back door of the classroom slammed open.
Peter Parker burst in, sweat beading on his forehead, his brown hair sticking up in every direction like a startled bird's nest.
"I overslept," he announced—more to himself than anyone else—and collapsed into his seat with a groan. His heavy backpack hit the floor with a careless thud.
He glanced around the room, then immediately leaned toward Joren, lowering his voice.
"Jojo… buddy… don't you think something's off today?"
Peter's eyes were wide with unease.
Joren didn't look up. His gaze remained fixed on the open book in his hands, as if every word held the secret to the universe.
"Hmm."
"What do you mean, 'hmm'?!" Peter hissed, frustration creeping into his whisper.
"On my way here, I saw a mailman dump an entire sack of letters down a storm drain—then just stood there grinning like he'd won the lottery!"
"And this woman in a business suit? Took off her high heels and used them like phones, yakking away like it was totally normal!"
"This isn't just weird, Jojo. Even for New York, this is seriously messed up."
Joren slowly turned a page. The soft rustle of paper filled the silence between them.
Of course it's strange, Peter thought. Because none of this is real.
These absurd scenes weren't random—they were scripted. Staged.
And the one pulling the strings was hiding just out of sight, flexing power capable of warping reality itself.
But Joren? Unfazed. Unmoved.
Peter slumped back in his chair, deflated.
Yet deep in his mind, his spider-sense—a low, insistent hum—continued to vibrate. Not a scream, not a jab… but a warning. Persistent. Unignorable. A faint electric tingle at the base of his skull.
---
Lunch Break
Peter had no appetite.
Tray in hand, he wandered through the crowded cafeteria like a ghost, eyes scanning the room like radar sweeping for anomalies.
There—a burly rugby player meticulously aligning strands of spaghetti into perfect parallel lines with his fork.
Over by the window—the usually stern librarian tearing pages from a thick dictionary and letting them flutter out like confetti, her face slack with a vacant, eerie smile.
No one showed real emotion.
No anger. No joy. Just… stillness. A calm so deep it felt wrong.
This isn't normal. This is not normal.
His gaze finally landed on Joren, sitting alone in the far corner.
He ate slowly, deliberately, as if the chaos around him didn't exist.
But Peter knew better.
Joren had seen it all.
He always saw everything.
---
After School
The final bell sliced through the air, sharp and final.
Joren walked out of the classroom, hands tucked casually in his pockets.
Peter followed without thinking—keeping just far enough back to stay unnoticed.
He had to figure this out.
The walk home should've felt familiar: the same cracked sidewalks, the same rush of pedestrians.
But Peter's spider-enhanced senses picked up every wrong detail.
The hot dog vendor—usually shouting deals—fell silent the moment Joren passed.
Steam still curled from his cart, but his eyes, glazed and distant, tracked Joren's retreating figure with unsettling focus.
A female office worker, who was having a heated argument on her phone, had her phone slip from her ear as she brushed past Joren. She didn't even notice; she just turned her head sharply and stared blankly at him as he walked away.
The entire street resembled a giant, meticulously arranged stage.
All the passersby were puppets on strings.
And Joren was the only protagonist in this absurd drama.
Peter felt the hairs on the back of his neck stand on end in an instant.
His spider-sense screamed—no, shrieked—a static-like buzz escalating into a piercing wail that nearly split his skull open.
Danger!
A tremendous, unprecedented danger!
He froze mid-step, his gaze sweeping the crowd like a searchlight, desperate to pinpoint the threat.
Then he saw him.
At the street corner stood a man in an absurdly sophisticated, eye-searing purple suit.
Ordinary face. Unremarkable build. The kind of man you'd forget the moment he turned away—
except for that suit. It made him look like a drop of concentrated poison spilled into clear water.
The man in purple stopped a commuter hurrying to work, briefcase in hand.
He leaned in slightly and whispered something into the man's ear.
Peter was too far to hear the words—but he didn't need to.
The next second, the office worker's fingers went slack.
His briefcase hit the pavement with a hollow thud, papers spilling like startled birds.
He didn't glance down.
Expressionless, he turned and walked toward the brick wall of a nearby apartment building.
He looked up.
Then, calmly, methodically, began banging his forehead against the bricks.
Thump.
Thump.
Thump.
Blood—bright red and slick—trickled down his brow, blurring his vision, staining the collar of his white shirt.
He showed no sign of pain. Only obedience.
Peter's pupils shrank to pinpricks.
He'd heard the rumors.
In the shadowed corners of hero and villain alike, one name was spoken in hushed dread:
Kilgrave.
The Purple Man.
A demon who ruled minds with a whisper.
Peter's eyes darted from the bleeding man—still hammering his skull against unyielding brick—back to the figure in purple.
Kilgrave didn't spare his puppet another look.
Instead, he lifted his chin, his gaze slicing through the crowd… and locking onto Joren's retreating back.
A faint smile curled at the corners of his mouth—
the quiet satisfaction of an artist admiring his next canvas.
This wasn't just an attack.
It was psychological siege warfare.
Kingpin had done this.
He'd unleashed the world's most terrifying psychological predator—not to kill Joren, but to break him.
To trap him in a reality where every stranger could be a sleeper agent, every conversation a weapon, every kindness a lie.
To make Joren doubt his eyes, his ears, his memories—until he no longer trusted his own mind.
To make that powerful, near-invincible boy destroy himself from the inside out.
To drag him into a waking nightmare with no exit.
Peter watched Joren walk on, oblivious, step by step toward the invisible cage Kingpin had built for him.
And for the first time in a long while, Spider-Man felt helpless.
How do you fight a command spoken in silence?
How do you punch a sentence?
How do you shield someone from a look?
All he could do was stand there—
watching his friend walk deeper into madness,
with no way to pull him back.
Happy new year 🎊 🎊 🎊