Today, school was more boring than ever.

  From the get go, I’d drifted in and out of half-waking sleeps as Ms Beale had droned on and on about the intricacies of modern-day economics and how relevant the stats we were learning were. Then it’d been Mr Dharma trying to explain the complexities of “basic” chemistry.

  Jess had convinced me to take that class, and for some stupid reason I’d listened. And now I was struggling not to scream in our American History class as Mr Elliots urged everyone for the fourth time today that learning about history was more important than the sciences, because of his academic integrity or whatever. Definitely not any feud he was having with the STEM teachers this week.

  I sighed. The lessons were just plain stupid. Filled with a bunch of mumbo jumbo hocus pocus, and teacher tangents that spiralled off into weird and niche topics that I’d never have to use anywhere. I literally would’ve had an easier time learning magic from one of Mr Mysterious’ stupid schools. I scratched another notch into the underside of my desk with a compass and sighed again.

  What was with all the teachers trying to explain stuff we didn’t need to know? It felt like the world was trying to put me to sleep, force me to close my eyes and rest out of sheer boredom.

  I glanced to Jess and scowled. She sat attentive, her eyes filled with interest as she followed Mr Elliots every word, all the while writing down comprehensive notes in her book at near lightspeed. Such a good student. It made me sick.

  I probably would be failing without her though.

  With a sigh I looked out the window, towards the lower Manhattan skyline. Oscorp wasn’t smoking anymore, but the damage was still clear as day, a series of black and burned marks surrounding the tarp covered face of the broken glass. Everyone in New York was used to seeing it on smaller buildings, but on Oscorp tower? It felt like a foreboding warning of doom. Even Electro and the huge spider attack hadn’t cause this much damage. Well, all the damage had been mostly internal then.

  I sighed. We needed to be out there, looking for the guy. Lucas probably was. But I was stuck in here, listening to Mr Elliots whinge and moan about the superiority of history over math. My eyes remained glued to the skyline, my gaze longing. Sometimes I wished I could just swing all day, mindlessly. It would make things far more fun.

  Finally, the bell for lunch went and I hopped up, scooping up my stuff and dumping it in my bag before rushing for the door, one of the first – and definitely most grateful – to finally leave the classroom. Jess met me outside, shaking her head with a poorly hidden smile, and together we started towards.

  “It’s great isn’t it?”

  “What?”

  “The freedom of being out of class. This is what school’s all about” I muttered. “Lunch.”

  She rolled her eyes as I laughed.

  “Let me know how that line of thinking works out for you”

  “Will do. Man, I’m hungry. What do you think they’re gonna serve today?”

  “Hopefully something good. Maybe something vegan” she said with a sly grin.

  “Why’re you saying that like it’s something bad? It’ll be good for me. Great even”

  “You’re not seriously going vegan are you?” she said as we turned a corner.

  “I said it, and I’m going to try and stick to it starting today. Unless they made BBQ chicken. Then tomorrow. Unless it’s pizza. But after that I’m definitely going vegan. Well… vegetarian. I don’t think I could live without eggs.”

  “What if they serve steak the day after the pizza?”

  “Don’t tempt me Jess” I said. “I can’t let my resolve falter this early.”

  “Well what if there’s that curry they do that you really like?”

  “I can’t hear you. I can’t hear you” I mumbled, Jess laughed before turning to me.

  “You know Yu, you should really go vegan”

  “What? You were against it just a second ago?”

  “That’s before I thought about how hard it would be for you”

  “That’s so mean” I half joked. Jess laughed again.

  “Oh, and well if you keep on how you’re going, you might end up eating someone. Their brain more specifically I guess”

  The narrative has been illicitly obtained; should you discover it on Amazon, report the violation.

  “I’m no- wait what?” I said turning to her. The chatter and bustle of the cafeteria continued around us as normal whilst she smiled at me.

  “Jess what’re you- are you messing with me?”

  “I mean phenethylamine’s in chocolate and brains”

  “I don’t- I- what are you talking about? I’ve never- I haven’t thought about”

  “I know you have”

  “I- what?”

  “Or at least I’ll figure it out soon. Or Peter. Your sudden love for chocolate, the readings I picked up yesterday, and how much more meat you’ve been eating. Linking it all back to the symbiote, your powers. It’s not hard to make the jump.”

  “Jess stop. You’re scaring me”

  “We’ll try to stop you, you know? We’ll have to take away the suit. Take away your power. I mean no one will just let you eat brains”

  I made to grab her but my body was frozen, muscles stiffened to beyond the extreme.

  “You’ll have to kill me to stop me Yu” she said, stepping even closer. “Kill me Yu! You’ll have to kill me!”

  I lurched up quickly, letting loose a gasp as my eyes flew open. Heavy breaths echoed through my room for a few moments as my alarm buzzed loudly. I sighed before grabbing my phone and turning off the alarm. With a yawn, I rubbed at my eyes, groggily before leaning my head against the bed frame, dream Jess’ voice echoing in my head. The dreams were starting to feel a lot realer.

  “That gas stuff really messed me up” he mumbled.

  -

  “And I was thinking maybe we could work on the Benton Bridge design project together" Jess said. "I’ve already drafted a bunch of ideas and stuff for it already.”

  I gave a non-committal grunt in response.

  “That didn’t sound enthusiastic.”

  “It wasn’t”

  “Oh come on it’ll be fun”

  “We don’t have the free time anyway”

  “We’ve got enough free time. Plus, Peter says he and Lucas can cover some hours”

  “Ok but… why? We don’t need to do this” I muttered.

  “Eh… debatable”

  I glanced back to her then kept walking. Together, we continued down the hall, snaking between others as we made for our lockers.

  “Oh come on Yu. It’s an opportunity to do something cool and have something to go on our CV, or when we send stuff off to college.”

  “We already do cool stuff” I said, pulling open my locker.

  “Outside of our current… extra-curricular.”

  “Nah, I’m good. Crime fighting’s enough for me.”

  “Yu” Jess said, glancing around. “I just think we should do this. I mean, come on. When I was in highschool before I don’t think I realised how many opportunities there were”

  “Yeah, but I’m doing highschool for the first time. I want to waste all the opportunities I can”

  “Ha ha, very funny” Jess said. “But seriously, this will be good.”

  “No” I said firmly, slamming my locker shut. Jess paused as I looked back to her.

  “What was that?”

  “I was closing my locker”

  “Uh… you, ok?”

  “I’m fine” I said curtly.

  “You sure?”

  “Yeah. Let’s go” I muttered. Jess frowned, watching me for a few moments before tilting her head.

  “Ah I know what it is” she said, nodding.

  “Know what what is?”

  “You weren’t eating any chocolate on the way to school like usual. You want me to buy you some at lunch?”

  “W-what?! No. No, no, no.”

  Jess’ frown deepened.

  “What’s with you? You’re being all… weird.”

  “I’m fine” he said, harsher this time.

  “Sure. Want me to buy you some chocolate or something? Pete, Liz, and Aunt May give me too much money anyway.”

  “I said no. I’m not hungry.”

  She raised and eyebrow, then shrugged and together we began walking to class. I walked faster than usual, my mind still fixed on the m. Usually dreams had some kind of symbolism based on personal feelings. So then what? I thought being Spider-Man was fun, Jess was scary and school was boring?

  The first and latter part was probably true, but the Jess one wasn’t. Unless it was subconscious somehow. But what reason would I have to be afraid of Jess? I had way more reason to be afraid of that glider villain and I’d barely thought about him within the dream. The tower and the whole fight had barely been a distant reminder on the horizon.

  “Oh” I said, looking up. “I heard on the news that Harry Osborne woke up.”

  “Huh?” Jess said, caught off guard. “Oh yeah, Pete told me and yeah… it’s great.”

  “You don’t sound too enthusiastic”

  “Well, no I- it’s not like. I don’t know”

  “Bet, it’s getting to you can’t see him huh?”

  Jess froze, glancing to me.

  “What?” I said.

  “What the hell Yu?” she said, her expression a mix of embarrassment, and anger masked sadness.

  “I was just saying”

  “Yeah, but don’t… whatever” she said, curt, walking off without me.

  I watched her go frowning. That’d been weird. I made to follow then paused, stopping. I wasn’t having any fun talking with her today like I usually did. I glanced back down the hall, to the door. Considering class would probably be just as if not more boring than my dreams, there probably wasn’t much point in sticking around.

  Plus, skipping hadn’t got me in that much trouble last year.

  -

  Swinging mindlessly really was the best thing in the world. Especially with the ability to change the form of my arms. It was like rediscovering something you’d barely paid any attention to before. Practically an art in and of itself.

  “WOOOHOOO!” I cried, waving to excited fans below.

  I curved around a building fast enough that my surroundings blurred into a mess of misshapen colours before letting go of my web. Instead of firing another, I slammed against the wall, cracking some of the brick underfoot before sprinting up the wall face. It was weird. Today I felt better than ever. Probably Squeak finally getting rid of all the toxins from my system.

  I leapt up, almost flying up the last thirty feet of building before slamming to the roof. For a moment I stopped, looking down to my hands as the suit moved around them, flowing seamlessly like water around me at the centre. At a thought the flow changed direction, a keen awareness of the suit and how to control it in my mind now.

  “Woah” I muttered. “Cool.”

  My watch buzzed again, and I looked to it, nearly thirty messages from Jess and five missed calls. She was complaining about me skipping. It’s not like I even learned anything from the classes anyway.

  “Annoying” I muttered. I turned it off, then looked around. Where too now? I could head towards Chinatown, see if Kingpin and his goons were doing anything stupid, or I could try my luck in Brooklyn proper, see if any more NE mutants had popped up.

  I was leaning more to the NE mutants. Sure, Kingpin would be fun, but a monster? I could really let loose on a monster. I started towards the building edge, racing forward with hungry strides before suddenly stopping.

  Gun shots. About seven blocks over. A maniacal grin came to my face as I licked my lips and cracked my knuckles.

  “Guess the danger came to me” I giggled.

  It was time to have some fun.