Realm of Nightmares

The air was crisp and chilly, but Peter didn't mind. The breeze numbed his limbs in a soothing way, distracting from the many injuries he was still recovering from. He let the cold soak into his bones as he swung from building to building, aimlessly wandering through the city, looking for crime to stop. 

He focused on the sounds surrounding him. The rumbling of car engines. The whistling wind. The slight tapping of many feet along the sidewalks. His heightened senses helped locate disturbances in the town, which sometimes turned out to be nothing. But other days, they were signs of a crime in progress. A crime to stop. People to protect and a city to save.

Well, maybe not a city to save, but it was nice to think he mattered that much.

After traveling halfway across the entirety of New York without finding someone to beat up, Peter rested on the side of a building. He let his legs dangle and sat there for a while, greeting people who noticed him from below and posing for photos.

He was just about to lay down sideways on the ledge and take a short nap, when suddenly his phone rang before his head even touched the brick. Pulling out the device, he answered without checking to see who it was.

The voice on the other end of the line was quieter than usual, but not a whisper. Not anything to raise a suspicion. Peter was just observant, that's all. 

"Peter, I need you here." It was Doctor Strange. "There's...something..." His voice sounded shaky, breathless, on edge. "Just come to the sanctum, and hurry."

"Is- is everything alright?" asked Peter, already jumping off the ledge and web-swinging with one arm, his other holding the phone to his ear.

No answer. He brought the phone from his head and stowed it away, gaining speed with the use of both arms. Suddenly, the noises in the city got even louder as he focused in on them. He could hear each zipper being drawn, every sip of coffee, each buckling seat belt. He winced at the swift gain in sound, and scrunched his nose up in pain. It was worth the headache though, to possibly be able to help Doctor Strange even before getting to the sanctum. Maybe Peter could uncover clues as to what was going on and why he was being called so urgently.

Once he got there without having heard anything useful, the double sanctum doors opened and he was pulled swiftly inside. Strange stood behind him, pushing his body up the grand staircase and shoving him down into the couch. All of a sudden, Peter was overwhelmed with a sense of danger. There was something lurking...he didn't know where. But it caused him to stand up immediately after being seated and pace the room, stopping every once in a while to peer around corners. It was some sort of hum. A disturbance. An anomaly in the air. He could feel it—a thick, sharp terror that tightened itself around his throat, coiling itself in his stomach. 

"You feel it too," said Strange.

The sudden noise startled him, and then Peter startled himself by being so jumpy. He turned around and backed into a corner so he could watch every side at once, fists ready. "You mean the...danger?" 

"Yes. There is something...here. But I haven't found what." The wizard seemed afraid as well, but not as aware of the danger around them. How could he be so calm at a time like this? Like, yeah, he was Doctor Strange, Sorcerer Supreme and keeper of the Eye of Agamit- Agamu- Agamot-

Whatever.

But surely, he couldn't be this calm? Even a man as usually stoic and collected as THE Doctor Strange couldn’t ignore the sense of impending doom impressing upon the whole sanctum? 

"It's your sixth sense, Spider-Man," said Strange, somehow reading his thoughts.

"My...Spidey-sense?"

"Yes, Peter, your...Spidey-sense. You can tell something is out of place here, even more than I can. It is affecting you more heavily."

"That makes sense," Peter said, though he said it with difficulty, his breath suddenly gone from his lungs. 

With every second the danger became more and more clear, so much to the point where it gave him a headache. His heart sped up and, despite the fact that he never sweat, little drops collected on his forehead. 

Suddenly, Peter began worrying about every little thing going on around him. What if that chandelier fell, shattered, and hurt someone? What if the ceiling collapsed?

Two sides collected in his head. One side of rationalism, logistics. Another of sheer terror and stress.

"Peter, you need to calm down," said Strange. 

And then he became aware of his chest heaving up and down, his hands pressed against the back of the wall, the lenses of his mask squinted into almost lines. 

Strange spoke up again, eyes flitting every which way. "We need to figure out what is happening here, before the fear becomes overwhelming. You being on edge makes perfect sense, because of your ability. But I rarely become this afraid. I've...faced something like this before."

"You have?"

"Unfortunately, yes." He paused. "Come with me."

His bright red cloak trailing behind him, Strange took off in a fast walk down the hallway. Peter followed close behind, looking over his shoulder every few seconds. Just for good measure, he shot a web at the chain holding up the chandelier. It jangled and sent spots of light dancing along the walls. 

At once, his Spidey-sense screamed at him from all directions, rattling his brain. He flinched and grabbed his head, groaning in pain and trying to see through the stars in his eyes at the danger he was so painfully sensing. He slumped against the wall with such force that it caved slightly.

Strange appeared at his side, his voice echoing and ringing in Peter's haze. Pushing through the pounding of his head, he grabbed the wizard's hand and ran down the hallway, hopefully in the direction the two were originally headed.

Peter became aware of the windows shattering behind him, glass flying out from the frames in pieces and creating a trail of shards and drops of blood from where the pointed ends of the glass had made small lacerations in his back. The room shook and the walls trembled, cracking at an unknown pressure. 

The danger was now loud and monstrous, and created enough adrenaline for Peter to run for his life. Strange's cloak somehow knew where he was headed, because it flew off the wizard's back and opened a door up ahead. The two ran inside, and Strange took action. He frantically searched around the room for something while Peter locked and webbed up the door, begging for the wizard to hurry.

Doctor Strange soon removed a small black box from atop a bookshelf, which crumpled the next second with the trembling of the building. The magic cloak brought a large spellbook to his hands and flipped to a page with strange symbols and shapes. 

"Hurry it up, Strange!" Peter yelled.

The wizard gave no reply, but instead began gathering petals and ingredients into a circle on the floor. 

All of a sudden, the door was thrown across the room and into Peter, crushing him into the wall and sending a jolt of pain throughout his body. He moved sluggishly to see what was happening, and pulled himself out from underneath the heavy wood.

A horrifying figure lurked in the doorway. His skin was a pale white, his hair black and stringy. Skulls and eyeballs littered his rugged green robe, arching up at the shoulders to create a v-shape. A cape of tentacles hung around him. 

He had terrifying traits, but the worst of all were his eyes. They glowed a fluorescent green, and when Peter stared straight into them, something he couldn't stop from doing, flashes of his worst memories seemed to haunt him for hours. The injuries he endured, the people he couldn't save, the blood that  he had spilled. 

Until he was snapped out of his daze by the single word that explained everything.

"Nightmare," Strange uttered breathlessly, staring in horror at the figure in the doorway.

Peter flinched at the sound of Nightmare's sinister laughter.

"Oh, Strange. You knew I'd come back, didn't you?" His voice chilled Peter’s bones to the core.

Without responding, Strange went back to preparing his spell, struggling with a page of the spellbook and swiftly reading off the incantation.

"You were too weak to stop me for good, which was just what I needed to gain power again after our last...encounter. But now, I'm the more powerful one. And you'll pay, Strange. You will!" he laughed maniacally, throwing his head back and revealing a set of rotted teeth. "Just look what I've done to your precious dump of a city."

His skeletal hand shot out and the wall left of Peter exploded. The bricks fell and collapsed on the pavement. He was worried about the rubble falling on anyone, but he faced a greater horror.

Everyone was...asleep? Not dead, from the way their chest's still rose and fell, but in some kind of coma or trance.

Or nightmare.

Each New Yorker tensed restlessly, crying out in their state of unconsciousness and throwing their heads around, trying to escape their own minds.

Strange seemed to only watch the state of his city for a split second before continuing his spells. But he was stopped by a pale, white hand grasping his neck. It yanked him off his knees and into the air, where the wizard wrestled with his grip and tried to draw breath, but couldn't. His legs flailed pathetically beneath him. 

Peter's breath hitched and even without Nightmare's hand around his neck, he struggled to draw in air. The terror flooding his mind was overwhelming, and he crouched hopelessly, shrugging back under the door, ashamed of his inability to help his friend.

Doctor Strange uttered one word with the last of his breath, and Nightmare's eyes widened in realization.

"No!"

But the spells were already complete. A bright purple wave of light erupted from the circle of elements Strange had created, and a second blue wave circulated around Nightmare, collecting at his feet and moving up his body. The man dropped Strange, who crumpled into a heap on the floor, unmoving.

The purple force knocked into Peter, throwing him back into the wall and out into the open air, where he sailed across Queens and lost consciousness upon slamming into a rooftop. 

Spider-Man finished his story and leaned against a streetlight, cradling his elbow for some reason.

"Woah..." said Officer Stanley, who had stood up from his position atop a trash can. "Nightmare is back?"

"Wait, you remember him?!" asked Spidey.

"Yeah, I think we all do," Officer Nelson said. "He terrorized the city once, and Doctor Strange put a stop to him. But he was obviously the more powerful one. He took him down within the hour. But you're saying Nightmare did...this?" He gestured to the many people slumped against the sidewalk, sleeping not-so-peacefully.

"Yeah, I saw him. My Spidey-sense has never screamed at me like that before." The vigilante rubbed his temples. "It's still ringing. Though I'm not sure if that's from my sense or the fall I took."

"Fall?" questioned Officer Gilbert.

"When I was uh...blasted, I guess, from the sanctum, it basically threw me across Queens. I woke up on a rooftop with..." He held up his right arm, where a gash struck his upper elbow. Then he motioned to his ribs, which were a bit bent out of shape and clearly fractured—at the least. Scrapes and cuts littered his body, some worse than others, and up until now the red of his costume had masked the trails of blood seeping from each wound. "And then I was making my way back to the sanctum when I found you guys."

"Spidey..." began Officer Stanley, eyes wide with concern. "How are you still on two feet right now?"

Spider-Man shrugged with a wince and a slight chuckle. "Barely."

"You gotta take better care of yourself, man. I get you're a superhero and all, but..." Nelson trailed off.

"Yeah, well. I don't exactly have time for rest and repair when the city needs saving," the vigilante replied.

Stanley's expression of deep concern mirrored off every one of the cops. 

"No, seriously. How are you standing upright?" Officer Stanley repeated.

"Well, uh...it's a thing called a healing factor. Along with my other abilities, I've got an enhanced metabolism, and with that comes a faster rate of heal-"

"Guys, we're getting off track," Nelson reminded. He liked to take problems head-on, and this current situation wasn't helping with sticking to that tactic. 

"Right, sorry," Spider-Man said, switching positions for the seventh time. He grabbed the gash on his arm, blood dripping through the cracks in his closed hand.

"That still doesn't explain why we're awake," said Brenda. "As much as I'm sure you're grateful for the help and company, Spider-Man, it confuses me."

"I...think I have a theory about that," Spider-Man said, gazing beyond the nearer shops and storefronts.

A moment of silence and confusion swept over the five.

"So...what do we do now?" asked Officer Gilbert. 

The vigilante took a deep breath, his gaze still focused somewhere past the street they were on. "We look for more answers."

"To the sanctum?"

"To the sanctum," he confirmed.