no way home
The multiverse.
One of the great unknowns.
A painful trip to make unshielded, though beautiful.
You feel every universe pulling at you. Every version of yourself, or lack of version, pulling at every cell in your body.
You feel your molecules unwrap. Every sequence of DNA get ripped apart and thrown into the universes shredder.
Though the clouds of purple, and blue, and gold, and magenta, and green give you something to look at, it doesn't give enough to distract from the voices; the moments in time that you live simultaneously as you fly through the void.
One trip could send a person insane if done, say, in your school uniform, with no protective capsule or suit.
The movement of your old universe pulling away from you creates streams of wind, moving at just over half the speed of light. It whips your hair over your face, at speeds that leave cuts and gashes on your cheeks. Your clothes pull at you, some seams may rip.
It takes a powerful mind to cross the multiverse unprotected once.
But three times?
Anyone would fall victim to the gale-force winds and the hypnotising, never ending, fall through clouds of universal matter.
Somehow they managed it.
Fell through a wormhole in their fathers lab.
Landed in another universe, wearing nothing but their school uniform. Mind and body still intact.
One moment they were falling through the space between universes, the next they were crumpling to the ground in an alleyway. The agony of inter-universal travel still coursing through them.
The wet brick beneath their hands was the same as that in their universe, the noise of New Yorkers shouting in the roads ahead was the same, the buzzing in their neck was the same. Everything was the same, but also different.
Marlon felt their agitation. He felt their fear. He felt the blood in their veins move faster and faster as they caught their breath.
"Hey pretty lady" a man spoke behind them. He reeked of alcohol. Even without their heightened senses they could tell. They were quick to jump up.
"What's your name, pretty thing?" he asked
They stayed quiet. Tried to keep calm. But as he stepped towards them everything was left in the dust. They panicked. And with that panic a pain began in their neck. A bite if you will. The venom coursed through their veins. Coating their immune body in a protective sheen.
When the man went to grab their arm to get them to talk they stepped way, even if the man was dangerous, even if he could kill anyone he pleased, they couldn't be the one to kill him.
Still he persisted, trying to grab at them again. They dodged. And again. They dodge. And again. They backed into the wall. There was nowhere to go. So when he grabbed their wrist there was no saving the man. He had brought it on himself. The venom on their skin was absorbed almost immediately, making its way into his bloodstream through the blood vessels in his finger tips.
He hit the ground less than a second later.
They reached behind them in a rush, going to grab their backpack. But there was nothing. They had left it with their dad as he picked up his stuff from his office.
They didn't have the antidote.
They couldn't save him if they wanted to.
They ran.
The dead body still laying in that alleyway.
It would become a cold case. A drunk man dead from the bite of what was usually a harmless spider unique to Australia. The huntsman usually had harmless venom. But Marlon. Marlon was mutant. Marlon had killed 17 people before they found the antidote to his venom. Before they learnt he could feel their panic. Before they learnt that they were immune to his bite. Before he had killed their mother.
His wiggling didn't stop as they ran. They were still filled with panic in this new world.
They threw their arms up at they got to a quieter street. Webs flew from their wrists. The familiar friction burning their already scarred skin.
Flying through New York wasn't new. But this wasn't their New York. In the distance a new, unfamiliar, building came into view. A large, almost t shaped, steel structure with a gigantic A planted on its side. Now all hope that they were just dreaming, that they were still in their universe, crumbled.
This wasn't home.
They were far, far away.
Far from home...
No way back...
No way home...
They needed a plan, hopefully a plan with a cool name: home coming.