INSOMNIAC GAMES,
MARVEL'S SPIDER-MAN (2018)

✶

III.
GIRLS ON FILM

REST UP, Ezra had said, but to Juliet, rest never came easily: the good nights of sleep she'd had since she turned thirteen could be counted on one hand. At the beginning, Ji-Ae, unsure of how to handle her daughter's mutant problem—in itself, a problem that she struggled to both separate from Juliet and describe in her flawed, fledgling English—had bought her sleeping pills. They were a saving grace; relief in the form of five-milligram pills, they smothered Juliet's nightmares, suffocating them like a hand over her mouth and nose, burying her in dreamless sleep like dirt over a grave.

But then, the money for pills ran out. What little comfort Ji-Ae could offer her daughter was gone, its absence glaring from the very first night Juliet was forced to go without. Falling asleep itself wasn't difficult; what was difficult was staying asleep when Juliet knew what was to come. At first, the dreams were simply vivid, unsettlingly so, like a painting in hyper-realistic detail. It was just a little too real for comfort. Just a little too close to touch.

They lulled Juliet into a false sense of security, like a horror movie she'd put on to watch but lost interest in. With her attention elsewhere but the screen still in her periphery, when the jumpscare came—and it always did—she would catch it in the corner of her eye. The monster. The fear. And then she would be wrenched back into focus, held captive by her own consciousness; bound and gagged and tossed into the sea, forced under the churning waves and dragged into the darkened deep.

A month after the pills ran out, Juliet moved into the back room in Young's Alterations and Dry Cleaning. Arden needed her beauty sleep, and Juliet's screams in the middle of the night tended to disrupt it.

As she grew older, the dreams grew with her. As if trying out Juliet's changing body—her longer limbs, her bumpy skin—or testing the ache of her growing pains, they took on new forms. Shadowy copies of people she knew, eerie imitations of places she visited. Things she'd said or heard. Things she'd seen or done. A punch-card of psychological trauma, every stimuli she was exposed to, every experience she had, her mind collected and kept for later—for after dark, when the lights went off and Juliet was no longer in control.

There was no escape—during the day, Juliet had to shut off the outside world, clearing her mind of every thought she heard save for her own, ignoring the emotions of the people around her as if she were severing a nerve. New York was a city of eight million: Juliet passed three thousand people a day, give or take, whether it was at school or on public transport. Her ability to shut out the thoughts of every one of these three thousand strangers was, back then, unreliable. In a mere encounter, in brushing past them or turning their way, she'd take something she couldn't just put back.

It wasn't always so bad. Sometimes it was something sweet, like the adoring thoughts of a man on the subway, who held a grab-handle with one hand and a bouquet of roses, intended for his lover, in the other; sometimes it was something mundane, like a grocery list, or an important meeting someone was late to.

And sometimes, it was something dark. New York City, a place that eight million people called home. How many of those people were good people? In her day, Juliet came across dozens of souls whose minds she was repulsed to touch, even accidentally. But whether she wanted to learn their thoughts—their deepest, darkest desires—she had no choice but to take them with her. Add them to the ever-growing archive of cruelty she was cultivating in the back of her mind, because where else could she put such things? The baggage, the trauma, of a million people she had never even met? Where else could she put them down?

Such things served her well now as the Illusionist; they helped her understand the human condition, what formed it, what could break it. But when she was still a teenager—fuck, when she was still a child—it had overwhelmed her. What was once uncomfortable became unbearable. Realism became surreal, with each night spent alone in her mind another alternate reality of horror, where anything could happen and thanks to her powers, anything would.

Though the dreams—nightmares—changed every night, evolving constantly and adapting to everything Juliet saw and did in a day, they always started the same. Juliet began with the illusion of control. Sat in the centre of her web, she could weave and wend the world as she pleased, constructing her dreams in her vision, and hers alone. But the longer she stayed asleep, the longer she lived in the hollowed-out cavern of her skull, the harder it would become to stay in power. The reality she created, stitched by her hand and head, would begin to fray at the edges, come undone. She would tug a narrative thread and instead of taut between her fingers, it would pull loose. She would work the dream one way but, resistant to her touch, it would rebel and turn another.

Sooner or later, Juliet would lose control. And then her body, sensing danger that could only hurt her head, would tear her from her slumber. It had all been bad enough before she met Dominik and the Saviours; since then, Juliet had been too afraid to sleep. The things she had done with them, the things she had been made to do, were bad enough in reality—in reality-reality, not just the one Juliet liked to call her own.

They were semi-manageable when they were just acts Juliet had committed, semi-forgivable—they were just mistakes she'd made with her hands. But if her mind took hold of them, if it was her head where they resided and not in the lines of her hands, like bloodstains that refused to wash clean—

There was a way to dull it all, without the reliance of a prescription, a bottle of pills purchased over the counter. Juliet had discovered it after leaving Dominik and the Saviours.

It was a state of mind she could enter, a chamber of nothingness where she could sleep peacefully, numbly. Ascribing it a name—the Void—Juliet went there after long days and nights, hiding away from the rest of her mind in a corner she'd carved deep in her psyche.

In psychology, the theory of localisation suggested that different parts of the brain were responsible for specific behaviours. For example: in 1861, French physician Paul Broca determined from the localised brain lesions on an aphasic patient that the speech center of the brain was located in the left frontal lobe.

If there was a part of her brain that caused those nightmares (allegedly the amygdala, but that wasn't the point) there was a part of her brain that could numb them. If the nightmares were a localised injury, the Void was an act of amputation. Cutting herself off entirely seemed the best course of action; in the Void, there was nothing but the bone-cut walls of her skull and the emptiness that echoed endlessly in between.

Well, not absolutely nothing. Juliet was no doctor and the Void was still somewhat-unfamiliar territory. Things still filtered through, still slipped through the cracks.

Sometimes it was people. Ezra. Arden. Her mother. Her father—faceless—sometimes made appearances like some kind of guest star, infrequent but refreshing. Even Dominik was a comfort in the lonely dark that pressed—pushed—against the inside of her skull.

But these were not people. Not really. This was not Ezra. This was not Arden. This was not her mother. This was not her father.

This wasn't even Dominik.

This was no-one. This was empty space. This was a void—the Void. This was not real, these were not people, and Juliet was alone.

After today, Juliet chose the dreams: in her dreams, she is both the weaver and the web, and although she is never the spider in the centre—only its prey, an insect stuck still and secure in silk spun from her own psyche—at least she is not alone.

Besides, there was always the chance (albeit, a tiny one) that a dream wouldn't be emotionally traumatising. Juliet told herself this as she settled into bed. She'd showered, trying to let today's troubles leave her in the water that streamed down her skin, siphon through the steam that fogged the bathroom mirror. Sometimes, Juliet was just as in control of her dreams as she was in real life: she was the director, designing her mise-en-scène frame-by-frame, storyboarding it shot-by-shot. Everything was perfect and everything was under control.

What to choose? Emotional turmoil or endless loneliness?

With no upcoming work as the Illusionist, Juliet had four days free of responsibility until her next class at Empire State University—four nights until she would be forced back into the real world. Where she would be forced to be alive again, or at least to pretend to be.

Four days. Four nights. Juliet spent all of them in her dreams, caught in their web. Stuck, she was an insect, immobilised.

Wrapped in silk. Waiting for the spider.

✶

Juliet woke early in the morning, the stale taste of sleep on her lips and the tell-tale ache of a nightmare pulsing at her temple. Not wanting to dwell on the torture her subconscious had cooked up for her the night before, she pushed all memory of it down as she pushed back her bedspread. It was a new day.

One that had barely started: Juliet woke as early as the sun did, and by the time she dragged herself up and out of bed, the light had only just begun to break itself into pieces over Manhattan Island.

Despite the early hour, Juliet could still hear the sounds of the city—like a heart that never stopped beating, she could feel its pulse, a thrumming beneath her feet that echoed throughout all five boroughs. It was comforting, knowing that New York was just as much of an insomniac as she was.

New York had things to do, though, and so did Juliet. She got ready for the day, following her routine to the minute—first, she fed Monty. Then, she slipped out for her morning jog, lapping the block a few times and diverting into a nearby park. Plugging in her wireless earphones, Juliet let her playlist—much more upbeat than Ezra's, which was populated by lo-fi study beats and depressing neo soul—beat a steady rhythm through her body, awakening every nerve, muscle, neuron as she followed the clean-cut lines of her neighbourhood.

Though the injury had seemed serious at the time, it was just a graze—and it would take much more than a graze to slow Juliet down. She finished her run in front of the steps that led up to her building's lobby, taking a moment to catch her breath, wipe the sweat off her brow with the front of her cropped tank. Juliet wouldn't call herself an athlete by any means, but exercise was an important component of her daily routine, another one of the many things she did to fill her time and, conjointly, occupy her mind. It had started in middle school, when she'd picked a flyer off a homeroom teacher that advertised self-defence classes for girls at a local community centre. She'd relied solely on those classes until Dominik's family came into the picture, paying her and Arden's way to a fancy New York private school; after that, she was able to fill her day with the kinds of extracurriculars that she otherwise couldn't afford (whether she paid in time or money). Hockey. Soccer, in the off-season. Guitar. Taekwondo, then capoeira. Whatever Juliet wanted to do, Dominik's parents would pay for it. She had been reluctant, at first—as had Arden and Ji-Ae—but, at Dominik's coaxing, she'd bitten back her pride and accepted his family's help.

Where had that gotten her? She had the discipline now, she supposed, the foundation for what Taskmaster had taken and turned into a weapon, which Juliet in turn had remade into the Illusionist. She had the body too—the one Arden had always wanted, but took the shortcut to get. But what did that matter? So what if she drew attention? Attention was fleeting. Short-lived, short-term. It meant nothing if it was ephemeral. It meant nothing if it was there, and then gone.

And people like Dominik, like his family—like the indenture that came with them—were not so impermanent. Juliet would never leave their crosshairs, regardless of the looks she drew from others, regardless of the admiration of strangers. In all honesty? Even now, in the safety of her new life, of Ezra, of the Illusionist, she was still waiting for Dominik to take his shot.

Nothing bites like a bullet. Nothing bites like the past.

Slewing a breath through her teeth, Juliet returned to the apartment, letting herself in as quietly as she could. She'd stopped screaming in her sleep around age sixteen, but Ezra was still a comically light sleeper, and despite the sound-cancelling headphones he wore to bed nearly every night, Juliet somehow managed to wake him most mornings. When he didn't come grumbling into the kitchen, Juliet scored it as a success.

Stuffing down a quick breakfast and leaving the leftovers for her roommate, Juliet hurried to shower and get dressed: she wanted to get to ESU early, wander around and take photos. With her newfound personal wealth, she was able to indulge in the expansive wardrobe she'd always wanted as a child; though she'd been raised on the dog-eared pages of library-borrowed haute-couture magazines, in adulthood her sense of style proved to be more eclectic than anything else. She didn't like to draw too much attention to herself, but still her wardrobe contained statement pieces here and there—asymmetrical hems, bright colours, quirky prints—amongst all the brown, black, blue.

Today's outfit was one she resorted to often. It was reliable: a green overshirt layered over a plain tee with her favourite straight-leg jeans. Having noticed the October chill during her run, she grabbed a black overcoat and a pair of fingerless gloves (being fingerless, they kind of defeated the point of gloves—but Juliet liked the pink hearts that had been stitched over the palms.) With her clothes she paired her favourite pair of sneakers; her Nike Fontankas, a shoe that came conveniently in all her favourite colours. Sky blue, matcha green, pomegranate red. Well-worn with use, they had been a present from Arden on their nineteenth birthday.

Juliet pushed that memory away as she slung her backpack over her shoulder, taking a quick peek inside to ensure her new camera was there. She gave Monty one last pet, and then she was off.

✶

Empire State University wasn't the most prestigious of universities, and at the time Juliet and Arden had submitted their applications they were—or at least, Juliet was—still in the Soros family's good graces; so, they really could have gone anywhere. With the Soroses' financial support and the company letterhead they'd write their letter of reference on, the Young twins could have had their pick of the best schools in the States. The Ivy League would have been one phone call away.

But Juliet, perhaps realising how reliant on her boyfriend she'd become, pushed for her and Arden to enrol at ESU instead. A private research university based in Greenwich, it was spread across a handful of city blocks, with other facilities located across the borough. The line between the university and the rest of New York was blurred; ESU seemed to spill at the seams, its school motto of Excelsior bleeding into the metropolis, fading into the sounds of the city. Amongst all the buildings that comprised the skyline, it was easy to lose the ones belonging to ESU—perhaps this was what drew Juliet to the university, aside from its well-reputed architecture school. Too often she felt blurred at the edges, alive by definition but not really living.

Being back on campus reminded her of that. Filled with people, both new students and graduating ones—as well as those situated somewhere in between, like Juliet—Empire State University was alive. Juliet had spent most of high school with her head down, studying. Her social interaction was limited to Arden, Arden's friends (who were only Juliet's by courtesy) and of course, Dominik. When Juliet had started at ESU, she'd made friends, finding it was much easier than she'd thought it would be; apparently, the world was not limited to the predominantly-white population of the "elite" institution she had attended as a teen. It had been relieving, really, to meet other Asian-American kids—to speak her mother tongue with them, to connect over their upbringings and the baggage their families had carried in suitcases when they immigrated to the States. Even the ones who weren't Korean, Juliet connected with; there was still a common thread tying them together, still a shared experience.

Dominik had never really liked any of those friends, though. The ones that dragged Juliet out to boba and karaoke, who took her to their favourite markets and thrift shops in the city instead of the designer department stores Dominik had practically been raised in. Always the one in the right, he still played polite, still came along to gatherings, but he'd spend most of them sitting in the corner on his phone, unimpressed and just waiting to tell Juliet all about it when the night was over.

It became too tiring. So here Juliet was, stepping foot on ESU soil (concrete), surrounded by the thoughts of a thousand strangers, none of whom she knew and none of whom knew her. Her fingerless gloves were useless against the cold as well as the emptiness, and all her friends were twelve months away. Not twelve months in the past, but twelve months in the future. They'd mourned her loss, like you'd mourn any loss, but they'd moved on. Stopped calling. Stopped acknowledging altogether, save for the occasional nod whenever they crossed paths with Juliet on campus. The photos of them together in their Instagram feeds had disappeared under a dozen others, first of days and nights Juliet had neglected to attend to instead spend time with Dominik, then of occasions no-one had bothered to invite her to.

Part of her wanted to be spiteful, to assign blame. They'd met Dominik—they could've seen the warning signs, the red flags. Could've warned her. Could've tried to intervene. But they weren't bad people, and knowing them (at least, knowing what they had been) they probably did try to help. And Juliet had ignored them. Just like Arden ignored her now.

Some people were lost causes; Juliet couldn't punish someone else for the person she had been, and she couldn't punish her friends—former friends—for knowing a hopeless case when they saw one. You can only help someone who wants to be helped. You can only save someone who wants to be saved.

Juliet wasn't in the business of saving, anyway.

(Or being saved, for that matter.)

She attended her first class of the day, Architectural Design. Unlike most children, Juliet had never aspired to be anything when she was younger; although the arrival of her powers had signalled a superhero phase, where she yearned to be an Avenger or an X-Men or really anyone in a costume, she'd never had the ambition that most children seemed to have, whether it was to be a fairy princess or a police officer. All she had ever wanted was to be loved, which was a pretty tragic thing for a child to want, and also not a viable career option. It was a trip around the city in junior year with Arden that had sealed the deal on architecture; ditching Dominik for the day, the sisters had grabbed a New York City subway map and circled all the stops they'd never been to in permanent marker. The day would be spent travelling to as many stops as they could before sunset, stepping foot in as many foreign neighbourhoods as they could before night fell and they were expected home.

There was no building in particular that pointed Juliet towards architecture. It was the city as a whole, all its metal, brick, glass. All its permanence. Juliet could create, sure—she could create anything. But none of it could she hold in her hands; none of it was set in stone. So, perhaps, she could one day make something that would. Something that wasn't just an illusion. Something that wasn't just a trick of the light.

After Architectural Design, Juliet didn't have a class till noon. So she wandered around the campus in search of something to photograph. One would think that she only took interest in the beautiful, in the extraordinary, but as someone who noticed—who was forced to notice—almost every inch of everyday life, whether it was through her perspective or someone else's, Juliet had learned to find beauty in the mundane. The way light fell on the university seal in the campus quad's centre, colouring the serif-cut Excelsior in a gold so pale it was practically white. The way the columns of the Humanities building looked when they were lined up in the frame just right—no longer the cast-iron design of the late nineteenth century but instead, the beauty of Ancient Greece, just waiting for its heroes to spill out the doors, with their quests and their glory. Their tragedy, too.

The way the famous ESU red oak tree burned bright red in the middle of October, its leaves like blood floating in the breeze. Juliet circled the tree until she found an angle she liked; then, she took a few steps back until she could fit the entire oak in the frame. A few groups of people sat beneath the tree, laptops balanced on knees as they studied, socialised. The Osborn Library was in the background, the detail of its windows perfectly complimenting the tree. The shot was perfect. Juliet placed her thumb over the shutter release, pressing down just as someone raced past, cutting across what she could see through the lens. Effectively ruining the picture in a blur of brown hair and blue-and-green flannel.

Juliet lowered her camera for a moment, sighing in frustration even though there was no real point in being upset. This was a common, shared space and she couldn't just expect passing strangers to accommodate her hobbies—

"Did I ruin your shot?" A voice cut into her thoughts, warm and apologetic. Juliet pulled her gaze away from her camera to look over said passing stranger. Ruining her photo, he'd returned, remorseful, to apologise.

"I'm so sorry," he said, before trailing off into a long, awkward apology, punctuated by a lopsided half-grin and a sheepish laugh. Juliet didn't catch any of it; she was lost in the boy standing before her, in his face—in the dimples pressed into his cheeks, in the warmth of his doe brown eyes. He was the kind of good-looking Juliet strived to be, on the days she ascribed to vanity and actually cared about her appearance: he was the stranger on the train, gorgeous and unattainable, exchanging a smile before he got off at his stop and you never saw him again. In memory he grew even more beautiful, features fading and fantasy growing every passing day, every passing train, you didn't see him. You hoped you would, but you knew you wouldn't. It was a miracle you even crossed paths in the first place.

"...Anyway, I'm a photographer, kind of, on the side, so I totally get the frustration." Juliet caught the tail end of his sentence, blinking back into focus. He was making some kind of gesture with his hands; he was flustered, embarrassed, and it was cute. "I feel real bad. Which is why I ran back to apologise."

"It's just a photograph. I can take another. That's kinda how cameras work." The guy laughed a little at that, rubbing the back of his neck. Juliet managed a smile. "So don't worry about it—seriously. Where are you running off to, anyway?"

"I have a meeting with an academic advisor. Or, at least, I had a meeting. I'm pretty sure I've missed it. I'm always late to stuff."

"You know, you could probably still make it." Juliet shifted her weight from foot to foot. "You should at least try."

"Yeah..." he agreed, sounding both optimistic and resigned to his fate at the same time. He could have been as enthralled with Juliet as Juliet was with him, but he certainly hid it much better—for one, he didn't take multiple seconds to respond like he was on some kind of delay, and when he stole looks at her features it wasn't glaringly obvious.

But it was still obvious. If Arden—without alteration—was beautiful, Juliet technically was, too. She held onto that technicality with both hands as she felt the boy's eyes trace her face, following the lines of her jaw, her lips, her nose. Being admired, being seen—it made Juliet feel alive. Like those blurred edges were coming into focus, like the messy lines of her existence were sharpening with every passing second.

His eyes dropped to her camera; the moment he recognised the model, his entire face lit up. "Hey, is that a Contax T2?"

"This? Uh-huh." A beat passed, two, before Juliet tentatively offered the camera to the other. "My friend gave it to me yesterday. Early birthday present."

"Oh, neat. When's your birthday?" He turned the camera over in his hands, though his eyes never strayed from Juliet for more than a few moments. It was a weird sensation, being watched—being paid attention to by someone you didn't know, someone who didn't owe you their time.

"November." It had taken Ezra weeks to get this kind of information out of her. It had taken this random guy a matter of minutes. "The twenty-fourth."

"Happy birthday in advance." Dark brows furrowing together, he held up the camera with one hand. "Do you mind? I've always wanted to try one of these out, but I've never had the money to get my hands on one. You've got a generous friend."

"Yeah, he's great." Juliet found herself just staring blankly. She could find beauty in the mundane but there was no doubt in mind there was nothing mundane about the boy standing before her. "I mean, yeah. Go right ahead."

"Awesome." He flashed her a grin, bright and boyish, before lifting up the camera, snapping a photo of Juliet before she could protest, or hide her face—either or were her typical responses whenever someone tried to take photos of her. Having spent so much of her life effectively invisible, paling in comparison to Arden in every conceivable way, some part of Juliet had taken that feeling and mothered it, creating a cycle she could not escape. Did she never receive attention because she avoided it? Or did she avoid attention because she never received it? "You look great through these lens, by the way."

"Just through the lens?" Juliet lifted a brow, a smirk tugging at the corner of her lips. The boy lowered the camera, smiling sheepishly. A blush bloomed up the side of his neck, flooding pale and pink across his face.

"Yes—I mean, no. Ha." He reached out to return the camera. It happened too quickly for Juliet to react: the Contax T2 slipped from his hands, toppling towards the unforgiving quad concrete. Juliet watched it fall in slow motion, already assigning herself the blame of letting a complete stranger handle her belongings—but then, his hand was shooting out, catching the camera before it could hit the ground.

Juliet blinked. Whistled low. "Good reflexes."

"Thanks," he said, averting his gaze for a brief moment. Juliet took the camera back, smiling in spite of herself and the near-death experience her camera just had.

Perhaps not trusting his hand-eye-coordination, the boy shoved his hands into his jean pockets. Then, deciding he didn't like that pose, he stuck one of his hands out instead. Presumably to shake. "It's nice to meet you. I'm Peter Parker."

✶

AUTHOR'S NOTE

another filler chapter, but i really enjoyed writing it—so i hope you enjoy reading it, too! 😼😼

this is a little piece i did earlier this week. juliet isn't actually blonde (i only made her blonde for this because her actual hair colour, brown, didn't suit the colour scheme) so it's not exactly an accurate depiction of her BUT. i still thought i'd share!!

let me know what you think of this chapter! votes and comments especially are deeply appreciated!!!

🪞 GRAPHIC by SOULOFSTAARS 🪞