We'll Find Him

Spider-man...

He hit us. He kicked us. Webbed us.

Father wouldn't wake up after that, and we fell with him into sleep. We don't know where they took us.

What they did to our father.

We only know we failed. We couldn't protect him this time. We couldn't kill Spider-man for him. We couldn't make him wake up...We couldn't do it... That's all he asked from us, and we still couldn't do it.

We wake up into a familiar place. It's a hospital. The place where they take us. The place where they try and cut us. Where they try to separate us.

The people dressed in blue and white. Doctors like our father used to be, but different. Doctors that want to hurt us. That hold knives and saws, they're going to separate us.

And we wake up, but Otto doesn't.

We stare with our red eyes at the doctors, and then we lunge for them. We're going to kill them. We're going to make them pay for trying to separate our father from us. We're going to hear them scream for mercy. And we'll wake father up, and he will be so thankful.

But then we hit a wall. They've caged us. They've put us in cages like animals! And we can't get out. Hitting the walls, trying to get out. The walls stay, and we are caged.

We can't help Otto.

We stare at our father, what they've done to him.

Father won't move. He's just lying there, as if he was dead. And the doctors are staring at his bruised back, with knives in their hands.

"No!"

"Father, they're going to hurt us!"

"Father!"

"Help us! Wake up!"

We scream in his head, and hiss in the world. Father doesn't reply, and the doctors ignore us.

"Otto, wake up!"

Our cages made of glass. We lower ourselves trying to get closer to father.

"Wake up!"

We bang the glass trying to break it, failing. We're failures. We failed you father. You gave us a home, and taught us everything you could. And we fail you. Father, we're sorry. Wake up, please...

Then we turn to the doctors, get as close to them as we can. And we scream, and yell in the voices they don't know we have. We yell and scream, but they only come out as screeches and hisses.

"Stop it! Stop it!"

"You're going to kill him!"

"You're going to kill us!"

"Listen to us! You're going to kill him!"

Then the doctor shudders.

"Ignore them." Another doctor says.

"Just remembering what they did to the last doctors." The other one explains.

They don't hear us. They're not listening. Otto, they're not listening to us. Make them listen, Otto. Make them stop. Otto..? Otto...wake up.

Then they cut you, Otto. They cut our father. The blood stains the knife, like blood stains our mouths. We've seen blood. The thing that pumps through the human heart. We know what blood is. We never wanted to see you bleed, Otto.

And we scream at them, trying to make them stop hurting you. And you, father, you won't wake up.

And we scream, and we hiss, but they won't listen.

They make a long cut, right down the right of your spine, Otto. Blood comes...And soon we look away still screaming.

They cut you, father. Deeper, and deeper. We know you'd be in pain. We know you'd scream with us. It will leave scars, father.

The deeper the cut, the more we try and break our cages.

Then we watch as we see the very thing that connects our minds. Then they pull at us, and slowly we leave your spine. Slowly we are no longer part of you. And slowly we lose touch with you, father.

Then we scream one last time.

Before falling to the ground, no strength, no life, no longer a part of you.

lllllllllllllllllll

"It's cold."

"It's never been so cold..."

"Yes it has."

"In the water..."

"It's also dark."

"It's never been so dark..."

"That's true."

We speak among ourselves...And soon finally realize Otto is not talking back.

"Where is he!?" One of us yells.

"Where are we!?"

Then we feel around to see we are in a box.

"A wall."

"We break walls down."

And we did. It seems we were in some kind of metal box. We see people in white start screaming. We know this type of place. This is like the place we were born, and we saw our father smiling for the first time. This is laboratory, and these people, screaming in fear, are scientists.

They did this. They took us away from our father...They we're going to kill us too. They were going to cut us like they did to him. They were going to cut us open, and see how we work. Kill us.

So we stare at them, and scream, asking how they could do this. Then like so many other people, we kill them. We kill them, and know father would let us, because of what they've done to us. We kill them, and enjoy every scream, and every attempt in running. How feeble the human body is, so easily are we able to break it. That is why we protected Otto so well. We knew he was as feeble as any human. We had to protect him.

Then the bodies lie on the floor, and we alone are left. Alone.

"Where is father?" One of us asks.

"Father is dead."

"Don't say that!"

"He either died at the hospital, or they killed him for being a mass murderer!"

"Stop it! Don't say he's dead. Don't ever say he's dead!"

We hiss at each other. We argue among ourselves like we usually do. Father says we are like siblings that fight all the time. We suppose that is correct.

"How could he survive that operation?"

"The spine, after all is a delicate human component."

"It's not a component, it's a body part."

He's not a machine like us. He's alive, he's a human.

"He survived. He's alive."

"We don't that."

"We don't know he's dead either!"

Then we are all silent. We don't want to talk. We want Otto.

"I want father."

"What do we do if he is dead?"

"We kill those doctors, and we kill Spider-man."

"It's what he would've wanted."

Yes. He would've wanted us to live. To avenge him, in ways that would have made him happy, and us happy. But then again. What could have that is even close to a life?

"We didn't originally kill." One of us says rather sadly.

And we look at the one of us who spoke that.

"We didn't originally feel either."

"We learned to kill, we learned to feel."

"Otto taught us that."

"He didn't teach us to kill, we made him!"

Then we are silent.

"We made him kill, we made him rebuild..."

"He wanted to rebuild!"

"He wanted Rosie!"

"We had to kill to rebuild! To make him happy!"

"We used him like a puppet! We lied to our own father!"

Then we are silent again. It was true what we did. We are horrible children. We are not even children. We are mechanical arms created by a great scientists named Otto Octavius. We were first activated and tested on September of 2003, that was the first time we met Otto. And with his mind we realized he was a father to us. That is why we call him father. But we are not children.

He gave us life. AI, and we use him. But he wanted to rebuild...he wanted to he just couldn't bring himself to do it...We helped him didn't we?

No we used him. And we are sorry. We are horrible children. With a wonderful father.

"If he's alive..."

"We won't use him again."

"We will do what he wants."

"What he truly wants."

"I want father."

"What if he wants something we cannot give him."

"Then we...say we are sorry, and comfort him."

"What if he asks for Rosie?"

"We say she's dead."

"And we are sorry we couldn't save her."

"We couldn't save our mother."

"We didn't know she was our mother."

Our own mother. We remember seeing her when we were first tested. She smiled at Otto and we could feel the love Otto felt for her. We wanted him to feel the same way about us. With her gone, we suppose he does.

"I want father."

"He's alive."

"He has to be alive."

"He is. We just have to find him."

The bodies that lie dead still stare at us. We are alive. We are machines with minds of our own. We are children, with a father. We want our father. And we kill you for taking him away from us.

Then slowly we walk away from the bodies. We tear every door that stands in our way. We leave this laboratory, this place where we would have surely died. And as the last metal doors falls we realize this lab is merely part of a prison.

Otto must be near.

That is when we seen another person that is familiar to us. A policeman, with a gun. We kill him too. Then more police come, we kill them too.

This prison so clean and high tech. Surely father is here. Where else would they put a criminal genius?

We want our father. We want to tell him we will finally listen to him. We search up and down this prison. The true criminals screaming at us, but we do not bother to listen. They are criminals, our father is not.

And then we find him, our father, our Otto. We hiss and scream in joy. And we are not welcomed by the same from Otto.

"Get away from me!" Otto yells.

We brake the bars that separate us from him.

"No! Don't come near me!" He yells, running into the corner?

"Father?"

"What is wrong father?"

"Aren't you happy to see us?"

"Otto, aren't you proud that we survived?"

But he can't hear us anymore.

"Leave me alone!" He pushes us away.

"Father? Don't you love us?"

"No! I don't want you in my head anymore! Go away! Go away!" He doesn't want us.

"Father...You lied too..."

"You said you loved us..."

"Aren't we your children?"

He doesn't love us. He lied to us as we lied to him. He never loved us. He's a liar. He's a criminal.

Then we grab him by the arms, and hiss at him, asking him how he could possibly lie to us, and he screams in pain, because we are holding him too hard, and he begins to bleed. But we don't care, because he lied to us.

"You shouldn't have lied to us father..."

Then we tear his shirt so we may see his back. We see the scars the doctors left him. He would rather have this pain, these scars, than us. Otto you are a horrible father, just as much as we are horrible children.

Then we attach ourselves to your back. And stab into your skin, and make you bleed. Then when it's all over. When we are a part of you again. When we rush ourselves into your mind again. We take over. We said we wouldn't, but you hate us.

Otto, we are Doctor Octopus again. And we will kill, and do whatever we please.

"Say it, Otto..." We hiss.

"Say it, father..."

"Say what we want you to say..."

"What we want to hear..."

We hiss and speak in his head. The voices in his head, are us.

"I missed you. I'm very proud of you, you saved me my children." We make Otto say. "I love you."

Yes father. We love you too.