Almost exactly.
The Warden hit the floor, and Miles shot some web to trap him there, but only a small amount came sputtering from the shooter. Oh no. Don’t tell me.… The Warden, smirking again, rolled backward and back up onto his feet. Blood dripped from his ashen face, but it wasn’t red. It was blue. And thick. It ran down his white shirt and across the mosaic tile floor.
Miles tried to shoot web again. But nothing.
“Oh, what a splendid sight,” the Warden teased, dabbing the blood from his face with a finger. “What becomes of the spider that’s lost its web? Does it still have the right to bear the name of spider?” Then, before Miles could attack, the Warden stretched his arms out like wings and grabbed the edges of the room. It was as if everything—the room, the floor, the couches, the paintings, the blood and glass, even Miles himself—was all just some kind of strange projection being shown on a huge piece of fabric. Like it wasn’t real. Like it could be grabbed, folded. And that’s exactly what the Warden did. Gripped the edges of the room, the seams of whatever Miles could see, and pulled them closer, like drawing curtains, folding in—folding up—reality. He closed the world in, more and more, tighter and tighter, until finally clapping the entire room in on Miles. Everything went dark for a split second, and when Miles could see again, the Warden opening his hands wide, Miles had absolutely no idea where he was. Or who he was. He patted his chest; the webbing on the suit was unfamiliar. Miles couldn’t think of his name. Or where he was from. Or what he was doing in a bodysuit in the middle of nowhere. It was as if he’d been erased. As if there was no Rio and Jefferson, no Aaron, no Ganke. No Spider-Man. Tabula rasa.
While Miles staggered around the room, hazy, the Warden took full advantage and whaled on him. Miles couldn’t see him but felt every strike. To the kidneys and ribs, to the sternum, and to the jaw. Miles was getting pummeled, and swung his arms at nothing, trying his best to connect his fists to something that wasn’t physically there.
Fortunately, the trance only lasted about fifteen seconds before Miles blinked back to himself. Before the white space that had become his reality unfolded, like a fan being spread open revealing a beautiful image, rich with color and life. Except this image wasn’t so beautiful for Miles. He was back to where he’d never left—the Warden’s house, with full memory of who he was and what he was doing there. It was like how he thought about the security camera. That there would be a time jump but nobody would notice. Except in this case, he was stuck in the blank gap and he was the nobody who wouldn’t notice.
What he did notice was the Warden, who had just grabbed his cat-o’-nine-tails from the wall.
“Your life is a nightmare!” the Warden howled, holding the tasseled whip. “And there’s nothing you can do about it.” Instead of trying to hit Miles with the flogger, the Warden cocked it back and heaved the entire thing at Miles. The easiest and most obvious thing for Miles to do would be to simply step out of the way. A simple dodge. But before he could, the handle of the cat-o’-nine-tails became the body of an actual nine-tailed cat in midair. Not the small cats Miles had been seeing around, like the one hiding somewhere behind the Warden’s couch. But a huge beast, twice the size of a bear, gnashing at him. It arched its back, its hair raising into sharp spikes, so tall that if the ceilings weren’t so high in the Warden’s mansion the spikes would’ve left holes. Miles faced off with the animal, moving slowly as the cat watched him, waiting for the moment to pounce on him and tear him to shreds. Its nine tails snaked around the room, the hair on them like razors and the ends hardened and whittled to sharp points. The tails rose up behind the catlike dragon and jutted forward violently every few seconds.
“Here, kitty,” Miles taunted, craning his neck to make sure he could still see the Warden. His eyes on the cat, those teeth, those tails. Then, his eyes on the Warden, who had now dashed across the room over to the painting of Jefferson Davis. The cat hissed, made a swipe, but not a full swipe. Instead it was more of a test to get a feel for its prey. Miles reflexively rubbered his body, bending backward as if he had no bones, the claw just grazing his torso, taking strips of his suit with it. Watch the Warden, he said to himself, sidestepping into the corner. He touched where the suit had been ripped. Felt his flesh, checked for blood. Only a little. The claws barely broke the skin. Watch the Warden. Miles, with one eye still on the giant cat, watched as the Warden pushed the huge painting to the side, revealing a hidden lever on the wall. He yanked it down, sounding a buzzing alarm. The buzz was the same as the one in the prison. The one that sounded like an electrocution. The one used when guards were being called. Miles swallowed hard, knowing that that couldn’t have been a good sound or a good sign, but he also knew that whatever it meant wasn’t going to stop the problem he had right in front of him. “Here, kitty, kitty, kitty,” Miles called again to the cat.
Miles’s first instinct was to slip back into camo, but then he remembered that it wouldn’t matter. The cat would still be able to see him. Not to mention, the Warden could, too. Miles realized that his only hope would be to take advantage of the tails.
So Miles jumped at the cat, bucking to get it to snap at him. And it did. It took a hard swipe, and Miles quickly sprang onto the wall, avoiding the cat’s attack, which left huge gashes in the clay. Miles skittered around, jumping from corner to corner, the cat swinging at Miles like he was a dangling chew toy, but missing, leaving destructive tiger stripes on the walls in its wake. Finally, the now-frustrated cat used one of its tails to strike, but Miles dodged that as well, and it drilled straight into the wall. The razors locked into the stone and clay. The cat struck with another tail, missing again. Another tail caught. And on and on. Miles bolted around the room, calling out for the cat, whose razor tails flung here and there, jamming into walls, and even into the ceiling, hooking into the grout. Moments later, the cat was trapped, all nine tails spread around the room, locking the body of the giant feline in place. And just like that, the monstrous animal let out a piercing shriek and became a simple whip again.