Anna stretched her legs out and took a healthy bite of her breakfast cucumber. She looked up through the dense branches and could just make out the red sunlight of whatever passed as "morning" on Black World.
It still felt a little weird to just be eating a cucumber whole, but as wonderful as May had made her garden be on Black World, there was still nothing to eat except for the apples and various vegetables that May was growing. Some peppers, green beans, tomatoes- and a
lot
of cucumbers. It seemed that May really liked cucumbers.
"But you won't need anything else!" May had told her some weeks ago. "All nutrition you need in there! Fat, protein, all vitamins. I put it all in there!"
And Anna had to give the woman credit, after weeks of eating nothing but the produce of May's garden, Anna had never felt better.
Still, though, I wouldn't mind like, a sandwich or something.
Anna dropped down to the floor of the garden and used her hand to quickly open up a window to Earth. She looked at her apartment, or what was left of her old apartment.
The police tape was down, and the blood had long been mopped up or however they cleaned up that much blood. Now it seemed that the unit was being rebuilt, there was fresh paint over the walls where the explosion had torn and stained them.
But there was no sign of the people she was looking for.
Well, there was no sign of Heather.
Where
was
she? Was she still alive?
Anna took another bite of her cucumber, not tasting any of it. She used her hands to make the window show her different scenes in her apartment, looking for a clue that she knew by now wasn't there.
I'll find you, she promised herself for the millionth time. Some day, in some way, I'll get off this God damn dead planet and find you, Heather.
Anna sighed. She knew she would spend the rest of the day scrolling through scenes in the City, looking for a face among the millions, knowing she wouldn't find it.
But what else was there to
do,
really?
Not paying any attention to her breakfast, her cucumber slipped out of her hands.
It fell into the window on the ground of the garden.
And of course Anna caught it- she was still the Spider, after all.
But it had fallen into the window.
It would have landed on the floor of her apartment back on Earth.
But her hand went into the window to catch it.
That hadn't happened before. She had been blocked by the Detective from being able to pass through her own windows.
She pressed again against the window- it gave a little bit, like a membrane, or like a thin sheet of plastic.
Weird, she thought. When did that happen?
Something has completely changed here, she knew. But what, exactly?
Before she could investigate, however, a breeze rippled across the leaves of the apple trees that towered over her head.
That was something else that didn't happen. There were no breezes on Black World.
Anna stood up. She looked around, narrowing her eyes.
She's here, Anna knew.
Anna started walking towards the end of the garden, where the lush green grass halted abruptly against the hot black sand. When she got there, she pushed the apple tree branches apart- very carefully, because of the thorns- and stepped out.
The red sun was blinding out there. She had forgotten how awful it was.
