The darkness approached. The calm chill felt different and familiar as would an unexpected grab from a hand could still startle a quiet nerve.

And that terrified El.

The temperature, dropping sharply, woke him from his sleep like a scream; as if the universe was warning him for the coming of an ominous presence. However, for El, he had a unique way to deal with disturbing and uncomfortable situations with calm acceptance.

Intimate with both the darkness and the random thoughts of a traumatic past, El sits wondering how to make sense of the frightful vision of a girl wearing a white robe floating at the end of his bed.

He stares long into the emptiness of her silence, hoping the erratic snoring of his roommate and the hum of a digital clock would convince him he is safe within the familiarity of his own reality.

A muffled laughter comes from across the hallway, where his neighbors are viewing a VHS tape they purchased from an adult store from the outskirts of Chinatown earlier in the day. A sudden knock on the door seems to immediately dissipate the entity like a vapor dissolving into the air.

As El opens the door, he finds his neighbor, Tai, his height much shorter than the peep hole of the door.

"Hey, we're watching some movies in my room. Wanna join us?" Tai asks, eager to know the neighbor from across his room.

"Uh, I'm kinda waiting for my mom to call," El replies.

His stubborn refusal stirs questions among the neighbors, who cannot connect with the moral code of conduct influenced from the pages of his favorite comic book.

In El's mind, there is no question between seeking entertainment from an adult video and the gratification of adhering to the character of a fictional role model in a mask. Even if his chances to make new friends ended with social exile, El, his nature defined by the phrase, "With great power comes great responsibility," could never imagine himself giving into the villainy of peer pressure.

Possibly his stubborn faith is the reason why he was chosen for this night and many other nights that will follow.

As the night approaches closer past three in the morning, the deeper chill returns to his room.

An arm's length away, a thick sweater with a lightning bolt logo is neatly folded on top of a dresser. El considers to put it on. Instead, he chooses a different comfort from the cold in the form a CD, a song by 'Savage Garden,' which he had yet to try.

Attached to the CD cover is a post-it note that reads, "You MUST listen to this! XOXOXO, Insignificant Little Sister #3."

He ponders between the choices of listening to "The Best of WHAM!" or the newly released CD single, "Truly, Madly, Deeply," while his lack of knowledge to the language of social acronyms has El wondering about the meaning behind the letters, "XOXOXO."

The very thought of switching CDs in his stereo, a device that has played nothing but WHAM! songs in both cassette and CD for many years, has created a feeling of treason against his favorite musical pop idols, Andrew Ridgeley and George Michael.

For El, this get like a chaotic break within the fabric of his universe.

He had been comfortable in his routine until this night in which, moments ago during the first two verses of the new CD single, he hesitantly accepts a melody not sung by George Michael.

Above him, a spider crawls from behind his comic, "Web of Spider-Man" issue #31.

As the song repeats, the spider appears to mimic a page from the storyline which influences him to spare the small nocturnal predator from a crushing fate in the same fashion as his childhood superhero did on page 13, panel number seven of "Web of Spider-Man," issue number 31, his fingers touching his chin.

Then, as depicted in panel number eight, he, too, switches off a bed lamp as the digital clock strikes three minutes pass three in the morning.

Yet, El does not own a bed lamp.

Eyes closed, his imagination reverts to the girl from the phone booth whom he encountered in the elevator earlier.

He recalls her hand waving at his direction before the elevator malfunctioned.

His calculative nature concludes the odds of her acknowledging his existence was highly favorable. This very thought, in which he considered every variable of doubt, transforms into a picture drawn from the raw mind of a rare breed of fan boys affiliated with the comic books.

Now, with headphones firmly embracing each ear, the slow beat of a new song, "Truly, Madly, Deeply," transports his soul into a familiar place he had not visited in a long while.

Below, he sees the lights of the metropolis co-existing with the neighboring Bay.

Above, a full moon is slightly covered behind the delicate transparency of a cloudy mist. The girl, whose name he has yet to know, is holding his hand, smiling the way she did when he first saw her.

She is wearing the same outfit she wore inside the phone booth, the second one from the right, during move-in day. For El, he is wearing the tight Superman outfit as seen in the original movies.

The stars above seem to complement the romantic song that plays. Every emotion is precisely captured with a word sung from the melody which he cannot describe, nor relate to; but he finds intriguing.

The song gradually fades into end. He gently leaves her on the top of a building, gliding with the gracefulness of a hummingbird approaching the stigma of a flower.

He flies off with a wave of his hand, floating deeper into the night and never looking at the direction to where he is going. Instead, his gaze is fixed onto her as she fades into the distance that grows between them.

A rush of emotions fuels him, burning like a raging, desperate inner fire.

He pauses.

Realizing he has flown too far, El enters another place he cannot recognize, but feels he is no stranger to. The song's rhythm transforms into a desperate shaking of the doorknob from a darker side of a place that appears to be a disturbing reflection of his room, where he finds himself once again...

in bed.

The door slowly opens with a noticeable creak. From behind, a pair of pale feet emerges. Covered in a dirty white dress ending above its pale ankles, each foot begins forward; floating just above the carpet with a deathly pace until freezing in mid-air. It hovers just a breath's distance away from his bedside. The carpet saturates with water dripping from ash-like toes that have slowly turned toward El's direction.

El tries to wake, but feels more like an insect trapped in a web.

In his motionless but conscious state, he accepts two frightening absolutes:

One, he knows he is being observed.

Lastly, the feet begin to move...

towards him.