This rat-hole held within a darker side tunnel. I take it, as wounded as I am. I only make it so far before my legs can no longer hold me up. My body collapses in the muck of here. My once clean crimson scales, already grimed by the battle I had with the stupid robots, are now not even seen-able under the new layer. I sniff one of my legs. Eehw. It smells worse than it looks, a remarkable feat for something that looks like puke mixed up with black/red mud. At least it will block my scent. No one can hunt me down now.
Or help us, either. A small input from L in one of her few spaces of awareness. I turn on my side, staring steadfastly at the wall now. I don't want to hear it. I don't want to recall how much I failed, how I'm still failing. But it comes to surface, despite my efforts to forget in my remaining moments of life.
My lungs are still filling, I can tell. Coughs force their way out often. My ribs shift into even more awkward angles. Blood is flowing ever slower from the open wounds in my flesh. That means my heart is beating slower, I think, dazed while watching my life creep out of me. Hello Death, here I come...
Something catches my eyes. My claws grab it before I realize I've even seen it. It's formless almost, black and gooey, sticking my claws together almost. Examining it closely, I find that this stuff is webbing, black and similar to the stuff Spiderman sprayed in my eyes during our first meeting. But what is it doing here? Lifting my eyes up, I find markings on the wall that could mean that someone had been pinned to this wall with the webbing. A particularly vivid brownish-red splotch is in the spot where someone's head would be. That person died right then and there, full of fear, I suppose.
Don't care. I get one of my claws free to push all my ribs in place. It hurts, enough that I scream. Screech, more like it. Can't worry about the people who may have heard that now. Use other claw covered in goo to smear the webbing across, acting as a pretty strange binding bandage. Works fine, keeping everything in place, even with me cautiously crawling forward out of the muck puddle. Ripped rags on the ground are relatively clean. Clean enough that using them to clean out my cuts won't hurt anything. More than it's ready been hurt, that is.
Coughing. Harder and harder. Blood coming out of mouth. Grr. Stupid lungs. I lap a little bit of water out of a dirt-filled puddle. It makes it better, but only by a little bit. Guess the only thing I can do know is wait for it to heal. Won't die just yet, sorry to disappoint. Not with the ribs fused back together. The pain would have killed me, not just the bloody lungs. Now that the pain's gone, I can live. Survive at the very least.
Time passes. Not much, only a few hours, but already my lungs are feeling better. At least I'm not coughing any more. L is awake too, begging for something I can't give yet. Please, please, let me take over again? Pretty please with a cherry on top? We have to wait until we are better. I explain this several times, but she doesn't listen much. Or at all. Finally I back off. Our body is healed enough for now. Only to stop the annoyance.
Waking up in your own body isn't too bad. It is when you don't have any clothes, unless you count the weird black stuff across your middle, and you almost died. (Does that count?) Luckily Slash was kind enough to gather some clothes from wherever before we traded places. Old jeans, underwear, a grey T-shirt...plus a nice purple hoodie. Almost new. Cool.
I can make in the streets. Some of my body still hurts, especially my ribs, which are still coated by the webbing. I hope nothing comes looking for that webbing any time soon...that would be annoying, to say the least. Oh! An apple! I pick it up, only to find that its bruised. I stare, hoping that the bruises are just dirt. They aren't. Awww, I love apples. Since I don't have anything else to eat and I'm hungry, I bite into it.
And spit it out as soon as it touches my tongue. The disgusting piece of brown mush sits there, accusingly, on the sidewalk. Heck, that was stupid of me. No apples, I decide, throwing it away. I scavenge some food later on. Food that's not exactly fresh, but it'll do. People don't notice me. That's not much of a surprise. Homeless people are invisible in big cities, and by all accounts and appearances, I was one.
I find myself a nice nook where no one else will dare go: a creaky windshield hanging behind a sign, almost over the edge of the building. I pick it because I won't smush as easy as most people will. After all, I have a little someone named Slash inside of me. Nice to know I'm appreciated for my none squishness. Slash cuts in sarcastically. Oh well. Better than nothing, huh? I say. I'm already drifting off to sleep, so I don't catch her reply. The dreams are sweet, a first in a long time. And when I wake in the morning, I'm hopeful. Maybe this could be a new start at last?
Time passes. I don't keep track like I used to. What's the need? My chance for an even average life is ruined, so why stay mad at Slash? There's no chance now that it'll matter if Slash comes out when I get mugged or something. I don't go to school anymore because of that. That was the only reason I really watched the days. Well, that and my old life, of constantly fighting in a war. Keeping the days kept me sane.
Every time is the same. I find food and watch the city come to day life, legs swinging as I munch on my windshield perch. Once everything's stared, I leap down and play my role. Watching everyone and everything around me. I see the stolen kisses that bring a smile to both receiver's and giver's faces, dropped envelopes found and returned, the smashed fruit gobbled up by poor, hopeless mutts, allowing them to live another day. I also see the car crashes, the ones where no one walks out of there, the broken faces of those who have lost everything in a swipe of a moment, the dead after someone gets to them in a dark alley. Everything is fine, until one day I'm not quite as attentive as I am normally.
In my defense, I did get distracted by a group of nearby hot college students. That in itself isn't beyond normal (they are drunk, after all). What one calls out to me teasingly is. "Hey cutie, gonna be alone forever?" I walk away, but stew over the phrase. I really am alone. Except for Slash, that is. I correct myself. Slash, sensibly, doesn't mess with my ideas on the subject.
I am so lost in my thoughts that I don't realize until too late that some people are following me. Until I've been backed into an alley. Crap. And just when I thought things couldn't get any worse. I panic. "Leave me alone! You don't want to deal with me!" I say, voice pitched a little higher than normal. As soon as the words come out of my mouth, I realize that saying them was a bad idea. What the toughie in front does next only seals my belief in that. "Yeah? You gonna stop us?" He growls, eyes darting back and forth between me and his laughing buddies. "You and what army, little girl?" Little girl? I knew I was lean for my age but little? That was just insulting.
I hiss. Before I realize it, obviously. I'm not that stupid to do on purpose. That causes the thugs to laugh harder. "You're a little bird." One says, wiping tears of laughter from his eyes. Slash takes to exception to that. What sort of idiot would think that a bird could make that noise? I can't believe you got caught by these guys. Really, Slash? Thanks a lot. I say sarcastically. Welcome. Slash still busy scoping out the ugly men in front of us, so she misses my sarcasm.
They move forward. Ready to do whatever they're gonna do to innocent girls like me at night. Probably mug me. Or rape me. Maybe both. But lucky for me, I can stand up to these freaks and beat the crap out of them. Or Slash will. Either way, the group is screwed. I smile. Time for a major beat-down.
But not from me. Something drags away the guys that stand on each side of the middle one. The leader. He's oblivious to what just happened. And to be honest, I don't really understand what happened either. I double over, the transformation between me and Slash already taking place. Once a big ball of anger got rolled, I couldn't stop it! Fangs slid out from gums. The man is at least smart enough to know something is very wrong here.
Very wrong.
Suddenly, he gets hoisted into the air. Twisting and screaming, the man disappears. I have a feeling it's for good. Sure enough, I hear the cracking of bones. "Don't hurt innocents." A very familiar voice growls. I personally have never heard it before, but Slash has.
Hurry! She urges. For some reason, she's trying to retreat back into my body instead of out. I grasp her reasoning quickly. How would this symbiote would react if there was a monster where a girl stood moments before? He would assume we were here to kill him and attack us, that's what. "We don't like those who hurt girls for fun." The man is thrown down. He groans. Whoa, he's actually alive. Who knew?
I groan again, this time the pain is for real. It hurts for Slash to try and shove back in the middle of a transformation. The culprit of the acts of violence that have been just performed leaps down. Huge fangs, white spider on chest...yep, I'm in trouble. Not for the first time. What else is new?
Venom watches. They're always watching for trouble now. Leaping down, after they've taken care of the thugs, they see something they don't expect. The girl that the thugs were going to attack, she's twisting. Turning in pain. It reminds them of their first bonding together for some reason.
A strangled growl erupts from a mouth that opens to reveal long inhuman fangs that shouldn't be there. She almost curls up, spines shooting out of her backbone. A few more minutes pass and the transformation is complete. The result is panting on the floor when Venom realizes this thing was something they had run into quite recently. Yellow eyes, red scales...it is the trespasser Slash.
I get on all fours. I try not to pant, but I can't help it. I hate displaying signs of weaknesses to someone I don't even know. Finally, I look up to see Venom right in front of me. He smiles. "Hello Slash."
