Disclaimer: I do not own Venom

A/N: First of all, I want to thank you all for almost 16.000 views! I would not have been able to reach such a high amount of readers if not for you guys, which surprises me since the Venom side of has only 170 stories so far. Anyway, I'm not going to look a gift horse in the mouth, and I thank you again.

Also, I've been reading a lot of "Absolute Carnage" recently, and while there are some things that does not make total sense, I overall have found it quite entertaining and I'm debating whether or not it can become a part of an Arc much, much later. We'll see...

Additional art will be posted on my DeviantArt account: X-KuroShiro-X
Feel free to draw art yourself, and please let me know if you do :) I would be very happy to see how you guys envision everything in the story.

As always: Read, review and enjoy!

Chapter 24: A True Killer

Her heart pounded against her ribcage, resonating through her ears to the point where it deafened everything else. Just solid quiet, like walking through an empty street at night. The light above her grew fainter, every detail that surrounded her seemed to morph into nothingness. Her body laid limp against the cold floorboards beneath her, liquid pouring out of her stomach and onto the hard surface, her vision growing distant with each blink until her eyelids grew too heavy. Whenever she tried to take a breath, blood would gouge out of her mouth and restrict the movements of her chest.

As she laid there, she could not help but ponder.

Was this what it was like to 'die'? To lie on top of your own blood as you waited for the end to reach you? She had witnessed countless people die in hospital beds, either accepting their ends whole-heartedly or remaining in denial until they eventually succumbed to the abyss. Could her own experience compare to those of her patients? Where they any less endurable or more so? She had made it a rule not to compare her own experiences to those of others, but the curiosity grew on her as she laid there; alone, as she had always been.

Her arm, numb and useless as it was in her current state, gradually reached up to touch the warm liquid that was drenching her clothes from the abdomen. She could scarcely feel anything as her fingers delicately grazed the surface, and as soon as she withdrew them, there was no skin visible beneath the redness that coated her fingers.

RED ….

She had always harbored contemptuous feelings towards that color, as childish as she had deemed it. It reminded her of so many things; of the blood that drained from her patients' faces when she had to break it to them that their condition was incurable, it reminded her of him, it reminded her of the fact that what was supposed to be natural for any woman to experience had remained foreign to her, and how only now that she was at the end of her road was the first time she ever got to experience something akin to that sensation.

How ironic.

How truly, unbearably, ironic.

With her dead, Skirth dead, and Mr. Brock currently on the verge of being captured by the LF, how were they supposed to finish what they had all started together? How were they supposed to ensure that Drake received the punishment he was due? That the Life Foundation received it? They had been the cause of countless deaths, relished in their victims' agony for the sake of their own progress. They deserved to be punished for what they had done, and so did she …

She knew she could not die when she had still work left to do. Maria Nordstrom, Jacob Markson, all of the other volunteers who had been exposed to the project and died … they were not finished. She had made a promise, a foolish one, but a promise nonetheless, to see it all through; to redo everything. Despite her contempt against such trivial concepts as words, this promise was one she had to see through. She had to.

Something cold suddenly circled around her limp figure, something unbearably cold that threatened to send her into a state of hypothermia had she not already been cold since the beginning. No words or observations were required in order to understand what it was, nor was she planning on spending any energy on doing so.

Evelyn took a sharp breath, feeling her lungs ache and blood gather in her mouth.

"I …. Cannot …"

Something dark suddenly lingered over her, undetailed and blurry, yet she already knew what it was and what it intended to do. A sense of vehement antagonism surged through her as she recalled all the lives it had taken, how it had consumed them all for the sake of its own survival. It was like an animal; only following its nature.

But like any animal, it could be forced to submission.

And no matter how idiotic it was, she was not going to die.

Gritting her teeth together as the dark shape above her closed in on her face, Evelyn opened her eyes entirely and glared straight at it, uttering five words through her blood-stained throat that were so sharp and distinctive that they surprised even herself.

"You … will not…. Kill… Me."

For a moment, the organism seemed to halt in its movements, seemingly freezing like a deer caught in headlights. Taking this as a sign of contemplation, Evelyn wanted to say something move, to do something that would otherwise make her ordeal lessen. However, before she could, she felt all of her energy abandon her body and whatever strength she once had within her disappeared in the blink of an eye, and the cold resurfaced.

This was it.

A black abyss.

Cold and isolated. Just like life.

She did not wish to die, not yet. There was still a chance to save everyone, to make sure that the Life Foundation received the retribution they were designated. Then, and only after then, could she herself meet the end that had been coming her way for some time now. Only then would it be appropriate to leave.

She had made a promise; a promise to the corpse she could scarcely see from her peripheral vision. Yet it was still a promise that meant something. But did a promise matter if both were deceased?

Damn it…

For years, she had been indifferent towards the prospect of her own death. While it was her job to make sure that others were spared the fate, hers was something else entirely. In all honesty, maybe she had been expecting it or wished for it. Maybe she had been nonchalant about it because it was something she knew at her core would be an appropriate ending for her, preferably sooner or later.

But this … was a dissatisfying conclusion.

However, it was ultimately out of her control.

Death was something unpredictable, something nobody had control over. Drake wanted to find a way to save people from it, as she had, to keep them all alive.

Yet there she was, afflicted with the same disease as she was trying to defuse.

How ironic indeed.

She closed her eyes.

Thomas tried again to muster the courage to dial the number down. He had all the digits typed into the phone and his thumb was lingering mere inches away from the 'call' button. Still, no matter how many times he had tried to convince himself that it was time to get it over with, despite how many times he had tried to do more than to just leave simple messages behind, he could never man up long enough to actually call her.

After minutes of continuing the cycle of deliberating with himself, he clutched the phone in his grip to the point where he felt it slightly crack and threw it onto the couch, rubbing his temples as another migraine was closing in on him from the mental exhaustion. He was a coward, a term he seldom dared used to describe himself or others, but he knew that it was what he was in his core. No matter how many times he was applauded by the other officers at the station for his supposed 'bravery', Thomas knew that it was all just for show.

Taking down a drug-dealer was way easier than calling his own daughter? Just how pathetic was that?

In the end, Thomas settled down with a glass of Cognac and thought to himself as he downed the liquor. While no productive thoughts were produced from the half-hour he spent on the couch, there was a sense of consolation in knowing that at least his wife was not there to see him in his in such a miserable state; drinking on a Wednesday-evening with his daughter still out of reach because of his own cowardice.

It was not until another half hour later that he, with a sheer amount of alcohol in his system, finally knew that it was time and reach over to grab his phone again. This time, he finally swallowed down his spinelessness and typed the number into the phone and – albeit reluctantly – pressed the call button as well.

He pushed the device to his ear and waited for the beeping sound to cease.

One … two … three … four … five … six …

"The person you are trying to contact is currently unavailable. Please leave a message."

Knowing that this most likely meant that she was intentionally avoiding his calls or simply preoccupied with work, Thomas knew that he would not be able to speak with her this evening.

"Hey, sweetie, it's dad here." He paused for a moment, planning his words carefully. "Look, I know it's late and all, but I just wanted to check on you and see if you were doing well. Remember to eat and sleep properly, and stay away from too much coffee. It's bad for your health. Anyway, your mom … She misses you very much, and so does I. So … Please call me once you're available. Love you."

He dropped the phone back on the couch, leaving it there without giving it a second thought. The empty glass on the table tempted him to a great extent, but he had made it a rule to stick with two glasses per night at most. Though it was tough at times, he had managed to make it through these past seven years well enough. Not perfectly, but good enough.

As he sat there, occasionally shifting his gaze to the half-full bottle of cognac that was resting on the table, he drew his hand over his head and found that his eyes had trailed over the table and to the drawer next to the window, where a picture was standing. A sense of nostalgic longing and melancholy washed over him like an ocean wave as his pupils flickered to the picture frame that had remained standing there for these past eleven years.

Thomas got up to his feet, slightly unsteady from the limited amount of alcohol he had drunk, and walked over to inspect the old photograph that had gathered dust over years of being neglected. As he held it to his face, the police officer felt tears build themselves up in the corner of his eyes as memories surged through his mind.

August 13th, 1996, taken while they still lived in Brooklyn before they moved away. It displayed Thomas himself in his younger days, days of less alcohol and less gray hair. His wife stood next to him with a smile on her face that he had almost forgotten she used to have. Standing in front of them were their two kids. A boy with a messy, dark hair who hardly seemed to know how to maintain it properly, and a younger girl who was practically clinging onto her brother's arm as though letting go of it would cause her to fall through the ground.

They were all laughing on that picture, and they were all equally happy as well. Thomas could recall everything; everything from the way a few of his wife's hair strands kept escaping the loose ponytail she would put her hair into, to the way the clouds were aligned in the sapphire-blue sky. It had been like Heaven, but that was a long time ago.

Now … there was almost nothing left of those happy days. His wife no longer smiled like he used to, his daughter had practically cut contact with them ever since that day, and his son … His son …

He had seen them both grow up so wonderfully. He had tried to be everything that his own father had never been; kind, attentive, protective, loving. With a son who was passionate about everything he did and a daughter whose intellect could compare to that of Curie herself, Thomas had thought that maybe, just maybe, he had done something good, something right.

But now … it was all gone.

"Thomas, I'm back,"

The moment the sound of his wife's voice reached him, Thomas dried his tears away as quick as he could and put the picture down on top of the drawer again. He spun around and smiled as his beloved wife stepped through the door with the groceries in her arms.

"Oh, hey, let me help you,"

But the moment he tried to grab ahold of the bags, Rose held her arms out of reach and shook her head. "Oh no, you don't," she insisted firmly. "I can manage my own, thank you very …"

Just one quick look was all she needed before realization dawned over her, and a sad expression befell her. She dropped her bags to the floor and reached over to her husband's face, caressing him. "Thomas, what's the matter?"

He soon realized that trying to rid himself of any evidence of tears were futile, as a few of them ended up descending to his cheeks and into his hands. "I tried calling her," he croaked and leaned into his wife's embrace. "I thought we could invite her for his anniversary this year, but she … Rose, she did not even pick up,"

Instead of saying anything, she just held tightly onto her husband. It had been a long time since she last saw him in such despair, and while it broke her own heart knowing what the circumstances were, she could only embrace him as they shared their mutual grief. It was not until a few moments later that she herself began to sob, feeling guilt wash over her as she recalled the last moments she had spent with her daughter. Moments filled with so much hate and contempt on her own side that she could not comprehend that she had spoken them to her own daughter; her only living child.

"We'll try again tomorrow," Rose said assuringly. "And the day after that. We'll try to get our baby home."

Darkness shrouded everything beneath an ebony shade, separating her from the privilege of sight. Her body, numb and cold to the bone, made no attempt to spare her any of it. Like maggots crawling beneath her flesh, tearing away chunks of it to its own satisfaction without taking her consent into consideration. The echoes of cicadas resonated through her ears, shutting off any sounds that had previously claimed the silence for its own.

Even so, Evelyn found that she was … standing. Her legs, previously unmoving and anesthetized like rotting flesh, were now keeping her weight up as though nothing had been hindering their functions earlier. In fact, everything else about her felt normal, as there was no pain or otherwise uncomfortable feeling to detect.

Although, as she looked down at her hands, she saw that they remained covered in her own blood to the elbows, the white fabric stained with crimson. She glanced down at her stomach, and while there was a hole in her shirt that remained drenched in blood, she felt nothing akin to the sensation of pain. Even as she poked it, all she could feel was the tender flesh and a hole piercing her abdomen. No aching whatsoever. She just felt …. soft.

The darkness was absolute, surrounding her from every direction she turned to. Like standing in the midst of a dark cell with no entrance to light. There was not a single trait of light to be found, but for some reason, she was still perfectly capable of navigating her steps with sharp precision.

She narrowed her eyes as she looked around, not knowing how to perceive this. Was this death? The dark abyss she had been anticipating? It almost seemed disappointing, knowing that you would end up in the same place regardless of your actions. She had not expected anything less of nothingness in general, but this seemed extravagant. Still, as far as she could tell from looking around into the nothingness, there was no king sitting on top of a throne of bones anywhere, nor were there any monsters with spirals in their foreheads to occupy the place. With that in mind, a spark of satisfaction ignited in her chest, as it meant that his assumptions had been wrong all along.

Unless … This wasn't Death.

Evelyn shifted her stare around again, and this time, spotted something else preoccupying the emptiness in front of her. Seeing it there … made her feel her chest tighten. Warmth flooded through her chest and radiated with what she could only describe as resentment. She recalled the faces of everyone it had killed, all of those people she had supervised and managed, only to see the life drain from them because of it. Dr. Dora Skirth….

Evelyn dug her nails into her palm as her hands knotted into fists. Watching that creature thrive made her blood boil and forced her to experience what she could only describe as hate. Pure, vehement loathing. She hated it beyond what words could describe, almost more than the Life Foundation itself, more than what letters could align, beyond human comprehension. Aversion was not a sensation she found foreign, but this one was in a different category to itself. More than anything, she loathed its existence because it had thrived on the lives of others.

A genuinely parasitic being.

And even so, she knew that if there was a chance for her to live, to finish it all, then she required it now for her own use. Willing to use it at the expense of countless others. Perhaps she could become a killing machine with an insatiable bloodlust upon its influence, or perhaps docile like Venom appeared to be with Mr. Brock? This time, it was all up to chance. It was all unpredictable. The two concepts she found the most troublesome in the world suddenly became her only options.

And she had to roll the dice.

"If you kill me now," she said coldly, keeping her movements in check throughout the ordeal. "You'll die as well. Do you understand?"

The symbiote suddenly jerked in its movements, as though having been met with a shocking revelation. Its bodily matters consistently moved like sludge on the blackened ground, yet she was under the impression that it understood the message she was conveying.

While she knew from Venom that symbiotes could comprehend human speech, even speak it themselves through a host, this one remained mute. It sprouted no mouth, nor any facial features to make it easier to predict its intentions or thoughts if it had any at all.

As it had yet not made a move to end her, she seized the opportunity. Although she would not guarantee her own life, she was not going to give up just yet. "Get us out of here," she spoke. "Get us out of here, and you will live. Kill me now, and you will only have enough fuel to feed off for so long before you are permanently disposed of. Are you willing to take that risk?"

It shifted a bit, but it did not attack her, nor did it commit itself to any hostile movements as it previously did. Instead, something else occurred, something that made her pupils shrink with shock and made her posture shift with uncertainty.

As though the mass increased, it started to morph into something else, gaining a distinctive shape of its own. The substance began to distribute itself between features of a tall height, one that stood not too superior from her own. A pair of arms and legs grew from the matter and the rest of it was shaped to that resembling a vaguely thin human physique, albeit neither too thick nor too skeletal. There were no distinguishable traits as to whether it was mimicking a female or a male; rather, it was androgynous.

Attributes similar to muscles and bones developed, and lastly, the head grew from the top of the shoulders. No hair or anything akin to it, just a head. No ears or mouth could be seen, nor any facial traits either. The figure did not say anything, nor did it produce anything resembling Venom, with sharp fangs and a prominent tongue. Where there was supposed to be a mouth, there was nothing.

Two white eyes appeared though they lacked any pupils. There were just two white scleras surrounded by the blue. Shortly after its form had settled properly, tendril-like appendages began to morph on what Evelyn could only assume was the humanoid creature's back, shifting and waving like seaweed under a current.

Seeing it standing there in front of her was …. Disturbing. But what disturbed her the most, however, was how something so inhuman could mimic the shape of a human. It was simply standing there, less than three feet away, with its white eyes aimed solely at her.

Even as startled as she was at that moment upon seeing the alien parasite change, she did not waste time pondering on the fascinating subject before she returned to focus to the situation at hand. She reached her bloodied hand towards it, staring straight into its eyes without breaking the contact they had established. "You let me live, and we will both get out of here. Do whatever means necessary. Is that a beneficial agreement?"

The symbiote tilted its head to look down at her hand, then back at her, ever-so silent as before. For a moment, Evelyn wondered whether it could actually understand what she was saying, but just she was about to withdraw her arm, the symbiote's cold hand clasped around hers with such force that it felt like her knuckles were on the verge of dislocating.

She snapped down at her hand, tempted to pull it out of the symbiote's grip. Its fingers were tightly wrapped around hers like letting go would be the end of it. Its fingers' biological matters then proceeded to crawl up her arm like water and spread to the rest of her body like a virus, covering every inch of her until there was nothing left. Chills went up and down her skin as the symbiote's matter claimed each and every part of her, and her heart throbbed painfully in her chest as she knew what this meant.

But despite it all, Evelyn felt content.

If this was the price to pay in order to make sure that the Life Foundation would fall, then she would gladly suffer.

She would gladly suffer for a thousand years if it was necessary.

The alarms started going off throughout the hallways, red lights began to flash violently to the point where it kept everything else trapped beneath the crimson color. Axelson had just barely managed to grab his weapons before he was forced to sprint down the corridors, accompanied by his fellow guards and soldiers as they ran towards the source of the alarms.

The high frequency sounds evidently made all of the attendants concerned and frightened simultaneously, and their reactions would have amused him had he not been too preoccupied with running towards the threat. Years of military training and brutal defense mechanisms had left him with an underlying ability to shut off his empathy. Had he been any other civilian, he might have tried to comfort these people in their states of despair, but knowing what they were all capable under different circumstances, he decided that he had better things to waste his energy on than to sugarcoat the situation.

The doors to the labs swing open and everyone in the troop aimed their weapons at the first thing that caught their attention. Despite being further in the back of the marching group, Axelson was perfectly capable of seeing from his location what it was that had caused the initial commotion.

Shattered pieces of glass were scattered over the floor, most likely from the giant HOLE that had been created from the cell-doors in front of them. The opening appeared to have been caused by a source of major impact, like a cannon-ball or a high-frequency blast that was strong enough to pierce through solid matter, let alone bullet-proof glass.

He would have almost been surprised had it not been for the fact that he already knew where this was going to lead to. For whatever it was worth, he was not going to die without putting a lot of effort into trying to survive. Whatever happened to the rest of them, he could care less.

The current ordeal was that the thing that had created the massive gap in the wall was nowhere to be found. With this taken into consideration, the troop cautiously stepped inside like a cluster, covering each angle with a weapon aimed at all times. They constantly shifted around to try and get the faintest idea of where the thing was hiding, but to little to no avail.

There was a corpse on the other side of the cell where the thing had busted out of, one Axelson could vaguely recall as Dr. Skirth, but as far as anyone could tell, she was as dead as anything. While this ruled out the possibility of the bug having used her as a means to escape, since it could not linger in an oxygen-filled environment without a host for long, then that meant …

Axelson could feel the adrenaline coursing through his veins, a sense of glee spreading over him. He had long wanted to know what these aliens could do once they were out of shackles, and now he had the chance to finally see it for himself. Like a kid unwrapping his birthday present.

A true killer.

The commanding officer held his hand up. "Spread out!" And the rest followed his orders like children listening to their mother.

Every space in the room was covered, all the guards were as attentive as they could be, which, to Axelson, was not very much considering how the majority of them were inexperienced with what they were up against. All he did was to keep his eyes and his ears open and listen for anything strange, which always came in handy when you were looking for an unseen enemy.

"Hey, where the hell is Gomez?!"

All the guards snapped their heads around to search for the missing soldier, only to find his unused AK-47 lying where he was supposed to be standing. No sound was heard, nor did anyone see anything happen in the dark room. As the commanding officer bent down to inspect the weapons, he could come to no conclusion about where the soldier had gone. And neither could the rest.

The tension was reeking of them as they the realization that any of them could go next dawned on them, and Axelson did not know whether to laugh or to stay silent. It was a privilege to be able to keep one's thoughts to oneself, especially since he was never one for favoring people that found anyone expendable.

In a moment of negligence towards their attentiveness, the guards failed to notice something sharp coming their way from the darkness like a snake, successfully piercing through the air and towards them in the blink of an eye. Quick enough to notice due to his reflexes, Axelson dodged just in time for it to graze his arm through the fabric, leaving behind a prominent gap in his attire. Three other guards, however, not that fortunate. Even though the entire group were spread quite prominently throughout the room, they all shared the same mortifying view.

The three guards, two men, and one woman, stood aligned on the floor, a black vine-like object having pierced through all of their abdomens like one long spear, keeping them up-standing despite the blood that was pouring from their wounds and onto the spotless floor. They were all hanging there, limp and just bleeding out without being able to move or somehow save themselves from the inevitable. Their faces were paling and looking as equally disturbed as they were in shock. One of them, Richardo, opened his mouth to utter something, but only blood gushed out of the gap in a cough.

Not even a second later, the tendril snapped itself back faster than anyone could process, and the three guards fell to the ground, dead as decaying pieces of meat. This seemed to be the trigger to having the soldiers regain their composure, and as soon as they did, it did not take long before chaos erupted.

"GET IT! IT'S ON THE CEILING!"

The guards raised all of their weapons, firing aimlessly at the darkness without a clue about where to go for. While Axelson did the same thing, he did not waste a single bullet trying to locate the thing. He already knew that bullets would not do much damage, and he pitied the rest of them for their incompetence. Killing the thing would not be an option, and keeping it shackled for long was a mistake on their part.

A loud scream was heard as one of the guards suddenly found themselves thrown against the wall, knocking them unconscious with their face bleeding from the nose and mouth. Another guard was not even allowed the privilege of screaming before a dark figure snapped his neck, allowing the body to fall unceremoniously down on the ground, equally dead as the other. One of the remaining guards, in a moment of desperation, fired his weapon at the figure without hesitation.

Bullets went flying everywhere, forcing Axelson to dodge in order to avoid being hit. Meanwhile, the guard continued shouting profanities, firing at nothing until his weapon was completely emptied of ammo. It was not until he was out of bullets that he looked forward and saw that all he had it was the walls, countless bullet-holes left behind by his moment of impulsiveness.

The soldier was rendered soundless, mouth quivering and sweat pouring from his forehead. His finger was still clutched to the trigger, not letting go. He shifted his head around to try and spot the symbiote but was interrupted almost instantly as tendrils pierced him from behind and erupted from his chest the same way it had done to the three ones earlier.

He was lifted from the ground with his feet dangling over it, blood and saliva pouring from his mouth as he tried to save himself. The poor man gripped around the sharp edges of the tendrils, not taking into consideration how sharp they were, which caused deep gashes to form in his palms. Only a moment later, he stopped moving and his face went unmoving.

The figure behind him withdrew the tendrils and dropped the corpse to the floor without evident concern before it proceeded to move to the rest of them. One after the other, the creature effortlessly killed them all; pierced their bodies with its sharp appendages, snapped their necks, twisted them until their bones showed from beneath the skin. Blood smeared the floors until there was little visible from beneath it. It was a crime scene; a warzone. Only in Afghanistan had Axelson seen similar things.

The speed was the most prominent ability the symbiote possessed. The guards could scarcely make note of its presence before their necks snapped or their internal organs were pierced through. The symbiote did not waste time with making it any more difficult than it had to be, nor did it make sure that they all suffered before death was installed. Its only intent was to rid itself of any obstacles.

Only then did Axelson get a good look at what it was that was slaughtering everyone in the troop, and needless to say, he was as equally intrigued as he was alarmed. A true monster, one that he had now seen head-on for himself in its true form. He immediately knew that it was SYM-A02; the turquoise color was unmistakable, though it was considerably darker than the last time he had seen it. The breasts and curves it possessed indicated that the host it had taken was a female, perhaps one of the scientists that had tried to contain it, but he could not make out who it was from that observation alone. While it had no mouth where it was supposed to be, its white eyes made up for its inhumane appearance.

The moment of marvel was short-lived as the commanding officer let out a battle cry as he ran straight towards the symbiote from behind, a large machete in his right hand and his AK-47 in his left one. The symbiote, already seeing this upcoming assault, spent no effort in dodging the attack. With barely any movements, it blocked the blade with its hand and kept it still in in the air. The officer then proceeded to try to throw a punch into the side of its abdomen while it was caught off-guard. While he succeeded in doing so, the symbiote did not react in any way, showing neither agitation or pain. It was like hitting a brick wall with minimum impact.

Without a moment wasted, it simply grabbed the commanding officer's arm, swiftly shoved it from its abdomen, and penetrated him with the sharp tendrils that protruded from its back. Several went into his stomach and chest, some went into his arms and legs, and the last one went straight through his throat, sending blood pouring from every hole produced in his body. It did not take long for death to settle in, but it was evident that the officer was not willing to let go that easy. His determination was admirable but equally foolish, as he met the same fate as the rest.

Just as it had done with the rest, the symbiote dropped the body to the floor. Unnecessary gloating or signs of victory were not witnessed from Axelson's perspective. Rather, it simply turned around and started walking towards the exit, its tendrils still sprouting from its back like accommodating accessories. They waved as though the wind was forcing them to move, but there was no air inside to cause it.

Intimidating, certainly, but nonetheless intriguing to look at.

Axelson could not prevent himself from observing the creature with immense fascination, finding himself enthralled beyond what words could describe. He had seen it all in terms of bloodshed and violence, and while he loathed being the one to commit such himself, he felt no empathy for these people. While he was forced to kill to protect himself, these people did it out of curiosity, like poking a caged animal with a stick.

Instead of moving to try and fulfill his obligations of killing the thing, or containing it, he stood there in calmness, watching it as it calmly strolled over the blood-stained floors, leaving footprints behind in the red. Its white eyes did not even look over the damage it had done, which he could not tell was out of indifference of deliberate avoidance.

Just as he imagined that the creature was about to head out of there, it turned to him instead, much to his surprise. It was not until there was but a few feet standing between them that it stopped walking, during which time the soldier was already anticipating what was going to happen. He almost expected it to kill him just as easily at it had killed the rest of them. Death was not something he feared, not by miles. He had survived several near-death experiences already, so he had pretty much spent all of his luck at that point.

However, instead of attacking him, the symbiote merely looked at him, white eyes aimed straight at him. Regardless, he did not doubt that it could finish him either way, but it made no threatening movements against him. It just looked at him, quiet, with the wavering tendrils on its back ready to strike at any movements.

Afterward, it simply moved past him and disappeared through the exit, abandoning him in a room filled with corpses.

"Someone else is here,"

Eddie had just barely managed to down himself a glass of water before the sudden reappearance of that voice causes him to choke. It spills everywhere on the floor and he promptly drops the glass back on the counter, irritated. "Will you just shut up for one fucking –"

"Open the door, now!"

"Open the door –?"

The water in the glass began to shake as someone forcefully knocked on the other side of his door, sounding like they were threatening to kick it in. Eddie snapped his head around, already making a beeline towards it when the lock snaps and the door opens from the other side.

He barely managed to get a good look at the visitor before something clasped around his neck with a force so strong that it instantly shut off his access to oxygen. A cough built itself up in his throat as he struggled to breathe, and as he regains focus, he finds himself staring into a pair of inhumanely large white eyes.

A/N: Second of all, I just have to say that some parts of this story might sound unrealistic. It primarily has to do with the fact that I have no idea about what goes on inside a host's head upon bonding with a symbiote. The comics and the movie only go so far into details about how they feel, both physically and mentally, so I had to develop something else. I hope it was not too ... idiotic.

Also, as far as the identity of the blue symbiote, I've long decided that it would be the symbiote Lasher from the comics. In the Lethal Protector comics, Lasher is one of the symbiote offsprings of Venom, and his most distinguishable traits are his green color, tendrils protruding from his back, and his lack of a mouth. Since the blue symbiote in the comics was Riot, I decided to make Lasher the blue one in the movie, but make him resemble more his original color by calling him turquoise-green instead. His name was also mentioned in the earlier chapters.

More info in the later chapters to come :)