Summary:

Hive is starting to get acclimatized on Earth and exploits Malick's power.

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Chapter:

Ward found useful some reminiscences of his literary studies during high school, for interpreting what was happening to him. In particular an ancient Italian poet, called Dante Alighieri, fascinated him, at that time: Dante wrote an extraordinary epic poem, considered one of the greatest works of world literature: the Divine Comedy, divided in three canticas (Hell, Purgatory and Paradise), with 14233 rhymed lines, all in hendecasyllables.

In Hell and Purgatory there was the so-called Counterpoise Law (or retaliation law), which meant a process of punishment either resembling or contrasting with the sin itself: e.g., in Hell the lustful, that let themselves be overwhelmed by amorous passion, now were overwhelmed by a continuous storm, while the cowards, that never took sides and never let themselves be tormented by the struggle of what side to pick, now were tormented by bees, flies and worms, that referred also to their moral lowness.

The counterpoise law, in Ward's case, belonged mainly to the first case, a punishment resembling the sin itself.

At the beginning, when Hive was so feeble It couldn't speak and It could barely stand, he felt himself like he has been thrown in a very deep well, at the bottom of it, covered up to the shoulders in a chill water, that froze his body to the very bones, making him shiver continuously.

All was so cold… cold like a grave.

And dark.

And quiet.

Only the lapping of water could be heard.

Looking up he could only see the round stonewalls - oh, so, so tall - and a feeble light at the entrance of the well. He wondered if his brother, too, felt those walls as impending and imminent as he felt them there.

He could feel Hive's thoughts, which now were aimed straight to survival and nothing else. He, in a certain way, understood the creature: he too was a survivor and knew what it meant to clear up the mind of everything but the thought to remain alive, at any cost!

He also didn't know that he would soon receive so many bullets in him as many as he shot in others, and so many stabs as many he gave, and hits, too, for all the people he beat, without the possibility of actually dying but suffering all the agony, because of Simmons, because of the Kree Reaper, because of Shield's soldiers under May's command, because of Skye…

Hive was hungry. Ward was hungry. So hungry he would have eaten even bugs or worms, if he had been given the possibility. But he was powerless, passive: he could only lie down and witness to what was happening outside, prisoner in his own body.

Then came the food and he so welcomed it! He felt Hive eating it with his own mouth, hungrily, and it was so good, so good!

But soon, as Hive was regaining strength, Grant started thinking that this wasn't a good development for him: in fact, his body was becoming more and more sore, then aching, then truly painful to the point he felt panic growing: hell, if this pain was going to increase at this rate, soon he would be in such a distress that he feared for his mental health (at that, he could see May rolling her eyes: she already believed him a psychopath)!

He suspected that Hive was using this mechanism to spike adrenalin in the body It inhabited, to make the body itself stronger, resilient, and ready to run and fight.

In fact his body couldn't be defined as dead: Hive was keeping it alive in a strange way, having extracted from his lungs and heart the ribs that pierced them, enlarging the ribcage to its normal size, making his heart beat, making him breath, making his brain work and his blood nourish every cell of his body. But nonetheless he was suffering a lot, and the pain continued incessantly, day and night, so he could never rest. It became worse after Hive ate those poor five humans to heal the body: if he could, he would have screamed for hours and hours, but not even a moan could escape from his mouth.

He was mute.

And he suffered.

In silence.

For months.

The only thought that comforted him was that he knew the pain would not last forever. And he also felt that the pain could abstract him, could purify him from his self-loathing, from his guilt, from his innumerable sins, like rain on a dirty surface.

And a mysterious force he couldn't clearly identify sustained his soul, preventing despair overcoming him.

…

"I will always be with you"

…

Ward could nonetheless follow what happened around him and he could spy on Hive's characteristics and powers. It could read Malick's mind like an open book, for example. By now It knew everything about him: his faith, his health, his money, all his banking accounts, all Hydra secrets, his power, his connections, his family composed only by a beloved daughter, his sins… and all remaining in a single room several meters underground!

He felt Hive's satisfaction in seeing Malick's sins: all the people he made murder, all his plots to gain influence all over the world, all the lies he told… Among all of them, especially one brought satisfaction to Hive: the one he told himself about the tragic end of his brother. Gideon told himself he loved his brother and he did everything in his power to save him… but this wasn't true. And Hive was planning to exploit this weakness soon.

During Its days underground Hive could catch up with thousands of years of history: Ward was really impressed by Its intelligence, Its memory, Its capacity to find interactions and correlations between facts, and in Its understanding of men's behaviours and drivers. He understood that Hive was also graced by the experiences of a lot of men that gave It their lives and their memories, when they were chosen during the ceremonies that took place during the centuries and then sent through the portal on Maveth.

But Ward could feel that Hive was in search of something, or, rather, someone.

It saw once a documentary about a firm that studied all forms of parasites and the means to resist them, but in particular there was a doctor, that caught Hive's attention: doctor Holden Radcliffe. He was the man Hive needed to fulfill Its plan.

Then all the mess with Charles and Transia happened. Seeing how Hive made Malick crush that man's head made Ward's insides writhe with disgust. Really Hive cared nothing for men, and It made Malick do that to enslave him even more, through another horrible sin.

But the worse happened with Malick's daughter, a beautiful girl that was grown up in the Hydra god's faith.

Ward had to admit that she was really fascinating, so refined and sophisticated, and he would not disdain to know her better, but then Skye's face popped up and he immediately pushed those thoughts away. Through Hive, Ward could feel Malick's fear when It approached his daughter, her disappointment in her father and her determination to sacrifice him to balance the scales with his brother.

But Hive didn't want to sacrifice Gideon: It wanted to punish him for his cowardice and to teach him a lesson on sacrifice. And when Hive made Ward's lips approach Stephanie's, he knew it was to kill her: he didn't want to kiss her and then make her open her mouth, but he couldn't avoid it in any way!

And, when he saw her lifeless burned body on the floor, he felt, as a reopened wound, the disgust and the guilt for having chosen to adhere to Malick's request and being the mean that allowed Hive to reach Earth.

He was sure that Gideon was feeling the same, but much, much worse, and he didn't need Hive's telepathic power to know that.

He had absolutely to find a way to destroy that hellish creature!

Absolutely!

But how?