Chapter Fourteen – Confessions
The stained glass mural in front of me depicted a boy strapped to an alter with his father stood in front holding a knife. It was the story of Abraham and his son, whom God had ordered to be sacrificed for him. Indeed the figure of the Almighty was shown in the coloured glass towards the top of the window above the apse. Alongside God was an angel with a sheep clasped their arm, or maybe it was a ram. I tried to remember the story properly. I had decided when I was young that religion wasn't for me; I couldn't manage to marry the stories of Christianity with the stories of science no matter how much I tried. The story of Abraham and his son was one such story I found myself repulsed by. The idea of a higher power controlling an individual to hurt his loved ones was not one I took hope and happiness from.
Uncle Ben always used to disagree. He advocated for the story suggesting it represented the willingness to sacrifice those which were close to your for the greater good. He and I often spoke about the Bible, having arguments about the stories and meanings. These arguments were never caused out of anger but more out of exploration. Uncle Ben himself was never strongly religious, happy with having a passive role in the Christian faith.
I walked over to the wooden table near the right side of the nave and picked out one of the votive candles, turning it over in my black suited hands a few times considering it. There was a box of matches near the cross which was on display near the table. Sighing to myself I lit the match and placed the singular burning candle, thinking of my Uncle. Along with the Steinway Tower this was one of the places I went to when thinking of my uncle. This was, after all, where he had been buried after that night. Memories of the ceremony had been running through my head since I had entered the building, quietly slipping in through one of the side entrances which I knew was regularly unlocked.
I thought about the last words my Uncle Ben had ever said to me: 'you have the ability to do a great amount of good Peter, I hope you live up to that potential'. The memory pained me. All these years I had been trying, but I was now faced with the realisation that I had been slipping in the promise I had made to him at his funeral. In order to do good, I had to be good, and recently I hadn't been good. I had been emotional, vindictive, and violent. Instead of trying to help the innocent people of the city my duty as Spider-Man had become more about punishing those criminals. That wasn't the promise I had made to Uncle Ben.
As he had always said, often to the point of ridicule from myself and my Aunt May 'with great power there must come great responsibility'. It was a running joke from the pair of us that Uncle Ben was a broken record who constantly spouted off things he had read on fortune cookies, but after his death I had began thinking more and more of that quote. I had great power, and it was my duty to exercise that power with the responsibility that it deserved. I checked my phone: it read 11:48 on its clock. I turned and approached the belltower, climbing up the walls until I came to a small landing near the top. The last time I had sat here under the bell was the evening of Gwen's death. The memory choked in my chest, and I breathed slowly.
I wasn't religious, but that didn't mean that I couldn't take comfort in religion. I patiently awaited the ringing of the bells, waiting for them to ring in a new section of my life the same as they had ushered into the period of my life without Uncle Ben, and once again my life without Gwen Stacey. I knew what I was doing was silly, and nonsensical, but it helped. It defined my new, no, my refocused promise to my Uncle Ben, that promise to become a good person once more, and to uphold my responsibility.
I heard he opening of doors down below as the evening's bellringers entered the church, preparing themselves to ring the large church bells to signify the turning of the hour. From my position on the platform they wouldn't be able to see me, especially in my black costume. I stood and reached into a crevice in the wall pulling out a small box which I had stashed here previously, and pulled out a pair of earplugs. These would help me not lose my eardrums to the loud bongs of the bell, which is a mistake you only make once. I pulled out my phone: 11:58. Any minute now.
Then it started: I saw the ropes beginning to pull around me, activating the levering which would swing the bell. I looked up seeing the large body of the bell beginning to swing, with the inner part (I was pretty sure I was called the clacker or clapper or something) moving slightly after it. I prepared myself for the noise – I would still be able to hear it even through my earplugs. It swung a few more times, the clapper knocking quietly against the sides, until finally it reached the apex necessary for the louder bang.
BOOM!
Pain suddenly shot through every single nerve of my body. I gasped out in pain, wanting to scream but feeling no air reach my mouth.
BOOM!
My whole skin felt like it was ripping, crawling over me with pain. I hadn't felt this since Shocker had hit me with his attack, but this was worse.
BOOM!
My head felt like it was splitting open. Despite the earplugs it felt like I could feel every single noise the bells made.
BOOM!
The gaps in between the noise made the pain worse. The brief moments of respite highlighted the immensity of the pain that hit every receptor of my body.
BOOM!
I collapsed to the floor, hands gripping my head as the blood rushed to it.
BOOM!
I felt my fingers dig into my hair. At some point I must have ripped my mask off.
BOOM!
I slammed my hands into the wooden floor feeling splinters crack around my fists.
BOOM!
I looked down at my hands, worried that the noise had been heard, and scrambled away in fear as black liquid seeped from my fists where I'd expected blood.
BOOM!
I lost focus again and felt my head slam against the wood. I clutched my stomach in agony and my fingers touched bare flesh.
BOOM!
I pried my eyes open once more and saw the black mass of viscous fluid coating the floor around me.
BOOM!
I pushed myself up to my knees – the pain wasn't as intense anymore. I was able to look around as my vision began to return to focus.
BOOM!
The bell tolled for the final time and I stood to my full height. All that remained of the pain was the dull ringing in my ears now suppressed by the earplugs. I looked down at my feet and saw the black fluid everywhere. I crouched down to touch it with my index finger, and saw my gloved hand back to its regular blue and red. Looking down I saw the same was true for my entire costume. I ran my hand down my chest to my stomach and felt three large rips across my abdomen. My memory went back to the fight with the Black Cat back in the Life Foundation. I crouched back down and pressed my hand into the liquid.
The liquid moved.
"What the hel-fuck!" I shouted, narrowly avoiding blaspheming (is fuck better than hell?) and I leapt away from the platform onto the wall nearby. I saw the liquid shiver and ripple of its own accord. As I examined it more and more it began to shrink, as if the liquid was returning to the middle of the platform.
Then it began to grow, twisting itself up as if standing to attention. At the very top of the mass an egg shape appeared, two indents of a pale white almost looking like eyes… It turned in my direction and seemed to consider me for a moment.
"What are you?" I asked. "Were you on me?"
Small tendrils emerged from the mass across the floor, like feelers on a mould or fungus as it spread, then it sprung at me. I panicked, not having been given a warning from my spider-sense. It collided with the wall and began to spread across it heading in my direction. I crawled quickly up the bell tower as the black creature followed suit. I thought quickly, then spotted the large church bell. I thought back to my fight with Shocker, and how the pain of the bell lessened as more and more of the liquid seeped off my body, and propelled myself towards it. The creature followed, a shrill scream emanating from the mass as I turned and brought my fist down hard onto the bell. The deep vibrations and ear-splitting noise reverberated around the tower. I pushed off onto the wall and turned to look at the liquid which was falling to the ground. It seemed to be writhing in pain as it fell. I released from the wall falling to the ground as well. The mass splatted hard on the ground as I slowed my descent.
I had to work fast. I quickly looked around the area and saw an ornate glass vase full of flowers across the room. I considered the ramifications of stealing from a church, and another of Uncle Ben's phrases ran through my head: 'it's better to ask for forgiveness than it is for permission'. I shot a string of webbing at it and pulled it towards me, tipping the water and plants out. The creature was already reforming and rising from the stone floor. I spun the vase round and trapped the top of the creature into it. I tried to force the vase down but the mass resisted. I looked back towards the main hall and spotted a metal cross, then webbed it over towards my hand. I slammed it onto the floor and the ringing once more panicked and hurt the creature, forcing it into the vase. I pressed down with all my might onto the two foot vase and saw the rim cut through the small bits of remaining liquid.
"Now like a spider in a glass I just need to seal the other end…" I muttered to myself, glad that the bellringers hadn't stuck around. I tapped hard on the glass with the cross and the creature panicked, quick enough for me to tip the vase and shoot a thick seal of webbing over the open end. I rested the vase sideways on the ground, waiting for the liquid to attempt to escape. It probed the webbing and almost furiously spun round, looking for a way out. I looked at the liquid on the floor – it seemed to be inert once cut off from the central mass. Gazing back in the vase the creature appeared to have calmed down. I took a moment to breath, then pulled my phone out. I looked at my image in the front camera – I was back to my normal costume, but it still had the damage from the fight with Cat. My stomach was exposed from the claw marks and part of the mask was missing exposing my curly brown hair.
That solved the question of what was in the tube at the Life Foundation during the fight – that creature. It seemed to attach itself to my clothes, and I wondered why. I thought back to what Cat had said about how she didn't rescue me from the fire; it must have been whatever was now in the vase, but the question was why? It obviously didn't want to harm me or it would have by now. I thought back to an Attenborough documentary Harry and I had watched once about parasites, and how the best parasites kept their hosts alive.
That's what the creature was. A parasite. It must have been feeding on me, on something that I was giving it. That's why it saved me. It had formed a symbiotic relationship with me. The next question was what was it feeding on? I ran through a list of possibilities: I hadn't been eating more so food was out of the question, and I hadn't felt more tired or weak so it wasn't taking blood or fluids. The only thing that had changed was that I had been a lot angrier.
That was it: it was feeding on emotions. Sucking the positive emotions from my brain until only the negative emotions were left. It must live off of brain chemicals – serotonin or dopamine or something. This symbiote was responsible for my darker behaviour, for my anger and aggression. I stopped myself – no – it was partially responsible. I wasn't allowed to deny responsibility to myself. I looked deeply into the writhing black mass as the symbiote's white eyes raised to the surface to look back at me. I looked up at the stained glass and my eyes fell on Abraham's son. I turned back toward the vase and lifted it. It was heavy but definitely not unmanageable. Time to return the creature to where I first met it: the Life Foundation.
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I looked up to the sky, seeing the Spider-Man swing away. What the hell was he doing in the Life Foundation? Pulling my hood up I crouched down by the chain-link fence and pulled out my wire cutters. This whole place had been in the news again and again over the last few weeks, first for the explosion and fire which had happened, and then again for the news of Drake's rapist of a son. If I was going to find anything that was going to get me back on track to becoming a journalist it was here, especially if Spider-Man was involved somehow.
Hell, I imagined the anger on JJ's face as he read in one of his rivals' papers that I had finally been the one to expose the wallcrawler for what he was – a coward. That's the reason why he let O'Riley take the fall for him obviously. Then all that was left to do would be to get even with Felicia and Harry – no one messes with Eddie Brock. The thought of them both made me clench my teeth, that pretty boy with his hands all over my ex's body. Sooner or later she'd realise what a awful piece of shit Harry Osborn was, and she'd come running back to me. Not that I'd take her back of course – where there was once love now was purely an abyss of malice and distain.
I cut through the last part of the fence needed and pulled myself underneath it. Across the open field I could see the area most damaged by the fire: that was my goal. I could get into the facility through that entrance and make my way inside, then head to the security room to find where Spider-Man had been. The thought of exposing him brought a smile to my face, and I ducked closer to the ground and quickly made my way to the exposed fire-damaged labs. Two figures were stood nearby carrying automatic weapons: they must have been security for the Foundation. They seemed bored and inattentive though, probably the result of having to wander the same place for the last few hours. They were easy to slip past and into the charcoaled husk of the room which followed. I'd pulled out my camera as I was moving and snapped a few pictures, but images and photos wasn't why I was here. I was after a story, something which would secure my future in journalism.
I peered down the hallway and saw a lab coated woman walking away from me. Time to put those years playing video games and working out to the test… Creeping up behind her I grabbed her from behind, pushing the lens of my camera into the small of his back and tightening my grip around the woman's windpipe.
"Don't make a sound." I growled into her ear. After a pause of silence, I was reasonably sure she was going to comply. Looking around I saw a door nearby and pulled her in that direction, then turned her to face it. "Open the door."
She fumbled for her key card and swiped it – the door beeped open and allowed us entry. I took a quick look at the room, which appeared to be some sort of technician's room, and released my grasp. She cautiously stepped away from me, fearing that I would probably shoot her, and I quickly shoved my hand in my pocked to continue the pretence that I was armed. Slowly she turned to face me. I was glad I had thought to pull my neck scarf around my face before entering the facility.
"What do you want?" She asked breathlessly.
"Where's the nearest security room?" I growled. She told me quickly; it wasn't far away from where we currently were.
I slung by bag off my shoulder and pulled out the roll of thick black tape I had packed and secured her to a chair, taping off her mouth so she couldn't make a sound. I pulled her security card from her and assured her that she would be found in the next hour or so. I turned to leave, and saw a lab coat hanging on the wall. Tossing up my chances I decided to put it on, pulling off my hoodie and neck scarf after blindfolding the woman and shoving them in my bag. I put on an air of scientific arrogance which most of the people here had and stepped out the door back into the corridor. Following the woman's instructions I was lead quickly though the corridors. I came face to face with a guard, just like she said I would, stood at his post outside the security room. Keeping up my façade I approached him and curtly nodded. He returned the nod, and I swiped my card and entered the room. There were a series of monitors along the wall, a second security guard sat at the chair. He turned to look at me, waiting for the question which obviously he was expecting.
"I've been told that not long ago Spider-Man broke into the premises." I said commandingly. "I'm supposed to find where he went and check to see if he messed with anything."
The man sat up and typed a few commands. "External motion sensors were tripped up in Department-P. Might have just been a bird though." He typed a few more sentences of command code into the computer and the screens changed showing a hallway and some windows. The pair of us watched as the figure of Spider-Man slipped through the window.
"What's he carrying?" I asked.
"Not sure." The man replied. "Looks like a jar or something."
"Where did he go next?" He showed a series of clips displaying Spider-Man creeping through the corridors until typing a code into a door and entering the room.
"How did he get a code for the door?" The guard wondered. "I'm going to send a team."
"I'll head there first." I needed some time alone before the rest of the guards got there. "What lab is it?"
"Room P19."
I nodded and turned, leaving the room. I walked down the corridor to my right looking out for signs. I soon found some pointing to the correct department and headed there in a hurry. Didn't want the guards to get there before I did. It was a short walk away so the corridor was still empty when I arrived. I counted down the rooms until reaching P19, swiped the female scientist's card, and stepped through. The interior of the room was small, the majority of the space was taken up by an airtight chamber at the one end. A series of computers controlled the pressure and seal of the machine. Inside the chamber was the curious jar – a vase by the look of the shape and floral patterns across it, and full of some black liquid. I took a few pictures, making sure to get a clear shot of the webbed seal along the top of the jar.
Realistically I should have left at this point, but I wanted to explore further. I headed over to the computer and tapped the keyboard; the screen burst into life. It looked as if someone had used it not too long ago – probably Spider-Man. With a few taps I heard the airlocked chamber depressurise and the seals break, the door unlocking. I stepped to the chamber and entered the room, approaching the vase. Placing my hand on the glass the liquid almost appeared to move and conform to my touch. I reached into my pocket and pulled out a pen knife, flicking the blade out and slicing open the webbing along the top of the vase.
As soon as the blade pieced the webbing the liquid erupted from the vase coating my body in it. I felt excruciating pain as my face and mouth was coated. Collapsing to the floor I began to see the black liquid move towards me and attach itself to my body. Whatever this thing was it was alive. I felt anger and bitterness flood my body, and I pushed myself into a foetal position on the floor.
You're angry.
"Who said that?" I gasped, looking round.
I did.
"Am I hearing things now?" I said aloud, looking for a speaker in the room.
Involuntarily I felt my arm raise and my hand turn towards my face. I looked at it, and instead of seeing my hand I saw a large black egg shape of the black goo, two large white eyes and a toothy mouth looking back at me hungrily.
Let us help you.
"Why should I?" I gasped, not sure whether this was actually happening or not.
Suddenly images flashed through my head, pictures of Spider-Man, laced with anger and violence. Whatever this creature was it was bitter and resentful, a feeling of abandonment lingering throughout the memories. I thought to Spider-Man's new black suit, the suit he was no longer wearing in the security footage I had seen fifteen minutes ago.
"That was you." I muttered. "He was wearing you."
Then he abandoned us. He left us. We helped him and he left.
"You want revenge." I said quietly.
So do you.
The door burst open and three armed guards entered: "get down on your front or we will shoot!" The leader of the three shouted.
I breathed slowly, allowing the creature to take hold. I saw the black mass writhe around my arm, enlarging the already sizeable musculature. I felt the creature pull my body to a standing position, and suddenly I was banging my head on the ceiling of the eight foot high room. I heard the roar of automatic weapon fire and the smashing of glass. I prepared myself for the ripping of bullets through my body, but instead I felt dull thuds impacting my back. Involuntarily I spun round, catching sight of a gaping maw with countless teeth inside before my body lunged forward at the men. Swiftly my arm slashed up, long claws ripping through the flesh and bone on the man closest to me, his blood spraying across my face and body. A long black tendril lashed out at the second man, wrapping around his face and turning his head to a bloody mess. The final man was grabbed in my massive black hands and pulled apart easily, then discarded to the floor. The adrenaline surged through me, and it felt good.
I felt feeling flow back into my arms and hands and stretched out my fingers, regaining control of my hands. Whatever creature was currently surrounding my body had protected me from those guards. I tensed my arms and legs, feeling the increased muscle flex and relax. I ran a hand up to my head, and instead of feeling stubble, skin, and hair, all I felt was the slick smooth skin of the creature, and lots of teeth. I felt like I could take on the world.
We will.
I felt the liquid retract from my face, and the light was suddenly bright. I blinked a few times to adjust as my arm involuntarily raised, the smaller head having formed once more around my hand. It's blank white eyes looked directly into my blue, and I sensed an understanding. This creature, whatever it was, was angry, and that was something I could relate to. A smile, albeit a small one, spread across my face.
"What's the plan?"
Revenge on all who have wronged us.
"Felicia, Osborn Senior and Junior, Jameson-"
And Spider-Man.
"What can you do?" I asked it.
I'm weak at the moment. The Spider-Man restricted me, held me back, wouldn't let me eat. I need to eat.
"We can sort that."
Then we play.
I smiled once more as the liquid gathered back around my face, to form our face. A quote came to mind, one which I remembered reading one night hidden under my bed covers after a bad encounter with my father: 'remember my misery and bitterness, the wormwood and venom'.
Song Recommendation: Thank You for the Venom by My Chemical Romance