Chapter 80: Alliance

While the small group was still enjoying the end of their day at the bowling alley, evening was slowly beginning to fall over Manhattan. Daylight gradually disappeared behind the buildings, leaving the streets to slowly become illuminated by the city's artificial lights.

And somewhere in the middle of all that immense activity, Eddie Brock walked alone. He walked alone down a street that, strangely enough… was almost empty.

Unlike Peter and his friends, there was nothing light or pleasant about his state of mind. His expression was cold, his steps heavy, and his mind completely consumed by frustration. Ever since leaving the Connors' laboratory, he hadn't stopped thinking about what had just happened to him, about how his plan had backfired and, above all, about how he had ultimately found himself trapped in his own lies.

— "That bitch Gwen… now I'm gonna have to find another job! Looks like I didn't plan this out well enough…"

A deeply irritated sigh escaped his lips. With every step, his anger seemed to intensify even further.

— "And that son of a bitch Peter… I hate him! Fuck, I hate him!"

As he continued walking, Eddie nervously ran a hand through his hair before starting to pull at it out of frustration. His other hand clenched into a fist so tightly that his knuckles nearly turned white. He was so consumed by his anger that he barely paid attention to his surroundings.

Yet, as he passed by an alleyway, something suddenly caught his attention. Something had just moved in the darkness.

— "What the hell was that…?"

Eddie stopped dead in his tracks. He remained perfectly still for a few seconds, then slowly took a few steps backward until he was standing in front of the alley entrance again. Compared to the still-lit streets of Manhattan, the alley seemed much darker. The light from the streetlamps barely reached inside, leaving the far end almost entirely swallowed by shadows.

He hesitated for a moment, but his curiosity eventually got the better of him.

Eddie slowly entered the alley, moving cautiously while searching for whatever he thought he had seen. After several steps, he finally made out something on the ground. A shape was slowly moving toward him. Or rather… crawling.

At first, he was unable to determine exactly what was in front of him. A dog? A cat? Maybe an injured animal hiding in the darkness? But the closer the thing came to the faint light coming from the street, the more impossible that possibility became.

It wasn't an animal, but a black mass. A thick, slimy, shapeless substance slowly crawling across the ground as though it were alive. As he saw it getting dangerously closer, Eddie suddenly jumped backward.

— "What the fuck is that?!"

He immediately tried to put more distance between himself and the mass, but it reacted before he could. Part of its substance suddenly stretched out and shot toward him in the form of a black tentacle, wrapping tightly around his leg.

Eddie jolted and immediately tried to break free, but a second extension emerged almost instantly and grabbed his other leg.

He lost his balance and crashed heavily forward.

— "Fuck! What the hell is this?!"

Panicking, he planted his hands against the ground and tried to get back up, but the creature gave him no chance. The black extensions tightened around his legs and began slowly dragging him toward the back of the alley.

Eddie tried to cling to the ground, push the mass away, find anything that could help him resist, but nothing worked. The more he struggled, the more the thing dragged him along with it.

That was when genuine panic began to take over. Eddie had absolutely no idea what was happening to him or what this creature was that seemed determined to drag him into the darkness.

— "HEY! HELP!"

His scream echoed through the alley, but no one answered. No passerby seemed to hear his call. No one happened to walk past the entrance at the right moment.

The noise of Manhattan still existed only a few yards away, but here, deep inside this alley, Eddie suddenly felt completely isolated from it. Then the mass pulled violently, dragging his body deeper into the shadows.

The black substance immediately began crawling up his legs. It swallowed his shoes, his calves, then his thighs, continuously spreading despite Eddie's desperate movements. He tried to push it away with his hands, but the sticky material continued its relentless ascent. It reached his stomach, then his chest, gradually covering every part of his body.

His screams became muffled when the mass finally reached his neck, then his head. After that… everything suddenly went black. Eddie could no longer see anything. He could no longer hear the streets of New York, could no longer feel the ground beneath him, and didn't even know whether he was actually still inside the alley.

When he became aware of his surroundings again, he now found himself standing in a completely different space. Or perhaps it wasn't even a real place at all. Around him was nothing but a black void, deep, uniform, and seemingly infinite.

A darkness even deeper than outer space, as though light itself had never existed here. Eddie slowly turned around, confused and increasingly nervous, searching for a wall, an exit, any kind of landmark that could explain where he was. But there was nothing. Then a voice echoed through the void.

— "Eddie… Brock…"

The moment his name echoed around him, Eddie spun around violently. Then again. And once more. He desperately searched for the source of the voice, but it seemed to come from everywhere at once. From the nonexistent ground beneath his feet, from the darkness surrounding him, from the entire space itself.

As though this place itself were speaking to him.

— "Who the fuck are you?! What the hell is going on?! Where the fuck am I?!"

— "You don't recognize me? I'm the creature from the laboratory… or the symbiote, as you like to call me."

Hearing that, Eddie's eyes immediately widened. The laboratory? The symbiote?! He knew perfectly well what the voice was talking about. But that only added even more questions to a situation that was already impossible to understand.

— "What? But how is that possible? You disappeared from the lab! And how can you talk to me? Are you actually alive?!"

— "Yes… I am very much alive, and I can speak as well. But that isn't what matters most."

— "What? What do you mean?"

— "I'd like to show you something…"

Eddie didn't even have time to ask what it meant. Without the slightest warning, the symbiote plunged directly into his mind. A monstrous flood of images, sensations, and memories suddenly tore through Eddie's consciousness with such violence that he was initially unable to understand what was happening to him.

And yet, they weren't his own memories.

They were Peter Parker's.

The symbiote showed him a vast part of its former host's life. His beginnings as Spider-Man, his first fights, the enemies he had faced, the trials he had endured, his moments of joy as well as those of profound sadness. Eddie saw his family, his friends, his losses, his injuries, and everything that had gradually shaped the young man he hated so much.

He also saw Gwen. He saw the place she held in Peter's life, the love he felt for her, and the countless moments that had brought them closer together. But this exchange didn't work in only one direction.

While Eddie was immersed in Peter's memories, the symbiote was exploring his in return. It went through his life, his frustrations, his joys, his traumas, his grudges, and everything that had contributed to making him the man he was today.

And what it discovered seemed to interest it greatly.

After an impossible amount of time, the creature finally withdrew from his mind. Eddie felt as though he had suddenly been thrown back into himself. He took a deep breath, almost gasping for air, as though he had physically lived through every single memory that had been forced upon him.

— "What I just showed you were Peter Parker's memories. The boy you hate… yes, the one you hate more than anything…"

Eddie remained silent.

For a long minute, he simply tried to put his thoughts back in order. The amount of information he had just received was so overwhelming that it felt as though his brain still refused to accept some of it. He mentally replayed several images, searching for an inconsistency, some proof that all of this was nothing more than an illusion or manipulation.

But one revelation kept returning to the forefront of his mind. Finally, Eddie slowly raised his head toward what could have been considered the ceiling of this infinite darkness.

— "Is… is all of this true? Peter really is Spider-Man…?"

— "Everything you saw is real… from beginning to end."

That confirmation brought another silence. Eddie was still unable to grasp all the implications of what he had just learned. Yet another question quickly forced its way into his mind.

— "Then why are you doing this? Why are you showing me all of this? I don't understand…"

That was when the darkness above him began to move.

The black mass slowly distorted until an enormous mouth appeared in what resembled the ceiling of this infinite space. An impressive row of razor-sharp teeth took shape, followed by an impossibly long tongue that emerged between them.

Eddie looked up at the monstrous apparition.

— "Because I know what you feel, Eddie Brock. You and I… we are the same."

— "Oh yeah? And how could you possibly know that?"

— "By searching through your memories, I was able to see, in only a few moments, all the good and bad experiences that shaped you and made you the person you are today. And among all those memories… I discovered one where I saw a young boy betrayed by the person he considered his own brother. I saw someone lose the person he loved when he was still only a child… all because of Peter Parker."

Eddie froze, immediately understanding which memory the symbiote was talking about. And strangely enough, perhaps it was that detail that finally made him understand just how serious this entire situation truly was.

Whatever this creature actually was or however it worked, it had genuinely entered his mind. It had seen something Eddie had never told anyone.

A memory he had kept buried for years. Even Peter had never spoken about it with him again, since they had never seen each other after that fateful day.

Hearing that story spoken today by a voice other than his own gave Eddie a deeply strange feeling. As though something that had always belonged only to him had suddenly been ripped from the deepest part of his memory and exposed before him.

— "You and I were betrayed by the same person. You and I hate Peter Parker. So, I'd like to offer you something…"

Eddie remained silent for a few seconds, still disturbed by everything he had just seen and heard. His mind was still overwhelmed by Peter's memories, the revelations about his identity, and the deeply unsettling feeling of having allowed a creature to search through his most intimate memories. Yet, despite the absurdity of the situation, one thing had become perfectly clear: the symbiote hated Peter just as much as he did.

— "You want to offer me something…?" Eddie asked.

— "I want you to become my host. And in return… I will give you the strength you need to take revenge on Peter Parker. You and I… we will make him suffer, and we will make him regret betraying us. So… what do you say?"

For a few seconds, Eddie said nothing. If someone had told him about this scene a few hours earlier, he probably would have laughed in their face. A creature from outer space had just swallowed him in the depths of an alleyway, dragged him into some kind of mental space, revealed that Peter Parker was Spider-Man, and then offered him an alliance to take revenge on him. The whole situation sounded like some terrible parody found in the darkest corner of the Internet.

And yet… Eddie didn't reject the offer.

Quite the opposite.

A smile slowly began to spread across his face. Then a laugh escaped him. A cold, almost chilling laugh that echoed through the infinite darkness around him. The symbiote remained silent, simply watching him as Eddie's decision seemed to have already been made several seconds ago.

— "Okay… let's do this." Eddie replied.

The enormous mouth that had appeared in the darkness stretched into a deeply disturbing smile.

— "Perfect…"

The deal had been made.

In an instant, the darkness vanished and Eddie's mind was abruptly pulled back into reality. His body, still trapped within the black mass at the back of the alleyway, immediately began to transform. The symbiote spread across him at incredible speed, first wrapping itself around his silhouette before gradually distorting it.

Eddie grew taller. His shoulders broadened, his muscles became far more massive, and his entire body took on monstrous proportions. His hands grew larger as well, ending in long, razor-sharp claws, while his face disappeared beneath the living black substance.

Two enormous white eyes formed across his head. Then a gigantic mouth appeared, filled with long, sharp teeth, between which slid an impossibly long tongue.

In only a few seconds, Eddie no longer looked human. He had taken on the appearance of the monstrous creature Peter himself had become several times while he was still bonded with the symbiote.

But one detail in particular remained.

Across his chest still stretched the enormous spider symbol the symbiote had developed during its bond with Peter. Despite changing hosts, the creature had kept it, as though the symbol had now become an integral part of its identity, a mark left behind by the person it now hated more than anything.

After a few moments, the creature slowly emerged from the darkness of the alleyway. Yet when it reached the faint evening light, it wasn't its monstrous appearance that was revealed to the world. The black substance retracted almost instantly, and Eddie returned to his human appearance with unsettling ease, as though nothing had just happened.

He didn't say a word.

He simply straightened his clothes and resumed walking through the streets of New York, gradually blending in with the passersby until he disappeared a few blocks later, where the crowd became denser. To everyone who crossed his path, Eddie Brock was just another man among countless others.

But beneath that perfectly ordinary appearance, two consciousnesses were now moving together.

And during that silent walk, both Eddie and the symbiote wore the same smile. They had each found in the other exactly what they had been looking for: someone capable of feeding their hatred, resentment, and desire for revenge against Peter Parker.

TO BE CONTINUED.