When Eddie regained consciousness again, he found himself lying on a cool tiled floor. He covered his throbbing head and supported himself on the floor with his forearms. But he lost stability, slipped, and fell right back where he started.
He rubbed his sore shoulder and surveyed his surroundings. Within his blurred vision, he discovered he was in a dirty hospital ward.
Only then did the memories flood back like a tidal wave. Eddie recalled the last image he saw before arriving here.
A massive explosion.
He and Shiller had embarked on a journey across the cosmos. Yet, the very moment they stepped into the portal, the teleportation device exploded violently.
Eddie strained to sit up straight, kneeling on the spot and clutching his head. With inward desperation, he called out: "Venom… Venom!"
"I'm here."
"Why the hell were you silent just now?" Eddie roared. "I thought something happened to you."
"Hmm…"
Unusually, Venom emitted a low grunt, and Eddie immediately grew anxious. Then he heard Venom speak: "Because I was contemplating which is funnier—your concern for Shiller's emotions or your worry for me. Hahaha!"
Upon hearing Venom's calm and forceful laughter, Eddie let out a sigh of relief. He fell on the spot, lost strength in his legs again. Venom continued in his mind: "Is it possible that you are the weakest among us? You should be more concerned for yourself than us."
"So, Dr. Shiller is fine, too?"
"What illusions do you still keep about him?" Venom asked in a tone one might use with a dullard. "If this isn't his doing, I'll quit eating chocolate for a week!"
The pledge almost seemed like a solemn oath, which left Eddie halfway between doubt and belief. "So, you're saying Shiller blew up the portal? But why would he do that? What's the point?"
"Seeing your distress is the whole point." Venom pointed out sharply. "You still haven't seen his true face. He'd dare to do anything for fun."
Eddie heaved a deep sigh, propped himself up with his dusty hand, and wobbled to his feet. Judging from the pain from his fall, he deduced he fell from somewhere two meters high, and the parasite inside him didn't even catch him.
Just as Eddie began thinking about this, Venom started to complain: "Explosion sound waves are my nemesis. The moment the explosion occurred, I hid. How was I supposed to know you would fall so quickly?"
After some movement, Eddie found no signs of fractures or serious injuries, just minor abrasions on the elbow and shoulder. Venom quickly healed them.
He stood in the room, carefully surveying it. It didn't take long to realize that this hospital had likely been abandoned for some time. Dust wasn't only on the floor but also on table surfaces, the edges of baseboards, and even the handrails of the hospital bed.
While inspecting the dust direction on the handrails, Eddie observed something odd. The bedding for most patients wasn't neatly folded, nor was it casually spread on the bed. Instead, it looked as if it was hastily thrown off and never touched again.
If the hospital had an orderly evacuation, such a situation wouldn't happen. His subsequent search confirmed Eddie's guess. uneaten food was left on the bedside table, and drawers were filled with medical documentation, personal items, valuable possessions, even house keys.
If the patients were transferred or the hospital closed, these belongings wouldn't be left behind. Unless they hurriedly threw off their covers, jumped from their beds, and rushed out of the room, never to return.
It was plausible that one or two patients might dash out due to some urgent matters. But it wouldn't explain the condition of all six beds in the ward. Was there some calamity?
Eddie did not rashly pull back the ward's curtains for a look at the street, as that was likely to expose him. Adhering to the principle to proceed with caution, Eddie leaned on the ward's door and sneaked a peek into the corridor.
Now was the twilight hour, with nightfall soon. Sunlight, as red as blood, streamed from the window at the end of the corridor, reflecting brilliant rays onto the corridor floor that shone in Eddie's eyes. It gave him an eerie feeling.
Heavy footfall noises emerged from the other end of the hallway. Feeling cornered, Eddie retreated to his room and locked the door, opened the patient's locker, and began looking for any weapons he could use. Though he still didn't know who the enemy was, he felt that preparing weapons was necessary.
"What are you doing?" Venom asked. "We can charge out of here and kill them all."
"Don't be an idiot." Eddie replied as he rummaged through clothes. "There always has to be an enemy you can't handle, the situation in this cosmos is too suspicious, we must be fully prepared."
Disgruntled with this realistic assessment, Venom pouted in Eddie's mind. Meanwhile, Eddie diligently rifled through the patient's locker. Expectedly, he found no useful weapon, but he did discover a bloodied business card in one of the patient's suit jackets, bearing the title "Housing Rental Manager Fordy·Arkaze".
Just as Eddie studied the name card, the heavy, slow footsteps crept closer. Eddie shut the locker quietly and strenuously dragged one of the metal ones against the door.
With a loud BANG, a bloody face with exposed gums pressed against the observation window. Eddie yelled, moving backward so quickly that he tripped and landed hard on the floor.
Twisted fingers scratched at the glass, a blood-streaked face squished against it, its grotesque appearance chilling Eddie to the core. It took him a few moments to remember to shout, "Face mask! Face mask!!!"
In an instant, Venom appeared. He stood up, flexing his wrists and ankles. With a swing of his arm, he smashed the cabinet Eddie had moved in front of the door, exposing the full horror of the creature outside.
As expected, it was a zombie. Its lips and entire orbicularis oris muscle were gone, leaving its bared, broken teeth on full display, several missing, rotting bits of flesh lodged in the gaps.
Without pausing to think, Venom instinctively grabbed it by the neck with his large hand. Opening his toothy mouth wide, he bit off its head.
The next second, he vomited.
He really vomited. One hand of Venom clutched his own throat, retching up the chunks he'd just chewed and swallowed, convulsing like a seizure victim.
"Did I just eat shit?!" Venom shouted, gagging.
Without hesitation, Venom bolted down the hallway towards what sounded like running water. Sure enough, he found a bathroom. He squeezed his monstrous frame through the door frame, turned on the faucet, and tried to rinse the taste out of his mouth.
Since Eddie and Venom did not share taste sensations, Eddie was left wondering just what Venom had tasted. But in that moment, Venom opened the sense-sharing line and Eddie too vomited.
The taste was indescribable, like rotten durian stir-fried with skunk blood and bitter gourd. Worse still was the horrifying texture - so instantly rotten it didn't even allow for regret.
Venom was reeling. He had never eaten anything so unpleasant in all his life. For the first time, he experienced spiciness, a sensation that spread throughout his symbiotic factors.
This thing is poisonous." Venom gasped for breath, "The virus is incredibly resilient. It's constantly killing your cells, trying to overtake your body. Fortunately, I didn't eat much, and I vomited in time, clearing them all out."
"How many times do I have to remind you, Venom, what on earth made you think you should go around tasting everything?" Eddie placed both of his hands on the sink, pounding the counter in frustration.
There was silence from Venom, perhaps genuinely shaken by the experience. Eddie felt like he had been too harsh. Before he could offer reassurance, Venom somberly replied, "This is how a symbiote learns about the world. To fully comprehend a thing, we must break it down with our symbiotic factors."
"That thing's toxin is very strange." Venom's voice was filled with uncertainty, "It replicates at an unimaginable rate, and aggressively invades human cells. If I didn't understand you better, you might be infected by it now."
The deep fear in Venom's voice left Eddie unable to say anything reproachful. After all, on their former Earth, there was nothing Venom couldn't eat.
Never mind poisonous spiders or frogs, even the most toxic compounds didn't faze him. But this time, it seemed, he'd bitten off more than he could chew.
Eddie sensed Venom's panic, although he tried to hide it. His fear wasn't solely over the power of this virus – it was that his reckless action had nearly turned Eddie into a monstrosity like the zombie they'd just encountered.
Eddie sighed and said, "Alright, Venom, don't worry. I'm not going to turn into that. Besides this unique toxin, did you notice anything else?"
"It's disgusting." Venom honestly replied, "And it completely lacks the amines found in other human brains. Plus, I suspect this peculiar toxin has mutated their brains, releasing something even more repulsive. That might be the source of the horrific taste."
Eddie replayed the taste Venom had shared with him, gagging, and bending over the sink to dry heave.
After a moment, he straightened up, turned on the faucet, took a few sips of water, and spat them back out.
"Can the toxin hurt you?"
"No, but it can hurt you," replied Venom with a touch of resignation, "It can't directly damage the symbiotic factor, but it can proliferate at an incredibly fast rate in your body, and attack your brain."
"To counteract it, I must enclose them with symbiotic factors and sever the connection between these factors and the host, to make them leave your body."
"What if you directly cover my body with the symbiotic factor? Prevent me from direct contact with the virus, and isolate us?"
"Yes," Venom's affirmative response let Eddie sigh with relief, but his next words tightened Eddie's heart again, "But if this stuff is all over the world, it means I have no food. I cannot derive amines from these decayed brains."
"Though I have sufficient symbiotic factors for now, and stored magical energy, the storage is finite. If replenishment is not forthcoming, it will inevitably run out."
Eddie instantly felt a sense of urgency. He moved towards the headless zombie, hoping to find a weapon. But as he got close, the body started to violently shake.
Eddie quickly backed into the room. To his horror, the headless zombie got up, its limbs convulsing as it slowly rose to its feet.