Just A Cancer. •Symbrock•

Act 1: Part 1: Prologue

The rocket exploded.

Now that, that was a complete understatement of everything that just happened at the launch pad. So much of an understatement, that it was bordering on the territory of a flat-out lie. Still, that understatement, that lie, was the only thought capable of breaking through the journalist's shock as he plunged through the flames.

The symbiote shot out behind him as he watched the flames devour the platform. The black goo tied itself together into a parachute, slowing his fall for only a moment, and then after a brief, heart wrenching goodbye, it too was immersed in flames. The ink black tentacles unfurled from around his wrists as the raging fire raced down the symbiote, burning it to a crisp. Eddie screamed as he was dropped, falling at a higher speed than before.

Seconds later he hit the water and passed out.

When he regained consciousness again, there were gritty grains of sand stuck to the roof of his mouth. An anxiety induced moment later, he realised that he had washed to shore, and was currently laying in a pile of charred wreckage. The moon waned millions of miles above him in the sky, casting shallow shadows across his bloodied body.

Eddie choked down several greedy, gasping breaths, coughing up what felt like a gallon of seawater and sand from his lungs. He sat up on the beach, dazed as he gazed out at the inky abyss of the ocean. A pinprick of raging orange flared in the distance. The fire was still going. He couldn't have been out for long- but still, how did he survive passing out in the ocean, a few miles distance from land?

He suddenly became aware of the crippling emptiness inside of him. The symbiote. It...it was gone. The realisation was followed by a sliver of what he might've described as joy, but it soon faded away just like the waves crashing onto shore, quickly replaced by a wave of another emotion. Only, Eddie wouldn't describe it as an emotion exactly. It was more of a feeling. A sensation. A cold, crippling sensation that took hold deep inside of his gut and made him want to throw up.

And he did.

After upchucking the lobster he ate live earlier that evening, he realised some things. That 1#, he didn't especially like the taste of lobster, even more so when it was coming back up, and 2#, his left hand had been curled up in a fist from the moment he awoke on the beach.

He tried to uncurl his fingers, but his fist wouldn't budge, as if being held shut from the inside. So he manually pried it open with his other hand. For a moment his hand held firm, as if his fingers were all stuck together by a wad of bubble gum grasped in his palm, then his fingers sprung open, and what looked to be a large gob of shimmering black goop sat in the palm of his hand.

He stared at it blankly for a moment, almost unsure what he was looking at as the symbiote's small tendrils wrapped around his fingers, the creature trying to cover itself once again. Then he laughed. He laughed until he started coughing up blood. It was a short, dry laugh, only lasting for around thirty seconds before he remembered he was dying and went quiet.

And then he ran.

As fast and as far as his legs could take him away from the beach. He ran until he reached his apartment. He ran until he stumbled up the metal stairs, each step sending daunting echoes of near death through the dim empty stairwell. He nearly tripped several times, but he ran on in the dark.

Eddie Brock wasn't running from someone. Fight or flight, he'd fight until he died. But still, for now he ran. He wouldn't let it catch him. He wouldn't.

Eddie Brock was not running from someone, because Eddie Brock did not run. No, he was running from some thing. A feeling. A horrible, wrenching sensation surfacing deep down inside of him, and he was running from it like a mad man. He wouldn't- no, he couldn't let it catch him.