Just A Cancer. •Symbrock•

Act 1: Part 3: Phone Call

When Anne had first left, Eddie hadn't felt a trace of guilt over locking her out. He'd been too busy eating, sleeping, throwing up, and eating again. And over the next two weeks, he began to heal. Not naturally of course, there was no way his body could have snapped back so quickly after so much damage, let alone snap back at all.

No, Eddie's recovery was accelerated. The symbiote had accounted for the fact that if they actually survived Riot, the aftermath wouldn't be pretty. So on the off chance they did survive, it had tampered with his immune system, forcing it to produce excess cytokines, which in effect lead to its hosts constant state of hunger and lack of reliable consuisness.

Of course, the alien had failed to inform its host about the altered state of his immune system. It wasn't exactly known for its good communication skills. At the moment it hadn't seen the point in wasting time explaining something that may not have ever happened.

They soon thereafter discovered they could no longer complete symbiosis due to a mutation in his immune system causing his body to violently reject it. Even when it had regained the strength to perform proper communication again, it didn't see the point in telling him- and didn't. So it was safe to say Eddie was on his own to figure everything out.

The symbiote had found itself a home in the bathtub, and the two had reached a silent but solid agreement to let the other recover in peace as long as he brought a tray of tater tots as soon as his butchered sleeping schedule permitted.

At the end of the week, the guilt of blocking Anne out hit Eddie like a truck. He couldn't help but to obsess over the dozens of different scenarios of how their whole interaction could've gone better. He wished he could call her back and apologise, but he had left his evidence-filled phone on the desk of a keep-my-nose-clean business executive.

All in vain hopes that the world would finally know of Carlton Drake's twisted practices in the Life Foundation, the company built on death.

But now that he actually needed the symbiote, he found himself obsessing over how he could've done that differently as well. He doubted that Life Foundation's story would ever reach public light unless someone had a majorly unrealistic change of heart, which obviously wasn't going to happen, though if it did, he'd be #1 on the suspect list of harbouring an illegal E.T.

And the more he thought about how differently he could've handled things, the more the sensation of dread and desperation started to resurface. Every moment he sat still from the time he woke up to when he dozed off again, it was there, taunting him.

Worthless

Worthless

Worthless

The feeling would yell.

Stupid

Stupid

Stupid

And like a faithful messenger, Eddie's mind would echo it back to him, all day long.

So he kept busy. He taped up his broken window. He pulled his weights out of the wall. He made unreasonable amounts of brownies, and ordered an unreasonable shipment of chocolate online. He did lots of nonsensical, just-for-the-sake-of-it, busy-body things, but none of it could silence the crippling dullness inside for long.

Currently the journalist was burning his time at the coin washer tucked away underneath the final set of apartment stairs, leaning against an empty washer as he waited for his clothes to finish drying. The crisp taste of detergent lay on his tongue, and the shuddering of the dryer rumbled in his ears.

A thin layer of pastey concealer coated his face, covering Eddie's now faint, but visible scars. He wore a baggy greyish-green sweatshirt and jeans that he'd found in an old box of clothes, the clothing doing well to cover his larger wounds.