"... and tell me, darling, I'm the only one that you love..."

Years ago, in Coahuila, an unidentified object hit near an unimportant road, raising tensions with the Texas border, too close by according to American views, and building a mystery for those men and women on duty to figure out what happened. The Breaking News in Mexico were quick to get their headlines out, but no reporters were allowed to come close to the crash site, where flames burned tall and columns of smoke raised amongst police vehicles shining red and blue through the blur.

The pollution left behind immediately gave away that this was man-made at its core.

Five police vehicles meant a little over a dozen people walked around with lanterns, identifying deformed bodies through the wreckage on the brink of collapse. They identified corpses, but no people whatsoever because if the body was not torched in its entirety, then the faces of the crash victims were shredded by what looked like razors.

Miles away, one more car was about to add onto the scenery.

Its all-black paint job got painted with auburn hues, stronger the closest it got to the site. Whoever was driving past those shaded windows cared very little about speed limits and about the police blockade. They parked way past it, closest to the danger zone and off the road.

Dr. Hayes stepped out of the car. The same old scar delving into his skin cast a grim shadow on half his face, letting none of the red tones linger from the fire as they did on the other side. His eyes haven't slept in what looked like decades, but his body was cloaked in fine clothes, in fabrics which wrapped around his tender skin in soft cotton and a heavy, warm coat.

It was obvious he was not from around here, yet one sniff from the polluted air had Hayes turn his head around and point the four people he was with towards the bicycle. Out of those four in his entourage, three were soldiers whose heads were covered in helmets of pitch black. They carried guns proudly. The fourth was a shorter man, about Hayes' age, yet crippled to walk with a banally plain cane. Dark hair, a shivering jaw.

"Looks like a witness, doesn't it, Moritz?" Dr. Hayes hummed.

Moritz pondered, hearing the edge of the song and seeing the forgotten cassette somewhere near that bicycle. Blood stained the ground between the two items.

"Hey," the man in charge of the investigation happening around the crash site called and approached the car with the strange people who missed all the warning signs to stay away. "You can't be here!"

"Of course we can," Dr. Hayes smiled and the cop stopped. The latter had just seen the weapons carried by three of these people, flinching a hand to his own tiny gun when Hayes reached into his coat and brought out a piece of paper. "We are taking over the investigation. Tell your men to go home. I am sure it's been a long night for them."

They had the jurisdiction. With followers in high places, they could hijack just about any place without breaking the law.

"So many died...," Moritz sighed, passing the dead bodies previously pulled outside of the shipwreck and covered in white cloths quickly turning gray from the dust. Dr. Hayes spared no more than a hum to his friend while leading them inside the damaged rocket. He knew exactly where to look and exactly what to expect to see in a best-case-scenario. Both of them did, which made it ever the easier for their eyes to express loud reactions when they were faced with broken containers and burnt marks on the ground.

Moritz's eyes widened. Hayes' narrowed.

"They're gone," Dr. Hayes gritted his teeth before kicking his left foot in one of the broken glass cases. "Dead," the declaration was the closest he ever got to admitting defeat. "All the money we've spent and the samples were all destroyed."

"Not all," Moritz placed his hand over Hayes' shoulder, but once his friend turned around, shocked and far too dangerously hopeful, the shorter man cleared his throat with a shy cough. "I might be wrong, but the bicycle outside... The amount of blood next to that witness' objects should have been enough to be the death of a person. However, we are completely missing a body. Say one of the samples survived to reach them, the only possible explanation to the no-body case is that... symbiosis happened. One sample might have survived."

It was thanks to Moritz that they stepped back outside and further investigated the bicycle. They found tracks, signs of movement... Mortiz took blood samples, but sooner rather than later, the O.M.N.I.U.M. operative of that night had to move out and follow what they've found to a small house in an even smaller town. Walking down those dark and poor streets was a reminder as harsh as a stab right through his face, all over again.

"Reminds me of home," Moritz huffed and puffed with each step he took with difficulty that night. While his brilliance exceeded many past geniuses of the planet, life has punished him wrongly with weak muscles, a frail body holding his excellence back in a shortness of breath. He was the living proof of what Hayes and O.M.N.I.U.M. stood for. Each follower of their cause was proof, because each of them was an embodiment of kindness, to some extent.

"Especially that," Moritz's melancholy turned into a joyous laughter while he pointed out the late night play of a dog with a balloon. The small animal ran around his fenced garden alone, bumping his nose up into a pink balloon each time it would descend and try to touch the ground. That dog looked happy, even though the yard he lived in was deserted and the house it belonged to was on the brink of collapse.

Dr. Hayes may have smiled out of his constant glare upon the world, but his thoughts remained ever the same.

In the big picture of things, the dog was the part of humanity who, oblivious, lived on without wanting any change. Happiness was undeniable for the mindless, but was it really worth it? Of course... one could argue, what can one dog do for its family during the night? Dr. Hayes was certain that little thing didn't even notice them, dangerous people, passing by and that said a lot about the nature of his answer.

Finally, they stepped inside the home where scanners pointed them to. Since they have been receiving data from their space division extracting the alien species for transport to earth, on the premises of a tip they've picked up from Anchor's conversations with an otherworldly informant, O.M.N.I.U.M. had the basic signature sound they should be following, even with, for now, a delay of hours.

"It stinks of death," Moritz hurried himself to bring the handkerchief from his pocket up to his nose. "Lucky bastard you ended up without scent after that masterpiece." He pointed towards Dr. Hayes who, without a shred of self consciousness left, actually chuckled.

"One of the many perks of being a deformity. You and I are quite alike," he stared down at the crooked legs of his friend. Unfortunately, Moritz still had a lot to learn. Unlike Hayes, he immediately felt ashamed of the product of the animalistic violence of society and in his try to mask his impending need for a cane, he almost stumbled down on his nose.

Hayes did not help, nor point out his weakness. There was a time and place for everything. Then was not it. They had different priorities which involved going up the stairs and identifying the crime scene: a man missing his head and an arm, left to rot in his own blood, collapsed on the floor and surrounded by buzzing flies.

It took him less than twenty four hours to figure out which one of his daughters committed the crime and within that time frame, the big decision was made as well.

"This is a one in a million chance to run tests without the subject ever knowing they are under surveillance," Moritz insisted, blocking Hayes' way from reaching his command desk and directing the attack. "There are no truer results on live subjects than when the subject no longer feels like they are in a prison."

"We don't control what happens out there," Dr. Hayes made sure to remind his friend of the unexpected turns life takes outside their walls.

"Of course we do!" Moritz shook his head.

"You're just growing soft because the girl's young. The longer we wait, the more likely it is that separation from the alien would kill her."

"It's a perfect match, Dario!"

"Don't call me that," Hayes' teeth creaked in the way he gritted them. In the spur of the moment, he stepped closer, but Moritz did not back away from the snarl and the sight of bone through the shadow of that deep scar on the face inching closer still. He was not intimidated, not when passion ran in his vein, purely scientific.

"We can control her environment in the slightest, keep track of her whereabouts and make sure no one else jeopardizes the asset if she shall make any mistakes," Moritz explained, this time quieter. "A prison she doesn't see."

"The expenses to this would be colossal," Dr. Hayes, as a fresh leader to the organization, had deeper concerns than this surface consideration of ethics. He worried about his reputation, failing on his first try of bringing their end goal closer, and about how much harm he was willing to do to the resources of those he now had a duty to lead.

"And worth every single penny. We would be gaining crucial information about the alien through her. We would appreciate it in silence, keeping O.M.N.I.U.M. anonymous, until we are certain that the species can help the cause." Moritz inhaled sharply and his knees buckled inward from all the passionate standing-up for himself. "And if they cannot," he added over his exhale, bringing his chin upward, "then we terminate her."

The prisoner who doesn't know they are shackled.

Clara Carita had had dreams of her own and she had almost forgotten how much she used to marvel at the Seven Wonders of the World, whenever they were brought up in school. She never finished school properly. The wonders turned fast into mundane, boring constructions, because she no longer had the means to see any of them.

But to be this close... to the great pyramids? Now that revived the child in her to be smiling and looking up, rather than watching her step.

The institute was on a hill, overlooking the pyramid complex and a market. Colors from the market clashed with the sand and the blue skies above. Warmth was supposed to annoy her, but Clara was completely mesmerized by the beauty of this true wonder of the world, too much so to care.

Many who visited the pyramids would describe the experience as underwhelming, especially from the distance she was at from them. What pricked a difference with Clara was the fact that she was certain this was her last good look at the world. And she was actively forcing herself to be at peace with it, especially now that Venom had confirmed he understood too why she would not be able to remain positive and completely give her trust to Marc, no matter how much she loved him.

A breeze followed her around, a constant company which she could not see or hear the voice behind. Khonshu was following her through Egypt, at a slow step behind her. It was the least he could do...

Clara was only half aware of this second companion. She guessed it would be him, staring goosebumps on the back of her neck and she found it amusing: after a life of despising Gods, one was walking her to her death. Was it an honor or a mockery?

Despite all of that, she smiled. Climbing up the stairs of the institute, she stopped before its entrance and turned around one last time, to watch the horizon of the old Egypt meet the horizon of the new one.

She had done this a thousand times. A mission, just Venom and her. It had always been dangerous and every time, a routine compelled her to block out these emotions which made her hesitate, made her melancholic. Clara fought with her own brain to tune out the memories it brought back to her with no way whatsoever to ignore.

At first she remembered why she was there and saw Priscila, through the ages, through the good and the bed, recalling especially those first few years away from Mexico, the first birthday parties her sister ever got and the joyous smiles. Then she remembered, out of her control, why she should aim to survive, to hope. She recalled a museum worker with a smile that could light up the whole world and enough knowledge to talk for hours on end without ever boring her. She recalled a man who made her feel safe, one who made her feel special. With them, Clara felt like she was actually living a life of her own for once.

She briefly shook her head, "Not now, Venom."

"I'm not doing that," Venom replied.

Khonshu looked down at her as she pretended she felt no need to just run away from this institute. He watched her hands twitch, her step halt, then slide back towards the entrance. With remarkable determination and strength, Clara was unknowingly watched as her head bowed and she pushed the front door open.

She had no expectations whatsoever about what she'd be met with inside, but then again, perhaps Clara thought she'd see the same black-dressed O.M.N.I.U.M. soldiers, waiting around with guns, not actual normal people she could see the faces of, all wearing white lab coats and moving around with patients from the city and other business of their day-to-day life. No one looked at her, no one paused their work to question what the hell she was doing there. In fact, Clara could bet these people had no idea who she was.

But someone did.

"Miss Carita." From the crowd, a man stands out. And from his whole composed appearance, the scar on his face gets her attention first. There was no need for introductions. One look was enough. Clara knew this smiling man in a black suit, the wolf amongst sheep, was Dr. Hayes. He stepped, tampered, closer to her. "I was beginning to doubt you'd show up. I am so sorry for your loss."

A knife went through her heart yet she smiled without a single flinch, that sad hue of a woman who truthfully cried her lungs out. Clara evoked the fresh wound of having Marc die in her arms and worked with it to nod along to the man before her.

"We could end it now," Venom commented. "We could kill him now." But it was nothing more than a simple response to annoyance and irritation. The symbiote did not like to feel anyone cause pain to his host. It was normal.

They needed Hayes to show them where Priscila was.

And it went smoothly, in that wordless manner of him leading her down the hallway, then down some stairs into the basement of the building. It was there that the true nerve wrecking questions were starting to be asked.

"If you don't mind my curiosity...," Hayes sheepishly grinned, looking with a certain admiration of the woman who almost single handedly could be blamed for the death of the majority of his operative's firepower. Unlike their adversaries, O.M.N.I.U.M. could not take pride in large numbers yet. "What made you come here?"

He had the audacity to ask that.

Venom felt the physical pain Clara was under to have to cover up her hatred and answer by the role she chose for herself. "I'm tired." It was half the truth, which perhaps applied in a constant dosage to make it unbearable and credible, all the same. "Tired of this pain. And my symbiote... he's better off without me, just like I am better off dying at this point. Heard you might have a way to make the separation happen."

Dr. Hayes hummed, watching the emotions as they flared across her features. "I have never seen you as destroyed as you are now, but then again, that explains the threats about dragons and the violence you inflicted." His consciousness was obviously clean of guilt.

"You can rule that threat out. I have nothing left to fight for anyhow," Clara shrugged. And oh, calling forth the avalanche of emotions she's been gathering recently made her a formidable actress. Her expression carried the weight of loss running back further than the meeting with Marc, anchored in that absolute loneliness she's been experiencing amongst people in this world or as a victim of her sister's most cruel words and cold shoulders.

"Well," Clara inhaled sharply still, "except for Priscila. That's my last wish, if you could call it that. I know she's here and I want to see her. One last time, before you do what you have to do."

"You've always been such a caring sister," Hayes smiled. "Moritz was right, to observe you from afar, because you had... quite a spectacular road. All the blood on your hands which had never dried and yet you always kept moving forward, trashing your own childhood to give one to your brilliant sister. You understood your mediocrity and did something notable anyhow. That is what we would appreciate here."

Then, another glance at Clara told him that she was behind on some details and while leading her onto a hallway underground, seemingly endless as they had just started walking, he sighed. "We had a chance to receive information about symbiotes before the crash and we have been using that information to devise a tracking system, echolocation. It was especially useful when yours became the only one."

"They've been spying on us," Venom voiced out in her head what she longed to shout as well.

Dr. Hayes was the embodiment of pride while describing this scheme to her, "Observing you allowed us to learn even more about symbiosis with this alien species and what it can benefit our perfect humans with. And I want to apologize... hurting you through Marc has never been part of our plan. In fact, you meeting him pushed forward by a decade our procedures. We have long been hunted by this Moon Knight through Dr. Harrow. He's been on our hitlist for a while, and when you showed up to save his alter, Steven, that took us off guard. You weren't supposed to see us."

With another sigh, Hayes pondered before murmuring the outlay of events which followed. "Once you became aware of our presence, we had to begin preparations. Abomination was a test. Testing your strength, your coordination with the symbiote. Then Casablanca. We were planning on eliminating Harrow and Spector there. The plan didn't quite work out though." With a sharp inhale, he considered the very first piece of the domino of pain he described.

"You could say Marc Spector was your death sentence."

"I'll show you a death sentence!" Venom struggled under her skin and Clara gritted her teeth.

"Please don't talk about the dead," she replied bluntly. "It's disrespectful."

Hayes chuckled darkly, "The dead are dead. And our world? Oh, it's a graveyard. We're insects, living on the surface of a tomb."

"Is that O.M.N.I.U.M.'s view on the world?" Clara pushed the boundaries of her scheme a little, but the moment Hayes threw her a suspicious glance, she shrugged. "Look, no one believed me you guys existed. I got an ego to feed before I die."

"You think our vision is about death alone," Dr. Hayes noted. "Then how do you explain that the majority of us are scientists?"

Another shrug. "You know damn well you all look evil to someone like me."

Hayes sighed and looked back ahead, "This institute, for Innovative Medicine, is perhaps one of our truest forms. We are looking to cure humanity from the ultimate disease... Humans."

Their steps echoed down the hallway and behind them, unseen, Khonshu followed, snarling down at the man behind this operation he's been getting the shivers about for too long. The stars have warned him... this man would be the end of humanity, if he wasn't stopped in due time. The time was upon them, Khonshu could feel now they'd have to be careful, make no mistakes.

"Now that you are one of us, you should probably know that O.M.N.I.U.M. started a long time ago, when mankind first learnt violence. World War I. We were medics, saving people from the frontlines. Times changed and we became savants, creating ways to protect each other. One invention led to another and World War II proved that because of the stupidity of the many, the brilliance of the few is weaponized. Because we may be humans, but we are still animals. Cruel, mindless creatures whose impulse is to launch ballistic attacks and level cities to the ground for sport."

Clara said nothing. She listened. She judged in silence and left that quietness to force Hayes to continue. "O.M.N.I.U.M. was funded by the brilliant minds who knew the only way our species could stand a chance was if we eliminated these animals. No more sins, no more flaw to descend into madness."

"And the soldiers?" Clara finally couldn't hold the inquiry in, especially while Venom had the same spite to spit out. She blinked a few times, took back control of her vocal chords, and continued, "They were pretty violent shits."

"Mind control," Hayes explained. "A gift. From our founding father, Oleg Montes."

Everyone she has killed from O.M.N.I.U.M. ranks were brainwashed to follow orders. Clara was repulsed, but not by what she was forced to do, yet by them, who took advantage of minds like this.

"All soldiers you've murdered were the scum of the earth, empty minded and worthless to society. We gave them purpose, gave their life a meaning other than harming our human legacy. They played a role, through us, in protecting our future," Dr. Hayes voiced each word with a robotic pride. It was clear: he recited what he has been taught too.

"All soldiers," he repeated, "apart from those last ones..."

"They felt stronger," Clara admitted. "Harder to kill."

"They were volunteers, out of our inner circle of followers. Brilliant minds who agreed to take a first dose of a trail serum we've adapted from the Soviet Union's attempt at creating super soldiers. We've perfected their recipe, you see, altered it. That," his mouth dried, "was their first mission."

Clara felt no remorse, so she showed none. Dr. Hayes didn't expect anything less from her.

He continued, with a condescending sigh, "Their sacrifice gave us valuable proof that this addition to the serum will not affect the brain functions we are looking to promote in our final version. The one we will need your symbiosis for."

"Why exactly do you need symbiotes?"

"Our serum is a virus," Dr. Hayes nodded. They've been walking slowly for minutes and no doors showed themselves on that hallway until then. The doors started appearing once every thirty meters, with no tags on them, simply blending in with the whiteness of the place. "Symbiotes move from host to host unless the person it infects meets the embedded requirements for survival. We are creating... our own symbiote, per say. Which will jump from human to human until it meets the one worthy of carrying on the species. And when our twelve ideal individuals are assembled, they'll leave this earth to a fiery death."

"Twelve? That's a very specific number."

"In many mythologies, twelve is a symbol of perfection, of union," Dr. Hayes nodded. They approached the end of the hallway, marked by a heavy metal door. On it, a warning sign was plastered, about radiation past that point.

"What happens once these twelve ideals are in space though?"

"This earth perishes-"

"But them?" Clara insisted.

"They conquer, of course, as the epitome of human brilliance. Our true legacy."

Now, the door was right before them. However, Dr. Hayes hesitated in opening it, instead turning towards Clara, who was beside him. "You and I have no place amongst the elite. We've both done bad and we're both aware of it, Miss Carita. O.M.N.I.U.M. does not discriminate based on rank or friendships or emotions, but on the essence within us. So whoever the elite might be, be them even from our beloved mutants Anchor sought to eradicate, we are simply those who help lift them up. We are doing the right thing. Many have seen this and I need you to understand too..."

He had watched her life, as much as he could, since symbiosis happened. To him, Clara felt like a long distance friend, which was why he lifted his hand and placed it on her shoulder instead of the door handle.

"Now, when it matters most, you are not a monster, Miss Carita. You are... a hero."

"And you are one too then?" Clara looked down at his hand for a moment, for that dreadfully long second in which she contemplated biting it off, but added the disgust of being touched by him, doubled by the thought of ever eating something so vile and lost. "A hero. Or rather a martyr, because you won't live to see the elite."

Dr. Hayes knew he wasn't welcomed. He removed his hand from her and turned to the door, opening it for them. They entered a laboratory. Spacious and well lit in blinding whiteness, the lab was clean and mostly empty, save for the freezers, the metal tables and a glass chamber with a chair and devices Clara knew nothing about. They looked pulled out of either hospitals or torture chambers for her. No in between.

"Gods have forsaken this Earth," Dr. Hayes sighed out one part which was only his belief, not the greater view of O.M.N.I.U.M.. Him, like Clara, lost faith a long time ago, when that scar was made into his face. "They left us with men without vision like Moon Knight and his deranged God. With disappearing idols, like Thor. We were forced to turn to the false Gods, the Omega mutant, the Sorcerer Supreme, or even the stained Stark and Rogers. This world is in a dire need of cleansing."

"Right... Whatever excites you," her comment caused a stark contrast against his eloquent metaphors. "I just want the pain to be over." Hayes gestured to the glass case, where she had a feeling she was heading anyhow. Venom and her have prepared for this though, so without any panic, Clara walked in that cage willingly, sat down on the chair, let Hayes join her and tie her up.

Wrists. Ankles. Neck.

She cooperated. She was docile.

And Venom was calm too, until he saw the needle. "They're going to take our blood?!"

Before he could even aim to do something about it, even without Clara's approval, Hayes pricked their skin with the first needle and stuck it into their most prominent vein on the arm with the precise skill of a past surgeon. Blood flowed through the tube attached to it immediately and started feeling one of the ten vials connected to the system beside them.

She didn't get the chance to voice their concerns, because once she started watching her blood leave her, Dr. Hayes sighed dreamily, looking at it too. "I haven't forgotten about your sister. I think you would be thrilled to know that she may actually have a shot at a spot amongst the ideal ones. Her mind showed resistance to the trials, but she cooperated in the end."

"Weren't you supposed to separate me and Venom?"

"Separate you?" Dr. Hayes looked back at her rushed question. Clara became restless quickly, especially now that Priscila was getting mentioned. "A bond as strong as the one between you too cannot be broken and you are no use to our cause if you are dead. No. I only need your blood and your weakened state."

The first vial was already filled. With a few buttons pushed, Hayes detached that glass recipient out of the system and moved to leave the cage. Behind him, Clara knew it would be locked, so she greeted her teeth and braced for a little necessary pain. There was still some fight left in her at that stage.

While Hayes' back was facing them, Venom moved a hand out of her body, bit off her big thumb and spit it to block the door from closing fully.

Clara tightened her fists to hide the missing thumb and squeezed as hard as she could to avoid making the bleeding too visible until Venom healed her up. It would take a bit, considering the speed at which blood was leaving them and the fact that she was currently needing vitality more than a finger.

"We've tested with your blood for years now, Miss Carita. The blood samples may have not been pure but the brightest O.M.N.I.U.M. minds have recently figured out a way to stabilize the symbiote part of it, to destroy its core properties and rewrite them to our cause."

Venom, however, knew exactly what that meant and it was not what the crazy human thought it would do. He didn't trust no bright mind better than his own knowledge of his own kind.

So his scream left Clara's mind and took over her voice in a rough, shouted, desperate tone, "YOU DON'T KNOW WHAT YOU ARE DEALING WITH!"

Dr. Hayes paused and turned towards the glass case. "Was that the symbiote?" he chuckled. "Worry not, visitor from space. I know your blood can create others of your kind... Weaker ones, that is."

"Not anymore," Venom continued only for Clara now. "We are truly bonded now, unlike back when they might have taken samples of our blood. This blood... this blood will not create something nice!"

"What are you talking about...?" Clara mumbled, under her slower breath.

Khonshu was right beside her, unseen, looking at all the blood leaving her body and knowing he could do nothing about it. Not yet. Not until Priscila was also in the room. He swore to follow their plan, didn't he?

"Bring the test subjects in," Dr. Hayes called. The second door, at the back of the room, opened and soldiers in black carried in seven more beds. The third out of them...

"Priscila!" Though weak, Clara still tried to get up against the restraints. Damn the blood loss. She wasn't dying, but it sure felt maddening to feel the haze and watch the world through fog.

And her sister could barely hear her, if at all. All these "volunteer" test subjects were drugged to a slumber state, to ease this transitory stage.

They stopped in a line, beside Clara's cage, to the right. The soldiers, all but one, left the room. Dr. Hayes had long walked to the freezers' corner, occupying a table with all the devices necessary to process the first three injections of the serum, using the vial of Clara and Venom's blood. By the time all test subjects were present, he was able to lift one such syringe and walk to the first bed to Clara's right. He glanced at her and her slowly closing eyes. "I stayed true to my promise. You got to see Priscila, Miss Carita. She's in good hands now."

"No...," Clara mumbled out for Venom too, while the perfusion of the first test subject got filled with the deeply crimson serum, so dark it almost looked purple. It took a few seconds before the liquid stopped acting normally and it got completely sucked into that man's body. He convulsed, soundlessly, back arching off the table, chest rising to the ceiling.

Then he dropped.

Along with his vitals.

Veins collapsed, exploded and turned his skin a weird shade of death. Burn marks appeared over his skin gradually and Clara was trying to focus only to get disgusted by the view of the effects.

Dr. Hayes sighed. "Not worthy."

He moved back to take another syringe. Only one step away from that bed, the first subject flinched again. It laid still once Hayes turned his eyes back to him curiously.

The O.M.N.I.U.M. soldier aimed his gun at the test subject, but Hayes raised his hand, silently forcing him to wait.

The freshly injected men convulsed harder this time, continuously, without stopping. His restraints broke and he screamed loud enough that Clara's ears hurt and pitched enough to make it obvious that his tongue had grown and it was now fluttering out of his mouth, covered in fibers and spit which infected every inch of dead skin.

"But we stabilized the symbiote," Dr. Hayes looked in wonder, not understanding how the symbiote side of the blood could take over after they've perfected their formula. He was confused, but oddly calm. He kept his composure while the test subject squirmed, quivered and shrank, falling off the bed and on the ground, where his hands caught life and gripped the floor until it cracked under his thumbs.

Dr. Hayes took a recorder from his pocket and started it. In the background of this test subject's screams of pain, he lifted the device to his mouth and narrated, "Test Subject 1 proves to be an exception from our tested theories. The symbiote part of the blood contaminated our project after Subject flatlined. Last vitals show a rapid increase. The subject will be terminated before a new symbiote takes hold. Autopsy results will be added."

That was the soldier's cue. Hayes' hand lowered and the soldier lifted the gun. He pulled the trigger and a net was fired, expanding over the test subject. Just when red fibers started forming from underneath its skin, the net, whose nodes were made out of speakers, blew out the deadly frequency.

Even Clara felt the backlash of those sounds, which in closeness, were deadly to Test Subject 1. The O.M.N.I.U.M. soldier lifted his finger off the trigger once the screams died down and the subject was still. The sound stopped.

Hayes' sighed. He wasn't going to stop there. He was certain this was just an exception and that the next syringes would work. They had to.

But before anyone made another move, within a horrifying second, Test Subject 1 transformed. His entire skin expanded, turned red and claws bigger than Venom's head ripped apart the net. A red symbiote stood and its roar shook the whole room. He hit the bed nearest to it, fortunately not Priscila's, grabbed Test Subject 2 and ate the sleeping human whole.

"Put it down," Hayes commanded the soldier who clicked furiously the button, only the sound weapon no longer worked.

That soldier was eaten next. One bite. Blood dripped on the floor. Carnage awakened and it was... absolutely insane. 

author's note:    THIS is the chapter we built up to, the big scheme explanation 😭✋ plss tell me it was as cool as i pictured it lmaoo

next update: today