EDDIE

Malik Enterprises headquarters was a largely oblong and six-story building. Due to the mysterious fire that had set off from the basement wiring, the begrimed mess of paper and mush at the entrance. The cops had circumscribed the building with caution-tape and a few officers were informing confused civilians about what had happened at the site. 

My girlfriend was a control freak on the inside. She'd planned all this out and if I screw up, my consequences could go both ways. Hopefully, she'd found this Peter kid before me.

Furthermore, I had to use my job as an excuse to get in. I pulled out the tattered notepad from my jeans and borrowed a pen from a nearby deputy who was deep in conversation with a few reporters. He was more than happy to give it to me.

'Scuse me, officer,' I said in a professionalist voice to the sheriff who assisted an interracial couple away from the ruins. 'I'm Eddie Brock from  - '

'Oh man,' the blond cop cut me off with a grin. 'I know who you are. Come on in.' He shook my hand stiffly. 'Sheriff Conelly.' 

'Sheriff,' I said. 'Thanks for letting me investigate.'

I could only raise my eyebrows, impressed at myself. He led me past the multiple tapes that girdled the demolished entry and through the doors that were broken off their hinges. The blackened false ceilings had the pipes broken blast off and lay peeled off from the plastic made me think.

'Has the fire originated from the basement?'

The sheriff nodded sharply. 'It wasn't a fire, son. It was a blast - someone messed around with the gas lines down under. Right through here.'

He pointed to a steep stairwell past the sooty lobby where the scent of smoke still wafted through. The crimson symbol of 'only authorized personnel' had been burned out on the edges, the locks were smashed to get in.

'Was it an intruder?'

'Oh no, the firefighters had to break in. They said there were people down there who were trapped.'

I nodded in understanding, jotting it down in scribbles. When I took a few steps down, I saw the deep scratches imprinted down the wooden walls and fresh, familiar substance that made me realize. I turned to the officer and gratefully grinned. 'I'll take it from here.'

'You sure, son?'

'I got this, sheriff. This is my line,' I shrugged. He tipped his hat and stuck his hand in a go-ahead gesture. With that, he was gone. I sighed with relief and went back to inspecting the claw marks, my fingers tracing the indentations with horror. There was only two talon drags through the walls, which meant that there was some sort of disfigurement to Malik. Venom wasn't bonded as of yet.

I bounced down the creaking stairs with a few temporary bulbs fitted at every corner and administering enough light into the dull room. The basement had been adjusted with an assortment of cardboard boxes and dense pipelines. A single pipeline had been slashed apart from the wall with an abstruse crack wedged between. 

'What skeletons have you got in your closet, Malik,' I murmured to myself and walked towards the cracks. The red bricks were broken apart with so much force which was most definitely Venom, looking at the more transparent element that dripped from the sides.

I peeked into the mysterious light that shone through. From my vision, I could see something steel and forming an interconnection of lines like a bridge. A bridge that led somewhere. At the end of the bridge was a square-shaped light that blinked slowly with the bridge having centralized arrows towards the square shaped lights.

'What the - '

I jerked from my position and faced the man himself. He had his hood off on his jerkin and revealing the platinum hair and his modelesque features on his blue skin. But his chest had apertures that caved in an odd tone which meant that he was failing at achieving symbiosis. Though for an alien, he beat me at above average looks.

'Thieving bastard,' I growled at him.

He rolled his eerie dark eyes. 'Rein it in, Brock. I had to bother three officers to get here.'

'You took what's mine. Evasive feels different, ain't it?'

'Pathetic,' he sniffed sarcastically. 'The creature talks too much, now. Doesn't seem to listen . . . '

I felt smug. 'Like host, like parasite.'

'Oh yes,' he hummed, toying with his fingers and tendrils stretching past. 'In that case, Venom should be of no use to me. Since he's quite literally dying inside me.'

I scoffed. 'He never was. You aren't apt for him, Tel-Kar.'

'Eddie, you've always been so shallow,' he huffed. 'I'm leaving this planet with a symbiote. Any symbiote.'

When he stressed on the last sentence, the realization hit me like bricks. I enlarged my eyes. There was only one other symbiote that walked this planet. 

'Laura.'

'Aha! There we go,' he clapped. 'Her tainted miracle. Exactly. Humans have always wanted evolution. An evolution that has been defiled with alterations. But the one good thing they've achieved - Riot's spawn.'

I didn't need an explanation. My sneer stretched largely across my lips. 'If you lay a finger on her, you sad fuck - '

'Who said anything about hurting her?' He smirked. 'I like her too much to cause her pain, Eddie. '

I stood with alertness, knowing he might strike any time. 'You see, she's yours. Not denying that. So the way to get it out of her is by you. Only you can make her give it to me.'

'What?'

'You don't need a demo, my friend,' he smirked with mischief. A tendril of black shot into my chest as he spoke his last sentence.

 'I just need your clothes.'

[ w/n: dun dun dunnn! what's with the clothes part? is Tel-Kar secretly a hooker? I mean (looks scared) just a theory. ]