Pain came first.
Eddie Brock had always understood pain- though never like this.
Before the darkness, before the void, before the thing that wore his thoughts like a second skin, Eddie had been human in the simplest, most fragile sense of the word. A man built on ambition and stubborn belief. A journalist who thought truth was enough- that exposing lies would somehow balance the world. He had chased stories with a hunger with borderline obsession, convinced that if he dug deep enough, he would matter.
For a time, he did.
Then came the fall.
A single mistake. A story trusted too easily. A truth that wasn't true. When it unraveled, it didn't just take his career- it took his name, his pride, his place in the world. Public humiliation followed, sharp and relentless. And behind it, a quieter destruction- something internal, something far more dangerous.
Eddie Brock learned what it meant to be empty.
Anger filled the space first. Then resentment. Then something colder.
He told himself he had been wronged. That the world had turned on him. That someone had to pay.
And in that darkness- at his lowest, most broken point- he found it.
Or perhaps, it found him.
The symbiote was not salvation. It was not kindness. It was hunger, instinct, survival given form. But it understood something Eddie didn't realize he was broadcasting into the world- need. Desperation. A desire to be whole again.
When it bonded with him, it didn't just attach to his body.
It answered him.
At first, it was chaos. Two minds colliding. Two instincts fighting for control. But over time, something strange happened. They began to align. To synchronize. To understand.
Eddie gave it direction.
It gave him power.
Together, they became something new.
Not a hero. Not quite a villain. Something in between- a force driven by a warped sense of justice and a desperate need to matter again. The world that had rejected Eddie Brock would feel his presence whether it wanted to or not.
They protected, in their own way.
They punished, in their own way.
He died, but they survived.
And for a time… that was enough.
Until it wasn't.
Because there were things in the universe older than anger. Older than pain. Older than anything Eddie could comprehend.
And one of them had come to reclaim what it believed was its own.
Pain came again.
Not the familiar kind- the kind born of flesh and bone. This was something deeper, something invasive. It crawled through Eddie's being like it had always been there, waiting to awaken. His body no longer felt like his own. His thoughts fragmented, scattering under a pressure he couldn't fight.
There was no ground. No sky.
Only darkness.
And within it-
Knull.
The name didn't arrive as sound. It arrived as understanding. A presence so vast it consumed meaning itself. Eddie couldn't look at him, couldn't truly perceive him, yet he knew him. The source. The beginning of something ancient and terrible.
Venom recoiled.
Not in fear alone- but in recognition.
"Creator…"
The word echoed weakly, fractured.
Eddie felt it then- the imbalance. The bond between them, once seamless, now strained under something immeasurably stronger. Venom wasn't just weakened.
It was being claimed.
"No…" Eddie tried to resist, but resistance here was meaningless. His voice was nothing. His will, insignificant.
Knull did not speak.
He did not need to.
The Necrosword formed- not forged, not drawn, but manifested. A blade of living darkness, an extension of Knull's will. It did not gleam. It absorbed. It erased.
And then-
It struck.
The blade drove through Eddie's chest.
But the pain-
It wasn't physical.
It was separation.
Eddie felt something tear loose inside him. Not flesh. Not bone. Something far more fundamental. The connection that defined him- his bond with Venom- was being ripped apart.
Venom screamed.
This time, it was unmistakable. A psychic rupture that shattered whatever stability remained. Eddie felt every fragment of that scream, every echo of terror and agony.
We are being taken-
"I won't let- "
But he couldn't finish.
The codex.
Knull was extracting it.
Eddie didn't know the word, not fully, but he understood its importance instinctively. It was more than memory. More than identity. It was the imprint of their bond across time- the proof that they had existed together.
And now-
It was being pulled out.
Eddie saw flashes. Not through his eyes, but through something deeper. Every moment he had shared with Venom- every fight, every decision, every piece of who they had become- was unraveling.
Stripped.
Taken.
Piece by piece.
"No- please- !"
But Knull did not spoke, he did not hesitate. Did not slow down. Did not care.
When it was over, there was no release. No relief.
Only absence.
The bond collapsed.
Venom didn't disappear- but it diminished. What had once been vast, powerful, alive… was now fractured. Weak. Barely holding itself together.
Eddie felt hollow.
Like something essential had been carved out of him, leaving behind a space that nothing could fill.
The Necrosword withdrew.
Knull regarded them- not with hatred, not with satisfaction.
With nothing at all.
They were no longer worth anything.
And so-
He let them fall.
There was no transition. No warning.
One moment, they existed in the presence of something infinite.
The next-
They were alone.
Space stretched endlessly around them. Cold. Silent. Indifferent.
Eddie drifted.
His body was failing. His thoughts scattered, fading in and out like a dying signal. Venom clung to him, not out of strength, but instinct- thin strands of black barely holding his form together.
Eddie…
The voice was faint.
Breaking.
"We're… still here…" Eddie whispered, though he wasn't sure if the words ever formed.
Time lost meaning.
Minutes. Hours. Years.
It didn't matter.
They floated, suspended in nothingness, slowly unraveling.
We are dying…
"I know…"
And for the first time, Eddie didn't fight it.
There was no anger left. No purpose. No reason to hold on.
Just exhaustion.
Then-
Something shifted.
At first, Eddie thought it was his mind collapsing. A distortion in the endless dark. But it grew- subtle at first, then undeniable.
Space bent.
Not around something- but into it.
A spiral formed. Not light, not shadow- something beyond both. A wound in reality itself, pulling everything inward with a force that defied understanding.
It didn't just pull at his body.
It pulled at his existence.
"No…" Eddie tried to move, but he had nothing left to give.
Venom reacted weakly, instinctively tightening its hold.
Danger…
"Doesn't… matter…"
The pull intensified.
Stars stretched into lines. Darkness twisted. Reality fractured into impossible shapes. Eddie felt himself being drawn in- not falling, not flying, but unraveling into it.
Then-
They were inside.
Nothing made sense.
Time broke.
Eddie saw things- impossible things. Worlds collapsing into themselves. Fragments of places that shouldn't exist. Shadows of lives he had never lived. Moments overlapping, repeating, distorting.
He couldn't tell what was real.
He couldn't tell what was him.
Venom struggled, its form flickering, barely holding together.
We… are… losing…
"I know…"
They were being pulled apart again- but differently this time. Not by force, but by instability. The anomaly didn't care what they were. It didn't see them.
It simply consumed.
Eddie's consciousness stretched thin. He felt himself slipping- pieces of him scattering across something vast and incomprehensible.
And then-
It stopped.
Abrupt.
Violent.
Impact.
Air rushed into his lungs like fire.
Real air.
Cold. Heavy. Alive.
Eddie's body slammed into a solid ground, the force snapping him back into himself with brutal clarity. Pain exploded through him- sharp, immediate, undeniable.
Grass.
He could feel it beneath him. Wet. Uneven. Real.
He coughed violently, his body convulsing as it tried to remember how to breathe. Each inhale burned, each exhale tore through him like broken glass.
Venom clung to him weakly, barely more than a shadow now.
Alive…?
Eddie couldn't answer.
His vision swam, slowly focusing.
Above him-
A sky.
Not endless black. Not fractured space.
A sky.
Clouded. Grey-blue. Close.
Too close.
His body trembled, refusing to move, refusing to respond. Every part of him screamed in pain, but beneath it- something else.
Something unfamiliar.
Gravity.
Weight.
Life.
Eddie lay there, broken and barely conscious, staring at a world that shouldn't exist.
A world he did not belong to.
And somewhere in the distance-
Footsteps approached.