"Wild Symbiote, huh?" I muttered, narrowing my eyes at the screen.
No sooner had the words left my mouth than a low ripple passed through the air beside me—like the world itself exhaled in response.
I froze. Something slithered nearby. It wasn't sound exactly, more like… presence. Something that shouldn't be there, but was.
Then it happened.
With a sickening, wet squelch, something tore through the space next to me. My skin crawled as I turned my gaze.
A mass of shadowy flesh twisted upward, twitching with malformed limbs and tendrils, dotted with blinking eyes and puckered mouths. It was hideous—utterly wrong—and yet it pulsed in sync with my heartbeat.
I didn't feel fear, though. Not exactly. It was more like a distant recognition—like greeting a part of myself I never knew existed.
The thing pulsed again. Its form wavered, shifting between liquid shadow and semi-solid meat, and then, slowly, it began to slink toward me.
