— A parasite that feeds on your organs… ¿And all it takes is sniffing a flower to catch it? ¡That's fucking awfull!
Jarek was glad he didn't have organs. He slipped out of Dania's body and into the chubby doctor's in the truck, just before they reached the hospital. He trembled slightly at the thought of being infected by that thing.
He'd only come because he still felt guilty, but he hadn't expected to hear news like this.
In the hallway, the doctor sighed in front of a vending machine, wishing the day would end. The nurse was reviewing a folder. No one noticed the slight tremor in Dereck's body. Not even him.
Jarek slid out of him like a wet, viscous shadow, slithering toward the room where Andy was sleeping.
Her heart beat slowly, almost serenely, as if unaware that her blood was already carrying her executioner.
— ¿You know? I was supposed to just take a quick check and leave, but now… I can't just leave you like this — he said softly, more to himself than to her, knowing that without a host, no one could hear him. After all, as a former human, his empathy for his old species was still deeply rooted.
"I'll just try to help her, but if I can't, at least I'll give her a painless death!"
He wasn't sure he could cure diseases, let alone eliminate a parasite like this, but in the comics, the original Venom had been able to control the cancer Eddie Brock had before bonding with the symbiote.
¿Or was it Venom who gave him the cancer? Jarek ignored the details. There were so many stories and versions that he didn't even know which was right. The point was, if he got lucky, he might be able to reduce the parasite to a point where it could be removed without risking Andy's life.
Thanks to the medical knowledge he'd gained—a gift from Dereck—he now felt more confident in succeeding. Though, of course, it would've been much easier if he were like Anti-Venom.
Jarek carefully entered through her respiratory tract, searching with all his senses for the invasive lifeform.
But before he could even pinpoint its exact location, something stopped him.
A sensation enveloped him, like the gentle embrace of an angel caressing his soul, soothing his until restless heart. It felt… good. Too good.
As if he'd been freed from a burden he didn't even know he was carrying. The compatibility with this girl was, by far, the highest he'd experienced since arriving in this world. An addictive feeling, a soft pillow that kept him from getting out of bed in the morning.
Her memories flowed, not like a violent flood washing away a mud house, but like a calm river meeting another at a fork between mountains. Even his hunger began to fade, dulled by the adrenaline rush Andy's body produced in response to the other parasite.
He couldn't get enough of this.
¡It was love at first bond!
Now, driven by something far greater than guilt, he dove in completely to find the wretched thing trying to destroy his newfound treasure.
........
Room 214 remained calm, bathed only in the green light of the multiparameter monitor beside the bed. Andy slept deeply, motionless, connected to sensors attached with translucent tape to her chest and fingers. The silence of the room was broken only by the rhythmic sound of the electrocardiogram.
Beep… beep… beep…
Until the pattern broke.
Beeeep—
ALERT: ELECTRODE DISCONNECTION!LOSS OF HEART RHYTHM!
The monitor screeched with a sharp, artificial, piercing beep. A red light began flashing on the device's upper panel, and the pulse graph turned into a flat line with static noise. At the nursing station, the alert system sent a critical notification that lit up the central screen.
PATIENT 214 — CARDIAC ANOMALY DETECTED.
Barely six seconds later, hurried footsteps and the metallic clatter of an emergency cart echoed through the hallway.
Two nurses and Dereck burst into the room.
— ¡Holy shit! — Dereck shouted — ¡Check the wiring! — he ordered, while another tried to restart the monitor.
— ¿Is she in arrest? Where's the defibrillator?
—She... has a pulse. Strong.
— ¿Strong? ¿What do you mean strong? The monitor's flat.
— The rhythm is… perfect. Even better than before.
The screen flickered.
Suddenly, without external intervention, the monitor began to reset itself. The flat line curved.
Beep… beep… beep.
The nurses exchanged tense glances. The monitor showed an ideal rate: 74 beats per minute, stabilized pressure, 98% saturation.
— ¿Was it a system error?
— Maybe ¿Did you notice anything else? — Dereck was sweating profusely, checking the equipment and the patient over and over, as if his entire life depended on it.
— Her body temperature spiked two degrees during the failure, and now it's back down.
The intern fell silent for a moment. He looked at Andy. She was sweating slightly, but her muscles weren't tense. She didn't seem distressed.
Just calm.
No one answered. In the distance, the system alert shut off. The monitor resumed its quiet rhythm.
Beep… beep… beep.
— At this rate, I'll be the next one to have a heart attack
Dereck slumped into the luxurious chair, knowing just by touching it that it was worth more than his entire heritage and his parents' combined.
Jarek didn't see with eyes or hear with ears.
He felt.
Vibrations, impulses, subtle pressures. Like a diver in a wet, living cavity. Each of Andy's pulses hit him like a warm wave. Her heart pumped around him like an immense, fragile drum.
And within that cathedral of flesh, something was wrong.
The parasite was attached to the sinoatrial node, right at the heart's upper base. It pulsed with its own rhythm, out of sync, as if trying to take control of the biological orchestra. It was small, still young, but growing fast.
He slid through the cardiac fibers, surrounding the spore-like body with a mix of caution and menace.
— Oh no, buddy. You got to get your own.
The parasite responded with a bioelectric discharge that caused the heart to falter for a fraction of a second.
The monitor's line went flat.
Jarek felt the void. He felt the chaos. For a moment, he thought it was all over. But his instincts pushed him to act.
He mimicked the parasite's tactic, releasing symbiotic microfilaments into the myocardial cells of the heart, restarting the beats like an artificial pacemaker.
The cardiac cells trembled. The mitral valve slammed shut. Blood began to flow again.
Beep.
The heartbeat returned.
Jarek enveloped the parasite with his symbiotic structure, encasing it in a living membrane, like a wet prison.
Or so he tried.
But the moment his matter touched it, the spore pulsed like a heart within a heart, releasing a dense, corrosive substance that slowly ate through his membrane from the inside.
—¡Son of a—!
It was tougher than he'd expected.
Jarek tried again, reinforcing the barrier with more of his symbiotic mass, but the parasite kept fighting, clinging to the cardiac tissue as if it knew it couldn't be dislodged. Any attempt to rip it out could tear something vital and kill Andy.
"Encasing it won't be enough," he thought. "I'm going to have to… merge with it."
The idea sent a wave of revulsion through him. Merging with a lethal parasite, connecting to its biological core, allowing it access to parts of himself felt disgusting.
But there was no time for complaints.
He extended a filament of himself, thinner than a hair, and inserted it into the parasite's inner membrane. Instantly, a flood of sensations overwhelmed him.
Pain. Hunger. Reproduction. The need to possess. No intelligence, just raw, blind purpose.
And yet, upon making contact, something changed.
The parasite calmed, if only slightly. Its pulsing slowed. Jarek felt part of his essence was now anchored to this thing, as if his symbiotic matter was both feeding and controlling it at the same time.
He can't kill this thing.
But he could become the living cage that kept it in check.
With that partial fusion established, Andy's heart rhythm normalized, though with a slight variation that would make any cardiologist frown without knowing why. The parasite pulsed with her. And now, with Jarek too.
The doctors who had rushed in were now visibly calmer and had left, except for Dereck, who couldn't take his eyes off Andy's body.
— Phew… I guess I'm stuck with you two now.
Faced with his situation, the symbiote wondered if this sacrifice and total loss of freedom was worth it.
...................
Biological Pathology Archive - Volume VI
Entry #212 - Vatra ThanocardiaLethal Subspecies of the Florent Parasite
Common Names: "Silent Flower," "Soft Death Seed," "Red Cardiac Parasite"
Provisional Biological Classification: Subspecies of Vatra florente. Rapidly expanding necrosymbiotic parasite.
synopsis: Unlike its non-lethal symbiotic relative, Vatra Thanocardia is an extremely aggressive subspecies that inevitably kills its host upon completing its internal development. It has only been recorded in highly contaminated areas, hyper-mature jungles, or regions where bio-altered species have disrupted the natural ecosystem balance. Its life cycle is shorter and more violent, designed to replicate as quickly as possible and spread its spores in a brief lperiod before the host's death.
Infection: Transmission occurs through inhalation of spores, as with Vatra florente. However, the Thanocardia spore has a thinner membrane, allowing even faster entry into the bloodstream. Within three hours of exposure, the parasite begins its development.
Development Stages:
Day 1: The host experiences general weakness, dizziness, changes in body temperature, and sudden fatigue.
Days 2-3: The parasite forms an internal fibrous network, consuming tissues and causing micro-clots in major arteries.
Days 4-5: Internal hemorrhages and neuromotor dissociation begin. The host may exhibit erratic behavior, arrhythmias, double vision, and loss of sphincter control.
Day 6: The heart collapses, and upon detecting the host's death, the parasite bursts through the thoracic cavity with a spiny structure called the mother spore, releasing millions of new infectious particles into the environment.
However, cases have been documented where the parasite matures abruptly, skipping several stages and inducing the victim into a coma from which they never awaken.
Notable Symptoms Before Death:
Blood with opalescent reflections.
Skin with patches of plant-like texture.
Asynchronous pulse (double heart rhythm).
Presence of internal respiratory echo (as if the body were hollow).
Containment: Due to its lethality and high reproduction rate, areas with identified Vatra Thanocardia outbreaks are typically quarantined or incinerated. Complete destruction of infected bodies is mandatory. Even burned corpses can release viable spores if the parasite reached its maturation phase.
Field Notes: "We never heard the scream. We only saw her collapse in the sand, with a red flower sprouting from her chest." — Agent Kairo, Quarantine Report E-72.
"It's as if the plant wants to ensure the host dies… just so it can be born." — Field Botanist Arlen Vos.