Venom [Brallon-ish]

Prologue

Fifty seven seconds after the game-changing transmission had reached the computers back at the control hub, Taylor slams the door behind her and rips the nearest headset off the closest person. She doesn't even bother to slide the headpiece over her ears to continue grabbing papers and reports with both hands instead of one while she storms her away up front to the wall of screens all displaying parts of one large blank photo.

"Anyone," she hisses and shoves the handful of everything she could carry in to the arms of the nearest person, "can you hear me? Is anybody there? All vital signs are down, if someone is alive, you have to speak now."

Static crackles through the room, but sure enough, a voice bursts through the noise. "It's Laura, Laura Parks. I can hear you, but barely. It's a bloodbath, Miss Swift, I-I think I'm the only survivor—"

The rest of the control room breathes a sigh of relief to know at least one person could report the downfall of the flight they'd planned for years, but it wasn't enough.

"Good for fucking you. Did the package survive? Where is it? Did any escape?"

There's silence and the sound of metal creaking in the background, the ship falling to pieces before them. "I found it and I found Johnson. H-He doesn't look good, I think one of them got to him. There're seven left, we started with nine, I think one of them is in Johnson—"

"For fucks sake, get it out of him and put it back in the chamber! Search and rescue was deployed, they should be there soon. Make sure nothing else escapes or god help me, I'll recall the team and you can crawl back here on your own." Taylor's fists clench and unclench, knuckles turning white, long black nails digging into her palms like blades. She'd worked too hard and spent too much time and money to lose it all now.

For three minutes, there is nothing but white noise. They wait in agony and suspense to hear the helicopter blades of the rescue team, or at least an update from one of the two surviving expedition members, but there's nothing until Taylor breaks the silence.

She yanks the headset off and stomps on the plastic with her black stilettos. Her perfectly lined red lips are locked in a frustrated snarl, flashing her unnaturally sharp canine teeth. "I want to see every calculation up until the crash! I want to know who's responsible for ruining everything I've worked for, and I'll fire them on the spot! If I don't get the reports by tomorrow—"

"Miss Swift," Laura whispers with a shaking voice, close to her own microphone, "I-I found the other missing one."

She sprints back to the headset and scrambles on her knees to find the little electronic bit. "Good, good! Where is it? Can you get it back in the chamber?"

"I-I—" there's a deafening scream from Laura and the line goes dead for thirty seconds before it crackles to life again, "it's inside of me. And J-Johnson isn't looking good, I don't think he's breathing anymore. He's shaking, and he's not t-talking."

The pitch black screen finally flickers to the camera setting from the inside of the helmets each astronaut was given. Laura is curled up on the dirt, holding the microphone to her cheek while covering her ears and keeping the chambers an arm length away. Blood gushes down a deep gash in her forehead, and her split lip has scabbed over already.

Beside her in the background is Johnson, uninjured and convulsing like he's been possessed, and in a sense he has. A sickly yellow spreads across his body like vines, wrapping him in a throbbing skintight cocoon. He doesn't appear to be breathing or alive for that matter, but instead animated by the yellow mass. It snaps his bones back into place and reassembles the plates in his neck that had whispered immediate death during the crash. His eyes slowly roll back in his head to reveal a putrid shade of light orange.

Taylor collapses to her knees, unable to tear her eyes away from the destruction of her dreams and work, and the lives lost. She doesn't shed a single tear for them, but for herself.

Johnson stops shaking in an instant, and the yellow goop detaches with a ear splitting squeal, scrambling through the leaves and dirt, attaching its liquid limbs to anything and everything it graces over. It doesn't have eyes or any features but the glossiness and thin black veins running through it, and it's terrifying. As Laura starts displaying the same signs as Johnson, the host-less alien moves slower and slower, until it camouflages and shrivels up on a leaf, and stops moving.

Taylor looks back to the crew behind her, just as dumbstruck and in awe as she is. "This is recorded. I want it on a disk and in my mailbox by the morning with a full analyzation by Urie."

Laura lets out another horrifying screech. Her back arches inhumanly while her fingers and toes barely brush the ground, and her eyes shake back in her head to be replaced by a pitch black web that spirals over the surface until there is nothing left. Cold grey tendrils crawl over her body and envelop her in a thick layer of matte ick, solidifying and pulling her to her feet without having her limbs do any ounce of work. Her fingernails elongate with its help into steely claws, and soon there is nothing left of the last remaining astronaut to recognize as fangs the size of her hand snap over her face and curl into a grin.

Spotlights flood the scene, and in an instant, Laura is gone, leaving only the wreckage and cylinder of chambers behind. The cameras fritz out, and the cleanup is left to the deployed team.

Taylor stands slowly and turns to face the crowd behind her. She's the only one with enough courage to move, but she's still shaking. There is nothing that will ever erase the images from her mind. She had doomed every single astronaut on board that ship, and it was solely her fault.

And one of them escaped, one of them escaped with a host. She hadn't even been able to start to run tests to see what they could do with a host that thrives in their environment. If they brought down the ship, they must be lethal to begin with.

But she smooths her skintight black dress and straightens out her bangs, and purses her lips to address the room of shocked employees.

"Prepare for the symbiotes to arrive."