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Description
Ethan Hunt considered the situation he was in. He was hefting a large metal pipe, for starters. The heavy iron was bent from a previous blow that Ethan had dealt. He was also standing in an alleyway. There was nothing special about the alleyway. There was a dumpster to his left, and several discarded pages of some old newspaper fluttered across the concrete. Ethan noticed a front page, emblazoned with news of the growing symbiote infection – certainly old news by now.

Which led Ethan back to the problem at hand. He had his back to the alleyway’s exit. A few blocks down was the S.H.I.E.L.D HQ on Manhattan. In front of him was a symbiote. It was the Snatcher variety – a very agile beast. They were regularly sighted kidnapping civilians and taking them away to secret locations. It was dark blue-purple in colour, with splashes of white across its body like spilled paint. It had no eyes, just a gigantic maw filled with sharp fangs. It was missing one of these fangs, courtesy of Ethan’s pipe. It growled at Ethan, flicking its tongue in anticipation.

Ethan couldn’t take the silence any more. “BRING IT!” Ethan yelled, waving his pipe, “JUST TRY ME!”

The Snatcher charged him. As Ethan readied his pipe, he wondered just how he’d got in this position in less than an hour.

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A group of frightened civilians huddled together in a basement. Each one of them was terrified, having only just escaped the horror outside. Some had even seen their loved ones infected, or worse. Some even bore scars from the claws of the infected.

Ethan Hunt was among these survivors. He had been attempting to reach an S.H.I.E.L.D extraction point along with his girlfriend when the symbiotes attacked. The couple had barely made it into the fortified basement with their lives. Now, the two of them were trapped like rats.

“Do you think they’re gone?” Ethan’s girlfriend, Maria asked. She was dressed in comfortable jeans and a black tank top, her jet-black hair cropped short. She was quite athletic, and a capable practitioner of Parkour – the French art of free movement – as was Ethan.

Ethan stood and slowly made for the small window that connected to street level. He was dressed similarly to Maria in comfortable sport clothes. His brown hair had collected into sweat-slicked spikes which he brushed out of his hazel eyes. He cautiously put his face to the tiny window, peering out at the surroundings.

The tramp of feet made him reflexively jerk out of sight. Scarcely daring to breath, Ethan cautiously spied on the approaching creatures. They were symbiote zombies, the lowest form of the infected. S.H.I.E.L.D had managed to deliver informative pamphlets before the quarantine to prepare the populace for the coming storm. Symbiote zombies were made when the unfortunate – or fortunate, depending on your point of view – host was killed in the bonding process. The invading symbiote then hijacked the husk’s motor functions for its own. These zombies were still dangerous, though. While not agile, they were still stronger than the average man.

Ethan finally breathed again when the group of zombies had left. He moved back to the group of survivors.

“Well?” Maria asked breathlessly.

“A group of zombies just passed,” Ethan relayed, “The streets are nowhere near safe. Even if we found a window, we’d be spotted and captured long before we made it to an extraction point.”

“Then we’re doomed!” one of the survivors wailed, “Doomed!”

Part of Ethan’s mind agreed with the man’s hopeless vision. Part of him wished for an end to the fear, to just let the symbiotes take him. But another part, Ethan’s core of steel, rejected surrender.

“There has to be a way to contact S.H.I.E.L.D,” Ethan said, “If one of us could get a message out, then maybe they could send one of their ships to-“

“It would be suicide!” the despairing survivor cut him off, “The phone network is down!”

“Shut up!” Ethan snapped at the man, his patience wearing thin, “If you don’t think we can escape then feel free to bugger off outside. I’m sure the symbiotes would love to point you to the nearest S.H.I.E.L.D base!”

Ethan’s intensity instantly silenced the man. Ethan, still fuming, sat down to think. Maria approached him.

“That may have been a little extreme,” she said, sitting down next to him.

“Well, what do you suggest we do?” Ethan said helplessly. Maria was silent. Though she was trying not to show it, she was just as scared as everyone else. Ethan could feel her trembling. He automatically reached out a comforting arm and pulled her close. Maria flashed him a quick smile of gratitude.

“I don’t want to say it, but I can’t see how any of us can get out of this,” Maria whispered, “The only way we could get out is flying.”

An idea hit Ethan like a tonne of bricks. “That’s it!” he exclaimed, leaping to his feet, “I know how to get a message to S.H.I.E.L.D!”

“What?” Maria asked, confused, “You’re going to fly?”

“No,” Ethan replied, “But it involves the roof.”

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Ethan took a running jump off the building’s roof. He sailed through the air, clearing the gap to the next building with plenty of distance to spare. As Ethan touched down, he executed a perfect roll to absorb any shock from the landing and preserve his momentum. Then he was off, traversing the rooftops of Manhattan with precision and skill. His parkour skills were being tested to their limits as every now and then he almost missed a jump, only to catch the ledge and haul himself onto the respective rooftop. To be honest, he had half-expected his plan to fail spectacularly. It seemed that if he chose his path carefully, the buildings were close enough for his high-rise path.

Then Ethan heard what he had always been dreading. The sound sent a cold wave of nauseating fear rolling through his stomach – the piercing screech of a symbiote noticing prey. Ethan looked towards the source of the sound.

A Snatcher symbiote was perched on a low wall behind him, across the rooftop. From the way its muscles were tensed, it was ready to pounce. Ethan found himself frozen in fear. All senses were overridden by sheer terror. The Snatcher looked like it could tear him in half, or worse… take him away.

MOVE! A voice yelled in the back of Ethan’s head, and he did. With a sudden explosion of movement, Ethan raced for the rooftop’s edge. He heard the Snatcher take off behind him, the symbiote hot on his heels.

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“You can’t!” Maria attempted to dissuade him, “You won’t last two seconds outside!”

“Do you see anyone coming up with other ideas?” Ethan argued.

“What’re you talking about?” one of the survivors asked.

“I’m going to take the rooftops. I might be able to reach the S.H.I.E.L.D base from there - the symbiotes probably won’t look on the rooftops,” Ethan explained.

“No!” Maria pleaded, snatching his arm, “Let me go instead!”

Ethan held Maria’s hands, “It’s ok. I’ll be fine.”

Maria’s eyes glistened with tears she was trying to hold back, “I won’t let you kill yourself out there! You’re staying and that’s final!”

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Ethan was tiring. As fast as he ran, he knew the Snatcher was catching up to him. His vast reserves of energy were running out, and sweat was pouring off him. He could almost feel the Snatcher’s hot breath on his back, imagined its claws tearing into his back. He was still blocks away from the base. There was no way he’d make it in time!

The roof that he was on housed generators. They were hooked up to a bank of solar panels too. Apparently the owner was trying to reduce his carbon footprint or something. It also seemed that work had begun on extending the building, as construction equipment was lying around. Stretched between two generators was a thick electrical cord suspended too high to jump. Ethan gathered his energy into a final burst to gain momentum. He dropped down and slid under the cable.

At the same time, the Snatcher made a dive for him. The symbiote sailed over his head and landed in front of him. Ethan’s slide was halted when his foot collided with the symbiote’s ankle. The Snatcher turned, snarling, and made a grab for him. Ethan rolled aside, not a moment too soon as the creature’s claws raked the concrete, leaving four identical furrows.

Ethan took off a stumbling run. He had reached the edge of the building when he realized that there was nowhere to jump to. Ethan skidded to a stop and panted for breath, hopelessness flooding over him.

Ethan heard the Snatcher approaching. He desperately searched for a weapon, any weapon. His eyes alighted on a sturdy iron pipe lying on the ground. He dived for it and snatched the metal tube in his hands. He spun to find the Snatcher right in front of him. Ethan swung the pipe with all his might.

The pipe bounced off the creature’s head like Ethan had used a foam bat. The creature seemed momentarily stunned. Ethan noticed out of the corner of his eye that the pipe had bent from the force.

The Snatcher recovered and its hand whipped out like lightning. The clawed hand tightened around Ethan’s throat like a vice and lifted the muscled 20-year-old like he was a toddler. Ethan gasped for breath, scrabbling at the monster’s hand. Ethan flailed madly, but he may as well have been taking on a Tiger tank. An impact jarred the pipe out of his hand and the weapon sailed away.

It landed on a pipe of metal pipes, sending the whole thing crashing down with a symphony of jangling crashes. The Snatcher seemed to feel some sort of physical pain from this, and dropped Ethan. The creature screeched, reeling back and clutching its head where its ears should have been. Ethan snatched up his pipe, not believing his luck.

“Hey!” Ethan called. The Snatcher looked up. Ethan smashed it across the face with the iron pipe. This time it struck true. One of the creature’s yellow fangs broke free from its mouth and sailed off into the air. The Snatcher was knocked off the side of the building.

Ethan was panting from the exertion. Adrenaline was still pumping through him. He almost dropped the pipe and ran again, but at the last moment decided to keep it. Surveying his options, he saw that the building he was on was shorter than the surrounding structures. He would be forced to go to street level and climb another building from there.

Ethan found the fire escape. Holding the pipe as well as he could, he began to perform a series of short drops, quickening his descent to the ground. When he finally reached the bottom, instead of pulling the ladder down he performed a ‘lazy pass’ over the railing and landed on the ground, performing a parkour roll to protect himself from the concrete.

He heard something, like a whimpering noise. Ethan followed it to an alleyway. As he reached the corner, he heard someone quiet the noise. He knew it had to be at least two survivors attempting to escape on foot. It was incredible that they’d lasted this long.

”Quiet!” a male voice hissed, “That symbiote could find us. I saw it on the fire escape!”

It seemed that the man had mistaken Ethan for a symbiote due to his agility. Ethan stepped out from behind the wall. He was facing down the alleyway with a dumpster to his right. Two people were huddled behind this, their backs to him. The man was crouched over a woman, who had obviously been whimpering. The man noticed Ethan and sprang into action, positioning himself between the woman and Ethan.

“Who are you?” the man demanded.

“My name’s Ethan,” Ethan replied, “I’m trying to get to S.H.I.E.L.D with a message.”

“You were the one on the fire escape!” the man realized, “You’re infected!” One of the signs of infection was improved athleticism.

“No,” Ethan assured him, “I’ve never had the chance to.”

But there was a niggling doubt in the back of his mind. The Snatcher had touched him. Had that been enough to infect him? Ethan drove that thought out of his mind. There was no way…

“My wife and I are stuck,” the man explained, “We made it a few blocks, but she’s been having trouble.”

The man stepped aside. It was then that Ethan realized the woman was pregnant. She was breathing heavily.

“Is there anything I can do?” Ethan asked, half of his mind yelling that he couldn’t waste time.

A minute later, Ethan poked his head around the corner.

“See any?” the survivor hissed.

“No,” Ethan replied, “Move!” The man raced out of the alleyway, carrying his wife in his arms. Ethan hefted his pipe, just in case. The trio made it across the street and into the alleyways of the next block.

“We can make it!” the man exclaimed hopefully, “We can make it!”

The screeching of a symbiote dashed his hopes. Ethan spun on his heel, facing the sound’s origin.

“You have got to be kidding me,” Ethan said. It was the same Snatcher that he had clocked over the head. It was even missing a fang.

“No!” the man behind Ethan wailed, “We’re done for!”

What do I do? Ethan wondered. For the briefest of moments, he considered running. But that wouldn’t solve anything. The Snatcher could just chase him down and come back for the slower-moving couple later. Ethan knew what he had to do. There were three lives that needed saving.

“Go,” Ethan ordered with no possibility for argument, “Get to S.H.I.E.L.D! Give them the address for the apartment building a few blocks from here! Tell them to check the basement.”

“You’re seriously going to fight that thing?” the man exclaimed incredulously.

“Just go!”

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“Maria,” Ethan said, “You don’t have to worry about me.”

She hugged him. Ethan returned the embrace, as if he could remove her fears

“Don’t worry,” Ethan whispered, “I’ll be back soon, and this whole thing will just be a memory.”

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So here he was, facing a symbiote with nothing but a pipe. The Snatcher neared him, raising its deadly claws for a rending strike. Suddenly, there was an animalistic roar. The Snatcher faltered, and retreated. Ethan searched for the source of the noise.

Standing at the mouth of the alleyway was another symbiote. This one, however, was much larger than the Snatcher. Its large frame was rippling with muscles. Its skin was blue-black in colour. A huge, white emblem adorned its chest, which Ethan eventually realised was a spider. Its hands were clawed, as were its feet. Two ragged white teardrops served as eyes, and from its wide, fang-filled mouth protruded a long tongue, dripping green slime.

Ethan readied his pipe. But he never stood a chance. Four tentacles of symbiote substance shot from the creature’s chest, wrapping around Ethan like blue-black snakes. The tentacles snapped back to the creature so fast that Ethan dropped his pipe. The weapon rolled away across the concrete. Ethan slammed into the monster’s muscled chest so fast that he was winded. It took him a moment to come to the horrible realization that something was crawling on him. It felt like some sort of goo. Ethan tried to free himself, but it felt like he was submerged in particularly thick mud.

Without warning, Ethan was expelled from the creature and hurled into the air. He hit the ground with a loud thump and rolled twice. His first thought was to reach for the pipe, but his arms were bound by something.

Ethan was covered in blue-black slime. It gripped his torso like a vice, squeezing the breath out of him. As he gasped for air, he staggered to his feet, ripping and tearing at the slime.

“Maria, do you remember how we first me?” Ethan asked.

“Yeah,” Maria remembered, letting out an empty laugh, “I was doing some training and saw you showing off to your friends.”

The slime forced its way along Ethan’s arms, binding them with unearthly strength. Ethan felt his muscles convulse as the substance forcibly accessed his nervous system. The slime enveloped his hand, hooking tiny tendrils of its substance into his pores. Ethan watched as a deadly claw formed on the tip of each finger. Ethan slammed his hand into the ground, cracking the concrete, but the symbiote would not be moved.

“You came down and started mouthing off about how I was perverting the ways of the discipline,” Ethan continued, cracking a smile. Maria met his eyes and smiled too.

“So, like the big idiot you were, you challenged me to a race,” Maria added.

“I didn’t think a girl would have even the slightest chance, so we raced.”

Ethan watched in horror as the process began to repeat on his left arm. He tried to rip the slime from his arm with his right hand, but knew with sick certainty that the symbiote had taken control of his nerves when his arm refused to respond. All he could do was watch helplessly as his left hand became a clawed, blue-black symbiote hand.

“I still remember the look on your face when you got to the finish line and I was already there,” Maria reminisced, smiling genuinely.

“Of course, I thought you’d cheated,” Ethan continued, “But there was something about you that drew me. So I asked if you wanted to get a coffee with me.”

“We started talking, and I was surprised that you had a brain somewhere in that skull,” Maria added.

Ethan looked down. The symbiote was moving in on his legs now. With a great surge of strength, Ethan managed to wrest control of his limbs. Scrabbling at the slime, all he managed to do was scratch his leg with his new claws. His leg muscles went through the same spasm as his arm’s had. Claws formed at the tips of Ethan’s toes.

“I enjoyed talking to you,” Ethan recounted, “I walked you home.”

“When we got to my apartment, I asked you inside,” Maria continued, “My sister was out-of-town, and I enjoyed your company.”

“Eventually, we sat down and watched a movie,” Ethan smiled at the memories, “It turned into a date without either of us knowing.”

With all four limbs possessed by the symbiote, Ethan knew he was losing the battle. Finished with his arms and legs, the symbiote moved around his torso. Ethan found that he could move his arms to some degree now that the symbiote was concentrated somewhere else. However, his pulling and tugging was in vain. The pain as the symbiote took over his torso was so intense that Ethan was forced to his knees. He felt his muscles expand as the symbiote hijacked his nerves.

“It was getting late,” Maria continued, “And you cooked us dinner. A good conversationalist and a great cook? I felt like I’d hit the jackpot.”

“And you weren’t too bad yourself,” Ethan added.

The symbiote began to move up his neck. Ethan scrabbled at it, but achieved nothing. He felt it ooze up the back of his head, swallowing his hair. His life flashed before his eyes as the slime reached his face, covering his eyes and entering his mouth. Ethan was totally blind, able to feel nothing more than the disgusting symbiote slime filling his mouth. He felt a repulsive urge to vomit as he felt a long tongue ease itself out of his mouth. Seconds later, his new nervous system linked him to the tongue. Finally, Ethan couldn’t take it anymore. He passed out.

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“But I still don’t know if you’re going to be ok!” Maria protested.

“I think my luck will hold out,” Ethan replied. “After all, I was lucky enough to meet you.”

Ethan kissed Maria. They both savoured the moment, each of them fearing that they’d never see the other again. Reluctantly pulling away, Ethan approached the door.

“Promise me,” Maria called as his fingers brushed the handle, “Promise me you’ll come back safe.”

Ethan looked back at Maria, and smiled warmly, “I’ll see you again, Maria. I promise.”

Maria raised a hand to wipe away tears that had sprung in her eyes. When she looked up again, Ethan was gone.

Description
Ethan Hunt considered the situation he was in. He was hefting a large metal pipe, for starters. The heavy iron was bent from a previous blow that Ethan had dealt. He was also standing in an alleyway. There was nothing special about the alleyway. There was a dumpster to his left, and several discarded pages of some old newspaper fluttered across the concrete. Ethan noticed a front page, emblazoned with news of the growing symbiote infection – certainly old news by now.

Which led Ethan back to the problem at hand. He had his back to the alleyway’s exit. A few blocks down was the S.H.I.E.L.D HQ on Manhattan. In front of him was a symbiote. It was the Snatcher variety – a very agile beast. They were regularly sighted kidnapping civilians and taking them away to secret locations. It was dark blue-purple in colour, with splashes of white across its body like spilled paint. It had no eyes, just a gigantic maw filled with sharp fangs. It was missing one of these fangs, courtesy of Ethan’s pipe. It growled at Ethan, flicking its tongue in anticipation.

Ethan couldn’t take the silence any more. “BRING IT!” Ethan yelled, waving his pipe, “JUST TRY ME!”

The Snatcher charged him. As Ethan readied his pipe, he wondered just how he’d got in this position in less than an hour.

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A group of frightened civilians huddled together in a basement. Each one of them was terrified, having only just escaped the horror outside. Some had even seen their loved ones infected, or worse. Some even bore scars from the claws of the infected.

Ethan Hunt was among these survivors. He had been attempting to reach an S.H.I.E.L.D extraction point along with his girlfriend when the symbiotes attacked. The couple had barely made it into the fortified basement with their lives. Now, the two of them were trapped like rats.

“Do you think they’re gone?” Ethan’s girlfriend, Maria asked. She was dressed in comfortable jeans and a black tank top, her jet-black hair cropped short. She was quite athletic, and a capable practitioner of Parkour – the French art of free movement – as was Ethan.

Ethan stood and slowly made for the small window that connected to street level. He was dressed similarly to Maria in comfortable sport clothes. His brown hair had collected into sweat-slicked spikes which he brushed out of his hazel eyes. He cautiously put his face to the tiny window, peering out at the surroundings.

The tramp of feet made him reflexively jerk out of sight. Scarcely daring to breath, Ethan cautiously spied on the approaching creatures. They were symbiote zombies, the lowest form of the infected. S.H.I.E.L.D had managed to deliver informative pamphlets before the quarantine to prepare the populace for the coming storm. Symbiote zombies were made when the unfortunate – or fortunate, depending on your point of view – host was killed in the bonding process. The invading symbiote then hijacked the husk’s motor functions for its own. These zombies were still dangerous, though. While not agile, they were still stronger than the average man.

Ethan finally breathed again when the group of zombies had left. He moved back to the group of survivors.

“Well?” Maria asked breathlessly.

“A group of zombies just passed,” Ethan relayed, “The streets are nowhere near safe. Even if we found a window, we’d be spotted and captured long before we made it to an extraction point.”

“Then we’re doomed!” one of the survivors wailed, “Doomed!”

Part of Ethan’s mind agreed with the man’s hopeless vision. Part of him wished for an end to the fear, to just let the symbiotes take him. But another part, Ethan’s core of steel, rejected surrender.

“There has to be a way to contact S.H.I.E.L.D,” Ethan said, “If one of us could get a message out, then maybe they could send one of their ships to-“

“It would be suicide!” the despairing survivor cut him off, “The phone network is down!”

“Shut up!” Ethan snapped at the man, his patience wearing thin, “If you don’t think we can escape then feel free to bugger off outside. I’m sure the symbiotes would love to point you to the nearest S.H.I.E.L.D base!”

Ethan’s intensity instantly silenced the man. Ethan, still fuming, sat down to think. Maria approached him.

“That may have been a little extreme,” she said, sitting down next to him.

“Well, what do you suggest we do?” Ethan said helplessly. Maria was silent. Though she was trying not to show it, she was just as scared as everyone else. Ethan could feel her trembling. He automatically reached out a comforting arm and pulled her close. Maria flashed him a quick smile of gratitude.

“I don’t want to say it, but I can’t see how any of us can get out of this,” Maria whispered, “The only way we could get out is flying.”

An idea hit Ethan like a tonne of bricks. “That’s it!” he exclaimed, leaping to his feet, “I know how to get a message to S.H.I.E.L.D!”

“What?” Maria asked, confused, “You’re going to fly?”

“No,” Ethan replied, “But it involves the roof.”

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Ethan took a running jump off the building’s roof. He sailed through the air, clearing the gap to the next building with plenty of distance to spare. As Ethan touched down, he executed a perfect roll to absorb any shock from the landing and preserve his momentum. Then he was off, traversing the rooftops of Manhattan with precision and skill. His parkour skills were being tested to their limits as every now and then he almost missed a jump, only to catch the ledge and haul himself onto the respective rooftop. To be honest, he had half-expected his plan to fail spectacularly. It seemed that if he chose his path carefully, the buildings were close enough for his high-rise path.

Then Ethan heard what he had always been dreading. The sound sent a cold wave of nauseating fear rolling through his stomach – the piercing screech of a symbiote noticing prey. Ethan looked towards the source of the sound.

A Snatcher symbiote was perched on a low wall behind him, across the rooftop. From the way its muscles were tensed, it was ready to pounce. Ethan found himself frozen in fear. All senses were overridden by sheer terror. The Snatcher looked like it could tear him in half, or worse… take him away.

MOVE! A voice yelled in the back of Ethan’s head, and he did. With a sudden explosion of movement, Ethan raced for the rooftop’s edge. He heard the Snatcher take off behind him, the symbiote hot on his heels.

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“You can’t!” Maria attempted to dissuade him, “You won’t last two seconds outside!”

“Do you see anyone coming up with other ideas?” Ethan argued.

“What’re you talking about?” one of the survivors asked.

“I’m going to take the rooftops. I might be able to reach the S.H.I.E.L.D base from there - the symbiotes probably won’t look on the rooftops,” Ethan explained.

“No!” Maria pleaded, snatching his arm, “Let me go instead!”

Ethan held Maria’s hands, “It’s ok. I’ll be fine.”

Maria’s eyes glistened with tears she was trying to hold back, “I won’t let you kill yourself out there! You’re staying and that’s final!”

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Ethan was tiring. As fast as he ran, he knew the Snatcher was catching up to him. His vast reserves of energy were running out, and sweat was pouring off him. He could almost feel the Snatcher’s hot breath on his back, imagined its claws tearing into his back. He was still blocks away from the base. There was no way he’d make it in time!

The roof that he was on housed generators. They were hooked up to a bank of solar panels too. Apparently the owner was trying to reduce his carbon footprint or something. It also seemed that work had begun on extending the building, as construction equipment was lying around. Stretched between two generators was a thick electrical cord suspended too high to jump. Ethan gathered his energy into a final burst to gain momentum. He dropped down and slid under the cable.

At the same time, the Snatcher made a dive for him. The symbiote sailed over his head and landed in front of him. Ethan’s slide was halted when his foot collided with the symbiote’s ankle. The Snatcher turned, snarling, and made a grab for him. Ethan rolled aside, not a moment too soon as the creature’s claws raked the concrete, leaving four identical furrows.

Ethan took off a stumbling run. He had reached the edge of the building when he realized that there was nowhere to jump to. Ethan skidded to a stop and panted for breath, hopelessness flooding over him.

Ethan heard the Snatcher approaching. He desperately searched for a weapon, any weapon. His eyes alighted on a sturdy iron pipe lying on the ground. He dived for it and snatched the metal tube in his hands. He spun to find the Snatcher right in front of him. Ethan swung the pipe with all his might.

The pipe bounced off the creature’s head like Ethan had used a foam bat. The creature seemed momentarily stunned. Ethan noticed out of the corner of his eye that the pipe had bent from the force.

The Snatcher recovered and its hand whipped out like lightning. The clawed hand tightened around Ethan’s throat like a vice and lifted the muscled 20-year-old like he was a toddler. Ethan gasped for breath, scrabbling at the monster’s hand. Ethan flailed madly, but he may as well have been taking on a Tiger tank. An impact jarred the pipe out of his hand and the weapon sailed away.

It landed on a pipe of metal pipes, sending the whole thing crashing down with a symphony of jangling crashes. The Snatcher seemed to feel some sort of physical pain from this, and dropped Ethan. The creature screeched, reeling back and clutching its head where its ears should have been. Ethan snatched up his pipe, not believing his luck.

“Hey!” Ethan called. The Snatcher looked up. Ethan smashed it across the face with the iron pipe. This time it struck true. One of the creature’s yellow fangs broke free from its mouth and sailed off into the air. The Snatcher was knocked off the side of the building.

Ethan was panting from the exertion. Adrenaline was still pumping through him. He almost dropped the pipe and ran again, but at the last moment decided to keep it. Surveying his options, he saw that the building he was on was shorter than the surrounding structures. He would be forced to go to street level and climb another building from there.

Ethan found the fire escape. Holding the pipe as well as he could, he began to perform a series of short drops, quickening his descent to the ground. When he finally reached the bottom, instead of pulling the ladder down he performed a ‘lazy pass’ over the railing and landed on the ground, performing a parkour roll to protect himself from the concrete.

He heard something, like a whimpering noise. Ethan followed it to an alleyway. As he reached the corner, he heard someone quiet the noise. He knew it had to be at least two survivors attempting to escape on foot. It was incredible that they’d lasted this long.

”Quiet!” a male voice hissed, “That symbiote could find us. I saw it on the fire escape!”

It seemed that the man had mistaken Ethan for a symbiote due to his agility. Ethan stepped out from behind the wall. He was facing down the alleyway with a dumpster to his right. Two people were huddled behind this, their backs to him. The man was crouched over a woman, who had obviously been whimpering. The man noticed Ethan and sprang into action, positioning himself between the woman and Ethan.

“Who are you?” the man demanded.

“My name’s Ethan,” Ethan replied, “I’m trying to get to S.H.I.E.L.D with a message.”

“You were the one on the fire escape!” the man realized, “You’re infected!” One of the signs of infection was improved athleticism.

“No,” Ethan assured him, “I’ve never had the chance to.”

But there was a niggling doubt in the back of his mind. The Snatcher had touched him. Had that been enough to infect him? Ethan drove that thought out of his mind. There was no way…

“My wife and I are stuck,” the man explained, “We made it a few blocks, but she’s been having trouble.”

The man stepped aside. It was then that Ethan realized the woman was pregnant. She was breathing heavily.

“Is there anything I can do?” Ethan asked, half of his mind yelling that he couldn’t waste time.

A minute later, Ethan poked his head around the corner.

“See any?” the survivor hissed.

“No,” Ethan replied, “Move!” The man raced out of the alleyway, carrying his wife in his arms. Ethan hefted his pipe, just in case. The trio made it across the street and into the alleyways of the next block.

“We can make it!” the man exclaimed hopefully, “We can make it!”

The screeching of a symbiote dashed his hopes. Ethan spun on his heel, facing the sound’s origin.

“You have got to be kidding me,” Ethan said. It was the same Snatcher that he had clocked over the head. It was even missing a fang.

“No!” the man behind Ethan wailed, “We’re done for!”

What do I do? Ethan wondered. For the briefest of moments, he considered running. But that wouldn’t solve anything. The Snatcher could just chase him down and come back for the slower-moving couple later. Ethan knew what he had to do. There were three lives that needed saving.

“Go,” Ethan ordered with no possibility for argument, “Get to S.H.I.E.L.D! Give them the address for the apartment building a few blocks from here! Tell them to check the basement.”

“You’re seriously going to fight that thing?” the man exclaimed incredulously.

“Just go!”

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“Maria,” Ethan said, “You don’t have to worry about me.”

She hugged him. Ethan returned the embrace, as if he could remove her fears

“Don’t worry,” Ethan whispered, “I’ll be back soon, and this whole thing will just be a memory.”

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So here he was, facing a symbiote with nothing but a pipe. The Snatcher neared him, raising its deadly claws for a rending strike. Suddenly, there was an animalistic roar. The Snatcher faltered, and retreated. Ethan searched for the source of the noise.

Standing at the mouth of the alleyway was another symbiote. This one, however, was much larger than the Snatcher. Its large frame was rippling with muscles. Its skin was blue-black in colour. A huge, white emblem adorned its chest, which Ethan eventually realised was a spider. Its hands were clawed, as were its feet. Two ragged white teardrops served as eyes, and from its wide, fang-filled mouth protruded a long tongue, dripping green slime.

Ethan readied his pipe. But he never stood a chance. Four tentacles of symbiote substance shot from the creature’s chest, wrapping around Ethan like blue-black snakes. The tentacles snapped back to the creature so fast that Ethan dropped his pipe. The weapon rolled away across the concrete. Ethan slammed into the monster’s muscled chest so fast that he was winded. It took him a moment to come to the horrible realization that something was crawling on him. It felt like some sort of goo. Ethan tried to free himself, but it felt like he was submerged in particularly thick mud.

Without warning, Ethan was expelled from the creature and hurled into the air. He hit the ground with a loud thump and rolled twice. His first thought was to reach for the pipe, but his arms were bound by something.

Ethan was covered in blue-black slime. It gripped his torso like a vice, squeezing the breath out of him. As he gasped for air, he staggered to his feet, ripping and tearing at the slime.

“Maria, do you remember how we first me?” Ethan asked.

“Yeah,” Maria remembered, letting out an empty laugh, “I was doing some training and saw you showing off to your friends.”

The slime forced its way along Ethan’s arms, binding them with unearthly strength. Ethan felt his muscles convulse as the substance forcibly accessed his nervous system. The slime enveloped his hand, hooking tiny tendrils of its substance into his pores. Ethan watched as a deadly claw formed on the tip of each finger. Ethan slammed his hand into the ground, cracking the concrete, but the symbiote would not be moved.

“You came down and started mouthing off about how I was perverting the ways of the discipline,” Ethan continued, cracking a smile. Maria met his eyes and smiled too.

“So, like the big idiot you were, you challenged me to a race,” Maria added.

“I didn’t think a girl would have even the slightest chance, so we raced.”

Ethan watched in horror as the process began to repeat on his left arm. He tried to rip the slime from his arm with his right hand, but knew with sick certainty that the symbiote had taken control of his nerves when his arm refused to respond. All he could do was watch helplessly as his left hand became a clawed, blue-black symbiote hand.

“I still remember the look on your face when you got to the finish line and I was already there,” Maria reminisced, smiling genuinely.

“Of course, I thought you’d cheated,” Ethan continued, “But there was something about you that drew me. So I asked if you wanted to get a coffee with me.”

“We started talking, and I was surprised that you had a brain somewhere in that skull,” Maria added.

Ethan looked down. The symbiote was moving in on his legs now. With a great surge of strength, Ethan managed to wrest control of his limbs. Scrabbling at the slime, all he managed to do was scratch his leg with his new claws. His leg muscles went through the same spasm as his arm’s had. Claws formed at the tips of Ethan’s toes.

“I enjoyed talking to you,” Ethan recounted, “I walked you home.”

“When we got to my apartment, I asked you inside,” Maria continued, “My sister was out-of-town, and I enjoyed your company.”

“Eventually, we sat down and watched a movie,” Ethan smiled at the memories, “It turned into a date without either of us knowing.”

With all four limbs possessed by the symbiote, Ethan knew he was losing the battle. Finished with his arms and legs, the symbiote moved around his torso. Ethan found that he could move his arms to some degree now that the symbiote was concentrated somewhere else. However, his pulling and tugging was in vain. The pain as the symbiote took over his torso was so intense that Ethan was forced to his knees. He felt his muscles expand as the symbiote hijacked his nerves.

“It was getting late,” Maria continued, “And you cooked us dinner. A good conversationalist and a great cook? I felt like I’d hit the jackpot.”

“And you weren’t too bad yourself,” Ethan added.

The symbiote began to move up his neck. Ethan scrabbled at it, but achieved nothing. He felt it ooze up the back of his head, swallowing his hair. His life flashed before his eyes as the slime reached his face, covering his eyes and entering his mouth. Ethan was totally blind, able to feel nothing more than the disgusting symbiote slime filling his mouth. He felt a repulsive urge to vomit as he felt a long tongue ease itself out of his mouth. Seconds later, his new nervous system linked him to the tongue. Finally, Ethan couldn’t take it anymore. He passed out.

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“But I still don’t know if you’re going to be ok!” Maria protested.

“I think my luck will hold out,” Ethan replied. “After all, I was lucky enough to meet you.”

Ethan kissed Maria. They both savoured the moment, each of them fearing that they’d never see the other again. Reluctantly pulling away, Ethan approached the door.

“Promise me,” Maria called as his fingers brushed the handle, “Promise me you’ll come back safe.”

Ethan looked back at Maria, and smiled warmly, “I’ll see you again, Maria. I promise.”

Maria raised a hand to wipe away tears that had sprung in her eyes. When she looked up again, Ethan was gone.