"The Hive Mind"
A space where traces of DNA, images, sensations, and memories from time spent with each successive host are stored, along with all kinds of information the Klyntar collected across time and different dimensions so every individual could make use of that knowledge. In the comics, this advantage allows Venom's descendants to remember abilities he acquired when bonded to certain hosts, like Spider-Man's web-slinging powers. The famous codex. The imprint every bond left behind, a genetic and psychic mark impossible to erase even with the symbiote's death.
Now that he was part of this select group of amorphous beings, Jarek eagerly awaited for that juicy treasure chest to fall into his hands.
But like an unnecessary cosmic joke, the only data inside that codex were the ones Jarek himself had introduced upon arriving in this world, excluding his memories from his human life. This universe was clumsy, silent, and definitely not part of Marvel's cosmology, and therefore he was the only symbiote in existence. That also confirmed another important thing that had bothered him since reincarnating.
There was no hive. No echo. No external white-maned grievance trying to sync with his mind to order him to sow chaos. No one else was storing anything, and no one responded.
On one hand, that completely ruled out any absurd scenario where he was part of some interdimensional swarm with grandiose names. On the other—and what hurt the most—was that there was no way to know how many benefits he was missing out on by being the only one of his kind.
While he would never be able to take advantage of ancestral knowledge, he also wouldn't have to face thousands—or even millions—of peers with centuries of accumulated experience who wouldn't like the idea of a rebellious Klyntar with a foreign soul trying to get along with his host.
And now that he was in this situation, at least he would make sure not to suffer an unexpected pregnancy and remain the only one.
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Every sentence somehow found its way back there; it seemed like she reduced everything to insults based solely on appearance. "Parasite," "talking cancer," "annoying bitch," among many, many others that grew in intensity with every outburst. A surprising creativity for someone clearly on the verge of a nervous breakdown.
Jarek listened in silence to every word—no matter how hurtful or stupid—without the slightest intention of interrupting that verbal ordeal. He would probably react exactly the same if the roles were reversed. Not as a symbiote, but as a human trapped in a situation that refused to obey the basic rules of reality.
That didn't mean he didn't want to hit Andy, but he decided to archive his anger for later. Genuine fury—the kind worth keeping intact—deserved a proper target. And when he found whoever was responsible for this infinite-castle-style imprisonment, he'd have plenty of time to channel it properly.
Measuring the passage of time inside was impossible. None of the corridors had windows, and the wall-embedded clocks had stopped exactly the moment they crossed the first door. Their hands frozen on an hour that no longer meant anything.
According to the calculations he made during his forced free moments while Andy slept, two weeks had passed inside this boring, exasperating, endless trap. Though it was only an estimate with a fairly large margin of error.
— Two weeks trapped — he thought. —And the idiot who locked me in still thinks he's safe from me.
¡Well, he was wrong!
The place could fold, repeat, pretend to be infinite all it wanted. Jarek had no intention of giving up.
He had several theories. A pocket dimension created by a cult trying to resurrect an ancient god through the methodical death of all residents; infinite corridors, ritual architecture, and arbitrary rules disguised as "trials." But unless those trials were about enduring hunger—something they had long surpassed—the challenges to be completed were something completely different.
It could also be a kind of "Other World." Not a separate place, but an overlay. The same building, slightly out of phase, obeying different logic. Like in Silent Hill when it decides you no longer deserve the normal world and throws you into the rusted, dark one with disturbingly sexy nurses.
Another: the annoying liminal spaces. Eternal offices, identical corridors you access through very bad luck and one wrong step.
It could even be something worse. A defensive system. A facility designed to torture in indescribable ways whoever ended up trapped. A work of an absurdly advanced AI that, at some point, became self-aware and then got fed up with organic life. That theory, however, was more a personal wish than a solid hypothesis. Jarek liked the idea of facing an out-of-control supercomputer, but there were no foundations or evidence that they had ever been plugged into such a machine. If someone had hooked them into a program of that caliber, he would have felt it immediately. And he felt nothing, which was, honestly, disappointing.
Or his favorite so far: a space that existed only because someone or something expected it to work that way. As long as they kept looking for an exit, the corridor would keep growing.
Whatever the correct explanation—cult, overlay, cheap liminality, or algorithmic sadism with a god complex—all shared one fundamental detail: he just needed to hit whoever was responsible.
As long as Andy kept searching for an exit, the corridor would keep extending. And that was fine. Even perfect. Because at some point it had to fail. Repeat badly, make a mistake, or even leave a crack, a clue, something that didn't quite fit and that he could use as a reference point to keep moving forward.
But speaking of Andy.
Jarek clicked his tongue when he saw her. She was exhausted. Not just physically. The most worrying part was her mental fatigue. She walked on pure inertia, checking doors more out of habit than because she really believed it would work. The corridors multiplied without apparent logic, branching into more corridors leading to more of the same. An old, insistent trick. However, at some point, the building decided to vary the game. Between repetitions and detours, they ended up finding other areas of the facility with their respective distortions.
And one of them turned out to be the service area. A long table, identical to the one they had seen days ago, waited loaded with trays and containers full of food arranged with unsettling neatness. Needless to say, after two days without any sustenance, the table was brutally devoured. Not a crumb, stain, or visible trace remained. not even evidence that food had ever existed there. The forks survived only by luck.
In the following days they found the same area repeated over and over along their route, almost perfect copies of the same space except that the amount of food always varied. Sometimes a table full of delicacies awaited them; other times, barely a piece of stale bread accompanied by a solitary fruit. By the fifth day, finding the first variant became exceptional, almost a stroke of luck, until from the eighth day onward the abundance disappeared completely and only a casual, scarce, insubstantial breakfast remained—so miserable that just looking at it made hunger worse.
— I knew it — Andy squealed. — 'Nothing relaxes better than a good hot bath.' ¡bullshit!
She dropped to her knees and pounded the floor in fury, the dry impact echoing in that artificial silence. With a rage-filled grimace, she imitated Jarek's voice in an exaggerated, high-pitched tone before finally collapsing completely. She fell face-first to the ground amid barely audible whimpers.
Jarek ignored the screams without the slightest remorse. He barely registered the spectacle before reminding her—with insulting calm—that he was more than willing to switch places and handle finding the exit his own way. Not just by opening random doors. To no one's surprise, she rejected him again before pointing an accusing finger at him.
—I ended up in this mess because of you — she said between low, exhausted sobs, desperation far outweighing reason. — I just need to rest. In silence. Please.
Despite the infinite danger they were in—between starvation and who-knows-what other threats—Jarek didn't object. It wouldn't do any good. He carefully wrapped Andy in his biomass, taking the shape of an improvised hammock that hung between two wooden supports and swayed gently.
After all, she liked hammocks.
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— I've been avoiding the question, but…
Andy said, firmly holding a small, scrawny fish over an improvised campfire made from pieces of a chair and artificial stones that prevented the fire from spreading. The unfortunate fish, along with five others, were in a pond located in what had once been the main lobby. The remains of flesh from their smaller siblings —who were devoured by the larger ones after going too long without food— still floated carelessly through the channel surrounding the room. The channel was connected to somewhere, but the pipes regulating water flow throughout the establishment had been replaced by tubes large enough for liquid and fish to pass through without issue. But the time Jarek tried to drag part of himself through one of those tubes, a strange invisible barrier prevented him from advancing and discovering anything. He even opened several holes in the walls and floor, but all led to other repeated rooms with no trace of water flow.
Stupid magic.
—¿Do you belong to a shared core or is it just you? — Andy asked, taking a big bite of her breakfast.
—For the last time, I'm not like Ludo.
That kind of question had become a real annoyance. Jarek, in his floating-head form, caught another fish and ate it in one big bite, splashing Andy with a bit of blood.
— Then, tell me what you're supposed to be — she said, wiping the blood from her face with obvious annoyance. —And more importantly, ¿What hole did you use to get inside me?
A ghostly shiver ran through Jarek, who was still chewing by the campfire. Finally, he pulled back and took the form of a small pirate ship captain on Andy's shoulder.
—You're very talkative today — he said, forming a little treasure chest on which he rested a peg leg. — Even in territory known to humanity, there are still thousands of places that haven't been fully explored. Places where creatures and beasts, unknown to everyone, hide, waiting to be discovered. And this handsome guy — he pointed to himself with his thumb — is from a very, very distant land.
For the next four hours, Jarek narrated different stories—which were really just scattered segments from Gulliver's Travels and other short tales from various works— passing them off as his own experiences.
When he finished, Andy snorted. — That didn't answer shit. Not even close. — she said, putting out the fire with a handful of pond water before standing up. — But I liked the island of the Houyhnhnms. I'd love to go there.
Jarek managed to smile, proud of himself, just as they crossed the threshold into the next room.
The floor disappeared. One moment they were moving forward, and the next the world opened beneath their feet. The hallway turned into a bottomless void, except for a colossal lattice of corridors, rooms, and platforms slowly sliding against each other, fitting and unfitting in turn. Layers upon layers of overlapping hallways, some rotating slowly, others sliding in opposite directions.
Andy barely had time to inhale before Jarek stopped them, gripping the door frame.
— Well, this is definitely new — Jarek commented, with a tone dangerously close to enthusiasm, while settling her back onto the platform.
Andy didn't respond. Her legs were rigid and her hands still clenched into fists. From above, light began to filter in. It didn't descend like a lamp or illuminate like a spotlight. It was a diffuse, white, cold clarity that seeped between the upper levels of the lattice, passing through misaligned hallways and rooms that didn't share orientation. The source wasn't visible. There was no sky, no open ceiling, just a brighter zone between slowly shifting layers. As the light intensified, some doors began opening on their own, revealing interiors that glowed for an instant before closing again.
— I don't like when the floor disappears — Andy said, still trembling.
Jarek, on the other hand, watched the light attentively, memorizing the pattern, the intensity, the way it seemed to shift when Andy looked away.
— Relax — he replied. — If this were a trap, we'd already be dead. ¿Isn't it obvious where we have to go now?"
Both looked at the light show. One with fear, the other with far too many stupid ideas.
—Up.
—¡Down!
Andy, eyes full of bewilderment, looked straight at Jarek.
—Dark places are usually where the dungeon core is…