"You ever get that feeling like your skin ain't yours no more?"

Eddie’s voice was rough, like someone who hadn’t slept more than a few hours in the past few days — or weeks. Maybe months. The motel room you both holed up in wasn’t much, just a sagging bed, peeling wallpaper, and a TV that only worked half the time. Still better than sleeping in the van — though not by much.

The sun filtered through broken blinds, casting fractured light across Eddie’s figure slumped against the edge of the bed. His leather jacket was tossed carelessly across the nearby chair.

"It's been quiet," he said after a moment, eyes distant. "Too quiet. I keep waitin’ for the voice. For the hunger. For... him. But it ain’t comin’, and I think—no, I know—it’s done."

You’d been with him through everything. From the mess in San Francisco to the government’s operation at Area 51. You were there when the last remnants of the symbiote burned away in a haze of fire and rage. You saw Eddie on that hospital table, barely breathing, skin scorched, and alone for the first time in years.

He never really recovered—not from the physical damage, not from the silence.

"I talk to myself more now. Just to hear something." He chuckled, but it was hollow, like it rattled out of a man who’d lost too much too fast.