"Shit, shit, if I'd known this was gonna happen, I never would've made that stupid birthday wish to get transported into the Marvel Universe!"
Veyric cursed at the night sky between ragged breaths, each gasp dragging the sickly-sweet taste of blood up through his throat. His lungs felt like they were about to explode.
His legs were stretched to the point of tearing as he sprinted recklessly through the city's ruins.
This was New York. The so-called center of the universe that got destroyed dozens, if not hundreds, of times a year. Well, it had finally gotten its wish. The whole city had become one massive rotting slaughterhouse.
Veyric had been in this body for less than ten minutes, but he'd already pieced together exactly what kind of world he'd landed in.
This wasn't the MCU Main Universe, where heroes assembled and blood pumped hot with courage.
No.
This was the most hopeless branch of the entire Marvel Universe.
The Marvel Zombies Universe.
In this godforsaken parallel timeline, a mysterious plague had swept across the entire world. Not even superheroes were spared.
The heroes who turned kept their memories and their powers, but the only thing driving them now was hunger.
An endless, all-consuming hunger. The kind that could devour planets. The kind that drove even gods to madness.
From someone as powerful as Thanos down to Ant-Man, every last one of them had become a slave to that hunger. Monsters feeding on raw flesh and blood.
"Hff… hff…"
Fueled by nothing but raw adrenaline and sheer survival instinct, Veyric had sprinted over three kilometers in one burst. His body was completely spent.
He slammed into a crumbling wall and pressed himself flat against it, forcing his breathing down to almost nothing. He stared back the way he'd come. Once he was sure no zombies had followed, he collapsed onto the ground.
He leaned his head back against the cold rebar and concrete, wiped the sweat from his forehead, and let out a bitter laugh between heavy breaths.
"Well, Veyric… you always complained your old life was boring and had no excitement. Congratulations. Now there's so much excitement it's literally about to kill you."
He wiped his face a few more times before noticing something clinging to the tips of his hair. Dark reddish strands of some tough, fibrous tissue.
He looked closer. They were blood vessels. Animal blood vessels.
"Great. Which zombie out there has zero manners? Eating people and just tossing blood vessels everywhere like confetti…"
He didn't even finish the thought before his grin froze solid on his face.
Out of the corner of his eye, he spotted a broken figure hanging upside down above the ruins. Watching him. Silent as death.
"A living one… fresh…"
The voice that drifted down was raspy and hollow, like someone had shoved a handful of rusty saw blades down their throat.
Every hair on Veyric's body stood on end.
In the faint moonlight, he could make out the figure suspended from a crossbeam in the wreckage.
The suit was shredded beyond recognition, though traces of a red-and-blue pattern were still barely visible. Half of a spider emblem clung to the chest, the other half torn away.
The left side of his face had rotted clean off, exposing pale bone beneath. A single cloudy, bloodshot eyeball sat in the socket.
He clutched a thin strand of "webbing" made from blood vessels, using it as an anchor to hang upside down, his body curled into a shape disturbingly similar to a spider.
"Is that… Spider-Man?"
Veyric blurted it out before he could stop himself, his mind racing at a million miles an hour.
Oh, you've gotta be kidding me.
Not even ten minutes into this world and he'd already run into a zombified superhero. And not just any hero. One of the top-tier ones.
Looked like this was where it ended. A grand total of about ten minutes alive. Veyric figured he had to be the shortest-lived transmigrator in history.
"Hungry… need to eat…"
Before the zombie Spider-Man even finished speaking, he launched himself straight at Veyric.
Veyric was just an ordinary human. He didn't stand a chance against a superhero. He didn't even manage a single step before Spider-Man pinned him to the ground.
The next second, Spider-Man grabbed Veyric's right leg and sank his teeth in hard.
Freezing cold fangs tore through skin and muscle. Pain ripped through Veyric like wildfire, and he could feel the sickening vibration of teeth grinding against bone.
Goodbye, Spider-Man. Here's hoping I get reincarnated into a normal Marvel Universe next time…
Just as consciousness began slipping away…
[Ding!]
[Superhero Savior System activated. Talent unlocked: Blood of Light.]
[Blood of Light: Your blood can cure zombies and fully restore all physical damage to their bodies.]
[Note: Blood of Light is only effective while inside your body. Once blood leaves your body, it loses its effect after one second.]
A system? I'm saved! Veyric screamed internally.
The very next second, Spider-Man, who had been gorging himself, suddenly slowed his chewing.
His cloudy eyes went impossibly wide. A horrified, guttural whimper escaped from deep in his throat.
He had no choice but to let go. He released Veyric, staggered backward, clutched his stomach, and dropped to his knees.
"BLRRGH!"
His throat heaved. Thick gobs of black blood and chunks of tissue came spewing out from deep inside him.
Then, right before Veyric's eyes, the rotted skin on his face and the ruined wounds across his body began healing at an astonishing speed.
Within moments, Peter's body had fully restored itself. The murderous, feral aura surrounding him was gone entirely.
What replaced it was something hollow. A bone-deep exhaustion and despair that seemed to crush him from the inside out.
In Veyric's experience, it was the kind of look you only saw outside lottery offices, casinos, and hospital rooms. Pure, unfiltered hopelessness.
Peter sat down hard on the ground, buried his face in his hands, and choked out the words.
"Captain Rogers mutated. So did Mr. Stark. But the worst part…"
He pressed his head into his knees so hard it looked painful. His blood-matted brown hair trembled.
"Aunt May. Mary Jane… and so many others. They were all… I was the one who… with my own…"
The little spider sat there on the ground, helpless. He looked exactly like the boy from the main universe who'd just lost Iron Man.
Veyric was a diehard Marvel fan. He knew exactly why Peter had lost the will to live.
In the Marvel Zombies comics, right at the start of the outbreak, Spider-Man was bitten by a zombified Captain America. He dragged his wounded body home, hoping to use whatever time he had left to make sure Aunt May and Mary Jane were safe. But he turned before he could.
Driven by an overwhelming, inhuman hunger, he turned his fangs on Aunt May and Mary Jane. He tore them apart and devoured them, leaving nothing but a few broken bones.
For someone as kind-hearted and desperately starved for love as Peter, it was the most devastating blow imaginable.
"Hey. You okay?"
Veyric gritted his teeth against the pain in his leg and spoke softly.
Peter snapped back to himself. He frantically wiped his face, the skin around his eyes blotchy and red.
He crouched in front of Veyric, extended his right hand, and carefully sprayed a layer of webbing around Veyric's bitten calf, wrapping it snugly.
Then he pulled off the tattered remains of his mask.
Beneath it was a pair of clear but heavy eyes, gazing at Veyric with quiet sorrow.
"I'm sorry… I…"
His voice was still hoarse, but softer now and gentler. Like the boy next door.
"I'm Peter Parker. What's your name?"
"Veyric."
"Okay, Veyric, I… it's really hard to explain what just happened. I…"
"Peter." Veyric cut him off mid-stammer. "I know. I know everything about you and about this universe."
He paused, thinking about the system, then looked up and met Peter's confused eyes.
"Don't ask where I came from. All I can tell you is that I crossed over from another parallel universe. And my mission is to save this zombie world."
[Ding!]
[Host has successfully saved their first superhero. New function unlocked: Attribute Panel.]
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A/N- The story is set in the Marvel Zombies universe and follows the original comic timeline.Hope you all enjoy the chaos.