26 Doom

A few miles away from Tyler,

Mark turned off the radio and threw away behind some bushes, "I can't believe I was so stupid! Dammit! I should have burned the entire fleet or at least the researcher's body with his papers, but I just left, dammit!" shouted Mark, kicking a small tree.

'What to do?' asked himself Mark. The offer that Tyler gave him was good. He was without eating anything for an entire day already, and if he said to the army that he had to eat mutated animal meat, he guessed they would provide. 'But will they really support me like Tyler said?' Mark was not sure if the man was talking the true, but he also could not figure why the army would not do what he said, 'He indeed has a point, the army need to have more people like me in their ranks' thought Mark, while pacing out around.

"What a mess, hunted by the army as a traitor. They will never let me go." said Mark to himself. Remembering the most important part of the conversation, they considered him a traitor, and because of that, he could not step a foot inside any city.

Just as Mark was considering all of it, he heard a noise of something cracking in the woods. Mark turned his head in the sound's direction, and saw a soldier with his rifle pointed at him.

"Fuck!" screamed Mark when realizing the situation. They were tricking him, only making him stay around for the soldiers to capture.

~bang~

The soldier shot the rifle, and Mark's eye ability activated unconsciously.

~thump~

Mark saw the bullet coming to him in slow motion, the bullet was aiming at his chest, but it was to late already. He still didn't have any way to move faster than a normal human, he could not avoid the shot.

The ability deactivated, and Mark fell to the ground.

The bullet hit his shoulder blade and blood was gushing out of it, but he was conscious.,

"Arghhhh! Fuck it! Dammit!" screamed Mark, feeling the pain of the shot. The shoulder was one of the areas from the body that more had pain receptors, and normally people would fall unconscious, but because of his gain in strength, Mark was still conscious and the pain immediately assaulted him.

Mark tried to control his emotions and crawled under the small vegetation to find cover.

Just as Mark started to crawl, he heard a clicking sound behind his back.

Mark turned his head and saw the muzzle of a rifle pointed at his head. He was surrounded. They never really gave him a chance to surrender. It was just a pipe dream.

Mark stood there, half in shock, and half knowing that if he moved, the trigger would be pressed and kills him.

A few seconds passed in that same situation until more soldiers came, and soon, Mark saw himself surrounded by an entire squad, all of them with their guns pointed at him.

Those people were not amateurs like the other three that Mark killed. They clearly were war veterans, war veterans from before the apocalypse.

...

A few minutes later, at Tyler's camp.

"Sir, we captured him," said a soldier, pushing Mark in front of him.

Mark was now cuffed, without his backpack, his rifle, or any kind of weapon and worst, his shoulder blade was still bleeding. They did not bandage Mark's shoulder or gave any kind of medical aid.

"So you are a kid? I was expecting a man of at least 30 years. After all, you killed three men, you must be really good at shooting, but.... nevermind, it's all in the past now." said Tyler, giving three soft slaps on the side of Mark's face.

Mark was already cuffed, bleeding and with no weapon, those three slaps, even if they did not hurt, made Mark furious, it was the kind of slap you give on someone that is 'less' than you, a slap to humiliate, a slap to tell that no matter what you think, you have no way of doing anything.

Tyler saw the rage in Mark's eyes and immediately started laughing, "HAHA ohhh boy, you really are something else, you are at my mercy and yet, you can feel rage and look at me with those murderous eyes of yours HAHAHA"

~slap~

Tyler used all the strength in his arm and gave a powerful slap on Mark's face, making his head turn to the side and blood to gush from his mouth, "Know your place kid" said Tyler once he saw the result of his slap.

Seeing that Mark was not the talkative type and already losing the fun of messing with him, Tyler grabbed a notebook and connected a small device to it.

It was the only way the army had to make long communications possible during a mission like that. The device used the same network as the satellites, but because of interference caused by the radiation, the device could only send and receive messages. Anything more than that was impossible right now.

[Tyler: We caught the traitor and the files, awaiting orders.]

[Malcom: Burn the files. Does he have an ability?]

Reading that, Tyler looked at the soldiers and asked aloud, "You guys saw him using any ability?"

A soldier gave a step forward and said, "Sir, I saw his eyes blinking in red just before I shot him"

Tyler furrowed his brows when hearing that. "And what his ability did?"

"Nothing, Sir, the shot hit him as expected and he fell to the ground, then we surrounded him"

Tyler looked at Mark and said, "What kind of useless ability did you get? I mean, even the chicken guy could do something to fight for his life"

Hearing that, Mark knew that the guy who grew talons after eating a chicken was now dead. "You killed him? What about all this talk about the army recruiting people?"

Hearing that, Tyler could not avoid laughing aloud, "HAHAHA, you are indeed just a kid. Do you see those people around you? Those are the bests soldiers in miles, and they are on the queue to receive an ability, Why would we let a random guy running around with abilities when we can just kill him and give the ability to someone we trust, not only trust, but are the best of the army."

Hearing that, Mark knew, he was doomed. They would kill him and eat his mutated organs, just like Mark did with the mutated animals.