Chapter 26: Mark's Suffering

Landing with a thud, Mark was met with an inferno, the entire building destroyed as it crumbled in occasional explosions and ammunition cook-offs. Vast amounts of bodies littered the ground, more than even the open field.

Passing the bodies and nearing the fire, he trusted his body and walked into the fiery abyss. He followed what he presumed to be a hallway or a room, greeted by black and charcoal corpses, some heartbeats lingering in the flames before going silent. Mark winced, apocalyptic visions of his house warping into view as he spat on the floor, struggling to remove them.

"Argh! Fuck off!" Mark shouted.

Shaking his head and pounding his chest, his sight became clear as he approached the location of the ammunition cooking off. There were many dead demons, a majority he counted in the sky deceased already, mostly by himself. Unable to hear anything else, Mark reluctantly ignored the faint heartbeats and exited the ruins.

Standing outside, he looked up as three vehicles ascended into the sky, their engines thrusting them forward, back to whence they came. Eventually knowing of his nakedness and with the threat potentially finished, he grimaced as he took a pair of trousers from a dead soldier.

'Sorry... sorry.'

It was disgusting, wearing a dead man's clothes, but he felt vulnerable without something covering his lower portion. Despite his reservations, he moved towards the administration building, hoping that Jenny and Barak were fine, in addition to Millie and the soldier, John.

Rushing inside, he scowled at all the friendly bodies, not a single enemy corpse among them. Most seemed to have been butchered with deep, searing cuts. His forming conjectures caused him to frown as he loosely examined them and headed to Jenny's office.

Entering the small hallway outside Jenny's office, it found it full of severely brutalised bodies, steaming guts spilling out as pieces of white penetrated from heads like spikes. With a hard expression, he moved further inward, grimacing as he sighed, spotting John's body in a pool of blood.

'Fuck...'

Opening the office door, he spotted the Brigadier, gun in hand, pointed towards the door, her arm dropping in a relieved sigh.

Jenny puffed, "Thank god it was you, Mark. Thought I was a goner there."

Mark kneeled beside her, inspecting a grisly medium-sized bullet wound.

"I'm not medic." Mark spoke, "But I think you'll live."

Saying that he picked her up in a princess carry, hovering above the ground and over the corpses. They exited the room and moved towards the reception where she could receive aid.

"Where's Barak?" Mark asked.

"He... should be in the control room, although..." Jenny replied, grunting in pain.

"He'll be fine... that asshole can't die yet."

Passing outside, soldiers wandered around, checking for wounded and ensuring the place was secure. Mark placed her on the wet floor, a nearby medic checking their superior as he turned around, heading back inside.

Entering the interior, he floated over the bodies and towards the control room; the hallway, like the other side, was littered with bodies. Unlike the rest, these had died of gaping bullet wounds. He grit his teeth at the slaughter, moving into the operations room, finding it completely destroyed.

More bodies lay on the ground. Despite this, Mark could hear a multitude of heartbeats towards the back.

"Anyone here? Barak? It's... safe now." Mark said aloud.

There was a momentary silence, their hearts thumping faster as Mark moved towards them.

"Do I guess you helped us then, Mark?" Barak groaned, "And here I thought you'd go below."

"I... I was, but... I couldn't leave everyone. Not whilst all of you die."

"Well, I suppose they know of you now." Barak uttered, "They probably recorded the fight with drones or something. Not great..."

Mark sighed, "Have you... seen the receptionist? Millie?"

Barak stared into Mark's eyes, the shades gone. The man looked aggrieved as he sadly sighed.

"She's dead, Mark. Most of the base is. She... her body should be in here."

Mark winced before inspecting the bodies; a few minutes passed before he spotted her body. He silently dropped beside it, the corpse ripped in half at the torso. Closing his eyes for a few short seconds, he opened them with determination, a sharp scowl on his expression. His hands formed fists before shooting into the sky, breaking through the roof. He heard Barak shout but ignored it, his emotions blinding him.

'No matter where I go... every single place... they all die. Everybody I know... they all...'

The more he thought about it, the angrier he became. He was too passive, too naive, and too scared; he could not stand it. His powers are not a curse. They are a gift, not something to be shunned. And now, they would not.

Mark knew he did not need to chase them; they had gotten what they came for, done what they wanted to do and shown their overwhelming might. But now, he would not be passive. Now, he would take action.

Knowing the direction the transports left in, able to hear their thrusters on the wind, his irises turned orange; the turquoise faded into obscurity. The air made way for him as he flew further into the sky before changing direction, his velocity ever increasing.

The sky and the clouds were blown out of his way, the cities and towns zipping past him as he got faster and faster. He forced the flight muscle to capacity, zooming past England and Wales in seconds, the air forming a void before him and then reforming.

Mark spotted the distant transports and locked onto them, his eyes radiating hostility. They were passing what he knew to be the southern coasts of Ireland, the waves crashing against the rocks as the world thundered, crying at the horrid night.

He aimed for the one in the middle; the aircraft got closer and closer before he slammed through it. His body sliced through it, the metal blown inward as everyone on board died instantly from inertia.

BOOM!

The engines sputtered as they sustained critical damage, and smoke billowed like a village on fire. Mark stood at a standstill, as lofty as a mountain, staring as the engines detonated into a blazing inferno of fuel and fire, crashing into the countryside. The two remaining transports diverged, one on his right and the other on the left, trying to escape. He activated his beam; the right transport was sliced through like a sword cuts flesh, the vehicle instantly blowing up.

Mark turned towards the remaining aircraft, the side door open as a monstrous behemoth stood in its entrance, blocking his view.

'The one who killed everyone... the one who killed John! Fucking animal.'

"Return after I am gone." The giant ordered, "Do not wait around; we have what we needed. It was an honour serving with you."

Mark accelerated towards the vehicle, planning to rip through both figure and construct. Instead, he found his view covered by the giant creature, leaping with a shockwave as the transport wavered, struggling for control.

The two collided, falling speedily towards the Earth, Mark disorientated and confused.

Gaining his bearings as he cratered into the ground, the giant presumably already hitting the ground as no boom occurred, Mark stumbled to his feet. He looked around for the mysterious figure, flying upwards to get a better view and spotting a patch of homesteads.

Narrowing his gaze, he spotted the trail of footprints in the mud, gigantic depressions which led to a lone home, more removed from the rest.

'Shit...'

Hoping for the occupants to be out, he flew over with the door busted open. Mark entered, the TV blaring to no one, as he found the room a complete chaotic catastrophe as furniture was strewn about without a care.

"-ently there has been no confirmation by the government on the causes of the explosions and gunfire. Residents throughout the town reported hearing a loud crash before fighting began."

Slowly, Mark moved further into the house, tuning his senses for any anomalies as he questioned the creature. He ignored the news broadcast detailing the events of the past twenty to thirty minutes.

'What is it? It's easily seven feet tall...'

Covered head-to-toe in armour, the only defining feature being the mask, he frowned as he came to numerous conclusions. His thought process was distracted when he entered the living room and saw the family.

There were two women and a child, the adult's heads a mushy pile as the child had been disembowelled by something sharp. Glancing around, he heard movement upstairs, footsteps. Rapidly climbing up the stairs, he reached the top, the wind rustling the trees from an open window inside one of the rooms. Warming his eyes with torrid heat, he entered the room as something detonated.

BOOM!

No sooner had he entered, Mark fell to the floor as the house was obliterated by a bomb. His trousers were destroyed as the wind hissed behind him. He turned, a fist striking him dead-centre in the face, propelling him backwards with mighty forward, colliding through a stone fence and a mound of dirt.

He grunted, his nose throbbing as black blood slowly trickled out. Mark stared upwards, defiantly, as his eyes flared and met the figure's own. They stared at each other in silence, Mark cracking his knuckles as he clenched them, prepared for a fight with a foe he would now be ill-advised to underestimate.