Darts came raining down from the Berg, all directly aimed at the people below, there was shouting and panic as people frantically tried to get away, Mark found himself frozen, watching. Alec had disappeared entirely, the Toad and Misty had had the sense to take off. Trina, Darnell and Lana were still there, staring at the chaos that had been calm a moment ago.

There was a thunk next to him and Mark saw Darnell had a dart stuck in his shoulder. But he didn't fall, like everyone else who was hit had done. Instead the boy staggered in shock, staring at the metal protruding from his skin.

That snapped Mark out of it.

Lana was shouting, but he couldn't tell what or at who over the din of the Berg.

He ran, Trina beside him. Misty and the Toad were far ahead, urging people to hurry.

The panic was absolute.

They sprinted around the corner of a larger building, where they were hid by trees. Trina called for the others to join them and they did, the only person missing from their group was Alec and Mark dreaded to know what he was planning.

"What on Earth?" Misty demanded, fighting to catch her breath. "why are they doing this?"

"Don't know," the Toad said. "Everyone alright?" There was a chorus of yeahs and yeses from everyone except Darnell.

"Someone help me get this thing out my shoulder." He said pulling at the dart and wincing, judging by the length of the ones he had seen Mark estimated that at least an inch or two of it was buried in his skin. There was some blood but not much, the strange thing was that the boy had not fallen like everyone else that was hit.

"Anyone got a knife?" Lana said, switching into nurse mode, the Toad pulled one out of his backpack and gave it to her, Mark saw that him, Misty and Darnell still had their packs on. Had they really been joking about that only ten minutes before?

"A clean knife?" Lana amended. It was one of their running jokes, but one that was based on some fact.

"It is clean," the Toad told her, "I do wash some things."

"That is new information," Misty rolled her eyes.

Trina glared at the two of them, "let's get the thing out of Darnell's shoulder then let's decide what we're doing next."

Lana dug into Darnell's shoulder with the knife. Mark had to look away until Trina tapped his shoulder and he saw Lana had unearthed the dart with some flesh stuck to it, now there was a lot more blood.

"Oh that's disgusting." He moaned, he couldn't help it, he still hated blood.

"For you, maybe. For me it just hurts like hell." Darnell had clamped a hand over the injury, it wasn't really a lot of blood. Not compared to some things Mark had seen.

Lana bandaged the wound then wiped the dart on her shirt. Around them people were still running and screaming but it seemed far away. It was getting further away.

"These things are used to inject something." she said examining the dart, "my guess some sort of quick-kill virus or lethal injection."

"That makes me feel really good." Darnell said, glancing at the amount of blood still leaking from his wound onto the bandage.

"Why would anyone want to shoot us with a lethal death virus?" Trina questioned, it did seem strange in retrospect.

"Why didn't it do anything to him when everyone else is knocked out?" Mark added, this had to be the weirdest situation they had ever been in, and that was seriously saying a lot.

Alec appeared then, as suddenly as he had disappeared, holding two strange rifles. Mark has never seen those before.

"And where have you been?" Lana demanded. "We have a situation here." She gestured to everything around them.

"I ain't blind sister." The soldier looked between Mark and the others. Darnell had sat on the ground, a hand still covering his injury as if to deny its existence.

Misty had dropped her pack and was digging through it, hair covering her face, pulling out clothes and hairbrush and poorly wrapped lunch until she found her knife. She clutched the hilt tightly, the way she always did when she was afraid.

The Toad fidgeted on the spot, looking back and forth between the chaos and their group, hands moving constantly with no aim at all.

Mark knew what Alec was doing. He needed to decide who would accompany him for whatever he was planning, and he was choosing fast.

He also knew that Lana wouldn't be an option, everyone except himself and Trina had been ruled out.

Trina stood like a statue, arms wrapped around her chest, Mark ached to reach out and comfort her but now just wasn't the time.

"Okay." Alec tapped Mark on the shoulder, handed him a rifle. "You're up." He took it quickly, he wanted to fight these people who had come to destroy their lives, kill their friends.

"Good luck. Don't kill yourselves." Lana smiled at Mark, a hint of pride there.

He hugged Trina quickly, then grabbed a piece of wood for a shield and set off at a run after Alec.

They ran right into the middle of the chaos, trampling over felled bodies, running until they were right under the Berg,

Alec gave him a pistol and Mark began to shoot at the people, he wasn't sure what Alec was doing and wasn't sure he wanted to.

But he did know how to shoot. Alec and Lana had found each of them a pistol, then spent over a month teaching them all to shoot until they could almost match the soldiers.

However, their weapons were kept hidden somewhere only Lana knew about, enough fights broke out in the settlement that keeping them close at hand was a phenomenally bad idea, and they only had limited ammunition.

A rope attached to a hook shot into the air and buried itself into the skin of the Berg. Alec shouted at him to give him the gun and Mark did, a second later he saw Alec shoot into the sky holding the gun.

Mark repeated Alec's movements and shot up, something he hoped he never had to do again, ever. They managed to clamber into the hatch just before it clanged shut. All the shooters had disappeared.

They were in a completely dark room, eventually he found a light switch and turned it on, a faint glow chasing away some of the darkness. There was a door at the end of the room but it was locked tight, finding an axe to break it open took even longer and he made sure Alec did it. If there was a guy with one of those guns on the other side he didn't want to be in their way. He didn't feel bad, he had seen Alec tackle a man with a loaded pistol and win. More than once.

Whilst his friend was destroying the door Mark looked around the room, he saw some boxes with writing on the front:

Virus VC321xb47

Highly Contagious

24 Darts, Extreme Caution

So it was a virus, and it was highly contagious. Today had gone downhill really fast.

He grabbed a wrench for a weapon and followed Alec, there was the sound of someone running nearby and Mark suspected there had to still be a couple of other people aboard, Bergs didn't fly themselves.

Alec finally broke through the door and stepped cautiously into the corridor, they made their way to the cockpit. On the way there Alec knocked out the man they had heard running. The pilot was a woman, she didn't respond to anything they said. Suddenly she pushed a lever and the Berg crashed into the trees. Mark was thrown forward into a wall, hearing shouting and metal ripped apart before the world disappeared.