Mark's monstrous grip tightened, then with a sudden, powerful surge, he shoved Tara away. She stumbled backward, slamming into the nearby wall with a grunt of pain. The abomination didn't spare her another glance. Its grotesque form, now fully unleashed, spun around, its bloodshot eyes fixing on Gunther. It lowered its head, a guttural snarl ripping from its throat, and got ready to lunge back at Gunther, a primal force of pure, destructive rage.
'Phew,' Maarg thought, a short, almost perverse wave of relief washing over him amidst the chaos. 'At least Mark won't be coming after me or Jack.' The thought was cold, pragmatic, and entirely necessary. 'It would have been a massive problem fighting both Gunther and Zomark at the same time.'
Tara, however, was far from relieved. She pushed herself off the wall, her eyes wide with a horrified fascination. Her stomach churned as she watched her husband, the man she loved, now fighting like a wild animal. On one hand, a grim satisfaction settled in her heart. The monster, Gunther, was finally getting what was coming to him, a taste of the very horror he had created. But the cost... the devastating, agonizing cost. Mark was losing his humanity with every feral strike, every animalistic roar. He was protecting her and the others, yes, but he was becoming something utterly alien in the process. The fight was a victory for them, but a personal, agonizing defeat for her.
***
The brutal, unyielding struggle between Gunther and the transformed Mark provided the narrowest of windows. While Gunther roared in frustration at the savage, unthinking force of his own creation, and Mark lashed out with uncontrolled, monstrous power, Maarg saw his chance. He slipped through the perilous gaps in their terrifying brawl, a shadow moving between titans. His focus was solely on Tara, who stood transfixed, her face a mask of horrified realization as she watched her husband fight like a beast.
He reached her in a few swift strides, placing a firm hand on her shoulder. "See?" Maarg said, his voice grim, low enough to be heard over the crackling flames but devoid of any 'I told you so' smugness. The raw solemnity in his eyes, reflecting the inferno, spoke volumes. "I told you. It won't work now. He's gone. Let's go before the fire spreads any further." He gently, but firmly, tugged her arm, urging her towards the doorway and away from the monstrous spectacle.
Tara flinched, her body still trembling, but she didn't pull away this time. Her gaze remained locked on Mark, who was now grappling with Gunther, a whirlwind of inhuman strength and bestial rage. The sight of him, her husband, reduced to this feral state, was a torment she couldn't tear herself away from. The image of the chair flying, the guttural roar, the red, vacant eyes – it all coalesced into a horrifying certainty she had fought so desperately to deny.
"He's... he's fighting him," Tara whispered, her voice cracking, her eyes wide with a mixture of terror and a strange, agonizing pride. "He's protecting us. Even like this, he's protecting me." Her loyalty, so fierce just moments before, now seemed to twist into a new, heart-wrenching form of denial. He wasn't the man she loved, but he was still acting in a way that, to her shattered heart, felt like a final, desperate act of love. The beast was fighting the devil, and her husband was the beast.
Maarg tightened his grip on her arm, his patience fraying under the relentless pressure of the heat, the smoke, and the ticking clock of the spreading fire. "Tara, he's a weapon, not a shield!" he snapped, his voice sharp with urgency. "He's uncontrollable. He'll turn on us as soon as Gunther is dealt with, or if Gunther loses control. He's not thinking, Tara, he's just reacting. That's the serum working, not Mark's consciousness. You promised me two minutes. That's all we have."
He tried to pull her again, but her feet felt rooted to the spot. Her eyes, still filled with unshed tears, finally tore away from the fight and landed on Maarg, a flicker of raw resentment mixed with her grief. "How can you say that?" Tara choked out, her voice rising in a raw, anguished cry that cut through the cacophony of the burning base. Her eyes, wide and glistening with unshed tears, burned into Maarg's, accusing him of a callousness he felt utterly undeserving of. "How can you be so cold? That's Mark! My husband! You just want me to leave him, leave him like this, to burn!" Her chest heaved with suppressed sobs, the desperation of her situation making her lash out, her words sharp and stinging. "You don't understand. You didn't see him before... before he changed. He fought it. He was trying to protect me. He tried to tell me to run..." Her voice trailed off, lost in a fresh wave of grief, the memory of her husband's last conscious moments before the horrific transformation overwhelming her.
Maarg flinched as if struck, the accusation piercing him deeper than any physical blow. The very air around them seemed to thicken with smoke and the metallic tang of fresh blood, a cruel mirror to the agonizing memory now tearing at his own composure. "Cold?" he bit back, his voice ragged, strained by the Herculean effort to contain the raw emotion clawing at his throat. He took a shuddering breath, the words tumbling out, harsh and desperate, stripped bare of any filter. "You think I'm cold? You think I don't understand what it's like to watch someone you love become that?"
His gaze fixed on hers, raw and unwavering. "I saw my own mother eat my father." The confession hung heavy in the air, a devastating truth he rarely, if ever, spoke aloud, a wound that had never truly healed. "He was trying to save her, to hold her, and she... she bit him. And then she turned. Just like that. The monster wasn't just around them; it was them. And then she turned on me. The only option I had was to run, or I would have met the same end. You want to talk about cold? That's cold, Tara. That's what this thing does. It takes everything. It turns love into hunger."
He was going to press on, to reiterate their desperate need to escape, to force her to see the inescapable logic of his words, the grim reality of their situation. He opened his mouth, ready to unleash the torrent of arguments, the desperate pleas for her survival. But before he could utter another syllable, Tara's hand reached out, gently, yet with an unyielding certainty, settling on his arm. She leaned in close, her face streaked with soot and tears, her voice a fierce, unwavering whisper directly into his ear, cutting through the roaring inferno and the battling monsters just beyond the doorway.
"Take Jack and leave," she said, her tone utterly serious, brooking no argument, no defiance, simply a profound and painful resolve. "Your father didn't leave your mother till the end right? Why do you think I'll listen?" Her words were a shield and a spear, born of the same profound, unyielding love and loyalty that had driven his own father. It was a love that defied reason, that transcended the grotesque reality before them.
Maarg stared at her, stunned into silence. Her unwavering conviction, her willingness to sacrifice everything, resonated deep within him, echoing the very act of ultimate devotion he had just confessed. The fire raged around them, the ceiling above groaning ominously, spitting sparks and debris. The building was dying, and time was a cruel, mocking thief.
"Won't the fire burn?" Maarg asked, the concern for her suddenly overriding his desperate logic, his voice barely a raw whisper.
Tara met his gaze, a faint, sad smile touching her lips, a flicker of light in the deepening gloom. "Not as much as if I would leave," she replied, her voice firm, resolute, a final, unyielding statement of her choice. In that moment, Maarg understood. Her decision was made, etched in stone by a love that refused to be extinguished, even by the inferno or the monstrous transformation of the man she cherished.