Mark hefted Sean up in his arms better, staring at the plant with concern. The little plant sat back on Zero's chest, its attention turning to them. Nate inched closer to it slowly, extending a hand out to it. The flower tilted its pedal head, its long slimy black roots rising almost menacingly up around it. Mari lowered her sword only a little, upon asking Nate shakily. "Um... Nate? What are you doing?" Nate didn't answer, focusing on getting his hand within range of the flower. The second his fingers were in reach, the flowers roots shot out to wrap around his fingers. Nate flinched, softly telling them. "Ow... It's got a strong grip..." Mark shuffled his feet, telling Nate more cautiously. "Nate, I don't like this... What are you doing?" Nate raised his free hand to calm Mark, calmly replying. "It's alright... I've seen Lexi with a flower like this. And... I can hear it." Mark looked at Mari, before saying nervously. "You can hear it? You mean like it's talking to you?" Nate nodded, his eyes on the plant as he told Mark in a distracted tone. "Ya. It's weird. I feel... connected to it?"

Mari huffed, mumbling out. "Ya? Then what did it do to Zero?" The plants roots slowly pierced into Nate's hand, causing black veins to run down Nate's arm and up to his face. Mark stiffened as Nate's eyes turned pitch black. Mark hugged Sean to his chest tighter, getting ready to run. The plant began to slip under the arm of Nate's jacket, its roots still in Nate's hand. Nate straightened up as the plant settled on him, turning his black eyes to the door as he said in a distorted voice. "It's coming." Mark didn't get a chance to ask when the door was blasted off! The door came straight for Mark but Nate stepped into the path of it and raised his hand toward it. From Nate's black veiny hand, thin black roots shot out to stop the door in its tracks. Mari gasped, blurting out. "What the fuck?!" Nate moved his hand away and the roots threw the door aside safely. Nate locked his eyes on a large figure moving into the room. All around the building warning alarms were starting to blare as the speakers uttered out. "Subject one is out of containment! Warning! Subject one is out of containment!"

Mark and Mari stepped back slowly as the hulking plant wedged its way into the room. Mark gawked at its large size. It looked like a spider made of brown vines and weeds. Every single one of its many spider looking eyes was a human skull and on its back was a clear sack full of bright green liquid. Its mouth was made up of the halves of an animal's carnivorous bone jaws. From the creature's mouth, the same green liquid leaked down across the floor like thick drool. The creature snapped its bone jaws, but it was the human skulls in it eyes that seemed to speak in a distorted mix of voices. "There you are, Blood Orchid! Found your host, did you? I guess, that means I'll have to exterminate you both." Mari stepped in behind Mark, uttering out in a horrified voice. "Oh my god... It talks!" Nate's own distorted voice answered coolly. "You can try. But your plague is over." The large vine spider hissed menacingly; its eyes locked only on Nate. Nate strolled casually to the side, causing the vine spider to turn with him.

When its back was turned on Zero, Nate told both Mari and Mark. "Take Zero and go. I'll catch up." Mark nudged Mari toward the gurney, and she ran to it to wheel Zero out of the room. The vine spider briefly looked in their direction as they moved around him, growling out darkly. "I don't care about them. I only care about destroying the cure." Mark froze at the door, stating out in slight shock. "The cure? But I thought-" Mark looked down at Sean in his arms. Despite what was going on, Sean looked to be sleeping. Was he infected and not the cure? The small red eyes in the human skulls on the vine spider suddenly turned a large blazing red as it uttered out in disbelief. "Wait...? Why do I sense...? Is he another host?!" Nate's head jerked up more as he yelled out. "MARK RUN!" The vine spider began to spin around on its eight strong vine legs as Mark bolted from the room. His body was killing him, but his adrenaline was keeping him going. The vine spider got stuck trying to rush back through the door at an awkward angle but shifted quickly enough to chase him.

Mark made it only halfway down the hall, when one of the spider's vine legs snagged his leg to trip him. Falling chest first to the floor, Sean was thrown out of his arms to roll across the floor. The vine spider pulled Mark back by his ankle before stepping on his back to pin him to the floor. Behind the vine spider, Nate looked for the lighter and cursed. Mark winced. Nate had given it to him. One of the vine spider's back leg's grabbed Nate's neck and lifted him off the ground to pin him against the wall. Nate screamed as the vine spider squeezed his throat and yelled out. "What's wrong? Don't you want to drain your host?! You can't beat me otherwise!" Mark struggled to wiggle out from under the leg, but it was crushing him the more he tried. He started to see more black spots across his vision. Stopping to look at Sean, Mark stiffened. Sean wasn't on the ground anymore. Sean was standing and facing the vine spider with a look he'd never seen on his face. It was terrifying. Sean flexed his fingers, his knuckles cracking as he started to giggle.

Mark didn't know what to think, until he saw the same strange plant wrapped around Sean's neck. Black slime leaked from Sean's eyes as he dashed forward with inhuman speed, leaping into the air to shove the vine spider down the hallway before landing perfectly on his feet. Mark gasped as the weight left his back. Behind him, Nate fell across the floor clutching his throat as he gasped for air. Mark tilted his head, noticing the flower wasn't on Nate anymore. Had it fled Nate to seek out Sean? The vine spider scrambled back onto its feet, hissing aggressively. Just as it started to race back down the hall toward Sean, Sean straightened up and belted out a scream that smashed every window along the hallway! Mark covered his ears, screaming from the pitch but the vine spider was even more effected by it. The vine spider skidded to a stop, huddling itself up as its many voices screamed in agony. Sean then stopped screaming, running up to the distressed spider to start kicking and punching its face. The vine spider retreated back with every blow, until he saw an opening and kicked Sean in the chest.

Sean flew back down the hall, but Mark caught a glimpse of the flower springing off Sean to leap onto Nate as Sean passed him. Sean landed roughly across the floor, the vine spider chasing after him. Only as the vine spider reached Nate, Nate grabbed the vine spider's leg, causing it to rear and scream as Nate snapped off its leg. Mark staggered to his feet, but his wounds brought him to his knees. He was getting lightheaded. Sean rolled to his feet, shaking his head to shake off his daze. Mark swallowed, seeing that Sean's white bangs had turned into a faded purple. Mari and Zero made their way over to Mark to help him up. Mark accepted their help as they brought him over to the gurney. Mark didn't want to lay on it, but his body wasn't giving him a choice. Reaching out, he grabbed Zero's arm, straining out. "Sean?" Zero huffed lightly, commenting uneasily. "I wouldn't worry about him. He's... He'll be fine." Mark groaned as Mari pushed him on the gurney with Chica, yelling to Zero over the vine spider's hissing. "We've got to get out of here!" Zero nodded, taking the gurney as he told Mari seriously. "Cover me!"

Zero started to push the gurney away, but Mark managed to yell out with worry. "SEAN?!" Sean leapt off the wall to kick a human skull so hard that it broke, before straightening up to look in his direction. Upon seeing that they were leaving, Sean whistled to Nate and they started running after them. The vine spider snarled, three of its legs raising to touch the ceiling and walls. The other four staying on the floor as it rushed forward. Nate and Sean dodged the broken leg as it swiped at them in turn. Whenever the vine spider managed to knock one of them to the ground, the other would high five the other to transfer the flower. Mark didn't get what the flower was doing to them... but it seemed to be focusing the side effect of Nate's weird gift. Zero turned the gurney down another hallway, when lab personnel began to scream and rush through the halls. The last lab person out of one of the rooms, closed the door with his badge and then dropped dead from a burn across his chest that acted like acid.

Mari decapitated a lab woman that started to turn in the hall, just as the power shut off in the building. The hall fell into darkness, causing Chica to bark. From somewhere in the darkness, Mari shouted out. "Shit! I can't see!" Zero chuckled, telling her. "I can! To your left! Take my hand!" The gurney began to move again, before Zero screamed and something dropped onto the gurney! Mark grabbed the body of the person as a hiss rang out in the hall. Mark couldn't see anything, but he swore it was Sean from the lean frame of his hips. He wasn't afraid until seconds later something big struck the person on him. The person slumped over him, whimpering. The hiss above them gave him his answer to the problem, before a set of hospital doors were busted open by a hulking zombie. The light from the moving search lights outside shined enough to highlight Sean's body over him. Mark hugged him, feeling the wetness across his back. Zero pushed the gurney toward the light as Mari cut down the small zombies trying to rush in.

Making it outside the hospital, Nate was swatted out of the building and into Zero. The gurney fell across the road as Zero yelled and Nate groaned. The vine spider crept from the shadows of the building's doorway, its jaws snapping in frustration at them all in turn. It looked much more injured now, but it was still coming toward them with a hate in its eyes. The biggest thing that Mark noticed was that the green liquid that had been stored in the sack on its back was empty now. While beneath its body a large stinger was hanging out and dripping what remained. Mark inhaled deeply as he hugged Sean's limp body closer to himself. The vine spider puffed itself up, opening its jaws like it was going to spit at them... until a truck slammed into it. Mari rushed forward to stab her sword deep into the vine spider's brain, then looked up as Kenny yelled from the window. "GET IN!" Zero helped Mark up, pulling him away from Sean. He protested and thrashed with what little strength he had left. Only settling down when Nate hefted Sean up to toss him into the bed of the truck with him.

Zero and Mari scrambled into the cab with Kenny, while Nate hopped up into the truck bed with them as Kenny floored it. Kenny only ran over the zombies he knew he could crush without damaging the truck. Otherwise, he swerved, and Nate cut them down with a machete he found in the truck bed. Kenny drove them to the far side of the colony and by that point, Mark's adrenaline had run dry. Collapsing across Sean's back, he hugged him close and blacked out to the sounds of screaming. When he awoke, daylight was just starting to approach and he was laying beside a warm campfire. Mari was groaning with pain as Kenny stitched up her bullet wounds, telling her calmly. "Almost done. But look at the bright side... You've finally got some scars to show off." Slowly Mark sat up, looking over his hands. They were wrapped in splints. Had he broken his hands getting to Sean? Touching his wounds, he couldn't feel them... but he could see they were wrapped up. Nearby, Zero sweetly told by as he stirred a pot over the fire. "You're finally up. I was beginning to worry."

Mark looked around, noticing a large tent by the truck. Chica was laying outside of it, staring at the door and whimpering quietly. Zero followed his eyes before informing him calmly. "Sean is in there with Nate and that weird plant." Rolling up to his knees, he asked in a rush. "Is he alright?!" Zero gestured for him to calm down, before comfortingly answering. "The plant said he would be... He's... What did the thing say, Kenny?" Kenny finished the stitches, before pulling the needle from his mouth to reply. "He's drawing out the infection that creepy spider thing injected into him." Mark raised an eyebrow, blurting out. "Someone want to fill me in on what's going on?" Kenny closed a small sewing kit, informing him casually. "Well, according to the plant... Our mother used the chemicals in the roots of this new species she found called the 'Blood Orchid' to create the virus. The chemicals found in the roots were unprocessed pollution. The virus that infects any and all carbon-based life forms. However, spreading it like she did caused two types of the virus to form. One was extremely infectious from contact. Obsessed with infecting and destroying everything. The other is not. The Blood Orchid is trying to fix the pollution in and on the earth."

Kenny shifted a little to face him better, before continuing on. "She was trying to harness how this flower was able to cure people and the land in small doses. Using Nate and Sean as test subjects for both strains of the virus. She hoped to kill off, or control the men with one and use the other to cure whoever she wanted." Mari rolled her eyes, cutting her brother off to say bluntly over him. "What my brother means is that both Nate and Sean were infected by the polluted roots of the Blood Orchid, which connected them directly to the Blood Orchid. Allowing them to talk to it and other plants. They have the cure in their blood because of the Blood Orchid's roots that was used... but it's mixed with the virus my mother made. So it would still change them slowly over time. Depending on how often they used their mutated abilities. That spider thing was the first test subject for the virus and it didn't want the Blood Orchid to cure anything! Do you know what this means?!" Mark shrugged; he was still a bit too groggy to take all this in. Zero grinned, informing him nicely. "It means that the Blood Orchid can cure everything. We can save the planet and the human race." To Be Continued...