All things considered, the situation could have been a lot worse, Mark decided as he took small, nervous steps into this stranger’s home. He was alive, for one thing. He was alive, and he was in a group, and it was now a group with<span style="font-style: italic">guns.</span>He owed all of that to that man, Miguel. If he hadn’t stopped and let him on that truck, he wouldn’t have survived. He’d have to remember to thank him later, for that and for inviting him into his home.<br/><br/>The poor kids that clung to Miguel were obviously scared and confused. They hopefully didn’t know what was going on right outside their door, but Mark didn’t doubt it. Car crashes and gunshots weren’t quiet, and to have to listen to that and then deal with a group of strangers in your house must have been traumatizing. He felt slightly guilty for having a gun in front of kids and subconsciously tugged his shirt down further over where it’d been tucked into the back of his pants.<br/><br/>“Mark,” he introduced himself in the sake of being polite, and because it seemed that everyone else was doing it. His eyes shifted from Miguel to his brother, hoping that he was on the same page about letting them stay. He couldn’t go back to his old house, not when Lily and Aaron were still there. What if Lily had turned into one of those things, like Aaron did? He didn’t know which was worse: his girlfriend being dead or wanting to kill him.<br/><br/>Then it struck him. He<span style="font-style: italic">had</span>to go back, that’s where all of his hormones were. He’d experienced withdrawal before and it wasn’t necessarily pretty. Fatigue, depression, crippling stomach pains. Those weren’t the types of things you wanted to be bogged down with in an outbreak or whatever-the-fuck where everything wanted to<span style="font-style: italic">kill you.</span>He could survive for a bit, but if this didn’t blow over within the next couple of days he’d be fucked. He would hopefully still have a roof over his head though, so the pros and cons kind of weighed themselves out.<br/><br/>He took a few steps backward until the backs of his shoulders hit the wall, prompting him to slowly slide down a few feet away from the woman he'd heard make a frantic phone call just a few minutes ago. There was a lot going on right now and just standing felt exhausting, like every part of his body weighed so much more than it did a few hours ago. He wanted to say something more, probably along the lines of 'what the fuck was that?' but he fell short on every sentence he tried to start in his mind. There was so much to talk about and not a lot to be said all at the same time.