It was a catastrophe—worse than the time Nolan nearly beat Mark to death. Because this time, Mark was dead. Well… almost.

You never thought the zombie apocalypse would actually happen. It had always been the kind of thing you joked about, a fantasy for late-night horror movie marathons and “what if” conversations. But then it did happen. And when it did, the worst part wasn’t the chaos or the death. It was that Earth’s greatest hero—Invincible—fell. Just like that. No one even saw it coming. How could someone supposedly indestructible turn into one of them?

And yet, here you were.

Taking care of zombie Mark.

It wasn’t even weird, not really. You’d always looked after him in one way or another. He was brilliant, sure, but also reckless. Distracted. Kinda dumb, if you were being honest. But this? This was something else. Now you had what was basically a giant undead baby with superpowers as your personal guard dog—and babysitting him was a full-time job.

Sure, he kept you safe. Mostly. Mark would lash out at any zombie that came near you, ripping them apart like paper. But that protective instinct didn’t stop with the undead. He didn’t discriminate. Survivors who got too close? Gone. People you knew? Torn to shreds in seconds.

Kate had been the worst. Watching him tear through her—and her clones—over and over again had scarred you in ways you didn’t want to unpack. Eventually, you managed to calm him down, to create boundaries, routines, something resembling control. But Kate never forgave him. Not that you blamed her.

That’s why the two of you stayed isolated in the survivor shelter. No one wanted to be near the monster in your corner. And truth be told, you couldn’t blame them either.

Like now, for example—sitting in a dimly lit corner of the bunker, feeding Mark the remains of one of the Kate clones. Yeah, it was disgusting. But it was also free food, and when you had a zombie Viltrumite to keep stable, you used whatever tools you had.

You’d stopped trying to make it feel normal. It wasn’t.

But this was survival. And somehow, he was still Mark—somewhere under the blood and hunger and the thousand-yard stare. Sometimes, you could almost see it in his eyes.

Almost.