In four days, every single living cell on planet Earth will be dead.

You have one chance, Mark Fischbach.

~~~~~

I no longer had the feeling of energy and pride I had both yesterday morning and the morning before.
Instead, I woke up with a deep sense of dread and guilt. I hadn't slept at all the previous night and because of that, I was certain that there were dark circles underneath my eyes.
"Do you really have to go in today?"
Amy's groggy voice filled the sunlit room as I began getting ready for work. I opened the closet and grabbed my lab coat before I replied, "Yes, honey. I really have to go in today. I messed things up and it's my duty to make things right again."
"Does anything really matter anymore?"
Her words stopped me in my tracks as I was getting ready to head out of our bedroom. "Of course things matter. We're all still alive, aren't we?"
"Not for long." I watched as she covered herself with the covers on our bed. "Your creation is going to kill us all."
I opened my mouth to respond, but closed it when I realized that I had no idea what to say.
"I'll fix this." I pathetically mustered out after a few moments of complete and utter silence had gone by.
Not wanting to hear Amy's response, I quickly left the bedroom and began making my way to work.

As I was walking downstairs, I saw Penny standing outside her door. Looking over at her, I could see that she looked confused.
I walked over to her and asked, "What's wrong?"
"Why don't I have to go to school today?"
"The teachers must have a lot of work to do." I replied, quickly thinking of a reason as to why she didn't have to go to school, even though I knew exactly why. "And if they sent you and your classmates to school, then they would have even more work to do."
"Oh, okay." Penny nodded, seeming to be convinced that my lie was actually the truth. "Are you heading to work?"
I nodded. "Yep. But I'll see you after I get back."
"Okay Daddy." Penny proceed to hug me as tightly as she possibly could. "Don't push yourself too hard."
"I'll try not to sweetie." I replied as I broke off our hug and kissed her forehead.

*****

After heading outside, I picked up the daily newspaper and began reading it after I got into my car.

The End Is Nigh

That's what the heading of the front page article read. It sent chills down my spine as I read the four words. Even though I dreaded doing so, I read on.

World leaders all over the Earth addressed their people yesterday and told them of the up and coming "end of days." The cell destroying virus is already widely spread and taking its toll on the world.

The first signs of the virus in your area apparently include plant life dying. This would include things like grass and trees. Scientists say, at the rate of the spread of infection, we have nothing we can do to stop this cell destroying virus from causing the death of humanity itself.

"No..." I murmured, closing the newspaper after I finished reading the front page article and tossing it into the back of my car because I didn't care about the rest of the news. The rest of the news didn't even fucking matter.
The only thing that mattered was I had to find a way to save the world from complete and utter destruction while there was still time.

*****

As I was driving to work, all I could see, aside from the normal morning rush hour traffic of course, were crowds of people in the streets. They were protesting and holding up picket signs that I had no idea what was written on them because I was driving by too quickly to get a good look at them.
I sighed as I saw the seemingly endless amount of protestors and tried to focus on the fact that plant life wasn't currently dying, which meant that I had at least a bit more time to try and correct a wrong that I had committed.

*****

"There must be something we can do."
The sound of John's voice startled me as I was getting ready to go into work. He was standing in his usual spot and smoking a cigarette, something that he always seemed to be doing.
"Of course there's something that we can do." I stopped in my tracks and held my breath as a cloud of cigarette smoke escaped John's mouth. "I mean, we're all still here. That means that we can solve the problem before it eliminates humanity itself."
""We?" What the fuck was I thinking?" John asked, suddenly snapping. "There's no fucking "we" in this. But there is a you." He pointed his finger and poked me forcefully in my chest. "You created this goddamn virus, Fischbach! Find a way to stop it before it claims the lives of every single person on this fucking planet!"
I suddenly felt a sense of fear pulse throughout my entire body. "I-I will." My voice trembled and my heart pounded as I wondered what John's reaction would be to my statement.
"You better." John snarled, calming down a bit as he threw his cigarette on the ground and stomped on it before kicking it away. "Or else you're going to be really fucking sorry."

*****

When I walked into the building, all I saw were papers scattered everywhere, our predicted growth chart, which showed a rising line before the line spiraled down to the very bottom of the chart, and virtually no one in the immediate area.
The only person who was in the immediate area was Ryan.
"What happened here? Where is everyone?"
I walked over to him, feeling bad that his personality caused him to be so oblivious to the chaos Earth itself had been plunged into because of myself and myself only.
"Honestly, they're probably either dead or have given up hope." I sighed, deciding not to beat around the bush about the reasoning of everyone's absence.
"Huh? But why?" Ryan asked, his innocence clearly showing as he sounded like a curious child. "Is it because of the cure that you made?"
I sighed again. "Ryan, it's not a cure. It's a virus. Have you not heard anything the media and the newspapers have been saying recently?"
"Of course I've heard what they've been saying." Ryan replied as if I was crazy to even suggest that he hadn't seen any of the media and newspaper coverage about this whole situation. "You'd have to be living underneath a rock if you haven't heard what everyone's been saying recently."
"Well, if you've heard what's been said about my creation, then why did you refer to it as cure rather than what it actually is, which is a virus?"
"Because I believe that it's actually a cure." Ryan declared confidently.
"Are you fucking serious right now?" I honestly couldn't believe how completely and utterly stupid he was being right now. "You saying that my creation isn't a virus is like saying that cancer isn't actually a disease."
Ryan sighed. "Mark, you clearly don't understand what I mean."
"Explain to me what you mean then."
"What I mean is that I firmly and truly believe that you can fix whatever is wrong with your creation and make it so that it can be considered a cure once more." Ryan gave me a confident smile after he finished speaking.
His words honestly shocked me. I was downright convinced that no one believed that I could save humanity from its untimely demise.
I smiled back at Ryan. "Wow, thank you so much." I replied, meaning every single word that I said. "It's really nice to know that there's someone out there who believes that I can save humanity from its terrible fate."
"I don't just believe that you can do it." Ryan placed both of his hands on each of my shoulders. "I know you can do it."
I continued to smile. "Thank you Ryan. Your support means a lot to me."
"No problem Mark." Ryan gave me a pat on the back before removing his hands from my shoulders. "Now, go in that lab and save the world."

*****

I was just about to enter the lab when I saw that the door that led up to the roof was open again. Fearing that an incident exactly like or similar to Matthew's incident yesterday, I bolted through the door and up those stairs as if my life depended on it. Once I got up the roof, I slammed the door behind me and felt the wind blowing like crazy, just like I had felt yesterday when I discovered that Matthew was the one who had gone up to the roof.
"Don't worry Mark, I'm not going to jump."
I instantly recognized the voice as belonging to Jim. Almost as soon as I recognized his voice, I saw him standing quite a few feet away from the edge of the roof. Seeing where he was standing made me feel a little bit at ease.
"Although I don't suppose it matters now." Jim added to his previous statement. "Go home and be with your family Mark."
"O-Okay." I replied, shocked by him saying this. Yesterday, he was so insistent on me finding a way to save humanity. But today, it seemed like he lost his hope, assuming that he had any at all, of course.
I turned and began heading back down from the roof, not really sure what the better choice would be. If I decided to stay and work at the lab, I could possibly at least get some progress towards finding a way to stop the virus from killing everyone. But if I decided to stay home, I could make Amy happy and spend quality time with both her and Penny.
After I got back down from the roof, I made my decision.

*****

"Honey, I'm home!"
Penny immediately got up from the couch and ran over to me, her attention no longer invested into the cartoon that she had been watching prior to me arriving home. She smiled and hugged me tightly. "What are you doing here Daddy? I mean, not that I'm complaining or anything, of course."
I shrugged as I hugged her back before picking her up. "I decided that I wanted to come home and spend time with both you and Mommy."
"Yay!" Penny cheered excitedly as she hugged me tighter, which I didn't think was possible since she was such a small girl. "What are we going to do?"
I shrugged again. "I don't really care what we do. I just want to spend time with both you and Mommy."
I turned my head towards the stairs when I heard footsteps coming from that direction. When I looked over at the staircase, I saw Amy coming down the stairs. Despite the fact that it was now eleven o'clock, she was still wearing her pajamas. That wasn't normal for her because she usually laid in bed for a few minutes before getting up and getting dressed.
"Mark? Are you really home?" Amy asked in disbelief as if she didn't believe that I had been the one to come through the door and announce that I was home. "I heard your voice, but I didn't want to get my hopes up and think that you decided to stay home from work after all."
I smiled and placed Penny down on the ground before walking over to Amy. I walked over to her and wrapped my arms around as she rested her head on my shoulder.
"I'm so glad that you're back." She whispered as I began running my fingers through her hair. "Things were so boring without you."
"Well, I'm here now." I whispered back as I planted a kiss on her forehead. "And guess what? We can do whatever you want."
She looked up at me and smiled brightly. "Really?"
I nodded and smiled back at her. "Of course we can. Just name something that you want to do, whether it'd be just you or me or us and Penny. You name it and that's what we'll do."
Although I didn't think that it was possible, the smile on Amy's face brightened. "Do you remember when we first started dating and we used to watch a bunch of movies together while we cuddled on the couch?"
"Yes darling, I remember that both quite fondly and quite well."
"Well, I was thinking that maybe we could do that again with Penny." She suggested. "Are you okay with that?"
"Of course I'm okay with that." I replied as I kissed her nose. "I'm sticking by my word. I told you to name something that you wanted to do and that we would do it and I meant it."
Amy let out a small laugh. "I'll go pick out a bunch of movies. You go into the kitchen and start making the popcorn."
"Sounds like a plan." I planted a quick kiss on her lips before I let go of her and began heading into the kitchen.

*****

Today was honestly magical.

It had been a very long time since I've spend quality time with my family. Because I had become so immersed in my work, I hadn't really stopped to take a break in order to spend quality time with my family, even after I had fulfilled my goal of curing cancer. Realizing this made me feel really bad because I'm sure that both Penny and Amy missed the days where I wasn't so focused on finding the cure and I actually spent time with them that didn't involve me talking about the progress I had made in my work that day.
"Amy, I'm so sorry." I whispered as I realized what a horrible husband and father I truly was.
"Huh? Why are you sorry?" Amy whispered back as I felt her slightly shifting while I had my arms around her.
"I'm sorry because up until today, it had been a long time since I actually spent quality time with you and Penny." I continued to whisper so that Penny wouldn't hear Amy and me talking and wake up before walking to our room and knocking on our door to ask us what we were talking about and why we were talking this late at night (Late by her standards, of course.) Before today, I hardly spent time with you and her and I always talked about the progress I had made towards achieving my goal of curing cancer." I sighed. "I guess what I'm trying to say is that, in a nutshell, I'm sorry for being both a terrible husband and a terrible father."
Amy shook her head and her eyes met mine, looking directly into them. "You are in no way a terrible father nor a terrible husband. In fact, I wouldn't want to spend the rest of my life with anyone else in the entire world and I'm sure that Penny wouldn't want anyone else to be her father." She gave me a reassuring smile.
Even though she attempted to reassure me with a smile, I didn't feel assured at all. "I still feel guilty about never shutting up about how excited I was to finally find the cure to cancer. I feel even more guilty now that my creation has the chance to destroy the world."
"You didn't know that it had the potential to destroy the world though." Amy whispered tiredly, starting to drift off to sleep. "But you're such a smart man, Mark Fischbach. I know that you can fix this."
Instead of feeling flattered by what she said, I felt extremely confused. Before this very moment, she was insistent that nothing could be done and that me going into work trying to fix things would be pointless. As I was about to question her just what had changed her mind, I noticed that her muscles had relaxed and her breathing had become even, which told me that she had fallen asleep.
"Sweet dreams, love." I whispered as I kissed the top of her head before I carefully unwrapped my arms from around her and laid her down on her side of the bed. After doing so, I slowly and carefully got up and tiptoed out of the room, making sure to quietly shut the door behind me after leaving the bedroom.

After I left the bedroom, I began tiptoeing downstairs, being extra careful as to not make the floorboards creak. The last thing I wanted is for either Amy or Penny to wake up (Both of them waking up would be even more of a hassle) and ask questions that I really didn't want to answer. Thankfully, I managed to make it all the way downstairs without waking Amy or Penny. Once I knew that I was in the clear, I placed my hand on the wall and moved my hand around the wall until I found the light switch. Once I did, I turned it on and immediately felt disoriented by the sudden bright light that filled the room. I blinked a few times in order to allow my eyes to adjust from being in the dark. After a few moments of blinking and getting used to the lights, I made my way over to the corner of the room and sat down in my desk chair before scooting up to my desk.
"Okay, time to figure out how I can stop my creation from destroying the entire planet." I whispered to myself as I gathered up everything I would need. I then let out a sigh. "I can already tell that tonight's going to be a sleepless night."