It all began when we decided to save the world. We didn’t. In fact, I think we did the furthest thing from it. We - no, I - destroyed humanity with my oddities.
“Control it, Martin!” I sobbed through the blackness, “I know it’s possible!”
They had completely swallowed his head. The pellucid green tentacles curled up through his mouth, some spurting from the back of his head and emitting a sickening green glow. Black blood dripped down his back as more bulbous veins burst in his neck, green tendrilous monsters shooting from each one. Lethal, pointed teeth shot from the flailing arms, slicing the skin to reveal the venom, a mulberry-colored poison drooling from each pointed fang.
The oddity was my fault. Terrifying guilt flooded my veins as the man I loved inched towards me, spastically, with no control. I backed away, throwing whatever I could at my husband, or at least, the beast that had consumed him. It was useless. The monstrosity was fed by darkness, inhaling all of the moisture in the air, leaving it acrid, and as black and frigid as an Arctic night. The only light came from the luminous beast that even seemed to consume  its own light.
I ran to what I thought was the door leading to the balcony, choking on the putrid stench. Bursting through the door at last, I stepped into the city night. Screams echoed through the night while the disease spread through the streets quicker than any plague ever could. If a victim were to so much as breathe on the healthy, they would become infected. The Death Bringer, that’s what they were calling it on the news. I watched in horror as the strangers fell to their knees screaming and twitching, clutching the swelling veins in their necks. The screams faded as the veins grew and strangled their victims, hideous beasts bursting from them.
I rubbed my bald head. I already have cancer, I told myself, I can’t catch it. However, this sad realization didn’t stop me from being devoured particle by particle. Suddenly, as the monster lurched forward, a speck of an idea flashed through my brain. The light. If the light had started this mess, it could finish it. It had all started with the smoke. If I could recreate the smoke, I could kill the monster.
I had lived through so much and put so much work into the cure, I couldn’t stand to watch this - this monstrosity - this monster I had created in the hopes of saving the world.
I may not be killing myself, but I was killing the rest of the world.
I dove between his legs and into the dark lab, searching frantically for the high voltage UV ray machine. Stumbling blindly into the kitchen, all that was visible was its eerie glow. I found the mixture and hastily fired up the machine. The throaty gargle came from somewhere nearby. He was getting closer.
“Come on!” I willed the machine hoarsely, sobbing out of frustration. More inhumane noises. They shook the floor and echoed through my ears. I’m going to die here, I decided, sobbing silently.  This is the end of the line.
It stopped. I thought the power had gone out. All air was lost from my lungs.
Bing.
The door popped open. I breathed a sigh of exasperated relief. I launched at the door, aware of the creaking floor tiles coming more and more frequently.  If I opened the machine and used the methane lighter to ignite the concoction, the radiation would spread and hopefully deteriorate the previous expired radioactivity that had caused the beast. The science was all there. Distracted, I opened the container and placed it on the counter. Carefully, my breath visible in the freezing air, I filled the syringe with the concoction. I had done it. It could be stopped.
I turned.
My throat closed.
My pulse stopped.
Blood extravasated from my ears and nose.
The radioactive poison dripped down my face and onto my neck.
He was standing over me.
Not man nor monster. A hybrid. A work of a stubborn girl who only wished for glory.
Now he was gone.
I felt my neck snap.
My vocal chords were fried from acid, and I couldn’t scream. I couldn’t express my pain.
I knew one thing for sure. He was gone.
At that realization, my vision tunneled into oblivion.
…
It was four days earlier. I was standing in the bathroom, staring at my reflection. Still bald. Still dying. My complex myeloma raged on. In the past year, I had been diagnosed, had far too many rounds of chemotherapy, four bone marrow operations, and several tissue replacements. There had been an IV in my arm for nearly a year. Through the chemo, I had developed blisters in my mouth and throat that made it feel like I was constantly gurgling hot marbles.
       I continued gazing at myself, my eyes watering at the brightness of the vanity lights. I had gotten out of the hospital a week ago and was still adjusting to common things, like the brightness of the sun and sleeping in a bed that wasn't the one from the hospital. My raven black hair was gone, leaving my pale, white head exposed and vulnerable. There were  bags under my cloudy blue eyes, a splatter of freckles across my button nose which was above my sharply defined lips. I stared at my reflection in the mirror, hoping to see someone different staring back at me. I strapped on the arm braces and mask I was required to wear in order to keep my myeloma treatments consitantly effective. Rubbing my bald head once more, I walked out into the kitchen. Martin Barnum and I had been married for about a year before I was diagnosed. We spent all of our funds for my treatment and hadn’t been able to buy a house. I had been living in various hospitals, and Martin in hotels. He’d stayed by my side the whole time. Never once did he express any thoughts of leaving me. Now, after it all, I had been temporarily released from the hospital and we finally had a place to call home. A quaint little apartment just outside of Manhattan. It was close enough to the hospital I was being treated at to go in when needed for checkups and operations. Our first house. There were boxes scattered around still since we were barely unpacked. Martin stood in the bright kitchen, balancing a plate of slightly burnt pancakes while trying to figure how to turn off the skillet. I couldn’t help but smile. He looked almost exactly the same as when I met him four years ago. Same milk chocolate skin, sea green eyes, and marble glasses. But the cancer experience had taken a toll on both of us. We were only thirty, but there were already streaks of gray in his hair and remnants of deep purple bags under his eyes.
I laughed at his confusion and walked over to assist. He chuckled though his frustration and noticed my grin.
“There’s my bald beauty.” He gripped my shoulders and kissed my head.
I pushed him away playfully, “Just because I’m bald doesn’t mean I want to be reminded of it all the time!” He laughed and slid the plates of breakfast on our unpretentious cardboard box dining set up.
“So,” he said, his mouth full of pancake, “I say we head over to the new lab today and start setting up. It’s only like fifteen minutes away right?”
I nodded and began pointing to boxes with my fork. “I believe the beakers are in there, the documents are in the plastic bin, and the lightbulbs are there. I’m going to the store.  Need anything?”
“Yeah, baking soda, vinegar, and gummy bears.”
“That’s an interesting combination... what for?” I grinned.
“Well, I have to christen the lab.
“Gummy bears?”
“One gets hungry when being genius.”
Both of us were scientists who had dedicated our lives to curing cancer. We hadn’t made it very far, as we worked alone, but we had found out that we could fight fire with fire. Many cancerous tumors are caused by dangerous Ultraviolet radiation exposure. After taking samples of my bone marrow, we realized that when mixed with several different chemotherapeutic chemicals and exposed to high UV radiation, it could actually begin to replenish red blood cells, cleanse veins, and rebuild bone tissue. We hadn’t found the perfect concoction yet, but we knew a cure was around the corner.
I hadn’t seen the new lab yet, so after my errands were run, I hopped on a bus and rode toward the apartment building where we had decided to hold our experiments. When I arrived at the third floor apartment, Martin was eating gummy bears and working on our UV light modified microwave, a homemade volcano waiting on the counter. The workspace was small and simple, with a small kitchen and balcony, but that’s all we needed. With a plug, somewhere to store chemicals, and a place to plant things, we were good. He barely noticed me walking in as he was carefully examining a bolt that had fallen off.
“You put it there,” I whispered behind him, pointing to the home of the bolt.
“C! Gosh, I didn’t hear you come in. You scared me!” He screwed it in and stood, moving towards the notorious christening volcano. He picked up the vile of vinegar. “Ready?” I nodded and he poured in in. The inevitable chemical reaction made quite a mess of the new countertops. Martin tapped the table with a screwdriver, “I dub thee, Barnum Laboratory!” I laughed at his childishness and he smiled, glad to finally see me happy after the years of suffering. Of course, the mess was left untouched.
“Now,” I clapped, “let’s get to work.”
        The rest of the day was mostly uneventful, though we did make a small amount of progress in the composition of our chemical algorithm. The next day was very eventful, for better or for worse. We discovered something through our modified algorithm. Decreasing the amount of a certain chemical and raising out the radioactivity actually doubled the amount of red blood cells produced. Whereas before, we only increased the mass production by a forth.
        “Hey Cecilia, will you hand me that syringe?”  Martin spoke urgently across the table. I didn’t hear him. I was studying the artificial red blood cells under a microscope. There was something different about them, something slightly abnormal. To get my attention, he threw a gummy bear at me. It was playful and I didn’t mind, but it knocked one of the closed Petri dishes off the counter and onto the floor.
        “Martin!” I yelled. Almost desperately, I squatted down and opened the dish to ensure the presence of the tissue. By some miracle it hadn’t spilled.
        “C! I need the syringe! Something’s wrong with the cells! I need to separate the excess chemicals!”
         We couldn’t mess this up. Leaving the cells exposed on the ground, I launched my frail body across the room to the syringe. My mistake. My rookie, imbecilic mistake. It was probably my ignorant incapability to perform a simple task that took the lives of so many. What I didn’t realize was that while I had left the container on the floor, a few drops of leftover vinegar from the volcano dripped from the counter, into the open dish. It didn’t matter what happened to Martin’s chemicals; mine were the true problem.
        “Got it,” I handed the tool to Martin and hurried back to cap my contaminated dish.
        “C, we have to get this in the UV Ray machine. I have dinner reservations at nine. It’s eight fifty,” Martin said, glancing at the algorithm momentarily. He grabbed my Petri dish and poured its contents, along with that of his own, into the test bowl. He placed it into the modified microwave and began punching numbers in. “So we put it in there in this setting for this amount of time, and then we’ll get the best results.”
        “No, put it on a setting three higher than that,” I argued.
        “I know what I’m doing Cecilia. Just trust me.”
         I was hesitant, but I had a plan. “Alright, but we should go home first. I smell like Busulfan!”
          “You don’t… Busulfan does… fine, we’ll go home first. But only because I need my good coat.” We were already in the hallway when I brought it up.
         “Oh! We never pressed the start button. I’ll be back.” With that, I ventured back into the lab, turned the radiation up by three, and pressed start.
        That, night as I lay in my bed, I thought dreamily about the glory we would get for our cure.  We were almost there. My modification was sure to be the game changer. We would be famous, rich, known throughout history as the most important people in the history of the universe. The results were ambiguous anyway, but I had a feeling as I drifted off to sleep that this would change the world. I was right. But not in the way I had hoped.
        The next morning, we arrived at the lab late. Accidentally, I had slept in, my recovering body still easily fatigued by extensive work. Martin had arrived several minutes earlier than I, eager to see the progress of the medicine. When I walked through the door, I didn’t see him at first. That’s when it all began.
        Martin was sitting on the ground in front of the open Ultraviolet machine.
       I threw myself at him, greatly concerned. “Martin? Martin, are you okay? What's going on?”
       “The chemicals - they - they evaporated. But it was like a smoke.” He coughed, evidently having inhaled some. “I don’t know where it went, but when I came in, the machine door was wide open. I don’t know what it’ll do, but I can tell you right now that it’s highly toxic in this state. At this, wrestled with a gas mask relentlessly, struggling to put it on.
“Martin! It’s okay! We don’t know for sure what the gas can do, right? Maybe it doesn’t do anything!”
“It does.”
“Well, maybe it didn’t get out,” I yelped hopelessly.
He pointed behind me, “The windows are open.”
Martin stopped and grabbed my shoulders, forcing me to look at him. “C, I know you raised the power level. I know it was you.” I gulped. “But I’m not angry with you; I’m just concerned for all of humanity. The slight abnormality in the cells was very dangerous if mixed with the wrong chemicals. At the level of exposure you put it at, the gas would have escaped and...”
“When inhaled by humans it would go into their bloodstream and mass produce the hybrid cells in people who don’t need them. Wait. The hybrid cells reproducing means... it means... Oh my gosh, that means, the humans would mutate as the cells take over their bodies!” I put my hand to my mouth in shock. What had I done? This would be like a plague, and there was no way to regulate it. “Wait again. That means cancer patients aren’t affected?”
Martin nodded grimly. “I don’t know what the exact reaction will be, but I do know that it will be horrific.”
A choking scream burst from outside. We exchanged a look and darted to the balcony. A terrifying sight greeted us. A man on the sidewalk had collapsed. Looking closer, it was evident that there were bulging veins in his neck, but they weren’t purple as veins normally are. They were a pale, sick green. He was sprawled out on the pavement, twitching and drooling. Without warning, a throaty roar erupted from him and he changed completely.
It was like watching his head turn inside out. Transparent tentacles erupted from his mouth, emitting an odious green glow. They were lined with venomous teeth that sliced through the skin and climbed up wildly. They burst from the bulbous neck veins as well, the same awful tentacles and bloody aftermath. The monster got to its feet and waved its tentacles sporadically in the direction of a shocked bystander. To the utmost surprise of everyone witnessing the event, the person and the light around them slowly began to deteriorate, becoming acrid and being absorbed, particle by particle, into the fleshy monstrosity. The person and all the light around them was completely gone.
More screams echoed down the street. I sprinted inside and collapsed on the floor in exasperated sobs. Martin ran in after me.
“I can’t watch. I can’t do it.  It’s all my fault - all of it!” I gasped, staring up at him with waterfalls of tears spilling down the cliffs of my face. “It's me! I destroyed the world.”
The next hour was torturous. We watched the news on the lab’s television: reports of the horrors it had brought upon the city. The horrors were spreading faster than any recorded plague. The scientists were saying that it had to be man-made. That there was no way a natural disease could ever lead to damage as extensive as this. They were calling it The Death Bringer, bringing more death than cancer ever could. The basic message was clear.
It was airborne.
It was man-made.
It was deadly.
The monsters could consume you cell by cell.
It was spreading, and there was absolutely no way to stop it.
After several days, we knew we couldn’t go outside, Martin would immediately catch the illness and I would be sucked into oblivion. We sat on the floor and devised a plan.
“We have no rations, the disease control documents are in the apartment, and the Death Bringers are raging on out there.” As if on cue, screams and inhumane noises echoed from the streets. I winced. “What I’m saying is that it isn’t safe for either of us to go out there.” He looked me directly in the eyes, deadly serious, “We started this, and we have to end it. I can’t risk losing you, and you can’t lose me.”
“Like you said, we have to end this. I’m already dying.” I stood and began my walk to the door. Martin grabbed my arm.
“Cecilia.” He swallowed the pain and looked at the ground. “Be careful. I love you.”
With that, I ran out. The journey home took about an hour. The longest hour of my life, and I had seen some endless pain for days on end. This was more terrifying than all of those experiences put together. I couldn’t catch the plague, but I had opened the door on endless ways to die. At the same time, Martin could be dying as I sprinted through the streets.
I avoided probably fifty Death Bringers as I pushed through. Screams echoed in my ears. The smell of acid burned my throat. The worst part was the darkness that seemed to cave in as the monster population increased. By the time I had reached the apartment and was on my way out, it had been determined that the oddities also consumed all forms of light.
And all forms of hope.
By the skin of my teeth, I struggled through the dark and made it home. Even my cellphone’s flashlight couldn’t penetrate the blackness. It was like swimming through a pool of ink with the smell of burning flesh and acid.
Bounding up the steps three at a time, I neglected to breathe, and collapsed in a heap at the top. The boxes I had been carrying were strewn about the floor. Hastily, I scooped them up and turned the corner to our lab.
I opened the door.
My breath caught in my throat.
The boxes fell to the floor.
Martin was hunched over screaming, clutching at the bulbous green veins in his neck. The transformation began. His head inverted itself and flailing, pellucid tentacles scraped their way through his skin. Black blood dripped down his neck and stirred with the sizzling, acid venom.
Martin was gone.
I broke down, but didn’t have much time to comprehend the situation. He stood, twitching and emitting an eerie green luminescence. The sporadic movement was entirely  unpredictable and more horrific than the monster's appearance. 
In a split second decision, I ran in the house, past the glowing shadow, and out onto the balcony. The horrors of the night were worse than what was inside, and I could barely see, but screams told me than more and more innocent victims were transforming on the streets below. I was murdering them. An unknown serial killer. I had harnessed the deadliest weapon a human could possess.
Ignorance. My ignorance had destroyed everything.
I acknowledged the beast’s presence behind me by sliding through it’s legs, finally having devised a plan. I began my frantic work in the kitchen. Mixing and firing chemicals in a reverse mixture. I knew what to do, but I wasn’t sure if it would work, shoving the hastily concocted mixture into the UV machine.
I couldn’t stop sobbing. I could hear the roars inching closer. What had I done? Why was I trying to survive? I’d be the last one on Earth! Curing one person wouldn’t stop the rest from perishing. I knew would die anyways! My cancerous arms were numb from exertion. I barely could move them to create the antidote I was trying to procure. The smoke I was making was extremely unlikely to work.
The microwave dinged. With shaking hands I removed it. To create the smoke, I’d need to use the methane lighter. It would probably kill me, but I didn’t care anymore.
Placing the container clumsily on the counter, I felt something. Freezing breath on my neck.
I turned.
My throat closed.
My pulse stopped.
Blood extravasated from my ears and nose.
The radioactive poison dripped down my face and onto my neck.
He was standing over me.
Not man nor monster. A hybrid. A work of a stubborn girl who only wished for glory.
Now he was gone, I was gone.
I felt my neck snap.
My vocal chords were fried from acid, and I couldn’t scream. I couldn’t express my pain.
I knew one thing for sure. I was gone.
At that realization, my vision tunneled into oblivion.                                                                                   
...

When I opened my eyes, I was in a field. A galaxy of shimmering stars glittered above me. I felt better than I ever had in my life. On my back in a bed of velvety grass, I realized that I was wearing a white cotton dress. The bloodied, acid burnt clothing I had been wearing was gone. My previously thin, scarred, tumorous arms were healed. All traces of myeloma had disappeared. Including my hair. My raven locks were back and entirely natural.
I had to be dead.
I stood, surprised by my own strength, and glanced around. There were people around me, looking as puzzled and misplaced as I felt. Others were helping them, seemingly welcoming them to a place they called home. Where was my helper? I turned to see him running at me.
Martin tackled me to the ground in a hug. He kissed me and I pulled away, tears streaming down my face. After realizing it was real, I pulled him into another hug.
After an hour of silent reuniting, we sat on the soft grass, gazing at the fantastical stars.
“Where are we?” I pondered.
“In The Disembodiment Realm.”
“What?”
“Another dimension, the place where the mentally disabled really are. The moment someone gains a disease that causes them to seemingly lose their mind or conscious presence on Earth, they come to the Disembodiment Realm. It’s a place where all those who appeared ignorant, mentally impaired or blind to the world come and live their true lives - the lives they deserve. Here, they can actually express their talents and genius minds.”
I wait for a moment in silent shock, looking around. All the monsters I had created were living the peaceful, peacemaking life they deserved. It made so much, yet so little, sense. “Why am I here then?”
He looked me in the eyes, “Because Cecilia, you’re a person who made a mistake that destroyed the world when all you were trying to do was save it. You are an extraordinarily peaceful weapon.”
“Oh.” I said, staring into the distance, “Nothing can harm us here?”
“Nothing.” He finalized blissfully.
“Good.” I said it and meant it. But I didn’t tell him about the monstrous shadow inching closer. I didn’t tell him the monster I had created was here.
The oddity.
My oddity.