Chapter 584: Earth: Regret

When Chris reached the hospital, what he saw was discouraging.

The little goddess that Ivan loved so much was hospitalized, unconscious over the bed, while being wrapped in all sorts of tech so she could live a bit longer.

Ivan was looking at her with melancholy, as he seemed that everything in his life was lost.

"Ivan..."

"Chris...?"

"I..."

"Hah... Isn't it ironic?"

"Huh?"

Ivan looked at Chris with a desperate smile, as if he was slowly turning insane out of grief and frustration.

"You go to war, risking your life all the time, but you never go through any of the pain I do..." said Ivan.

"What?" asked Chris.

"Meanwhile, I decided to stay in here working as a scientist because... I didn't wanted to lose things... I didn't wanted to go through tragedies..." sighed Ivan.

"Ivan, that's...!" muttered Chris.

"But at the end, I am the one that suffers the most, isn't it?" asked Ivan, as he began to cry desperately.

"..."

Chris didn't knew what to say.

He had gone through many loses himself.

But nothing as big as losing his wife... and then the imminent loss of his child.

He never had such things to begin with.

While he fought and lost soldiers, Ivan stayed in the safety of the country, and ended losing everything dear to him.

Was life unfair?

Life was always unfair.

No matter what we do to change it, it will always be unfair.

No matter where you're born, or how you're born, no matter what you are, or what you become.

In all our lives, we'll one day think that life is unfair to us.

Because even if you're born rich, or even if you're born talented, or even if you're born with power... there is something absolute to all people.

Death.

And death comes to all, without failing, and without faltering a single second.

Even if you lived your entire life in luxury, you'll eventually lose all the people you love.

And at the end, you'll also lose your own life.

These were the last thoughts within Ivan, as he held the little hand of his precious daughter.

In those last days, his daughter sometimes woke up.

She was having a strong pain in her head, so she was always given a lot of drugs to calm her down, and always felt dizzy.

Chris learned that Miranda always had the untreated brain cancer for a long time, but it was only discovered very late when she began to present symptoms, such as nosebleed out of nowhere, strong headaches that made her cry out of pain, and more.

When they checked her out, they found a massive tumor spreading across her entire brain, rooting deep into it, it was impossible to take it out, it was slowly taking over her entire little brain.

The cancerous tumor seemed like a curse into his little girl...

Ivan later on learned that Maria had also presented a similar thing in the past, but was treated at a early age so they were able to extract the tumor before it grew bigger.

But it was too late.

"If only... I could have... noticed it earlier... Why? Why didn't you told me, Miranda..." cried Ivan.

"Papa... Pa... pa..."

"Nngh... Don't die... I don't want you to die!"

"Papa... Don't... cry..."

"Miranda..."

"Papa... I love... you..."

Ivan looked into his little girl's eyes...

Such a strong sorrow... such a strong frustration...

Why?

Why?!

Why did all he had even loved had to leave him behind?!

Why...

"I am sorry..." cried Ivan.

"Don't be sorry... Papa... I will go back to mama... And... And I can be with mama... right? We'll wait for you..." said Miranda.

"You're too young to say such a thing..." sighed Ivan.

The words that a child should never ever said... were muttered from her little mouth.

But Ivan didn't wanted that to happen... He wanted to find a way to cure her cancer... somehow, there should be a way.

With the technology of the government and his scientific knowledge... there should be something, something that could allow him to help her...

He delved into his own studies whenever his girl slept, sometimes when she woke up, her father wouldn't be there for her because he was too concentrated into working in a way to save her.

The girl hoped her father would stop working for once, and stay at her side...

"Papa... Where are you?"

...

Ivan continued trying to find ways to cure cancer, but realized that cancerous cells were not even a disease, most of the time they were merely provoked by the body itself, random mutated cells that wouldn't work as properly as the others, creating a chain reaction and infecting other cells, ending up making the body malfunction.

He realized that it wasn't because of a disease that had to be healed, it was the human body itself, which was too weak, and filled with all sorts of weaknesses, with all sorts of ways for it to kill itself.

He couldn't help but wonder... could there be a way to improve the human body?

To make it strong, near perfect, so cancerous cells would never grow again?

And he moved into a project that the government had scratched long ago.

A project that used a special virus capable of rewriting an infected DNA, and slowly turn them into superhumans, rewriting their DNA and making them into beings powerful enough to withstand everything,

A project that could only be said to be mere fantasy... but for a man who was about to lost it all, there wasn't any other alternative.

However, before he could ever finish, Miranda passed away.

When he learned this, immense regret took over him.

He realized his daughter had died without him being at his side.

"What... have been doing?!"

He realized how stupid he was, how imbecile he was!

Why?

Why did he obsessed so much over these stupid things when he could had spent the last days of his daughter with him at her side!

"Miranda... Miran... da...!"