The screen flickered again, briefly fragnted as if even the technology hesitated to deliver what ca next. Her image stabilized, though her voice had grown quieter... heavier. A storm cloud was hiding just behind her words.
"If this particular video is playing..." she paused. Her lips trembled. Her throat worked around unspoken grief before her composure cracked utterly.
"That would an your siblings didn’t make it, right?"
Her voice broke—splintering into a whisper that cut deeper than any scream.
And with those words, pieces inside Alex shattered further, a piece of him slipping into the void he’d tried so hard to wall off.
She inhaled shakily, trying to collect herself, but even through the dim projection of the holo-display, the despair etched across her face was raw, undeniable, haunting—a kind of sorrow that no amount of calculation could prepare for.
Her following words ca like wind through the ruins—soft, mournful, almost drowned out by the static hum of the console.
"I’m sure you noticed the shapes on the console. It’s a genetic lock, programd to play certain videos only if conditions are t."
"As each of the jewelry I gave you is directly tied to your genes"
She wiped a tear from her cheek, but more followed—silent and relentless—trails of grief that glistened in the projection’s light, painting her face with mourning.
"I know... I know it’s wrong. But I knew from the start the chances of all of you surviving were slim."
Her shoulders sagged beneath the weight of those words. Her gaze drifted downward, no longer able to et the cara—no longer able to face the unthinkable.
"I calculated everything—every possible outco I could think of. Spent sleepless nights running simulations, chasing a reality where all of you lived. But there were too many variables, too many unknowns. I couldn’t just have you all wait, hiding in the dark, not knowing when the storm would break. Even with our foresight..."
She swallowed hard, and Alex saw her knuckles whitening as her fingers clenched in her lap.
"Even knowing they’d co for us... we never knew when exactly."
Her voice hitched again, but she pressed on, forcing the words through a throat lined with anguish.
"So I created these recordings. One for each of you... in case only one survived. So for two survivors. So for all three."
Alex’s eyes widened. His heart slamd in his chest, a drumbeat of disbelief.
She looked into the cara again, her voice a ghost of itself.
"Do you know what it ans," she whispered, "to make videos for your children... knowing one day they might watch them alone?"
Her hands curled into fists—tight, trembling. Knuckles pale beneath the projection light.
"Knowing you might be choosing to sacrifice them... for a world that doesn’t deserve them?"
Tears stread freely now. She made no effort to wipe them away. They ran unchecked, like the mories that haunted her. Like the weight of every scenario, she had failed to prevent.
"You are strong. All of you were. But strength..." her voice faltered, barely holding on, "...strength doesn’t always an survival."
Alex’s breath ca in short, ragged bursts.
The sound of her voice.
The tremble in her hands.
The look in her eyes.
It tore through him, raw and rciless—like razors beneath the skin, slicing through the numbness he’d built to survive.
Her face froze mid-expression—sorrow carved into digital stasis—as the recording paused.
And in that frozen second, the silence scread louder than anything.
Then—
He snapped.
A guttural cry tore from his throat as he drove his fist into the stone floor.
Once.
Crack.
Twice.
Crack!
Again.
Again.
Blood sared across the console, and across the floor, dripping from his knuckles like lted rage. But he didn’t stop.
He couldn’t.
The pain was nothing.
Compared to this?
It was nothing.
"Damn it!" he roared, the words clawing from sowhere deeper than voice alone.
"DAMN IT!"
Each blow was a scream. Each scream, a plea. A desperate, hopeless plea to undo the past.
To rewrite the ending.
To make it fair.
"Why didn’t you fight? Why didn’t you run?! Why didn’t you take us and run?!"
Cracks radiated outward from his fists like a spiderweb-like the fragnted pieces of his world.
He slumped forward, forehead pressed against blood-slick stone, body shaking, chest heaving.
For a long, broken mont, he stayed like that.
And then—
The video resud.
Her face returned to the display. Shoulders trembling. Tears are still falling. A mirror of his sorrow.
His tears blurred the world. Hot. Bitter. Unstoppable. But seeing her—seeing the ache in her expression—quieted the storm inside him, if only for a heartbeat.
He wiped his face with the back of his hand—blood and tears saring together, war paint forged from agony.
He couldn’t hate her.
No matter how much it hurt.
She had tried.
Tried to save them.
Tried to save sothing.
Her composure began to return. Slowly. Reluctantly. But it returned.
She straightened. She wiped her face with a shaking hand. Her jaw tightened, resolved to cut through the sorrow like steel through silk.
"Out of all the scenarios I ran, all the outcos I calculated..." Her voice steadied, even as the grief still bled beneath it, "This was the one I didn’t want to happen."
She looked into the cara again. No longer trembling.
And sohow... that made it worse.
"If you’re watching this video alone..."
A beat of silence.
"Then you were the only one who survived."
Another silence—longer. Heavier.
"And with that mindset of yours..." her eyes narrowed, voice sharpening, "...you’ll only cause more chaos in your pursuit of revenge."
The words landed like blades.
There was no warmth in her voice now. No softness.
Only truth.
And a quiet fury that shimred behind her tear-streaked eyes—
A buried storm, finally beginning to stir.
....
Her eyes stayed locked on the lens now. No more trembling. No more apologies. Only a mother—weathered by war, burned by grief—speaking to the storm she’d once cradled in her arms.
"You might not have realized it yet..." she began, her voice low, asured. Each word dropped like a stone into still water, rippling outward with purpose. "But I’m your mother."
She leaned forward slightly, the movent subtle, but full of gravity—as if dragging herself through the pain to reach him.
"And I know each of my children better than anyone else."
Her hands, resting in her lap, tightened—fingers curling into the fabric of her robes like claws barely sheathed. She wasn’t angry. She was honest. And that honesty carried the weight of prophecy.
"If either of your siblings had survived alongside you..." Her voice faltered, just a breath. A glimpse of pain welled in her eyes again, but she pushed through it, her jaw tightening. "...I would’ve been relieved."
A shadow passed over her face, cast by a flicker in the holo-display—glitching slightly as if the very image struggled to hold together beneath the force of her words.
"Because I know they could’ve placed a chain on that mind of yours."
Her lips parted, trembled, then curved into a fragile, almost bitter smile. Not mocking. Just broken.
"Your brother—Logan—he’s always had that hero complex. Even as a child, he’d throw himself in front of danger just because soone else was crying." Her eyes softened, the mory flickering behind them like candlelight. "He’s older now. Stronger. Wiser. But that mindset? That selfish, noble need to save everyone never left him."
She exhaled slowly, her voice growing quieter, almost like she was talking to herself now.
"That kind of heart... it would’ve anchored you. Balanced you. Made you hesitate before crossing lines you won’t be able to uncross."
Her fingers brushed beneath her eye, catching a single tear before it could fall. But others soon followed—slow, shining streaks that ran down her cheeks unchallenged.
"And your sister..." she continued voice catching again. "She might not chase the spotlight like your brother. Might not wear the word ’hero’ on her chest. But her soul... her soul burns when she sees injustice."
Her eyes lifted, glassy and shimring in the projection’s faint blue glow.
"She would have stood in your path. She would have argued. Pleaded. Held your hand back even when you didn’t want her to."
A silence settled—dense and suffocating. Then her eyes narrowed, lips pressing into a line.
"But you..."
She let the word hang. Heavy. Final. Like a sentence passed in judgnt.
"You were born with the mind of a villain."
Her head tilted slightly, not in scorn—but in recognition as if naming a truth that hurt her more than it ever could him.
"Not evil," she added softly. "Not heartless. But unrelenting. Focused. Cold, when it matters most."
Her voice deepened with a quiet intensity—like thunder beneath the horizon.
"You don’t care about the chaos left in your wake... only that you reach your goal. Even if the world burns for it."
The holo-image adjusted again, the cara closing in just enough to fra her face—every line, every tear, every crack in her armor visible now. Her eyes glead not with judgnt, but with fear.
"And that," she said, almost whispering, "is why you scare the most."
She didn’t blink.
She didn’t look away.
A mother... staring into the heart of what her son could beco.
Reviews
All reviews (0)