The screen flickered again, its dim, ghostly glow casting shifting shadows across the darkened chamber. It illuminated the tension in Alex's face, the rigid set of his jaw, and the subtle tremor in his fingers as he stared at the woman on the screen.
The silence around him was absolute, save for the faint hum of the transmission, a relic of the past clawing its way into the present. His mother's image, slightly grainy from time and compression, was still achingly clear.
Then, her voice filled the void.
Soft. Gentle. Yet laden with an unfathomable weight, like a whisper from the past threading its way through his ribs, tightening with every breath.
"It's not that we didn't try, darling."
Alex's breath caught.
There was no anger in her tone, no desperation—only exhaustion, woven into every syllable like threads of inevitability. It was the voice of someone who had fought until her bones cracked and struggled against fate until nothing was left to give.
