Is That Mom

Part 6 of Chapter 11

Chapter 11:

Unraveling the Final Threads

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Part 6:

Uncovering His Mother’s Final Message

The corridors seemed to narrow as Ethan moved deeper into the heart of the facility. Each step took more effort, as though the air itself thickened around him, weighing down on his shoulders. He had hoped—foolishly—that his journey would lead to closure, to something that would make sense of everything he’d uncovered. But now, with each revelation, the truth only seemed to twist further out of his grasp.

He reached the end of the hallway, where a door stood slightly ajar, different from the others—less pristine, as though deliberately hidden. His pulse quickened as he pushed it open and stepped inside. The room was smaller than the others he had explored, more intimate, but its contents immediately caught his attention: a single desk, scattered with papers, and a monitor that flickered faintly on the far side of the room.

Ethan’s breath caught in his throat as he moved closer. His eyes locked onto the screen, where a recording sat queued up, the title unmistakable—his mother’s name.

His heart thudded in his chest as he reached for the keyboard, his hands trembling. A part of him didn’t want to press play, didn’t want to hear her voice again. But he had come too far to turn back now. With a shaky breath, he hit the key.

The screen flickered for a moment before his mother’s face appeared, pale and sharp in the sterile lighting of the recording. Her expression was calm, detached, but there was something weary in her eyes that Ethan hadn’t seen before.

“Ethan,” her voice cut through the silence, calm and clinical. It sent a shock through him, hearing her again after everything. “If you’re watching this, then I’m no longer there to explain myself. I’m sure you’ve found out a great deal by now. And I know you have questions. I owe you answers.”

Ethan’s stomach twisted as she continued, her voice steady and logical. There was no warmth, no regret in her tone—only purpose.

“I won’t deny the pain my work has caused,” she said. “The suffering. I understand that, on the surface, what we did here looks monstrous. But it was necessary, Ethan. You have to understand that. The world is on the edge of collapse—ecological disasters, global instability, threats to our very survival. Humanity is not prepared for what’s coming. The project was meant to bridge that gap.”

Ethan’s hands curled into fists at his sides, his heart pounding in his chest. Her voice, so cold, so detached—it didn’t match the woman he had known growing up. She was talking about suffering and destruction like it was a calculated trade, a necessary evil for some imagined future. But all he could think about were the experiments he had uncovered, the people who had been sacrificed for her vision.

“I knew the risks,” she continued, her eyes unflinching as she stared into the camera. “I knew what it would cost. But sometimes, the cost is worth it. We were playing with forces we barely understood, pushing the boundaries of what it means to be human, but it had to be done. The experiments were brutal, yes, but they were designed to create something more—a stronger, more adaptable form of humanity, one that could survive the storms ahead.”

Ethan’s throat tightened as her words hit him like a hammer. A stronger, more adaptable form of humanity. The justification felt so hollow, so removed from the reality of what had happened in those labs. Her voice remained clinical, almost robotic, as if she had long ago distanced herself from the moral implications of her actions.

“We didn’t have time for hesitation,” she said, her tone sharpening. “If we didn’t act, we’d be condemning the future. You, Ethan. You were part of the reason I kept going. I wanted to create a world where you could survive, where your children could survive. That’s what all of this was for.”

Ethan’s chest tightened, a bitter taste rising in his throat. He could hardly process the words. His mother had justified these atrocities in his name—in the name of some abstract future. She had been willing to trade away countless lives, to turn human beings into experiments, all for this grand, cold ideal.

Her voice softened, just for a moment. “I know you might hate me for this. I accept that. But one day, you’ll understand why it had to be done. The sacrifices were for a future we could barely imagine.”

The screen went dark. The room fell silent.

Ethan stood there, frozen, as her final words echoed in his mind. He had expected this moment to bring clarity, but instead, it left him hollow. Her justifications, her belief in the greater good, rang empty in his ears. The pain and suffering she had caused, the lives destroyed—it was all there, plain as day, and no amount of logic or cold reasoning could erase it.

He sank to his knees, the weight of it all crashing down on him. His mother—the woman who had raised him, who had cared for him—had become a stranger. The love he still felt for her battled fiercely with the revulsion, the anger, the sheer horror at what she had done. He wanted to scream, to break something, but all he could do was sit there, staring at the now-blank screen.

The room seemed to close in around him, the air heavy with the echoes of her voice. She had believed in what she was doing—believed it enough to sacrifice everything, including her own humanity. But Ethan couldn’t bring himself to believe that. He couldn’t reconcile the woman in the recording with the mother he had known. She had crossed a line, a line that should never have been crossed, and no amount of cold logic or justification could make it right.

Tears blurred his vision, but he didn’t wipe them away. He let them fall, his body trembling with the weight of the betrayal. The conflict inside him tore at his heart—love and hatred, sorrow and anger, all tangled together in a mess he couldn’t begin to untangle.

She had been trying to save him. And in doing so, she had destroyed everything.

For a long time, Ethan stayed there, kneeling in the dim room, his mother’s final words haunting him. He had come searching for answers, but all he had found were more questions. Questions that he wasn’t sure he could ever answer.

But one thing was clear: the mother he had loved was gone, lost long before this recording had ever been made. And in her place was someone he barely recognized—someone who had been willing to burn the world for a future he never asked for.

He stood slowly, his legs shaky, his heart heavy. There was no going back now. Only forward. But as he left the room, the burden of her legacy weighed on him like a stone.