Is That Mom

Part 5 of Chapter 13

Chapter 13:

The Final Countdown

—

Part 5:

The Truth is Revealed

Ethan’s vision blurred as the gas continued to fill the room, his lungs burning with each shallow breath. The leader remained calm behind his desk, his fingers still poised over the control panel, watching Ethan’s every move with cold detachment. Ethan’s legs wobbled beneath him, his strength fading, but he refused to collapse. Not yet. Not until he had answers.

“Stop,” Ethan gasped, struggling to find his voice. “If… if you’re going to kill me… at least… tell me why. Tell me… the truth about my mother.”

The leader’s hand hesitated over the panel, and for a brief moment, Ethan saw a flicker of something in his eyes—regret, perhaps, or something akin to it. Then, with a slow exhale, the leader pressed another button, and the gas began to dissipate, the hissing sound fading away as the vents reversed. Fresh air rushed into the room, and Ethan collapsed to his knees, greedily sucking in the oxygen.

But the relief was fleeting. The leader’s next words cut through him like a knife.

“The truth?” the leader said, his voice almost gentle now. “The truth, Ethan, is that your mother wasn’t the woman you think she was.”

Ethan’s heart pounded in his chest, his breath still ragged from the gas. “What are you talking about?” he demanded, his voice hoarse. “She was a victim. She never wanted to be part of this. You took her from me—”

“No,” the leader interrupted, his tone sharp but controlled. “You’re wrong. She wasn’t a victim. Your mother was one of us. She believed in what we were doing. She believed in the mission—just as I do.”

Ethan stared at him, disbelief flooding his senses. “No… you’re lying.”

The leader shook his head slowly, his gaze steady. “I have no reason to lie to you, Ethan. What would be the point? You’re already here. You’ve already uncovered enough to destroy us if you want to. But before you make any rash decisions, you need to understand the full scope of what we’re trying to accomplish—and why your mother was so important to it.”

Ethan’s mind raced, his thoughts a chaotic jumble. This couldn’t be true. His mother had been a kind, compassionate woman. She had cared for him, loved him—she would never have willingly been part of something so horrific. She had to have been coerced, manipulated. But the way the leader spoke, the certainty in his voice, it made Ethan’s stomach churn with doubt.

“You’re lying,” Ethan repeated, though the conviction in his voice had faltered. “She… she wouldn’t have done this.”

The leader sighed, a faint trace of weariness in his eyes. “I understand that this is difficult for you to hear. But the truth is often harder to accept than the lies we tell ourselves to cope with loss. Your mother wasn’t just a scientist who was caught up in our work. She was one of the lead architects of our plans.”

Ethan shook his head, stumbling to his feet. “No. No, that’s not possible. She… she didn’t believe in any of this. She wouldn’t have—”

“She believed,” the leader interrupted softly. “In fact, it was her belief that drove her to make the choices she did. She believed that our work would save humanity from an inevitable collapse—a disaster that no one else could see coming. She understood the sacrifices that needed to be made, and she was willing to make them.”

The words slammed into Ethan with the force of a sledgehammer. His legs buckled, and he reached out to steady himself against the nearest surface. The room seemed to tilt around him, the sterile walls closing in as the leader’s words echoed in his ears.

No. It couldn’t be true.

“I don’t believe you,” Ethan whispered, though he wasn’t sure if he was trying to convince the leader or himself. His mother had been a victim—hadn’t she? The thought of her willingly participating in the atrocities the organization had committed was too much to bear. His entire life had been shaped by her absence, by the belief that she had been taken from him unjustly, that she had been a casualty in a war she hadn’t wanted to fight.

And now, to learn that she had been one of the architects of that war? That she had knowingly participated in the horrors he had uncovered?

The leader moved from behind his desk, stepping toward Ethan with slow, deliberate steps. “I know this is painful for you,” he said, his voice soft but unyielding. “But it’s the truth. Your mother was a brilliant scientist, and she saw the potential in our work. She believed that the sacrifices we made would prevent an even greater catastrophe from befalling humanity. She made hard choices, yes, but she did so because she believed it was necessary.”

Ethan felt his heart constrict painfully in his chest. His mother… His mother had been one of them. She hadn’t been a victim—she had been a willing participant. The realization hit him with the force of a tidal wave, and he felt himself drowning in it, struggling to breathe beneath the weight of the truth.

“How… how could she do that?” Ethan whispered, his voice breaking. “How could she believe that what you were doing was right?”

The leader’s gaze was steady, almost sympathetic. “She wasn’t the person you thought she was, Ethan. She was stronger, more pragmatic. She loved you, yes, but she understood that there are things more important than individual lives. She believed in a future where humanity could thrive, even if it meant making impossible choices in the present.”

Tears welled up in Ethan’s eyes, blurring his vision. He wanted to scream, to shout, to rage against the leader and the twisted truth he had just revealed. But all he could feel was a deep, hollow emptiness, a crushing sense of betrayal that swallowed everything else.

His mother—the woman he had spent years searching for, the woman he had idolized, the woman whose absence had shaped his entire life—had been complicit. She had believed in the organization’s goals, had actively participated in their plans. She hadn’t been a victim. She had been one of them.

Ethan’s chest heaved with sobs he could barely contain. The betrayal, the grief, the overwhelming sense of loss tore through him like a storm. He had come all this way, sacrificed everything, to find the truth—and now that he had it, it was worse than anything he could have imagined.

“She was trying to save you,” the leader said quietly, his voice almost kind. “She wanted to protect you from the truth. But in the end, she couldn’t.”

Ethan squeezed his eyes shut, his entire body trembling. His mother had believed she was doing the right thing. But how could she have justified the countless lives lost, the destruction, the pain?

The leader stepped back, watching as Ethan struggled to process the weight of the revelation. “Now you understand, Ethan,” he said, his voice low. “You’re at the crossroads she once stood at. You can choose to continue down this path and expose everything, or you can walk away and accept that some truths are better left buried. The choice is yours.”

Ethan stood there, shaking, tears streaming down his face. The choice was before him, but the truth had already shattered him.