The screen flickers slightly before stabilizing, her voice carrying through the chamber, steady yet tinged with something rare—regret.
"Alex… if you're watching this, then I'm dead."
She inhaled softly, her expression unreadable for a moment before she lowered her gaze. When she lifted her eyes again, they held a weight heavier than Alex had ever imagined.
"First… I need to ask for your forgiveness."
The words sent a strange jolt through Alex's chest.
"Not for dying. Not for leaving you alone."
Her jaw tightened slightly as if she despised the words coming from her lips.
"But for making a choice you might never understand. A choice that… I know it will make you hate me."
A hollow ache twisted in his stomach.
"We should have stayed," she continued. "We should have fought beside you. But instead, I chose something else. A selfish solution, one that meant abandoning you to walk this path alone."
Alex's fists clenched at his sides.
"But if we hadn't… the cost would have been far worse."
Her voice hardened, and the sadness in her gaze sharpened into something else. Resolve.
"The attack on our clan? We knew it was coming."
Alex's breath caught.
"Your father and I—we saw the signs. We knew the other Higher Clans wouldn't allow us to keep our power. Not after what we have accomplished and the talent we currently have in nursing. Not after what we had built."
A cold chill swept over Alex, his heart pounding in his ears as his mother's words continued.
"We had two choices, Alex."
Her fingers curled into fists at her sides.
"The first? We fight. We unleash everything we've built, and hidden, and go to war against the other Higher Clans. And if we had done that… we might have won."
Her eyes darkened.
"But at what cost?"
Alex's breath felt shallow, his body frozen as she continued.
"The world is already fragile. Humanity is barely holding its ground against the magical beasts. If the Higher Clans fought each other, it wouldn't be a war—but a massacre. One that would leave the world too broken to heal."
She exhaled, shaking her head.
"The magical beasts would use that weakness to strike. And humanity, still bleeding from our war, wouldn't survive the next one."
The realization settled into Alex's bones like ice.
"After much thinking, your father and I made the only choice we could."
She straightened, her gaze locking onto him through the screen.
"We chose to lose."
….
Alex felt like the air had been sucked out of the room.
"We chose to lose."
His mother's words echoed in his mind but didn't make sense. They couldn't.
His breath came in short, uneven gasps as the weight of what she had just said crashed down on him.
"No…" The word barely left his lips, a whisper against the hum of the machines around him. His legs trembled, and he staggered back a step before he could stop himself.
They knew.
His mother and father—they knew the attack was coming.
They saw it.
And instead of fighting, instead of retaliating with the full force of their strength, they chose to die?
A sharp, bitter laugh clawed its way up Alex's throat, but it died before it could escape. His vision blurred as something hot stung his eyes. His knees buckled, and he barely caught himself on the cold floor.
His fingers dug into the pristine metal beneath him, his body shaking violently. The pressure in his chest built until it threatened to crush him.
"Why?" The word came out hoarse, raw with emotion.
Nyxara remained silent.
"Why should it be you?" His voice cracked, his hands curling into fists against the ground. "Why should it be our family that dies for the world?"
Tears slipped down his face, but he didn't care.
"The world doesn't deserve it!" he shouted. His voice, filled with anguish and rage, echoed through the chamber. "None of them deserve it!, and now you expect me to believe that your death—Dad's death—was necessary for them?"
His chest heaved. His nails scraped against the floor. His body was screaming at him to move, to do something, but nothing was left to fight. No enemy to cut down. No battle left to win.
Only the truth.
And it was killing him.
Nyxara watched him, her golden eyes filled with shame and helplessness. But she didn't speak. She didn't move.
She couldn't.
Because there was nothing to say.
Alex gritted his teeth, his sobs ragged and unrestrained. His shoulders shook, his body curling inward as though he could somehow protect himself from the unbearable ache hollowing out his chest.
"You should have fought," he whispered brokenly. "You should have lived."
The monitor flickers slightly, his mother's still image staring back at him—calm, unyielding, and infuriatingly prepared for this moment.
But she wasn't here.
She wasn't alive.
And no matter how much he screamed, no matter how much he cried, nothing would change that.
So he wept.
And Nyxara, silent and still, could do nothing but watch.