The Final Countdown

“No!” I shook my head in disbelief, my mind rejecting everything I had just heard. “No! Tell me you’re lying,” I said, trying to laugh it off as a cruel joke.

But her silence, paired with the helpless gloom in her eyes, told me otherwise. She wasn’t lying. She had planned the day of my demise even before bringing me into this world.

“How could you do this to me, Mother?” I mumbled, my voice trembling as my lips quivered. A silent sob escaped me. I didn’t even know if I should call her ‘Mother’ anymore-not after hearing how cruelly she had condemned her own child.

“I am sorry, my child,” she said in a pleading voice. “I had no other choice but to sacrifice you to save the world.’

A tear escaped my eye as flashes of my life flickered before me like a relentless movie reel. Memories played on repeat, and I wanted so badly to rewind to the part before I met Zander-before I fell in love. Because now, no matter how hard I tried, I couldn’t imagine leaving him to bear the unbearable pain of my absence.

And… what about my son, Austin? My unborn baby? It hadn’t even been given a chance to come into the world, yet it was fated to end with me all because my mother was selfish enough to sacrifice her own blood.