Lily should have never been so selfish.

How could she, in the most crucial moment, step aside for him? To let him—cold, calculating, and merciless—snuff out the life of her own child, her own son, her blood, her soul. How could a mother’s love, something said to be unbreakable, fail when it mattered the most?

The choice she made—or didn’t make—was a haunting scar, one that whispered through the memories of everyone who had known her. She had a chance, they said. A chance to save him. A chance to fight, to stand between her son and the monster who sought to destroy him. But she didn’t.

The whispers grew louder with time, swelling into accusations. People called her selfish. Weak. A failure. She could’ve saved a child, they said, a boy who might have grown into something extraordinary. She could’ve saved more than just him—she could’ve saved the world. He might’ve been a savior, a beacon of hope. But instead, the light had been snuffed out before it had the chance to shine.

They wondered what held her back. Was it fear? Was it doubt? Or was it some darker, inexplicable weakness that no one dared to name? The questions lingered like ghosts, haunting those who tried to make sense of what she had done—or what she hadn’t.

And in the end, the truth didn’t matter. What mattered was what remained. A child, gone. A world, lost. And Lily, remembered not as a hero or even as a martyr, but as the mother who didn’t fight back. A choice so simple to imagine, so instinctual to most, yet so absent when it counted most.