#ugh.

my brother in christ it is 9 pm.

Not because you wanted it to be.

Because you learned that needing something from someone else was a dangerous position to occupy.

People leave.

People fail.

People become ghosts while still breathing.

You learned that long before Raccoon City taught you the language of monsters.

So you built yourself accordingly.

Sharp. Capable. Difficult to break.

You became the person who could walk into the worst places imaginable and still find a way back out.

They called it selfishness.

Perhaps they were right.

Perhaps they were wrong.

The words matter less than what they created.

A fortress.

A very impressive one.

But every fortress has a weakness.

Not the cracks in the stone.

Not the gates left unguarded.

Something far more dangerous.

Something invited inside.

Her.

Grace.

Such a small thing.

A fragile thing.

A life that did not ask to inherit the weight of everything that came before her.

And yet you look at her and see something impossible.

Not a responsibility.

Not a burden.

Not another person who needs you to survive.

A choice.

That is what frightens you.

Because you chose her.

No corporation assigned her to you.

No mission required you to protect her.

No disaster forced your hand.

For once, the decision was entirely yours.

And things that are chosen freely can be lost freely.

That is the cruelty you understand better than most.

You can fight a monster.

You can expose a conspiracy.

You can drag the truth into the light even when powerful people bury it beneath decades of lies.

But how do you fight history?

How do you fight a name that refuses to die?

Spencer.

A name written into the world like a wound.

A legacy built from arrogance, obsession, and the belief that humanity was something to be perfected rather than understood.

You know better than most that monsters do not always look like monsters.

Sometimes they wear suits.

Sometimes they speak softly.

Sometimes they leave behind institutions instead of corpses.

And sometimes their greatest cruelty is not what they create.

It is what remains after they are gone.

You escaped Raccoon City.

You escaped the worst of Umbrella's shadow.

You spent years dragging the truth into places where people would rather look away.

But now there is a child carrying your name.

A child standing near the edge of a history she never asked for.

And that is where the fear begins.

Not that Grace will be hurt.

Not only that.

The deeper fear is that someone will look at her and see what others once saw in you.

Not a person.

A possibility.

A resource.

A continuation of something that should have ended.

You fought so hard to prove that people were more than what was done to them.

That survival could become something better.

That the cycle could be broken.

But cycles are patient things.

They wait.

They circle.

They return wearing new faces.

And sometimes the hardest battle is not destroying the monster.

It is convincing yourself that it no longer owns the future.

You have spent so long protecting Grace from the world.

From corporations. From scientists. From the ghosts of men who believed themselves gods.

But here is the question that follows you into the dark.

If Spencer's shadow reached for her, if that old, rotting hand stretched across generations and tried to claim what you love, would you trust that she is strong enough to stand?

Or would you become exactly what you spent your life fighting against?

A protector who forgets the difference between shielding someone and keeping them contained.

Because love can be a shelter.

But even shelters have doors.

And every door, eventually, must allow someone to leave."

You don't know what it is about your parents' generation, but for some reason, most of them hate their kids. Not just didn't want them, but actively hate them. Want to kill them. See them hurt.

Your friends are like the old parable with apostles and that carpenter who was killed for being too kind, a band of rogues and thieves, or craftspeople, poor people, at the mercy of your parents' generation.

That hate them. They hate their children. Maybe that's why you took her in, at least, part of the reason. You wanted to prove that it was possible to love something even though love never came naturally to you. Even that's selfish, and stupid that you would chalk all of that up to a single decision like that. It was a lot more simple. Grace needed help. You could get her out.

So you did. And... you liked being Mom. A lot. And you can't imagine people who don't like being "Mom" at all. They probably never got a piece of art from their kid. Or had an argument with a five year old that had to be resolved or both of you were going to go to bed crying. Sure. It wasn't easy. Nothing in your life had ever been easy, so that's no different.

You really loved her. Like anybody who actually loved their kids, you wanted your kid to grow up capable to handle... everything, anything. Sometimes you were worried you scared her with the lessons on how to handle danger, but you two made it into a game. Everything was a lesson until the end.

The end, when you shot a guy point blank to defend the both of you. And you realized it didn't affect you at all how killing another person is supposed to.

You've killed too many soul-less corpses. Grace called it a murder. Two murders.

You knew you were going to die then and there. If not by whoever was after you, then by the cops that would come in, guns blazing, and likely take you out. One lesson didn't sink in far enough: the cops aren't responsible for protecting you. They're more liable to kill you.

You know what to do in case of emergency, Grace.

But this was it for you.

Like every parent who cared about their kid, you hoped you did enough to make her brave enough to defend herself, and maybe, just maybe, live happier than you ever did. You hoped she would be ready when hell came knocking at her door. There was only so much you could do. You couldn't fight every battle for her. Grace had to learn strength and nobody else can teach her that, but her.

She can be strong. She'll be okay, even if she's scared. And there are still people to watch over her when you go.

Maybe that's why you were okay with what came next, your arms hanging as things began to burn. Two murders, huh?

I'm so sorry, you think, because you know you're dead the moment something hits your neck. It's all on her now. She'll be okay.