She stopped less than a meter away.
This close, I could see the differences more clearly. The lines around her eyes that suggested decades of experience my mother hadn't lived. The slight otherworldly quality to her skin. The way she moved with a predator's grace.
This wasn't my mother.
But she had been, once. In another timeline. Another possibility.
"The entity has been playing this game for millions of years," she said. "Testing civilizations. Culling the weak. Elevating the strong. It sees humanity as raw material to be refined into something useful."
"And what do you see?"
"Potential. The same potential the entity sees. But I believe that potential should be cultivated, not harvested. Humanity should be allowed to evolve on its own terms. Not forced into a mold designed by something that doesn't understand what it means to be human."
"So you're what? The resistance?"
