No one calls it that at first.
They use softer language.
Careful phrases.
Words that slide instead of strike.
Resource limitation.
Unavoidable delay.
Competing urgencies.
But beneath every report, every conversation, every long silence, the truth presses harder than any euphemism can hold.
They could not save everyone.
And this time, they knew it before the choice was made.
The warning arrives in fragments.
A sickness spreading along three distant routes at once.
Flooding in the lowlands after an early thaw.
A supply failure that intersects both crises but cannot reach both in time.
None of these alone would have broken the system.
Together, they do.
Maps fill with markers. Timelines overlap. Calculations sharpen into inevitability.
Rowan is the first to say it out loud.
