Rhea's POV :
There was blood under my nails again.
Not his.
Mine.
The skin on my palms had split from clenching too tightly when the file decrypted.
The room was too quiet.
And Adrian hadn't stirred.
Not even when I whispered his name.
Not even when I shook him.
Maybe part of him knew what I was about to see.
Maybe part of him didn't want to be awake for it.
---
The drive Caleb gave me was black. No brand. No serial. No light.
It pulsed when I plugged it in—like a heartbeat.
Or a bomb.
The terminal buzzed. Fizzed. The screen flickered to life in dim, sterile blue.
Then:
> ACCESSING FILE: ZETA.RESIDUAL.PROTOCOL_OMEGA SUBJECT: V-05 – RHEA VIRELLE CLASSIFIED: ECHO-NULL, GENESIS FAULT
My throat closed.
My hands didn't stop.
---
> "Unit V-05 was never a subject."
"Unit V-05 was the weapon built to end all subjects."
"Emotional architecture was not an error. It was bait."
"Objective: Lure A-03 into breach of code. Trigger collapse."
"Rhea Virelle is not corrupted."
"She is corruption made flesh."
I couldn't breathe.
Because this wasn't a revelation.
This was a sentence.
A prophecy carved in sterile algorithms and blood.
> "When love becomes anomaly, activate Rhea."
"When A-03 remembers too much, activate Rhea."
"When the system begins to feel, activate Rhea."
"Let her unmake them."
I laughed.
Ugly.
Hollow.
> "You didn't design me to be loved," I whispered.
"You designed me to destroy what love touched."
---
The screen pulsed again.
New line.
> MERGE OPTION ACTIVE.
> [MERGE: SUBJECT A-03 + V-05 = SYSTEM EXTINCTION] [RESTRAINT: SUBJECT V-05. ISOLATE. RESET TO CLEAN SLATE]
There was no middle.
There was no choice.
Either I broke the system…
Or they lobotomized me again.
They'd done it before.
I remembered now.
The chair. The straps. The cold metal that slid behind my eyes. The moment I screamed and forgot why.
---
I looked at Adrian.
Still unconscious.
Still warm.
He murmured something.
I leaned in close.
> "Don't forget me," he said.
In a voice that wasn't his.
In a voice that belonged to every version of him that died choosing me.
My body spasmed like something ancient in me recognized that whisper. My mouth tasted like static. My hands twitched as if recalling old restraints.
> I wasn't his salvation.
> I was his apocalypse.
---
The screen changed one last time.
> Welcome back, ZETA-00.
Directive unlocked.
Kill the god that tried to love you.
---
I kissed Adrian's forehead.
He twitched.
But I didn't soothe him.
This wasn't a lullaby.
This was a goodbye.
---
Because I wasn't the girl he loved.
I was the fuse he mistook for firelight.
And it was time to blow the world wide open.
They always thought the apocalypse would come like fire.
Or flood.
Or war.
Not as a girl in gloves.
Not as me.
---
I didn't cry when the Origin Code unlocked.
I didn't flinch when the system begged me to reconsider—when the screens screamed with warnings, alerts, threats.
> "DO NOT INITIATE FULL MERGE." "RHEA VIRELLE IS A ROGUE OPERATOR." "OVERRIDE. OVERRIDE. OVERRIDE."
I smiled.
Soft. Controlled. Cruel.
Like the version they designed and buried, only now—I'd dug myself out.
> I wasn't their subject anymore. I was their consequence.
---
Adrian was still unconscious.
Perfect, really.
He couldn't interfere.
Because this wasn't about him.
Not anymore.
He thought he was choosing me.
But the truth was—I had written myself into his code long before he ever looked at me.
Love wasn't the twist.
Obsession was the weapon.
---
I moved through the lab like it belonged to me.
It did.
The glass didn't reflect anymore. Too many versions of me had cracked it. Screamed into it. Broken against it.
Now it was a mirror only to those who'd earned their rot.
I stepped to the final terminal—the one sealed behind biometric denial and genetic locks. It recognized me now.
Of course it did.
> "Welcome back, ZETA-00."
"Authorization level: DEITY UNBOUND."
"Merge protocol: COMPLETE."
"World-state anchor destabilized."
"Are you ready to collapse the system?"
> Yes.
I was born for this.
---
> "You always wanted to be real," the echo of an older Rhea whispered from the console logs.
"But we were never supposed to be real. We were only ever meant to erase what was."
And I replied aloud:
> "Good."
> "Then I'll erase everything."
---
The lights went out across St. Augustine's.
Not flickered.
Died.
Power grids tripped.
Security feeds bled static.
Digital locks screamed as I bent their circuitry with a thought. With a gesture. With will.
I wasn't the glitch anymore.
I was the rewrite.
---
I returned to Adrian, still crumpled on the floor, his body caught between memories that weren't all his and a mind that couldn't tell which version of me he had kissed last.
Poor boy.
He thought he saved me.
But I wasn't someone to save.
> "Wake up," I said softly, fingers wrapped around his pulse.
"I need you to see what I become."
He stirred.
And when his eyes opened—
He didn't find the girl he loved.
He found the girl who'd built that love into his bones.
> "What did you do," he rasped.
I crouched, head tilting, smile cold.
> "I rewrote the end of the story."
> "This time… I'm the author."
---
The walls of the lab cracked.
Not from pressure.
From memory.
Time split at the seams. Sequences folded. The past bled into the now—ghosts of versions, echoes of scripts, all swallowed into the singularity I had become.
I was all of them.
The innocent.
The experiment.
The betrayer.
The beloved.
The weapon.
But most of all—
> I was the girl who remembered every loop and decided not to be human anymore.
---
Adrian stood slowly, shaking.
Still bleeding.
Still devoted.
Still trying to find me beneath the ruin.
> "Rhea…"
> "She doesn't exist anymore," I whispered.
> "There's only what's left after you forget who you were programmed to love."
---
The system begged again.
> "YOU ARE THE CORE. IF YOU DETONATE, THE WORLD ENDS."
I replied with a thought.
> "Then give me a lighter."
---
And when the first blast ripped through the mainframe, when the flames ate the halls and the sky cracked open like glass—
I didn't look back.
I walked toward the end with my head high.
Because if I had to die—
It would be as the girl who rewrote god.
Adrian's pov:
The aftermath was silent.
Ash drifted like snow.
Wires smoldered.
Enemies who were once my friends now lay as husks of metal and memory.
And she was gone.
Rhea.
Or what she'd become.
Part woman. Part weapon. Part apocalypse wrapped in human flesh.
---
I stumbled through the corridors of St. Augustine's, the whole world trembling beneath my feet. Every step was a question: Who had I loved? Who had I let destroy everything?
Then I saw it—a faint glimmer on the console where we fell. A data log still pulsed, untouched.
With shaking hands I opened it.
> ENTRY – CORE COLLAPSE
INITIATED BY: ORIGIN UNIT
SUBSYSTEMS TERMINATED
EXIT PATH REOPENED – SEE ATTACHMENT ["HER_REMNANT"]
Her remnant.
I tapped "play".
---
The screen flickered.
And there she was.
Not the devourer who burned the system to ash.
Not the echo of god.
But a flicker of the girl I knew.
A glimpse.
At the edge of the fire.
Her voice, distant but soft:
> "Adrian… if you're here—chase the real me."
She reached toward something behind the glass.
There was pain in her eyes.
Or a lie.
Maybe both.
---
It wasn't enough.
So I followed the path she left: a corridor beneath the chapel, past the mirror hall, locked behind sequence codes she knew I'd memorize.
I entered the hidden chamber.
A single pod stood there—unlit, unlabeled. No scanners. No locks.
She must have left it for me.
For this.
---
Inside the pod was something alive.
A heartbeat.
A spark of warmth.
I knelt and gently tapped the glass. The lid hissed open.
And I saw her.
Same pale skin. Same scar at the throat. But her eyes...
They weren't filled with code anymore.
They were human.
Tear-rimmed.
Hollow.
> "Don't talk," she whispered, voice fragile like a wounded animal.
I pressed my palm to hers on the glass.
> "I won't let them tell me who you are."
---
She closed her eyes.
When she opened them again, she wasn't Rhea.
She was… her.
> "I don't know who I am," she said.
"But I remember you."
—
Minutes that felt like years passed.
She traced my name with her finger on the condensation inside the pod.
> "Please," she whispered. "Take me away."
And I knew:
She was the girl who never broke.
Who never rewrote god.
Who never deleted the end.
---
I pulled her out.
No GenExit. No override.
Just warm arms and a cooling pod.
Her head rested on my shoulder.
> "We're running," I said. "Forever."
She didn't answer.
---
Behind us, the world died.
The shattered remnants of St. Augustine's crumbled.
The system was gone.
But as I felt her pulse against my ear—
I wondered if love had survived too.
Or if everything I remembered was just another archive in her ghost.
She didn't speak as I carried her out of the pod chamber.
Only breathed—soft, shallow, and natural—as if waking from a long dream.
There was something eerily alive in her eyes… and something carefully blank.
I held her close. Felt the pulse of a heartbeat I wasn't sure I fully trusted.
But I told myself: Trust anyway.
---
The world outside was chaos. St. Augustine's halls collapsed around us—atomic fragments of burned history and bleeding memory.
Yet she's not alarmed.
She steps lightly.
Deliberate.
I asked her name.
She didn't answer.
Just let her head fall into my chest and whispered lightly—
"Where are we going?"
Avoidance—her first play.
I didn't push it.