WHEN GODS REMEMBER

> "To the root," she said. "Where they grew the system."

> "You mean built it?"

She glanced at me.

Her eyes gleamed like glass just before it shatters.

> "No. I mean grew. From us."

We reached the vault at 4:26 a.m.

Inside was no server. No control panel. No computer at all.

It was organic.

Pulsing.

Like a brain made from nerves and wire, suspended in fluid that glowed and twisted like it was alive.

The Core.

And it was alive.

It saw us.

Spoke—not aloud, but in our minds.

Like it had been part of us all along.

> "Return."

> "Reset."

> "You are not meant to evolve."

One of the others, a boy with barcode scars down his spine, screamed and collapsed.

Another dropped to their knees, clutching their head.

I felt it too.

A scream in the center of my skull.

A pull like gravity wrapped in grief.

But Rhea stepped forward. Calm. Unshaken.

She pulled a syringe from her sleeve.

Dark liquid.

No label.

> "What is that?" I asked, my voice ragged.

> "It's not a weapon," she whispered. "It's me."

She looked at the Core.

> "You called me a trigger. That's your mistake."

She drove the needle into her own arm.

I moved forward to stop her—but it was already done.

She collapsed.

Convulsed.

And the Core began to scream.

The lights exploded. The walls cracked. Every screen in the facility went white.

Rhea's body arched, mouth open in a silent cry.

But she wasn't dying.

She was infecting it back.

Rewriting the system with the one thing it never accounted for:

Choice.

The Core writhed.

Flickered.

Then, in her voice, it whispered—

> "Protocol broken… Rebirth initialized…"

And then it shut down.

Silence. Real silence.

The kind the world makes when the machine stops breathing.

I fell to my knees beside her.

She was still.

Her pulse was faint.

But it was hers.

> "Rhea," I whispered. "Come back."

Her eyelids fluttered.

And for the first time since we met, she smiled without a trace of shadow.

> "Hi," she whispered. "Did we win?"

I nodded.

> "Not yet. But we started something."

Behind us, the rest of the sleepers stood.

Looking up.

Not at the Core.

But at each other.

At the memory of who they'd been.

And the chance to finally choose who they wanted to be.

The facility stopped breathing.

But we didn't.

We were still there.

Alive.

Burned.

Changed.

And the silence that followed the collapse wasn't peace—it was the sound of something growing in its place.

We didn't speak for a long time after the Core shut down.

The others wandered. Touched the walls. Smelled the air like it was strange. New.

And it was.

Rhea slept for twelve hours.

I sat beside her the entire time.

I didn't move.

Didn't speak.

Didn't try to reach anyone else.

Because I didn't care about the others.

Not the way I cared about her.

She was the spark, the match, the ash and the oxygen.

And somewhere between all of that—she had started to matter more than freedom itself.

When she finally woke up, her eyes were glazed but sharp.

"You stayed," she said hoarsely.

"You expected me not to?"

"I wouldn't have."

That stung. More than I let show.

"You're not me," I said.

She sat up. Slowly. Like her body didn't fully trust her yet.

"No," she whispered. "I'm worse."

Later, we found the dormitories deep underground—cleaner, untouched by the fire above. We took one.

Together.

It wasn't a decision.

It was gravity.

She sat cross-legged on the bed, bandaging her arm. I stood by the window, watching shadows that no longer meant anything.

And then her voice cut through the silence like a hook in my spine:

> "You've been looking at me differently since the reset."

I turned.

She didn't meet my eyes.

> "What if I told you I don't know who I am without them?"

"What if this thing I feel for you... isn't love?"

"What if it's just residue?"

I walked toward her.

Every step felt heavier.

Not because I doubted her.

Because I didn't.

Because I already knew what I was going to say:

> "Then let it be residue."

> "Let it be broken. Let it be wrong. Let it be the last thing they didn't take from us."

I reached her.

Knelt.

And for the first time since we burned the system—

She let me touch her.

Her hand slid against my jaw.

My thumb traced the scar above her collarbone.

Our foreheads met in the dark, breath mingling, nothing pure, nothing innocent.

Only this:

> Wanting what we were never supposed to have.

She moved first.

Fingers curled in my shirt.

Lips hovered just above mine—then didn't stop.

She kissed like she was stealing something back.

And I kissed like I wanted to forget how many times they'd erased it.

That night, we didn't sleep.

We didn't talk much.

We just—

Existed.

In touches. Gasps. Scratches. Hands gripping like the world was still ending.

It wasn't gentle.

It wasn't soft.

It was possession in its truest form—the kind that says, "You're mine, even if I have to break to keep you."

And maybe that's what love looks like when you've never been taught how to feel it.

The dorm room smelled like dust and fire and her.

I didn't want to leave it.

But the world doesn't wait just because I finally got something I wanted.

Someone knocked.

Not urgent. Not panicked.

Just… expectant.

Rhea didn't move from the bed. Sheets half-tangled around her, her bare shoulders marked by the edge of my teeth, her eyes heavy but sharp.

"Don't answer," she said.

"I have to."

"No. You want to."

I paused.

She wasn't wrong.

It was Ezra.

One of the older ones from the facility.

Smart. Calm. Loyal, but only to truth.

He glanced past me when I opened the door. Took in the state I was in. The look in my eyes.

His lips curled. Almost a smile. But not kind.

"So it's true," he said softly.

"What is?"

"You and her."

I didn't answer.

He stepped closer.

"She was designed to seduce you. You know that, right? To infiltrate. To extract."

"I know."

His brow furrowed.

"And you still let her in?"

> "No," I said. "She broke the lock before I even knew it existed."

He didn't press.

But he did hand me a folder.

Marked in red: REMAINS – SUBJECT ZETA-01.

"There were others," he said. "Ones the system didn't reset. Ones it buried."

"And?"

"They're waking up too."