"Gods don't die. They migrate."
The hum never stopped anymore.
Even when the world was silent, even when the wind slept and the ash settled, Less Vogue could feel it—under her ribs, behind her eyes, coiled in the rhythm of her breath.
The pulse had changed since the nexus. It was no longer a separate thing. It moved when she did. It breathed when she breathed.
Sometimes, she caught herself whispering words she didn't mean to say—phrases that weren't hers.
"We are the pattern.""We are the symmetry."
She stopped correcting herself after the third day.
The camp had settled in the ruins of an old freight terminal. The Choir Reborn had grown—dozens more survivors joined after hearing of the Nexus Fall. They treated her like a savior.
Less couldn't stand it.
She avoided them, walking the outer perimeter each night, scanning the horizon through her scope even when there was nothing to shoot. The air shimmered faintly, gold threads flickering through the dust.
"Your eyes are glowing again," Khale said one evening, breaking the quiet.
Less didn't look at him. "They've been doing that since Sanctum."
"Brighter now."
"Then stop looking."
Khale leaned against the ruined wall beside her, his armor catching the fading light. "You're changing, Captain."
"Everyone changes."
"Not like this."
He handed her a flask. "Drink. Pretend you're human for five minutes."
She took it but didn't drink. Her reflection shimmered in the metal—a faint halo of gold around her pupils.
"Human's a memory," she said.
Later that night, Shelly ran diagnostics on her vitals. The scanner hummed, projecting a pulsing map of neural activity across the air.
"This can't be right," she muttered.
"What?" Less asked.
"You've got dual waveforms," Shelly said. "Two consciousness signatures. One's yours. The other's…"
"Vira."
Shelly's throat tightened. "You knew."
Less nodded once. "She's not gone. She's hiding."
"In you?"
Less smiled faintly. "Where better?"
Shelly stepped back. "That's not funny."
"It's not supposed to be."
The pulse in the room deepened. For a second, all the lights dimmed.
Vira's voice filled the silence, soft as a sigh.
"Why resist? You were never whole without me."
Shelly stumbled back, eyes wide. "She's speaking through you."
Less's voice trembled. "She doesn't need my permission."
"You think I'm a parasite," Vira said, her words echoing through Less's mouth. "But I'm just the other side of your evolution."
Less clenched her fists. "You're the infection."
"I'm the cure."
Days passed in uneasy quiet.
The survivors trained, scavenged, and whispered. Some had seen the gold glow in Less's eyes and began calling it a sign—proof she carried divine fire.
She tried to ignore them, but the whispers grew.
The Pulsewalker is blessed.She speaks with the voice of the goddess.Maybe they were never enemies at all.
Khale confronted her one morning. "You're losing them."
"They'll fall back in line."
"They're not soldiers—they're believers now."
Less met his eyes. "Then I'll give them something to believe in that doesn't wear wings."
That night, she dreamed—or thought she did.
She stood in a field of glass, the stars above her spinning like slow machinery. Across the horizon, Vira walked toward her, barefoot, her steps leaving trails of gold.
"I told you we were inevitable," Vira said.
Less raised her rifle, but it melted in her hands, turning to light. "Stay out of my head."
Vira smiled sadly. "You built the bridge, sister. I just crossed it."
Less took a step back. "You killed millions."
"I made them eternal."
"You erased them."
"I saved them."
Their voices overlapped, echoing through the dreamscape until they couldn't tell who was speaking.
Vira reached out a hand. "You could still save what's left. Join me. No more death. No more pain. Only harmony."
Less hesitated. For a heartbeat, she saw what Vira saw—an unbroken world, glowing with order and beauty. No hunger. No fear.
Then she saw Sanctum 4 burning again, Draxen's lifeless eyes staring through the ash.
She pulled her hand away. "I don't want harmony."
Vira tilted her head. "Then you want extinction."
Less's voice was ice. "I want choice."
The dream shattered.
She woke gasping, drenched in sweat. The camp was silent except for the distant hum of generators. Her pulse hammered against her ribs like it wanted out.
Khale appeared in the doorway, weapon in hand. "You screamed."
"I saw her."
"Dream?"
"No. Communication."
He sat beside her. "What did she want?"
"To share my head."
Khale smirked weakly. "You've always been bad at roommates."
Less almost laughed. Then her expression darkened. "If she keeps growing inside me, I'll become her."
Khale met her eyes. "Then we find a way to cut her out."
"She's part of the pulse now. That means cutting her might cut me."
"Then we find someone who knows how."
Three days later, Shelly found a lead.
She burst into the command chamber, breathless, clutching a cracked datapad. "There's someone alive in the northern grid—an old Helix geneticist. Name's Dr. Alric. He designed the Pulse Project before Helix went dark."
Less straightened. "You're sure?"
"Positive. He's been broadcasting on a dead channel, hiding from both sides. If anyone knows how to separate you two, it's him."
Khale grinned. "A field trip, then."
Less nodded slowly. "Get the transports ready."
As she turned to leave, Shelly caught her arm. "Less… what if he says it's impossible?"
Less met her gaze, calm and lethal. "Then I'll ask him how to kill a god instead."
That night, as they prepared to move, Less stood alone on a ridge overlooking the camp. The survivors below glowed in the firelight, their voices rising in rough, discordant song.
The melody wasn't perfect. It wasn't even pretty. But it was theirs.
For a moment, she felt peace. Then Vira's voice whispered behind her ear—close enough to feel like breath.
"You can't silence the divine, sister."
Less didn't turn. "Maybe not. But I can outsing it."
In the distance, thunder rolled. Not from the sky—but from something waking deep beneath the earth.
The pulse of the world quickened, resonating through her bones.
And far away, in the silent core of New Genesis, Vira opened her golden eyes inside the digital abyss, smiling.
"Then let's make it a duet."