After Abra and Charice returned to the Ark, Charice quietly made his way to his room, climbing stairs too numerous to count.
There was a strange swirl to the air, everything seemed much lighter, more colorful even, Charice attributed it to the sense of accomplishment he felt, the strange, humble pride that fluttered in his head and tummy alike, both cores in growing harmony.
It was getting late, Charice played with his golden locks as he reached his room, where Jeremy and his comrade in arms could be seen standing next to one another, back straight and gaze focused.
Charice smiled at them, not too dissimilarly to how he smiled at Michael on the very first day.
"I'll be retiring early, if you're tired, feel free to change shifts whenever."
He then walked past the two, opened the doors himself, and closed them with a gentle click echoing in the room.
"Wow…" Chariced sighed, feeling that strange swirl growing. Slowly, he climbed into bed, removing his smooth robes, snuggling into a large pillow with a happy smile on his face - as if he had been recognized by his crush. The Chord, a symbol of both Order, Chaos, and humanity, remained around his neck, either kept or forgotten.
He felt strangely accompanied.
He slept, the soft mattress, the comfortable air, the shiver that flowed down to his stomach through his spine and bones, and the soothing heat flowing through his veins that reached for something deep within his brain, all melted away as his eyes silently ticked, growing a subtle shade brighter under his eyelids.
Charice dreamt of a large pink world, of Earth, shivering with trillions of lives and deaths over such exhausting millennia, each human glowing like a star of their own, and to this world, he saw a chain from his heart, reaching down to a distant place in North America.
He missed his home dearly. His mother, lover, friends, all of them are there. Somewhere. But he isn't, and he might never be.
'…Why…'
Charice thought, looking above the Earth to a pair of stars, red and blue, his closed sockets somehow still sensing their gaze.
'Why didn't you help me?'
Charice asked, and the stars shimmered in the distance, the Earth turning beneath him
It was difficult to describe, not confidence or security, neither warmth nor cold, not the feeling of air and steel nibbling at his nerves, it was something he rarely felt in both his lives. This was the first time he had felt it here.
It was a strange concoction of sensations, goosebumps traveled over his skin like a wave upon silver seas, it felt like a name, his name, just not spoken in the language of man or woman.
He could finally hear their call.