Windy is the center of attention and she enjoys it to the fullest. I try not to act grumpy, but I don't know if I'm completely successful.

As soon as Malahkii puts his arm around my shoulders, I know it for sure. However, contrary to my thoughts about it, he doesn't laugh at me. Instead, he uses his little vocabulary to ask me why I'm not in bed. He talks loudly to get over the noise and I follow suit.

'The aerosol has healed my wounds,' I say. 'I'm as good as new again.' Moreover, I don't know exactly where my bed is. Because Windy, like me, is also staying in residence 3 and it is currently such a chaos with partying aliens, I am sure I can't relax here. I don't think the cracking sounds that vibrate through the room are music, but I know that most breeds go crazy over this. I see them going wild.

'You've had the fight of your life, you have every right to be tired.'

'I can say that about you too,' I grumble.

Malahkii hisses angrily. 'Those stupid Serailers took me away just when the fun started.'

'You can't have everything,' says Zandr, who is standing next to him and joining our conversation. He looks at me sternly and says: 'But Malahkii is right. You should be in bed.'

'It was my plan,' I say. I didn't actually mean to take credits, but the unfairness of it all suddenly hits me. I'm probably tired, because normally I don't suffer from such things so easily.

'Yes, I must say you have a sharp eye,' Zandr praises me again.

I blush and look at the ground. I don't get compliments that often and the gentleman is not someone who throws them around, which makes it feel extra nice.

'You only saw Variant once and you immediately knew it was a mutated version of a Serailer.'

'Because they spoke the same language,' I say again. My theory is that the poor balloon fell into the core in the distant past, where it didn't burst due to all the debris floating around, but it actually completely covered his skin and definitely made him stronger. The loneliness must have driven him crazy, especially since I now know that the Serailers prefer to live in bunches.

While Malahkii and I acted as a distraction, Variant opened his mouth at one point to kill me and right then Windy slipped in. Her kind can't carry much, but the needle she took with her just about worked. I had to guess that it could be broken from the inside, because its exterior turned out to be so impenetrable, but that worked immediately and without any further problems. Since it was Windy that I was sending in, it was not hard for me to take that chance anyway. Now that the operation has reached a successful conclusion, she apparently thinks she can act like the hero – and again: I devised the plan. That reminds me of something and I say it straight away: 'What are you going to do with the harems now that they are no longer needed?'

I know that besides those harems, more slaves are 'taken in' and sold for food, but that is far more along the normal food chain than the gifts the monster required.

'The ladies and gentlemen will soon sit down together to solve that problem,' Zandr says.

Just releasing them into the wild is of course out of the question, I think. I briefly wonder what will happen to me and my best friend. Have we built up enough recognition points to be released? Should I have indicated that in advance? I realize that I should have thought of that a bit earlier.

'But you don't have to worry about that,' he says, as if he reads my thoughts and immediately wants to destroy all hope. 'You're coming with me now. Malahkki, if you'll excuse us.'

It's not a question and the traitor Malahkki makes no effort to assist me as Zandr grabs my wrist and leads me away from the hustling crowd.

He guides me without a word through some nondescript hallways and into a part of the house I've never been to before. Things are slowly but surely starting to look more human here. I see how the wall of this hallway is a creamy white color, very different from the stone green color that is everywhere else, and there are paintings that remind me of my home planet (both the paintings themselves and what they depict). Before things were going so badly for our planet Earth, it looked beautiful and Zandr was able to capture exactly those images on canvas.

'Did you bring these paintings from Earth?' I cannot imagine that he found a painter on Serail who could create such a striking likeness of elements from my home planet.

'Do you like them?'

I stopped and felt the longing for my actual home flowing through me. That's why I just nod, mesmerized as I am by the images that only mean something to him and me. I feel a tear escape and slide down my cheek.

Before it can shatter on the ground, Zandr has already swept it away. He doesn't remove his hand and that's why I end up looking at him. For the first time I see emotion in his eyes. It speaks of the same nostalgia as what flows through me and in that moment a connection between the two of us clicks into place. We keep staring at each other. It seems like hours, but it probably wasn't even a minute.

As if it were the most normal follow-up action, he leans forward and then he kisses me. It's a short kiss. Our lips just touch each other and then he pulls away again. He looks at me again and I can read the question in his eyes without any problem. It's like he's opened up to me, removing the walls between us.

'I have only just met you,' he says, 'but you have brought so much color into my life in that short time that I actually want to keep you with me.'

In principle he has every right to do so, but I can see in his look that he does not mean the last part of his sentence as an order.

'As a member of your harem?' I wonder out loud. I feel an overwhelming need to touch my lips, but I manfully hold back.

'The harems are being dismantled,' he says. 'I ask you if you would stay with me as my equal. From now on you are free to do whatever you want, whatever your decision. But I would like to ask you if you would at least try it out. If it doesn't work out between us in the end, that would be a shame, but I won't stop you.'

I have never been accused of being reserved, which is why I nod before he has finished speaking. His offer sounds good, not least because he offers me a way out.

He smiles. His face changes completely and he is suddenly so handsome that I can only stare at him wordlessly. 'You go to sleep first and then you give an official answer,' he says. He tries to sound stern, but he absolutely cannot.

At that moment I feel the fatigue washing over me at full force and I can barely keep my eyes open and my mouth closed.

Zandr lifts me up with a wave and carries me into his bedroom. It brings back memories of Earthly customs.

He puts me in his bed and whispers goodnight to me. Maybe he'll say something after that, but I can't hear it anymore. I have left for a new world and that realm of dreams will hold me firmly in its grip for the next few hours.

THE END