Zeice's boat glided slowly over the smooth asphalt ground, dark as the night itself.
Gentle waves, like the whisper of the wind, brushed softly against its body, as if murmuring secrets only those accustomed to gazing far into the heavens could understand.
The wind still carried traces of Zeanna's home, faint, yet steadfast between his breaths.
Something had been left behind at the dock, something more than just a conversation.
"Then let me walk alongside that future."
Those words hung in the air, drifting with the movement of his boat, blending with the curling exhaust smoke trailing behind.
Zeice gazed at the sky, empty, as if searching for meaning among the scattered stars.
But he gave no answer. He simply remained silent, as he always did.
Far behind, the moon in Zeanna's universe still glowed, a small beacon in the sea of darkness.
As if still waiting, still believing.
Zeice let out a breath. His universe lay ahead, the place he had always called home.
And yet, tonight, the journey felt heavier, as though something held him back from simply returning.
Perhaps because he knew, there was now another universe willing to move forward.
No longer just watching from behind a single door, but daring… to step through it.
After sailing through the quiet night, Zeice once again moored his boat at the harbour of his universe.
The star-filled sky had now given way to the deepening darkness, as if everything was waiting for his return.
The house he called his universe, the yard he named the harbour, and the boat, his motorbike, all felt different tonight, as though he was being welcomed by... silence.
Zeice's footsteps touched the aged wooden floor, heavy yet resolute.
He stepped into the living room, where the soft glow of a dim light illuminated the familiar surroundings.
In the corner of the room, his angel, a woman with bright blue eyes full of warmth was waiting for him. His Fleurine.
"Zeice," her soft voice broke the silence, adding weight to his hesitant steps.
She had been waiting, yet she never truly knew what lay behind the gaze of her beloved.
Zeice moved closer, his eyes fixed on hers with a quiet intensity, as if trying to speak a thousand words without uttering a sound.
"Sorry… I'm late," he murmured, his voice low, as though weighing every word that slipped from his lips.
Fleurine stood and approached him, her hand reaching out gently, "I know," she replied softly.
"You always come back, even when… your journey feels distant," she added.
Zeice nodded, a faint smile curving his lips but never reaching his eyes.
There was a weight between them, unspoken, but his angel knew it well.
"Do you… think what I'm doing is right?" he asked, his voice wavering slightly, though his resolve remained firm.
Fleurine held his gaze, studying every detail of the man before her.
"Zeice," she said, "Sometimes we need to travel far to find the answers, even if it's only to understand them."
He stepped closer, his fingers intertwining with hers.
Drawing a deep breath, he tried to bury the doubts gnawing at his thoughts.
"I feel like something's changing… like another universe is… no longer waiting."
His beloved smiled softly before wrapping her arms around him, holding him close.
"Not all changes should make us afraid, Zeice. Some things… just need time for us to understand."
In that embrace, Zeice felt as if all the questions lingering in his heart were finally finding their place.
Perhaps, the long journey he had taken was not just about finding answers, but about realizing that the most important universe was the one surrounding him.
*****
(Elsewhere)
Among the lines long forgotten, and the ink that dried before it could ever be read.
There was a name never spoken aloud, yet always whispering in the ears of those who understood, Ridd Staquez.
No one had ever truly known him.
His name was never written in the conversations of those who claimed to fight for the truth, nor was he ever invited into the circles of those who built kingdoms from stolen words.
He belonged to neither the ones who fought openly nor those who hid in the shadows.
And yet, every time a great story surged through the literary world, there was always one pen name that appeared before anyone else realized, Hullabaloo.
His writing was like the night breeze slipping through a cracked window, felt clearly, yet impossible to grasp.
His works were like poems refusing to be defined.
A secret yearning to be uncovered, yet always slipping away whenever someone drew near.
No pattern. No boundaries.
He did not write to be remembered.
He wrote to seep into the mind and linger there, uninvited.
At times, his words were soft, like shadows falling on a flat expanse.
At times, they were sharp, like shards of glass scattered across a cold floor.
His words were not meant to be believed, nor were they meant to be dismissed.
They simply existed, like darkness, needing no reason to remain dark.
No one knew where he lived. No one could say for certain whether they had ever met him or merely imagined him.
Some swore they had seen him writing beneath a flickering streetlamp, yet when they returned, he was already gone.
Others claimed to have heard his voice reciting poetry in an old, abandoned house.
But when they entered, the house was empty, leaving only torn paper and scribbled mistakes behind.
And there were those who found scraps of paper bearing words that felt as though they were written just for them, though they never knew who had left them.
And while Zeice and his friends sought the truth, while the Word Mafia spun tangled threads that grew ever harder to unravel, someone stood in the shadows, wearing a faint smile.
Ridd Staquez took no sides. But he was never blind.
Because… if the world of literature was a stage, those who fought were nothing more than puppets dancing upon it.
And Ridd Staquez?
He was the one writing the script from behind a curtain that never opened.
Behind that ever-drawn curtain, Ridd Staquez didn't just write the hidden stories, he wrote for those who never felt worthy of being found.
Because he understood… sometimes, truth isn't something that needs to be discovered, it's something that must be understood in silence.
There is power in the unknown, and in that uncertainty, Ridd carved his words.
While writers and readers clashed, forging alliances and enemies alike, he continued his quiet walk.
In the unseen silence, he wrote for the souls who preferred to remain hidden, those who sought neither fame nor applause.
His works flowed like an unstoppable current, seeping into every pore of consciousness, leaving traces of his presence without a sound.
Those who knew Hullabaloo understood one undeniable truth.
In a world built on lies, one thing could never be denied, Ridd Staquez was always there.
Among the shadows that never came to light, out there, in the void.
He waited, he wrote… and sometimes, he simply smiled at a sentence left unfinished.
A story that would never end, for him… and for the world…