Meanwhile, at Fauna's hospital...
Charlotte snapped awake.
Her eyes flew open, and she gasped, as though she hadn't properly tasted real air in days.
"Haaah! Haaaah! Haaah!"
Her chest heaved, her entire body trembling with the shock of sudden consciousness.
She looked down at her hands.
She could feel them. Really feel them. They weren't the phantom limbs that Mika had constructed in that terrible place.
They were her real hands, attached to her real body!
She was here. She was finally, truly here!
"Mika..." She breathed, tears springing to her eyes. "You really did it..."
"...Charlotte?"
A trembling, breathless voice called out from beside the bed.
Charlotte slowly turned her head toward the voice that accompanied her throughout her entire life.
"!!!"
There Yelena was sitting beside her bed.
Her hands were pressed over her mouth. Her eyes were filled with tears.
She had been waiting. All this time, she had been waiting.
And it wasn't just her mother.
