The sun shone through a skylight that Hazel hadn't noticed before falling asleep. It was tinted and decorated to look just like Earth's sky. She entered the kitchen to talk to her stepmother. She'd been wearing the same clothes for almost a week and wanted some fresh clothing, and, even better, a shower. Elise looked to be just about the same size as Hazel, so she assumed that it wouldn't be too much of a problem.

"Elise, can I ask you something?" she said sleepily.

"Of course you can. Ask away," Elise replied, preparing breakfast.

"Can I borrow some clothes and maybe get clean?"

"Oh, yeah! Let me show you where I keep them. We have a separate room for the shower, I don't know if that's different from Earth or not, but I'm sure that won't be an issue."

Elise led Hazel to the end of the hallway, where a set of French doors opened into the largest room in the house. In there, she was led into another door, which held a massive walk-in closet.

"Have at it," she said before running back to the kitchen.

Hazel's eyes widened in awe. She sifted through dresses and shirts, skirts and pants, and more shoes than she could count. Holding different outfits up in front of the mirror, she eventually decided on some black leggings with red highlights and an elegant matching fitted top with one shoulder and flaring sleeves, which would be paired with some red knee-high platform boots. She was lost, though. She was told there was a shower room.

"What about my shower?" she asked into the closet.

At the sound of her voice, the shelves and hangers sinking into the walls, a luxurious bathtub, shower, and double sink taking its place. Hazel jumped in surprise, turning to her left and right as if to check to make sure she was seeing things correctly.

Products and gels in the tens lined the inside of the massive tub. The room was filled with an exotic scent, not unlike jasmine and frankincense. She practically melted into the warm water that filled the tub, letting relaxation take over and clearing her mind.

There was a knock on the door, followed by her stepmother coming in with a plate of muffins. They smelled exactly like the ones she'd had on Earth. As Elise walked in, a cover over the tub stretched across, creating a table and insuring Hazel privacy.

"Are these dad's recipe?" she asked, taking a bite out of them. The new foods she had been introduced to in space were great, but nothing beat something like good old Earth food.

"How did you know?" Elise asked, shocked that Hazel recognized it so quickly.

"I've had them on Earth. It's actually my mother's recipe!"

"Oh, that's interesting. Well, I hope you enjoy. You've got quite the voyage ahead of you!"

"Thanks, Elise!"

Somehow, Elise's black and red outfit Hazel picked out was the most comfortable thing Hazel had ever worn. It fit her perfectly, which surprised her. She suspected that the fabric changed its fit as Hazel put it on. Checking out her reflection in a mirror that she swore wasn't there two seconds ago, she grinned. However, she thought that her hair could be different. As soon as she thought of this, an orange glowing pair of scissors, comb, and clips came rushing towards her. Touching her hair, the glow became an aquamarine, like the color of her Halo's sphere. They seemed to read her mind, and swirled around her, snipping and fixing her hair into a modern thinned out bob, angled from the bottom of her hairline to just above her shoulder. A product was also applied to her hair which slowly developed and turned a deep scarlet. Brushes applied red and black makeup, brushing her forehead until there was a sharp and intense pain.

Hazel looked up in the mirror. The scar was tearing apart, revealing the white of her third eye. She panicked as it opened wider and wider, the pain intensifying until it was almost unbearable. Her brain wanted her to scream, but her voice wouldn't work at all. A cold feeling, like a breeze on the now exposed eye, came over her forehead. She felt it water and blink, her brain trying to understand what to do.

Her ears felt quite some pain as well from the stretching of the tips of them and the widening of her earlobes, but not as bad as her third eye. They were reshaping themselves, obviously triggered by the fact that the third eye could finally see. It caused a chain reaction of small changes, as if a different set of genes had been dormant until the first sign of being in a place where they were safe to awaken came about.

Though the ripping and tearing had stopped, there was still a ton of pain left over from when it happened. A massive headache took over her mind and she found herself collapsing onto the ground, trying to do whatever she could do to get the pain to stop. The brushes were still attempting to finish applying makeup, no matter what she did to stop it from happening.

Her father opened the door to the closet-shower room to check on her because of the loud crash that came from her falling. He saw her clutching her forehead, and the brushes surrounding her, and he knew exactly what had happened. He ran to get his hands on some pain relievers and plenty of tea from the skins of the brightly colored vegetables from the night before. The skins of those plants made the user feel very dizzy and not be able to notice much pain. That would help her immediately, and the pain relief would help for the next few hours until the pain dissipated.

He came back to see Hazel crying uncontrollably from the excruciating pain, unable to keep her mind on anything other than the feeling of knives being forced into her forehead. Her father kneeled down, having her wash down the pain relievers with the tea. The effect of the tea was seen almost immediately. Hazel's hands left her forehead and she pushed herself into a sitting position. Her pupils were extremely dilated, her irises barely visible at all. Her father, prepared, put triple-lensed sunglasses on his daughter so as to not allow too much light into her eyes and to cause permanent vision damage.

Hazel looked up at him, still crying. Her eye emerging was the one thing she wanted to not happen for a very long time, since it would separate her from everyone else and make her seen as different and strange if she were to return to Earth.

"Earth, how would I go?" she asked drunkenly.

"I was able to hide my eye and change the way my ears were shaped, but that doesn't last long. Exans can do this if we find the right substances and chemicals because the original plan was for us to be able to blend in with the original species, but something changed a long time ago, millenia ago," her father said, holding up Hazel's wobbling head.

"You, teach?"

"It'll just make this happen again, and I don't think you want that."

Daniel Ununquadius was thrown back to the first time he was thrown into the the world of pain that was hiding his true identity. The formation of the scar over the third eye came with the rare venom of a beast only found in the rivers of Zhera, one of Vasion's extremely powerful creatures. The venom caused the part of the brain that controlled infinite language understanding to become unused, and the scar to form to protect the eye in the time it was useless.

He took a knife and cut his ears into a human shape, which caused intense amounts of pain for obvious reasons. The venom began to wear off and the brain to become hyperactive once more, which caused even more pain as the eye emerged. His ears would never be the same again and would always be full of pain.

"Okay, need water."

"I'll get that for you, Haze."

Hazel felt very woozy. Her vision was warped and doubled and her hearing was slightly muffled. Colors were dulled, which was ironic, since the skin of the plant covered vibrantly hued vegetable matter. She couldn't stand up, or she would definitely fall over, but she couldn't sit either, since her legs were numb, nor could she lay lest she vomit and not be able to help herself. Her stomach begged for forgiveness, sickly and disturbed by the strange liquid it had been forced to digest.

She started to laugh weirdly, high from the lack of pain and feeling. She felt invincible and impervious to any struggle, except for moving in any way. She attempted to stand, knowing that she would only be able to stay there for a second or two at most. As to be expected, she fell over again, causing another huge crashing noise. It was Nredoza's turn to check up on her well-being.

Upon seeing her high friend, she turned around, snorting with laughter. She knew she would look weird, but she was very surprised by just how weird she really was being. Hazel was humming to herself, very out of tune, a melody of notes that didn't exist in traditional European scales. All of this was happening as she was wearing giant sunglasses, knee high bright red platforms, and a black and red kind of suit, her hair completely different. Nredoza wouldn't have recognized her if she didn't know who she was looking at.

Meanwhile, Hazel's father was struggling to get water out of the tap. He wasn't sure whether he was more concerned for her or amused by the strange sight that came from that tea. Its effects would be wearing off sooner than later, so he wasn't too worried about her possibly hurting herself from being too high to think straight and causing greater injury.

He was correct about the effects not lasting too long, because by the time he returned to what had transformed itself back into a closet, Hazel was back to normal. She saw him coming in with the glass of water that she didn't remember asking for, and asked him why he had it in his hand. She had no idea what had just happened. Not only did the tea remove the immediate pain, but it removed the memory of what caused the pain as well. She put her hand on her forehead, feeling the cold and removing her sunglasses. Noticing the exposed eye, she, reasonably, panicked.

"What the hell, what the hell, what the hell, what the actual living hell is on my face?" she demanded, freaking out.

"Uh, that's your third eye, the one that helps you with language and general understanding?" Nredoza said, not knowing why she didn't seem to know that her eye was there even though it was quite obvious that she knew what was going on before.

"What? I thought it wasn't going to emerge for a long time!"

"I guess no-"

Hazel's father interrupted what was obviously going to be a rude comment by Nredoza.

"Something triggered it to emerge, and it caused so much pain, I had to give you some relief the way I did when it reemerged and when the scar came over mine. It made you forget the source of the pain too, though, and I'm sorry about that. So, no, you can't cover it back up again unless you want even more pain, and yes, here's your glass of water."

Hazel looked at him annoyedly, snatching the glass and chugging its contents. She put the glass back in her father's hand and went to check her reflection in the mirror, which had moved itself again. Hazel searched around for the mirror, and when she found it, she nearly screeched with frustration and anger. She hoped it was just a horrible dream, but no. That eye and that moment was very much real.

Hazel's mood dropped from fiery anger to a deep hopelessness. She didn't know what to do, and felt as if her one connection to the planet that she loved and missed was completely gone. She couldn't immerse herself into the culture without covering the eye completely, and there was no way in hell that she was going to willingly have bangs with her face shape.

Though that was the case, Hazel knew that she would be able to bring herself into a new culture and a new world with even greater possibilities than Earth. If she wanted to, she could even send an omen to her mother and brother and bring them to Zhera with her.

No, she thought to herself, that would be uncomfortable with Elise.

Hazel groaned and moved back into her bedroom, completely done with the multiverse. She just wanted to be home, to live a normal human life, with her old friends and family, and to finally have a place where she one hundred percent belonged. Earth didn't cut it, she couldn't be there anymore if she wanted to not be murdered. Zhera wasn't too good either, she wasn't as muscular as most Exans, though she did have a large amount of muscle mass for a female.

Perhaps she could find a smaller planet with a nice large mountain range to have a secluded house and raise a family there with another Ex-Pian. One with similar skies to Earth and colors so vibrant they'd look unreal. She didn't know too much about the different universes and how all of the planets with life practically had the same lifeforms in the universes, but she assumed that the further one got from the First Universe, the further the appearance and similarities from Earth. She sighed, flopping down on her bed. Maybe going to Vasion in the StrataNova and getting out of the multiverse itself would be a good plan for her. She wouldn't even be in the same group of universes as all of the drama. Then again, the reason for her travel wouldn't exactly be too calming either. She needed to get the Seventh Universe out of the multiverse for the sake of everything in the path of what would eventually become a giant black hole.

Hazel shoved her face in the pillow, trying to get used to closing three eyes. It happened automatically, but it was still a strange feeling. Hearing a door open behind her, she jumped and sat normally on her bed. Of course, it was Anatoly, who upon seeing that Hazel's third eye emerged, grinned strangely.

"I knew it would come out soon enough. You really do belong here, and that's just further proof for me," he said, pointing at her third eye and then his own.

"That's a little weird, I'll be honest with you," Hazel replied awkwardly.

"I'm sorry, it's just you look so much better like this. It's obvious it was hiding, and now you'll be able to use that part of your brain to its full potential too."

"Okay, then. As I said, that's a weird comment to make."

Hazel moved her Halo over, pushing Anatoly out of the door and slamming it in his face. She did not need him there making everything so much worse for her. The sun was at its peak in the sky, and Hazel ended up staring out of the tinted skylights, daydreaming of Earth. She was attempting to force herself to hate the thought of Earth and think of Zhera as her home, but something kept her from convincing herself. She eventually gave up on it, knowing that at some point she'd come to dread the thought of being seen with three eyes on that dreaded planet. If she never touched that leaf, she'd be happy and safe on Earth, but at the same time, if she didn't, then she would never have met her father and her family on Zhera.

Everything really is a double-edged sword, she thought, looking reflectively up at the sky.