"Where am I?"

The scientist finally woke up. She rubbed her three eyes, exhausted, and looked around the ship.

"Wow, a real Sonar Valoria... this is amazing!"

Hazel couldn't help it. She stopped ignoring the scientist behind her.

"What is a Sonar Valoria?" Hazel asked.

"Only the coolest ship in existence! Its speed is so high, they had to create a whole new measuring system, Axelisto!" the scientist said excitedly.

"That sounds like a magician would say that before doing some cheesy trick," Hazel muttered.

She was bemused, and took a closer look at the... would woman be the correct word? She looked humanoid, except with pale red skin, three eyes of different colors, and two devilish horns on her head. And wings. Those, in particular, caught Hazel's eye. They were bat-like, yet elegant. An angel could have those wings and not be called a devil in disguise. The humanoid woman had on a lab coat with a triple notch lapel and a fiery yellow and violet long-sleeved blouse underneath with matching bottoms. Her shoes were futuristic and a light metallic blue with five-centimeter platforms. She also had a name tag pinned to the middle flap on the lab coat: Nredoza Tridfi.

"Nredoza, yes?" Hazel asked the scientist.

"Ah, I hate that name. Call me Oza," she said, blushing slightly.

Hazel stared out of the windshield. Strange icons and diagrams were projected on it. She pointed at them and stared at Oza.

"Do you know what these are?" she asked, raising her eyebrows. Now that she thought about it, Nredoza didn't have very much eyebrow at all.

"No clue. I'm an interuniversal biologist, not a pilot. Maybe we could try to not kill ourselves, enter the closest universe and find somewhere to land," Oza suggested. Hazel nodded and tried to find an emergency setting. There was none.

Hazel panicked again. She would have to attempt to aim a super high-speed ship at one of those membranes. There was no handbook in the glovebox, nor was there any glovebox in the first place. She took a deep breath, cleared her mind of stress, and sat in the pilot's seat in the middle of the cockpit. Gripping something that at least somewhat resembled a steering wheel, she turned the ship towards one of the titanic blue bubbles.

Hazel's knuckles were white from gripping the wheel so hard. Nredoza peered over her shoulder, worried. The universe was coming closer and closer, and Hazel was completely unprepared. Neither had never actually seen what happened when a physical object broke one of those barriers. Hazel was unconscious when it happened before, and Nredoza had a habit of sleeping through everything. It was only a few hours away.

Hours turned into minutes, and those minutes turned into seconds. Oza was hiding behind Hazel's chair. Hazel had an arm over her forehead, bracing for an impact.

However, an impact was quite the opposite of what happened. Instead, time seemed to slow to a graceful speed that made every movement seem like a delicate dance. Ripples of aqua fog twirled around the windows. The barrier between universe and Void seemed so much thinner from the outside. Minutes of traveling through swirling liquid-like barrier passed before they could see anything other than the many light-years of blue.

The Valoria broke through the membrane, leaving an azure trail of mist behind like exhaust dripping gently off every wing and fin of the ship. Hazel glanced at the scientist behind her, grinning.

"Hey, we made it across," she said, tapping one of Oza's horns lightly. Nredoza smiled too.

"Well, do we even know where we are?" Hazel asked, pointing at the new set of symbols that had just appeared to her right of the console.

"One of them should say what Universe we are in and our approximate coordinates, I believe," she replied, scanning the holograms like a book with small print.

Hazel kept pointing the ship in the opposite direction of the barrier, hoping to eventually land on a new planet at some point. She stared intently at Oza, hoping that she would say something helpful about where they were.

"So... where are we?" Hazel asked.

"Sorry. Um, I've been trying to find that out. We went the wrong way."

Hazel's jaw dropped. The wrong way?

"Excuse me, but what?"

"We're in Universe 7 right now."

"You do realize that's the opposite of what I want?"

"Well, I only just figured this out, how was I supposed to help you earlier?"

There was an incredibly long silence as the two turned away from each other. Oza put a hand over her chest.

"What now, Oza?" Hazel asked unenthusiastically.

"My fourth eye saw something."

Hazel blinked. A fourth eye? How many damn eyes does this girl have?

"Well, what did it see?" she asked disbelievingly.

"I see something from far away. Four people, you being one of them, standing in front of a small cottage on a red-hued planet with plants as black as the void. You look a lot like the tallest man, and you have a third eye, on your forehead. There's a woman next to the tall man, with four eyes, wielding a huge gun. A young girl, about three quarters of your height, is there too. She kind of looks like you and the man, but also looks like the woman. I would assume the couple are his parents, and the man may be one of yours?"

Hazel was shocked. Too much information had been told to Hazel in too short of a time. Apparently, this fourth eye could get visions.

"I'm guessing this is only the beginning," she said monotonously. Her heart sank as it hit her. It may be decades before she set foot on Earth again, seeing as Nredoza would likely want to see what this vision was.

Hazel stared into the endless space in front of her, trying not to think about that. She stood there for quite a while, not breaking her gaze.

"And I'm guessing that you're probably right about that, um, you never told me your name," Oza said, breaking the little silence that had just appeared.

"Hazel, Hazel Von Brandt," she said, feeling very stupid.

They had been in that ship for hours, going on a day, and not once had Nredoza asked her name. That reminded her of her brother. He had always had difficulty making friends and even asking one's name became a terrible task. Hazel had always been one of the only people that he ever opened up to and found it easy to talk to. What would he do in her absence?

Hazel tried to push yet another thought out of her mind, but something was stopping her. Her brother was too special to her to drop the memory of. Oza tapped her shoulder as she quite literally stared off into space.

"Hey, there's something I need to show you, if this thing even has one, that vision confirmed something I already knew even more," she whispered.

Hazel turned around and nodded. The scientist dragged her into the back of the KiloNova and showed her a strange metal disk about the size of her head. It had cryptic runes lining the edge and its center was a clear apple-sized sphere. It looked to be some sort of frisbee.

"What is this thing, and where did you get it?" she asked Nredoza, unable to take her eyes off of the disk. She felt as if she was drawn to it, like it was pulling her closer. Once she had seen it, she couldn't be without it. It was a strange sensation to take over her mind.

"This is a Halo. It can do whatever you need it to do. Every Exan is able to control one. Most ships have a backup in case an Exan breaks theirs."

"What's an Exan?"

"An Exan is another word for a Sixth Origin with Vasion-like abilities. Universe 6 had no intelligent life, so Aphos took a few of certain humanoid subspecies and put them on 6. However, they decided to make them stronger and more like the lowest Vasioners so there would be a difference between those who were born there normally and those who were blessed by Vasion's ultimate ability. They had the mental capacity to operate Halos, which can be used as weapons or tools or even a place to put your coffee when it needs to be cooled off. So, Delfrids that came to Universe 6 because of Vasion are called Ex-Frids."

"So, anyone in Universe 6 can operate these?"

"Not quite. They have to be descendants of the first Sixth Origins."

"Okay, then what does this have to do with me?"

Nredoza glanced at Hazel and put up a finger as she pulled out a small tablet and started scrolling. She seemed to have found what she was looking for and zoomed in on something.

"Your file in the system does not say that you are human. You look it, but you've obviously got some Exan in you. I mean, look at the strange scars on your forehead. That's where your third eye would be. It came from your father, who was a Sixth Origin that came to U1 to see where his roots were. While he was there, he fell in love with your mother, and nine months later, you were born. He was an Ex-Pian; Exan Sapiens," she said, partly reading off of the tablet, "so you have all the same abilities. Tell me, do you ever feel hungry, thirsty, hot, cold? Do you ever run out of stamina when you need it most? When you get a cut, do you bleed?"

Hazel looked back into her memories. She had once sliced open her hand when she was learning how to use a knife. It didn't hurt that much and not much blood came out of that deep wound. She had just stuck a band-aid on it and pretended like it never happened. Another time, she forgot to eat or drink for a few days and there were no effects. It was only when her mother shoved stew down her throat that she ate again. She lost no weight or energy.

"I guess not..." she mumbled, still staring at the Halo.

"Well, then. Touch this," Oza said enthusiastically, shoving it in her face.

She cautiously put a finger on the disk. Immediately, the sphere inside of it was flooded with a swirl of colors. The rainbow faded to cooler colors, then to blues, and finally settled on a soft pastel turquoise. A gentle glow gradually came on along with the color.

Something clicked in her mind, almost like the disk was just another limb. She thought about moving it. Nothing happened. Of course not. If you just think about moving your arm, it won't move. You just move it. So, Hazel decided to move it up a bit. Slowly but surely, the Halo drifted upwards, wobbling the whole way.

She let it float up and down until it shook a little bit less. Squeezing her eyes shut, Hazel focused on trying to force it to tilt and move forwards. It did. She spent quite a while trying to get it to speed up, slow down, and support her weight in case something happened.

With an obnoxious pulsing and screeching noise, the ship called to the two in the back of it, shouting for them to come near.

"I got it!" Hazel yelled excitedly, sitting on the Halo and moving it to the front of the ship. Oza shook her head, a little smirk coming over her face.

Both women sat down and prepared to react. The outline of the windshield was blinking a blinding red. There was a small whirring coming from all over, first barely audible, but it gradually turned into one of the only things they could hear. A wailing siren came and went, and a mechanical voice spoke.

"A collapse has been detected four minutes ahead of your area. Please turn at least ninety degrees in either direction to attempt to avoid it. A collapse has been detected," it repeated over and over again. Hazel glared in the windshield.

"I don't see i- oh, oh my," she stuttered, seeing a whirling mass of neon color hurtling uncontrollably towards the ship.

She gripped the steering wheel with one hand and threw the ship at a sharp right angle, frantically pressing the Hi-Drive button with the other. The force of the turn knocked Hazel and Nredoza out of their seats and sent them slamming into the back wall with a thud. Hazel crawled back to her place, sending the Halo in front of her to keep the ship from turning any further. The lights and the sounds had suddenly stopped and the collapse dissipated in the distance along with a noise of building tension, leaving what had to be a supermassive black hole in its wake. Dust swirled around it and spheres of light warped to curve into thin strips, being sucked into the monster's rabid mouth. As if the black hole had overfed, a hard stream of light plunged from the center of the void like an incandescent rod.

The Valoria travelled further and further from the quasar as it purged its surroundings, sucking them into their inevitable death.

"Just imagine what would've happened if the ship malfunctioned," Nredoza muttered drowsily as she flopped down in her chair again.

"I don't know if I want to think about that," Hazel replied, sighing deeply out of relief.