The deep glow became a small symbol of hope in Hazel von Brandt's eyes. A sign that perhaps one day she could find a way to return home and not be stranded on that lonely planet, just waiting for the eventual collapse of the unstable seventh universe. She could feel her heart pounding in her chest and head, anxious to step inside the door. Every step felt longer and longer until each movement dragged to a century long, until finally, she and Oza stood right in front of the door.

Eyes widening, Hazel reached out to place her shaking palm on the glass-like substance separating a possible society from the barren landscape around them. After registering that something alive had touched it, the doorway roughly slid, leading the two into a smaller hallway, only about one or two square meters in area. Hazel did the same for the next door, which crashed quite loudly as it opened and closed, and led to yet another small hall. Hazel took in a cautious breath to see just how thinly the air was spread. Feeling her lungs fill and release at last brought a bittersweet tear falling from her eyes. She coughed from the sudden shock of breathing, which could actually be heard. This only made Hazel more emotional. Nredoza stared at her comrade concernedly.

Hazel, excited, slammed her hand against the next door, which opened a bit more smoothly. This time, it didn't open to a small room, but to a winding road leading downwards, the dimly lit cave walls somehow making it seem so much bigger than it was in actuality. With a rush of adrenaline, Hazel sprinted down that pathway, so relieved to finally hear gravel crunching beneath her feet, breathe, and speak. She laughed hysterically from the almost-sensory-overload. If she could, she would run towards that unknown place forever. It was so refreshing, and it weirdly reminded her of Earth. Perhaps it was because of all the time spent in that ship or the time spent without air, but she knew one thing: this planet was not as bad as she initially thought.

The path narrowed and the rocky wall to her right descended until it became a cliff looking out into a serene collection of scattered lights, not unlike a colony of fireflies resting side by side. Those lights came from buildings which built a city in the most unlikely place.

Nredoza stopped when the small city came into her view and stared at it for a solid minute before moving on. She hadn't seen a place like this in years, before she worked for DymoCorp. Since then, she had only been on the inside of a space station, surrounded by cold metal. The city gave off some heat, which not only warmed Oza's body, but her heart as well. She took off the mask and dropped the tank of air off the cliffside. It didn't matter what made up the air in the cave, for any second and higher origins only needed some kind of gas to survive. Their bodies could adapt.

The falling slope of the road carried the two closer and closer to the underground cityscape, and more details could be made out, such as the fact that the place partially reminded Hazel of the Alamo in America, of course on a larger scale and much more modern and high-tech. Floating signs of neon light projected announcements and advertisements into the space above the buildings in the strange alien alphabet she had on her clothing. There was one place that really caught Hazel's and Nredoza's eyes; a large curved building that resembled an aircraft hangar. It took up about a tenth of the total space in the area.

At last, the road that they followed leveled out and the buildings that surrounded the edge of the city now stood majestic and proud on either side of them. Hazel stared in awe, her jaw dropping. It was much larger than she expected. The tops of the stone "skyscrapers" could not be seen easily from the ground. It was obvious that this city was likely at least half the size of Manhattan.

Humanoid beings walked across uniform dirt streets and alleyways, going about their daily lives, giving Hazel strange looks. It was obvious that she was at least quite a bit First Origin based on the fact that she only had two eyes, two arms, no wings, horns, tails, and was only about 1.6 meters tall. However, her height wasn't really all that different from the others, seeing as Delfrids could only reach an average height of 1.4 meters.

"What is that? I'd hope it is at least half Exan if it looks like that..."

"I bet it doesn't even understand what we say."

"It's probably the other one's test subject."

Hazel frowned at the gossiping beings and gave them a well-deserved rude gesture, to which they took on an expression of pure panic and scattered. She took a closer look at the area around her. Dead-looking scarlet vines gracefully climbed the walls of the homes and commercial buildings, matching spires twisting their ways to the top of the cave from the roads intertwined across its ominous stone ceiling, creating a living sky of sorts. Monstrously sized stalactites hung perilously and majestically, nearly touching the roofs of the tallest skyscrapers, dripping a reddish brown liquid onto smaller new stalagmites, which were constantly being scraped away by a crew of the city's inhabitants.

The outskirts of the small society were quite the opposite of "bustling." There were only one or two outside at a time. Its buildings and homes were almost falling apart, and its streets split by massive fissures. Hazel cautiously walked next to one of the larger fissures. Each step saw the fissure widening until by the end of the street, Hazel stood next to a deep ravine. She dashed back along it to a very confused Nredoza, who was laying in the fetal position in the middle of the street. Hazel grimaced at her acquaintance.

"You should probably get up, something about this part makes me feel uneasy," Hazel said, glancing around.

Oza grumbled and pushed herself into a sitting position.

"It's a lot to take in, all of this," she mumbled, brushing dirt off of her labcoat.

"Do you think I feel any differently?"

"No..."

"Okay, then stand up or I will personally drag you all the way across here. I'm stronger than you," Hazel snapped.

A quarter of the way across the city, Hazel was pulling a groaning Nredoza by the arm. The cracks in the street decreased in number by a notable amount at that point, and they were no longer alone in the streets. The buildings became taller and more sleek, some twisting spirals of plants shaped to line doorways and create fences. Signs made from carved and dried clay hung outside of almost every building. The area was what one could consider to be a "downtown" part of the city. Reading one of them, Hazel saw what was obviously a library. Dropping Oza's arm, she entered the library and flopped down on the nearest couch. She expected it to be more firm, but she sunk in immediately. It was much softer than she thought, and so comfortable, she found herself slipping into sleep.

A grey haze surrounded her vision, like a vignette. She was on a dead planet, with pitch black plant life and steep mountains stretching into a dark sky. Wind howled, making Hazel's hair obscure her vision. She pushed it out of the way and tied it in a ponytail. In the distance, a small village produced a muffled song, not unlike a church choir. She walked towards it absentmindedly, as if the village were pulling her in. Hazel blinked slowly, and when she opened her eyes, she was standing outside of a cottage, two people in front of the door, looking into Hazel's eyes. They appeared very humanlike, except for the amount of eyes. The man on the right, who resembled Hazel in many ways, had a third eye on his forehead, and the woman on her left, looking very different from Hazel, had four eyes, one pair right below the other. Hazel blinked again, and the once-pacifists had personal rocket launchers and large guns strapped to their backs. They pointed past Hazel's shoulder, and she turned around to see what they were seeing. A huge black ship was touching down roughly, looking very handmade. Out of the ship fell a four-armed, four-eyed woman about half the height of Hazel, who clumsily sprinted towards Hazel and the two behind her. Hazel went to put her hand on her shoulder, but felt an ice-cold rifle instead of her back. The woman came closer, hyperventilating. She only said a few words before Hazel was ripped back into reality.

"The seventh is a weapon larger than you can imagine. It will bring about the destruction of the sixth and itself. Leave before it is too late!"

Hazel shot up, hyperventilating, yet extreme calm filled her mind. The difference between mind and body grew and shrunk again for the next few minutes after the disturbing dream. She shuddered, and the feeling that the dream may not have simply been a dream came over her. Perhaps it was another weird "Exan" thing she hadn't heard of yet, but there was no way to tell for sure until later in the future.

She pushed herself off of the couch, rubbing her eyes, and went over to what appeared to be a librarian's desk to ask a question. There was nothing there except for a button sitting in the middle of the desk. Carefully, Hazel pressed it.

A hologram of Hazel came up right in front of her. Everything that she did, her hologram did as well. She spent a few seconds trying to do the most strange things before actually trying to talk. When she spoke, the hologram froze.

"Where would I find anything about heritage or ancestry?" The fact that she was practically speaking to herself made her actually speak English. Though it had only been a relatively short amount of time since her thoughts and speech aligned, she missed that feeling a lot. It was disorienting, and it made Hazel feel so much more calm and content in the city. Hazel decided that if she needed to stay there for much longer, she'd practically live in the library. It looked abandoned, and every book and table was covered in a visible layer of dust.

Finally, the hologram glitched and disappeared, but left behind a slip of something that resembled paper. Hazel quickly snatched the paper off the desk, and barely felt anything other than heat, and read it. It read 20000-100000. She mumbled the numbers to herself, and after doing so, the material crumbled into a fine powder and swirled itself back into the air and to the button that called the hologram. Hazel stared at its home and shook her head in slight disbelief. Everything on that planet seemed to be a new surprise.

Hazel searched the tops of the bookshelves for numbers, and saw that she needed to go quite far back. Looking towards the end of the main aisle between shelves, Hazel started to think that the building must be at least a mile long based on the fact that the spaces between shelves appeared to be extremely miniscule.

She ended up scanning signs and walking for over twenty minutes before finally reaching the start of the right numbers. There were eight signs along eight rows on the left, 7 of which labeled universes, and one labeled Vasion.

Hazel found the row with the title "Universe 6" and found what was originally a simple row turn into a maze, almost as if it had become its own miniature library. She had to sprint to find the label "Ex-Pian" so she could attempt to possibly find some information on her origins. Her First Origin half of her ancestry was clear, but her father's side was still quite fuzzy, no matter how much she had it explained to her. It would be best if she could find things out on her own, since she learned better from books than from speech.

Shelves upon shelves of rotting books filled most of the area, but as she traveled down the aisle, they became in better shape, until a very new section, no older than a century, had year names along the spines, glowing in bright neon blues and greens. Instead of each year having hundreds of books, each year only had one rather thin book. She knew she was born in 2003. According to the books, the Interuniversal Standardized Calendar System would put her birth year at 10478. She picked up the proper book and flipped it open, sliding down the bookshelf and sitting on the dusty stone floor.

There were no pages, just another hologram of Hazel that came out of the center of the book. She was taken aback by this.

"This is the book of the Ex-Pian species ancestry in the year 10478, or the 10478th orbit of Vasion around the multiverse. Are you looking at yourself or someone else?" it spoke monotonously.

"Uh, myself?"

"Searching my references..."

Hazel watched the hologram buzz out and disappear, a model of the Sixth Universe taking its place. She reached a finger out to touch it, spinning it around like a globe. Before she could try taking a closer look, the hologram reappeared.

"Hazel 'Von Brandt' Ununquadius, here is what you're looking for. Just say, 'Hey Holo,' to get my attention!"

Hazel was confused again. She had never heard that name, Ununquadius. Perhaps it was a family name.

She scrolled through the information as if it were being displayed on a tablet, which, when she thought about it, was exactly what was going on. She found a page on direct relatives, and tapped what should be her father.

Daniel Ununquadius, son of Aaron and Melissa Ununquadius, was born in 10442 on the planet Zhera, star A4Z26B, in the Yamarin Galaxy. Not much is known about him, other than the fact that he escaped to the First Universe in 10476 and had one child, a half Exan, half Homo Sapiens hybrid. An Exan has never been documented reproducing with its original variant before this time, and because of the reclusive nature of the Ununquadius family, as said before, not much is known about them. It is unclear which planet he resides on in the current year, but if he pursues another rebel attempt to unite the Ex-Pians with humans, he will be putting both subspecies at risk and therefore will be put on a high-priority wanted list by Vasion themselves.

Hazel, almost in slow motion, closed the book and stuck it back on the shelf. She blinked, and found herself standing facing the U6 row, back in the main aisle. Hazel whipped around, panicking, wondering how in the world she got to where she just was. She found a stack of small trinkets, looking very similar to the button on the original library table, and quickly snatched one up and tried it out. Her miniature hologram appeared, rising only a few centimeters tall above her palm.

"Hey Holo, make a note."

"Tell me what you'd like to write."

"Zhera, A4Z26B, Yamarin, Universe 6."

"Noted."

She stuck the trinket back in her pocket, proud of herself for starting to kind of get the hang of the new technology, though it mostly still all went over her head. She heard footsteps from the main room of the library with the couch she slept on, and instinctively hid behind the nearest bookshelf, the fact that she could get lost again not even coming close to crossing her mind. The only thing she found her mind wandering to was the owner of those footsteps. Nothing else really mattered in that situation. She peeked her head out of the maze of bookshelves and saw a familiar figure searching the library; a worried-looking Nredoza Tridfi.

"Hey, Oza, I'm over here!" she called out, waving her arms to show where she was.

Nredoza looked around for where the voice came from, expecting it to be somewhere in the lobby of sorts. Hazel sighed exasperatedly and shouted again.

"I'm in the main aisle, you idiot!"

After another embarrassing search in the lobby, Hazel jogged out to meet Oza. She looked at the winged woman and gave her a gesture that clearly said, what the hell is wrong with you? Oza shrugged weirdly in response.

"I'm just going to assume you found some weird pub and are drunk as hell," Hazel said sassily.

Oza stared at Hazel before hanging her head, ashamed.

"Yeah..."

"Okay then, lay down on your side on that couch and I'll try to get you some good food and some water. I don't know how to help you, I've never had to help someone drunk," Hazel said, heading towards the library door.

Standing outside, staring around, Hazel felt overwhelmed once again. She had no idea where anything was, and had no maps or anything. So, she aimlessly wandered the streets, searching for something like a convenience store one could find on Earth. Or, maybe a restaurant. Hazel had no idea how different their cultures and customs must be compared to Earth's, but seeing as they had a library and a pub, it couldn't be all that different.

She took random turns until she, as to be expected, got very lost. However, the proud skyscrapers in front of her, taller than any buildings around her, gave her the idea that she was probably in the center of the city. That would surely have something that could help her.

The roads were packed with the city's inhabitants walking around, doing their errands and going about their daily lives. She attempted to ask for help or directions, but nobody even lifted their heads to listen. Hazel decided that the best way to actually get some help would be to enter the nearest building and ask someone there.

A small shabby stone brick building caught Hazel's eye. Through the glass-like substance that made up its windows, she could see a fireplace burning merrily, could hear conversations and laughter, and most importantly, what must have been a bar was totally empty except for the bartender. With care, she opened the door and made a beeline for the bar.

"Hey, you must be new here, haven't seen you before!" he said, cleaning a cracked mug, a lazy eye falling and wobbling with every small movement of his head.

"Well, funny story, I'm actually from the complete opposite end of the multiverse," Hazel replied with an awkward chuckle. She felt as if she needed to initiate a conversation first.

"Ah, that explains your lack of any Complexity."

"Huh?"

"You know, like wings, tails, height, arms, eyes, the sort of thing you see around here all the time. At least you have two eyes, if you only had one I wouldn't let you in," he said, putting his mug down and picking up another one.

"Okay, that makes sense, seeing as I'm just, what did she call it? An Ex-Pian? I don't remember exa-"

"You're Exan?" the bartender said, shocked.

"Half, I think. That's why I only have two eyes, but I also have these weird scars on my forehead and chest that almost look like eyes, so that's interesting."

"It's an honor anyways."

Hazel forced a very fake smile and glanced around, trying to see if there was any way to escape that very awkward situation that had come about. She didn't like the way she was being treated, as if she was some kind of royalty.

"Why is it an honor, exactly?"

"You're blessed with Vasion-like abilities. You can control the most complex devices, Halos, with just your mind. And what's even more cool is the fact that if a Halo Sphere is put in the engine of a ship, you can control it completely with your mind as well."

Hazel was in total shock. There was so much strangeness going on with this planet, the city, her ancestry, it was too much for her to take in all at once.

"Okay, then, thanks? Well, do you know where I can get some water or whatever y'all drink and something nutritious? I don't know anything about this place or the foods available."

"Of course, and I'll tell you what. You don't have to pay anything. I've never met an Exan before now, and meeting you is payment enough."

Hazel put on another fake smile and thanked him as he gave her a bag filled to the top with foods and drinks, and he sent her out of the bar, as if he didn't want to possibly cause a scene of some sort.

She had no idea where she was, since she didn't keep track of all the turns she made. Without thinking, Hazel stuck her hands in her pockets, finding the hologram. She stared forwards for a minute, confused, but then it hit her. Hazel whipped it out of her pocket.

"Hey Holo, can you pull up a map of this place?" she asked, holding it as if it were her one last grip on life.

"Of course, Hazel Ununquadius. Locating your coordinates now."

A three dimensional map of the city came up in place of the hologram. She moved her hand over it, twisting it around. A small beacon showed her location. As she wondered where the library was, another beacon glowed over a very large building on the map, presumably where the library was. When she moved, the beacon that marked Hazel's location moved as well. Soon enough, she was only looking down at the map occasionally, since the city was relatively organized when it came to the layout of the streets. It only took a half hour or so to find the library once again.

Entering the library, she saw Oza passed out snoring on the couch. Hazel sat down softly by her head, flicking one of her horns to get her attention. Oza pushed herself up into a sitting position and looked directly at Hazel.

"I brought you some food and drink," she said, holding up the bag. Nredoza smiled and thanked her, grabbing some bread and a bottle of some kind of red plant juice, which Hazel assumed came from the twisting vines intertwined around the cave.

To Hazel's and Nredoza's surprise, her drunkenness and hungover self started to immediately fade after a few sips of the juice. It seemed that the plants used to make the juice had some detoxifying properties.

"Do me a favor, Hazel, and don't let me drink unless we have some of this stuff," Oza said, gripping the eye on her forehead, obviously in some pain.

"I won't, don't worry," Hazel replied, an awkward laugh following it.