[A/N: The dream has ended at last. The dream that inspired Quest for Hope, fell away like the towers and on the same day. The dream was there to warn me that something was going to happen that would change my life forever… and that it did…
But now a new dream has hit me. And now it won't go away. And Adrie is having similarly based dreams. Bri… doesn't tell us these things. But something else is up, but we do know one thing… It's gonna make one hell of an anime series. And it is unlike anything you've seen before… and it's also, a little to real for comfort.]

It's finally happened. Science has acknowledged the highly probable existence of parallel universes, and the idea that these other universes may and most likely do exist in infinite numbers. In another one of these universes, you might exist. Only not quite the same. I might also. But the Universes would also have even more differences… different paths the whole earth or even universe could have taken. Dinosaurs could still rule in one, or life could be Nitrogen based in another. Or the planet might not even exist. Hard to believe? It's real. Truthfully And now for the part that I can only speculate on:

Everything exists. There is no 'reality', it's all real. Everything that has ever been written exists somewhere in reality, as a real occasion. Every fictional character is a real person, who may exist in the past or future. Somewhere else, in another universe, Ryoko and Ayeka are fighting over Tenchi again. In another, Takato is performing a Digi-modify on Giulmon. Elsewhere, Adrie and Bri are running for their life from Keiji. You get the point yet? These universes are like the Create card, anything that is thought or written exists in one of them. Including what you hoped wouldn't. And what I'm about to write…

MULTIVERSE: Parallelity 1

.l 0 3j (Yume no Umi)

It's coming… I don't know entirely what it is, but it's coming. And I've got to find it before it finds me…

**********

Nomaiken!!!!!

**********

This heat… It's unbearable…

The warmth courses around and through me, filling every particle of my being, as well as around me. But it's a deadly heat… I feel as if I'm melting, like I'm on fire… It is, it's flames, but they're only burning inside my flesh… the heat is radiating outwards, throughout the entire universe it seems… I scream in agony, knowing as I do that there is no one who can hear me… I struggle to regain my composure, hoping that if I can I can attempt saying the chant I'd created that I could call thunderstorms with… [A/N don't try it… it works, but the storm will either exist with no clouds or, if you overdid it, stay for two or three days like it did two weeks ago (oops…)]

"Bring me rain, to give me energy," I call into the boiling air, clasping my hands together in the proper hand motions, despite the blistering heat they cause upon each other. "Bring me thunder to give me strength! Bring me wind, to give me speed, Bring me darkness, for I am a creature of the night… Sun, Moon, Sky, Earth, Fire, Wind, Water, Rock, STAR!"

I'm not sure how I made it through the whole chant, but I am so glad I did… the rain starts to poor over me, and the heat begins to disappear… I feel the fire escaping from me in the form of steam that rises anytime the water strikes me… I look to the sky, there are no clouds… again… like the first time I used that power, the first time I realized that I could call rain…

Water… thank you… I bow my head and trudge forward.

But now I'm getting too cold… I look back down and see the rain blowing at a steep angle as I struggle to walk against it. I have to find it, whatever it is. If I find it first, it'll make me stronger, perfect these abilities I have… If it finds me first… I'll be killed…Become nothing more than a piece of it… but this cold… from the wind… and it's so strong, it's going to blow me over…

Please… please, you must assist me once more…

The rain comes down harder, almost in a tsunami… and it all pours over me… but it doesn't fall to the ground… it covers me, warming me back to a normal temperature… It ripples around me, as the wind blows hard against it… I am thankful at this moment for all the breathing exercises I've practiced… but even at that, I'm not sure that 5 minutes will be enough time for the wind to cease… I need to breath… my lungs are burning… and finally, as I watch, the ripples are ending… the water is calm… it falls away once more, as if it had been held by a jar or vase that had been simply removed suddenly… I fall to the ground, panting hard, but regain my breath quickly and move on.

Where is it? What is it?

I still do not know anything of what I seek, only that it is closer than before. I pray that I will find it first, Aqualord willing. Wait, what I'm I thinking? The Aqualord is a false idol, created hundreds of years ago… after the Guardian Daemon for our universe was destroyed.

The ground… it, it's shaking! A land quake! The earth unfolds beneath me, trying to take me, I feel… I'm falling…. It's still shaking… The ground is covering me back up! I can't breath!

Water, help me! My mind calls instinctively. I feel the water soaking the earth around me… yet somehow, I feel, that not even it can save me this time… the G-Daemon of the ground, Gazimade, from Parallelity 23, must have me… I let my eyes close, feeling the breath escape me, and then… It's like someone has lifted me up, and yet I still feel as if there's nothing there except the embrace of water upon me. I feel the ground again but below my feet, instead of covering me, and I open my eyes, nearly expecting to have died and to have this be the Land of the Breathless… but I am still breathing… my hearts still beating… I open my eyes.

"Who… are you?"

The boy does not answer, only puts his hand on a nearby beasts back, and they turn to walk away… We will return… I feel them say. Both are made entirely out of water. The creature, I feel that somehow I know… it's clearly a G-Daemon, or at least a Demi of such, and… it's the one I seek. The true form of my own guardian, water, more likely thunderstorms. Maybe… that's where I got my powers from…

I took a deep breath and opened my eyes, not even realizing I'd closed them. The pale blue of my ceiling was above me. I was at home, the whole time… The first rays of light sparkle off the aquarium beside my window, telling me it's morning. And that it was all a dream.

Again.

I had the dream again…I sighed… That dream had haunted me for months. This was the last straw! I flexed my webbed toes nervously, and walked over to the mirror, brushing my pale gray-green hair into place. I'm going to have to talk to Cassidy about this… I'd see her later, we had to babysit Alice and Minori that night anyway. And I'd see her before that, in Inter-Universal Physics; we both hated that class anyway. She hated practically every class but lunch, truthfully. The one class she liked was Intergalactic Travel and Vehicles. I preferred Legendary and Mythical Creatures and G-Daemons. Little Alice, only 8, was in that class with me, though I was 14. She sat beside me, in the front row… It was amazing how intelligent she and her brother were. Cassidy sat behind me, her feet on my chair for the most part… it baffled me that she was 600 and still in high school, but it made sense with her race's average life expectancy of 10,000… But anyway, we didn't have that class until Fourthday now; it was only Second.

**********

"So what happened at the end?"

"The guy and the Demi G-Daemon just walked away."

"And they were both made completely of water?" I nodded. "That is so cool! Was he cute?"

"Nani?"

"Was the guy cute?"

"I dunno… maybe…"

"Maybe?!" she scoffed. "How can a guy be 'maybe' cute?!"

"He was made of water!" I said in a harsh whisper.

"Miss Shjun, Kukan, do you have something to share with the class?"

"NO, Mr. Takatna!" we both panicked. I mentally laughed that he was still calling her by her last name.

"I was just asking Kumori here what she thought of the possibility of humanoids in Parallelity 39," Cassidy said quickly.

"And I rather think it'd be interesting if we found an eighth Parallelity with humanoids, not to mention it might help prove the G-Daemon-"

"-And common evolution theories!"

"Interesting points, both of you, and her name is Kukan not cloudy," he corrected her. "I suggest you take it easy on your InterUniversal Languages classes for a while, particularly because finals are next month in here."

We waited for him to turn his back, then sneered. So what if we had interests in the language known as Nihongo? It was commonly used in one of the galaxies of Parallelity 14, and throughout all of 12. That and Kumori was so much prettier of a name than Kukan. 'Expanse' geesh, what kind of a name was that? It made me easy for jokes about my weight or the contents of my head. Cassidy knew the language because she was *from* Parallelity 14. She was here as an exchange student. I sighed and looked at the clock. Another 50° before class was over. Ugh…

**********

"Kukan, can I talk to you?"

Sure, jerk… "Yes, Mr. Takatna?"

I think you need to stay away from Miss Shjun for a while. She appears to be a bad influence on you."

"I'm the only friend she has though!"

"There is most likely good reason for that. We're getting a new seating chart next cycle… I'm afraid I'll be moving you both apart." I scowled at him as I left the room. Cassidy was a reject because of her powers and the fact that she wasn't exactly your average kid. She dreamed of becoming a Space Pirate… she had her own ship, a Cabbit actually, already. What bugged the teachers was her attitude. She flunked everything in other universes because she blew things up randomly during class in the past. Here, she had actually found someone who'd talk to her, and she had a friend, so she'd nearly mad it half a standard InterUniversal year here! And despite the leather, sunglasses, attitude, blue hair, and tail on the outside, she could be much different than she looked. Ok, so she was exactly the same, but it was a lot better to be friends with her than to have her shock you throughout class.

**********

"I think that it is your guardian spirit, in the same accordance Nazomon is to myself."

"Minori! Hey, were you listening to us the whole time?!" he nodded and wandered away.

"Crazy little kid. So smart though," Cassidy grinned in response, as we watched him set up a hologram projector. A picture of a lizard-like creature with a long snout and a bandana appeared.

"He's obsessed with Parallelity 12, isn't he?"

"I heard that it's directly connected to your home universe, 14, through Parallelity 13. That one isn't quite a full universe, it's a split one, that combined 12 & 14 and completely separated the positive and negative sectors into two different places. One half's basically a reversal of the other."

"Interesting… Wait, Kumori, have you *actually* been paying attention in Mr. Takatna's class?!"

"Yeah… I hate it, and him, but I can't very well flunk it, Cassidy," I sighed.

"Humph, well, I'm hardly over 600, so I've got centuries upon millennia to retake it," she grinned, leaning back and floating into midair. Just one of her more annoying yet amazing powers. I sighed.

"Well, unlike you, Miss Shjun aka High-and-mighty-cause-I've-got-a-tail, I've only got about 100 standard years to live!"

"Oh. Well, then, I'll get my own drink," she flashed away from my left, appeared on my right, and flashed back to her original position with the added benefits of a bottle of juice and a large grin on her face.

"It's so cute!" came a chirp from behind the hologram projector, just as I was about to scold Cassidy for her pathetic humor.

"It is," I quickly smiled, peering around Minori at the small picture of a feline being projected.

"It is known as a DemiTmon," Minori smiled at us childishly. It seemed so strange, how adorable that grin could look yet he had an intelligence that could easily match or even beat either Cassidy's or my own.

"Oh, and how would you know that?" Cassidy teleported to behind him and picked him up.

"Nazomon informed me!" he laughed as she carried him towards the door.

"Such language from a third grader! I ought to not let you two watch the stars tonight," I said and carted Alice outside, flipping the Hologram projector and the rest of the lights off as I went.

**********

"Truth to tell… I'm not sure if I'm even from 14…" Cassidy admitted randomly, looking up from her fourth soda. Soda, another thing we didn't know about until she had gotten there, do to the low amounts of carbon locally... oh, did I forget to mention we in my Parallelity were Nitrogen based? Sorry…

I blinked. "What do you mean?"

"Well, I am from 14, family speaking, but… seeing as I was adopted… I'll never really know. I could just be of a duplicate species. Like what we were discussing last cycle in class?"

"You paid attention?"

"The second time. This is my eighth. But…" she glanced around nervously. "I've never really told anyone about it before."

I smiled at the girl who'd been my best friend that whole year. Suddenly, as I looked at her face carefully, I noticed something was different about her… the eyes! "Cassidy, your eyes! Look," I pulled out my brush/mirror and flipped it open. Her tail twitched anxiously as she stared at her face in the mirror.

"You're right… they're… like yours. They didn't used to be…" she looked up at me.

"You better not be turning in to an Uminome… you'd be dead of old age by now!" I laughed. "Actually, if you paid attention in chemistry, you'd know that it's something to do with our atmosphere. It interacts with chemicals found in our eyes and our eyes fade, for some reason, to having one blue and one green. And then, depending on the blood flow, they can fade clear to white and back, particularly when we're sleeping. But I didn't think it'd effect Carbon based life forms…"

"My eyes better not stay like this after I leave this planet…"

"If there's a lot of helium on whatever planet you're on, they should go back to normal within 10-20 standard years. At least, it should. I'm really not sure how it'll effect Carbons…"

"Just great… and Carbon Dioxide makes it stay longer, right? So much for Parallelities 12 and 14…" I nodded back.

"It's so weird though… it's like, I dunno, you're one of *us* now…" she looked at me, grinned, and disappeared, reappearing with a bowl of chips.

"Far from it, girl!" I sighed in response. She may look like an Uminome, but she still had her abilities. Me, I could just call thunderstorms. Not nearly as useful as shooting large bolts of lightning from your body on command and teleportation.

I looked around, listening to the silence of the night. It just didn't seem right for our planet… Why was I stuck living in the one landlocked city on the entire water-covered planet? It was sickening.

"Hey, that one looks like KanShu!" Alice giggled excitedly, pointing to some stars. I blinked. She's talking about KanShu again?! KanShu was this creature of some sort, that she'd first brought up in our Mythical and Legendary Creatures and Daemons class. The teacher had admitted that there was no G-Daemon for the letter K, but she had claimed that it was a Daemon that created and represented Wind and Life. Who wanted to believe the little 7 1/2 year old, even if she was a genius?

"Where," I finally asked, walking over and sitting down beside her.

"There!" she grabbed my hand and pointed one of my fingers towards the sky. "Right there, see?! There's his tails, and there's his body, and his head. You can even see one of his eyes, and it's red, just like it's supposed to be!" she outlined the constellation for me, ending with a red star that was a nearby supernova, which we had been observing in Galaxial physics the cycle before. It really did all look some type of canine, framed in the stars…

I smiled at her. "So that's KanShu, huh?"

"No, silly! It just looks like him! KanShu is real, I go out in the woods and he watches me while I play and climb trees and everything. I know he's there, even though sometimes I can't see him, because there's always a little wind."

"There is, huh?" Cassidy rolled her eyes. "She's so insistent that he's real," she whispered to me harshly.

I couldn't bring myself to tell either Cassidy that he might be or Alice that he might not be. Only 8, and still so full of life, I sighed as I watched Alice show the constellation to her twin brother. Most kids had lost that sparkle in their eyes and their lust for life by that age, for some reason, particularly ones as smart as she was. I heard a gentle wind blowing through the trees, and Alice smiled, closing her eyes and lifting her face into the wind. She's so different…Could it be? Nah, KanShu can't be real, it's just her imaginary friend. He couldn't be real.

Could he?

**********

Minori's P.O.V.

It was morning of a no-school day… the end of the cycle… I sat there, listening to Cassidy and Kumori discuss something of irrelevant importance… There, at the edge of the forest, was something much more intriguing, though it was only my own sister… It is the act which she was performing that I found interesting… As I watched, she laid chase to a petal, afloat on the gentle wind. She stretched out her hand and managed to just barely touch the edge of the small red piece of flower, and immediately spun around and ran in the opposite direction. To my amazement, the petal turned and flew after her, floating on the wind like it would down stream, nearly personified as it seemed to play a game with my twin. Alice circled a tree and ran further out into the open, the petal mimicking the action and continuing to follow her until it managed to land softly and briefly on her shoulder. It promptly took flight again, as if expecting another round of tag, but instead it fell to the ground gently, the unseen force holding it gone, as a soft howl came upon the breeze. I watched as Alice put her face into the wind. Somehow, in the deep reaches of myself, I thought I heard her name being called in that howl. And yet somehow mine as well, and every other person… Yet mostly Alice, myself, and somehow Cassidy. I struggled to shake the strange sensation from my body, only to find it imbedded in my being… It was unlike anything I had ever known in my life, and yet… Kumori and Cassidy, standing directly behind myself, seemed oblivious to any of the unusual occurrences… Maybe it wasn't unusual, maybe… Perhaps I'd just never noticed before…

"I'll be back in a few degrees!" Alice shouted, running off into the forest. I had to… no, just simply wanted to… follow her. I felt my feet moving forward, I was running after her, though somehow I thought I hadn't told them to. Somehow, I knew I had, but not my mind… I was, and still am, not accustomed to any sort of being outside of that of my mind… I have never believed that creatures had souls, with the exceptions of G-Daemons, and I would have not believed such if it were not a proven scientific fact that the G-Daemons existed… Which, however, it was…

I saw a clearing, a head of me, and there was something shining in it. Rippling just as the surface of the water, yet in midair. The scientific part of me took back over… I halted, pausing to examine the seemingly unnatural existence. It was paper thin, it seemed to be non-existent. On the other side, it could not be seen, it appeared to not be there… It completely reminded me of the water's surface, the border that was so common in my world… I pushed my hand through the strange barrier, and pulled it back. Nothing… At all… I took a deep breath, looking back towards where I had come from. The girls would not wonder about me at all. They would just suppose I had gone to examine something again, which truly I had… I slowly stepped through…

And there I saw him, the creature Alice talked of so much. He looked straight at me, I felt him say my name… but Alice still remained unaware of my presence… "It is real…" I whispered. And instantly, my mind asked the questions it had every other moment of my life. "Why? And how?"

That was the instant I learned that, not everything can be explained…

Ok, what you guys think, huh? *please* tell me, and e-mail too: CCRya@aol.com. Oh, and the theme song is on my personal account, Lyra of The Edge (or just the Lyra with the most stories If it's not changed yet. Adrie and Bri would love to hear from you too, they are (respectively) MiniMetal_G@hotmail.com and Rfinkey@msn.com. Ja!!!