It was a world unlike any other. Lauren saw unimaginable colors and extraordinary creatures. It reminded her of those pictures of new species at the bottom of the ocean, only far stranger. All around her creatues crawled, swam and flew through strange terrain. At this moment her surroundings looked like a forest of rib bones and vertebras. Within seconds these bones turned to what looked like flourescent snakes, then began to spout blood tinged branches.

She focused in one one branch and saw a mniscule winged creature land on it. It somehow phased through the branch and came out through the other side, carrying a glowing lump of some tourqoise mineral. It looked oddly familiar, and she stepped forward to get a better view.

As her foot touched the ground a deep bass rumble reverberated through the landscape. Everything froze, then gradually darkened. Lauren felt a dark mass rise out of the ground before her, rumbling with laughter. A dark tenticle with spines whipped out and wrapped itself around her right arm.

With that touch she was in a more modern setting. In the dream Lauren saw a white car speeding along the highway. It was dark out, probably night since there weren't many other cars outside. Cold air caressed her skin and she could smell rain in the air, yet somehow she knew she was dreaming and that she wasn't really there. That thought alone would of waken her for its oddness, except at that very moment the car swerved sharply three lanes over to the right.

Something was just about to happen, she could feel it. Now she was sitting inside the car, unnoticed by the occupents.

"Dude, I swear one day you're gonna flip it over and kill us all."

Lauren heard the voice and saw a teenager in the passenger seat of the car. He was about seventeen, wearing a worn leather jacket and a chain necklace with a tooth hanging off. He had brown hair worn slightly longer than the usual style that just brushed the top of his ears. Nervously he gripped the dashboard with both hands as if he was expecting a crash. Behind him, in the back of the car sat a taller guy with short black hair, sunglassses, and a short tuft of braided hair under his chin. He wore a black sweater depicting what looked like a group of zombies playing instruments. It took her a moment to realize they weren't zombies, they were musicions of some trash metal band. Lauren looked back over to the driver. He was a shaggy haired guy with longer brown hair, long sideburns, and the stubbly beginings of a beard. A mischiveous grin lit his face.

"Sorry, I almost missed the exit ramp."

The passenger winced and spoke again, his voice wavering.

"Please tell me you aren't taking this exit at eighty miles an hour."

"Relax, it's only about seventy somethin'."

Lauren floated up and saw a sharp curve, one that would undoubtedly be too sharp for the speeding car. She looked anxiously back at the occupants and tried to warn them.
You're gonna crash! You morons are going too fast!
Her screams were unheard by the boys, and the car sped on forward without slowing. She shouted again, and tried to slap the driver.
Are you crazy! You aren't going to make the curve!
Her arm passed right through the drivers face and she suddenly remembered she was in a dream.

"I've made curves so much worse than this in so many video games." the Shaggy haired guy boasted.

Rolling her eyes, Lauren leaned back and mumbled to herself.
It's guys like you that make insurance for the rest of us teens so bad.
As he met the curve the driver pulled the steering wheel to the right, trying to compensate. The car screeched and began to turn to the right, but its momentum kept going straight. It smashed into the low concrete wall of the highway, careened off, hit another wall, spun once, and came to a stop in the very center of the lane...

---

Laurens gasped and her eyes snapped open. She saw the white paint of her ceiling, the walls and comferting furnature of her room around her, the red numbers of her alarm clock... yet for a moment it didn't seem real. At least not as real as the crash she just witnessed. She rolled over and stared outside at the familiar skyline of the city.

"And they say women drivers are bad..."

Her thoughts drifted over to her dream, but even as they did she felt the vividness fading. After a couple minutes of trying to figure out who exactly these three guys were she gave up and looked at her alarm clock.

Six twenty seven..Earlier than she'd usually get up on a saturday, but she knew she wouldn't be sleeping soon. With a click she turned off the alarm and walked over to the bathroom. As she left the room her alarm clock flickered and popped. A faint sizzling could be heard, and a thin line of smoke slithered up, in the form of a spined tendril.

An hour and a half later Lauren quietly closed the front door of her apartment, hoping not to wake her sister. She locked the door, and began walking down the block to the park. It was a decent place to spend the morning, especially for a broke teen. As she walked she saw a tow truck rumbling down the street...

---

That same towing truck eventually made its way over to the same exit ramps, coming to a stop on the shoulder, directly in front of the white car. Other cars zipped by around them on the highway sending gusts of wind ruffling through their hair and clothes each time.

"There go eighty dollars of pizza and arcade money." Karl said. He idly wrapped his braided tuft of hair around his finger and wondered for the billionth hair if he really looked as dumb as Rip and Darien told him he did. Well considering that Rip renamed himself Rip because he didn't like the name Terrance and Terrance sounded like tear, which was synonymous with rip... Karl mentally shrugged.

"Not to mention a six hundred dollar car..." Darien replied.

Rip sat inside his car, frantically trying to start it.

"Damnit... Somethings wrong with the ignition."

Karl walked over in front of the hood.

"Nah, It's clicking, so the ignition works, the battery workes, the starter plugs are fine, I hear cranking so it's not the alternator or solenoid... Either your engine is totaled, you busted a fuel line, your compression is off, or-" He shrugged. "Something else is wrong."

"Rip's whole brain is wrong." Darien said.

Rip tried again, cursed again, and got out, slamming the car door. He walked over beside Karl and looked down at the engine.

"Dude, you sure its not just the radiator?"

Karl laughed and gestured to a black cap just below the engine. "Why don't you check it." He backed up, turned, and pulled up a hood.

Rip actually reached for it and was just about to twist it when Darian jabbed him in the arm.

"What are you doing man? You never open a radiator after the car's been running. It explodes and you get boiling hot liquid all over you."

Rip winced. "That would totally mess up my hair... Minus one Karl... Minus one." Rip said as he walked over to pay the Towing guy. As Rip's hand left the Radiator cap, he didn't notice recently formed ice crystals floaing within it, roughly negative two hundred degees farenheit.

Lauren sat on the park bench with her arms crossed. Elise sat beside her, she'd met her a couple months ago, back when she first moved here. Elise was almost two years younger, but they were in the same grade because Lauren had lost a lot of credits when she moved out of state. Elise was pretty much the only girl in junior high that she could get along with, everyone else just seemed... childish.

In the distance she could see a large pond complete with ducks and pigeons. There were trees all around, though not enough to block out the skyscrapers all around. Her eyes roamed along them for a bit, looking for something of interest before finally giving up and stating her thoughts.
"Elizabeth." Lauren began, purposefully using Elise's real name for emphasis. "Stop reading that newspaper, its saturday morning... Watching cartoons would be more natural."

Elise lowered the newspaper a couple inches, a half smile forming.

"I'm fift-fricken-teen. I haven't seen cartoons in half a decade."

Lauren grinned back at Elise's odd choice of words.

"I'm sixteen, almost seventeen, and I have to say I wouldn't be able to live without my daily dose of some sort of animation... Besides, newspapers are just, bleh.'

Silence followed. Lauren was about to press further but she knew there were valid reasons to read newspaper. Only last month Elise had found her a data entry job that paid obscenely well for just retyping paper files to digital databases. She shrugged and walked over to the pond, circling it once. Then over to a fountain. This one was shaped with all sorts of faries, sprites, and other odd looking creatures both in and out of the water. It was just constructed last month. She pulled out some change and thought about making a wish.

"Has any wish you ever made in a fountain ever come true?" Elise asked, startling her.

Lauren raised an eyebrow.

"Wouldn't telling you make sure it won't ever come true?"

"Not if some jerk wished that no one else's wishes ever came true."

"You know you're becoming sort of unpleasant..." Lauren said, looking down at her nickel.

"Well, even if no one wished for that, it doesn't change the fact that all you're doing is tossing a lump of metal into a bowl of water."

Lauren was about to pocket her coin and walk away when Elise pulled out a coin of her own.

"It is just a lump of metal tossed into a stone bowl of water you know..." She gazed thoughtfully for a moment. "But maybe there's a way to change that."

Elise walked up to the stone fountain, looking pnsive.

"I wish for someone... or something, to grant any wish that is made when someone tosses a coin into this fountain."

A sudden gust of wind rushed through the park, sending leaves flutteringn everywhere. Elise grinned and looked back at Lauren. "You think I still get a wish even though I wished for this fountain to grant wishes?"

"Just one." Lauren replied after a moment of thought.

Elise tossed her coin in. I wish that anyone who wishes for others to never have their wishes granted doesn't get their wish.

Lauren looked over at Elise, already knowing what her friend would wish for. She may be aloof and cold at times, but deep down she was generous. She looked into the well, wondering what to wish for. Should I give Elise another wish? Her lips formed a sly smile. Or could I wish for more wishes and then give some of those to Elise? There had to be an unwritten rule about that somewhere. Would that be any different from wishing more than once? Lauren thought for a bit, but was caught Elise staring at her.

"What?"

"Watch out for curses. There are tons you can get by wishing for more wishes, wishing more than once, or wishing something stupid."

"What could be a stupid wish?" Lauren asked. "Wait- Curses?"

"Like wishing for someone not to grant the wish you wished. And yes curses. They're quite grisly too. Unique perspectives or misunderstandings are also unfortunate possibilities. At least according to sixteenth century folklore." Elise shrugged. "Just keep it simple."

Lauren laughed at Elise, who reads sixteenth century folklore? She thought for a while, a thousand bucks would be fun, so would a soul mate. But what if those thousand bucks were monopoly money? Or the soul mate she wished for was someone elses? Yeah she could be more specefic with both these wishes... But still. LIfe was ok now, she didn't want to screw it up.

I wish to know who was in my dream last night.

And at that moment a ripple of some strange energy or power exploded outward. It was as if the very building blocks of the universe had been rearranged.

Chaos, disorder, and random chance have always been a part of this world; however incredible coincidences do happen. Eventually, wildflowers form a mosiac, the planets align, or a collection of synapses fire off in a certain way to gain sentience. In this case, cataclysmic events of an era long gone resurface. Through coincidental word choice, dreams, and all types of variables, the boundries between two worlds finally shatter.

Deep in another place distant from Earth, time, and even space, an ageless being twisted his features in the equivelent of a smile. Finally, entry into another world. His careful manipulation of the very essance of the universe had finally paid off. He was free from the prison of his ancestors and their shortcomings. Now he had finally found an exit. As this being entered the new world, he felt a strange familiarity. Had he been here before? Not to this exact time or place, but yes, in some way. If he would of had a greater sense of time and culture, he would know that he had been here centuries ago.

This being wallowed in the new experiences and sensory data, he felt others coming through and decided to do something about it. With a swelling in power, he reached out to begin manipulating the essance of the universe again, time, space, strings of existance, but wait! He couldn't, something was wrong. Something was very very wrong. This world hadn't changed, but the rules had. Somehow, his ancestors, beings older than time itself, had made a grevious error. He wasn't sure what it was, or how, or when, but their affinity towards new experiences, new places to go to and revel in had finally caught up with them.

He felt similar feelings of horror around him, as his peers found themselves stripped of almost godlike power, and trapped just outside this world. Worse yet, the manipulation of the universe they used to get here was going to cost them...

Lauren and Elise both felt like they were just drenched in ice water. Suddenly Lauren screamed and fell to her knees, her head swimming with alien thoughts, memories, and experiences. Colors she had never seen before or had a name for painted bizarre pictures. Sensory information from organs she didn't posses flashed through her mind. Somewhere in the back of her head, a voice explained to her what was going on.

You dreamed about more than those three boys. You dreamed of strange beings from worlds and places distant from here. You dreamed of oh so much more. And you wished to know the beings in your dream. Now you will know them, intimately, for a time at least, until they no longer need to know you to exist in this world.

Her body shuddered and the beginning of strange tingles ran along her muscles. It soon increased to an unnatural and dull ache that amost tickled. Tickled wasn't the right word, neither was pain, it was just a feelingn of alien energy exponentially increasing and traversing across her body. Some unknown power was reverberating inside her, seeking a release.

The stone figurines on the Fountain came to life and bounded or flew away, shadows all around her warped, took their own form, and vanished. Leaves floating in the air turned into miniscule creatures that she could swear were chanting cheap commercial catch lines. Rocks and pebbles shot up into the air and turned into puffs of smokes that took the shape of still more alien creatures. It wasn't long before her own items began spitting out these creatures. First a snake-like being spawned from her shoelace, and her mirror, well her mirror was't quite a mirror anymore, it was a gateway for these beings. So many were coming out that all she could see was a silvery grayish blob.

Elise was screaming at her from somewhere, but she couldn't hear it, she could only feel this things coming out of her, it was getting worse and worse...