Do you ever get that feeling after you’ve had a very real dream and then you wake up and think the dream was actually reality? But after a while, that feeling wears away when your senses return to you. What if the exact opposite happened to you? What if you had a dream that seemed unreal in so many ways, but when your senses return to you, you realize that this is no dream and that instead it is reality? That is exactly what happened to me.

The day after I returned home from my long adventure, I had this strange feeling of exhaustion. My body was fine. My body did not participate in the battle against Giygas, it was my spirit, my soul that fought for me. I felt that my soul was tired, that my soul was exhausted. As soon as I showed Paula home and looked through the photo album that the traveling photographer brought over with my family, I went to sleep.

I had a strange and fantastic dream that night. Well, I thought it was a dream, but I was wrong. I had fallen asleep and had woken up in a new reality. A reality that seemed so unreal, but when my senses returned to me, I realized that it was real. But how? How was this possible? I did not know then, but I was determined to find out.

I "woke up" in my bed, wearing the same pair of blue striped pajamas that I had gone sleep in. I opened my eyes and saw that I was sitting in the middle of Magiciant, the dream world that was created by my inner most subconscious. This was a dream world, and at first I thought for sure that this was indeed a dream, but in the distance I saw the tall towers and bright lights of Fourside. Still, this could have been a dream, but when I slipped off the bed, I fell down on my elbow and felt a dull pain in my arm. There is no pain in a dream, and that is true. Dreams are not real, but pain is. I was shocked by this and pulled up my sleeve to pinch my self. Again, I felt pain. This was real, not a dream. But how? How was this possible?

I stood up and looked around. There were dozens of people walking around, all of them I knew. "Of course I know them all." I thought to myself. Magiciant is a dream world created by my thoughts and memories. So naturally I would bring people I knew in the real world to my dream world. But this didn’t make since. If this dream world was actually real…I didn’t want to think about it. I decided to ask the most trustworthy person that was around. Not all of the people in Magiciant were exactly trustworty. I had enemies in my thoughts as well as friends. I saw Everdred staring at a butterfly and approached him. He turned to me and screamed.

"Ness! You scared me, kid!" he said in his gruff voice. He was still wearing the hula shirt and sunglasses Ness had first seen him wearing. "Can I help you?" he asked.

"What’s going on?" I asked. I was feeling rather frustrated. All of this dream and reality stuff was getting to me.

"What do you mean?" Everdred asked. I was afraid he’d say that. I just knew he would.

"How is this real? How are we in Magiciant and in the real world at the same time?" I asked with an angry tone. I couldn’t help it.

"Isn’t it obvious?" He began with a stupid smile you’d see on a five-year old. "Magiciant is real, silly. How can you be anywhere else except the real world? Well, besides a dream of course." That did it. If I didn’t walk away, I would have exploded in anger and frustration. I walked past him swearing about dreams and reality. If I had done this in the real world, I would have been taken for an insane person. But then again, this was the real world. Maybe I was insane. "Wait, Ness!" Everdred called. I turned around to face him.

"What is it now, Everdred?" I asked. I was trying to calm down.

"It’s about to begin, the adventure I mean." He said.

"What? What adventure? What are you talking about?" I asked. Everdred smiled.

"The adventure silly." He said with that five-year old smile again. "Your adventure."

"My adventure?"

"Not your adventure, your adventure." He said. That grin was getting to me.

"You’re not making any sense!" I yelled. "You’re speaking nonsense!" Everdred just continued to smile.

"When the time comes, you’ll know. You won’t. You will." The way he said this made it sound as if there was another me. But how could there be another me if this wasn’t a dream? This was reality, wasn’t it? Wasn’t it? "Good bye." He said. He smiled once more and then slowly faded away. The butterfly he was staring at before lifted off and flew past me. I felt hopeless and weak. Terribly weak and there was nothing I could do about it.

I walked off and looked around. Every where I saw a familiar face, but four distinct faces were missing. My friends Paula, Jeff, and Poo. Also, I didn’t see Pokey anywhere. Last time I was here, he was here too. I continued to look around. I felt sedated and apart from myself as if I was watching myself trudge through this sea of familiar faces. Soon I came upon a group of forest rangers with binoculars, the Tessie Watchers from Winters. They were looking up into sky. I noticed that Tessie, the elusive sea monster that lives in Lake Tess, was swimming around joyfully behind them. "How ironic." I thought. I looked up to see what had the Tessie Watchers torn away from the massive sea monster. In the night sky was a large light. It was not the moon or a star, it was something else. It gradually grew larger as if the light was getting closer to the Earth. Then I heard one of the Tessie Watchers say it. "It looks that meteor is gonna crash in Onett."

"Of course." I thought. "Why wouldn’t it? This world doesn’t make any sense." I continued to stare at the bright light that was the meteor. The Tessie Watchers began to walk away. So did everyone else in Magiciant. They were all heading for a bridge that attached itself to Fourside. The bridge hadn’t been there the first time I was here, but then again, neither had Fourside. I decided that I should follow them, even if they were crazy. Then someone called out to me. "Ah, Ness. There you are." I knew who it was instantly. I had seen him only yesterday.

"Dr. Andonuts, what’s going on? Where is everyone going?" I asked him.

"To their positions of course." He answered.

"What do you mean, positions?" I asked. I was really starting to hate all this nonsense.

"When you start your adventure, we must be there to guide you and help you." He said as if it made perfect sense. "Now come along, we can go to my lab. You can stay there until Jeff arrives and borrows the Skyrunner." I went along with him. "Why fight it?" I thought.

We walked a little ways off until I saw the Phase Distorter, a silver time machine fashioned by the Saturn race of Saturn Valley. It was shaped like a Mr. Saturn, complete with a big nose and bow. We got inside and sat down. Dr. Andonuts began to type in some coordinates. I decided to ask him some questions. "Are you saying that there’s another me out there?" He turned away from the flashing computer screen.

"Why, yes." He said.

"And this other me, he’s about to start the adventure all over again?"

"Why, yes." He repeated.

"And all of the people that were in Magiciant, they all have to return to where I first met them so the adventure will go as it did?"

"Why, yes."

"So this whole thing will be over once they complete the adventure again?"

"No, I’m afraid it’s not that simple." He said and then turned back to the computer.

"But what do you…" I began, but the Dr. raised his hand to silence me.

"I have to type in these coordinates."

A few moments later, the Phase Distorter teleported us to Dr. Andonuts’ lab in the snowy land of Winters. My friend, Jeff, would be at the boarding school across Lake Tess, just North of here. It would take a while for that night to come, the night when he left the school to rescue Paula and I and to join the adventure. Inside the lab, Dr. Andonuts made a good job of hiding the Phase Distorter, it wasn’t supposed to be invented yet.

I sat down in a chair that was placed in the middle of the floor. I rested my elbows on my knees and sighed deeply. I didn’t want to be there. It was so confusing and frustrating. "Why was this happening?" I wondered. Then, I heard the front door burst open and Dr. Andonuts yelled.

"Jeff! What are you doing here!? Wait just a second." He came running into the room I was in. "Jeff is here, I don’t know why, but he’s early. Don’t let him see you or it’ll mess everything up!" He said and ran back to Jeff.

"Wait, father! I know what’s going on." I heard Jeff say from the other room. "Ness is here isn’t he?"

"Wha…wha…what are you talking about? Who’s Ness?" Dr. Andonuts asked nervously.

"Don’t worry, father! It’s me, not me." He said. This sounded kind of weird to me, but I understood. I walked into the room to join the two. "Ness, there you are." Jeff said.

"Do you understand what’s going on?" I asked.

"A little, the people here are very vague." He answered.

"I know what you mean." I said. Dr. Andonuts slumped down on the ground.

"I thought you were the other one." He said. "I would have been in serious trouble."

"Come on." Jeff said. "We have to find Paula and Poo so we can figure this out."

We left the lab and I saw how Jeff traveled here. The latest model Skyrunner was resting in the snow beside the lab. Jeff told me that the Saturns fixed it while we were fighting Giygas. We got in and took off into the clouds. I looked out one of the windows and saw Fourside drawing closer. Magiciant was barely visible, a mysterious fog had surrounded it and blocked it from view. We were heading for Twoson in hopes that Paula was there. Of course Paula would be there, but hopefully so would Paula. Jeff told me about the feeling he had, like his soul was tired. It sounded the same as mine so we guessed that Paula and Poo had felt the same feeling. Jeff also told me that he arrived here when he woke up, just like I did.

The sun was beginning to rise and then something dawned on me. "Jeff," I said, "People aren’t supposed see the Skrunner until you come to rescue us." He turned to face me.

"It’ll be safe as long as we don’t see it." Jeff said.

"I guess you’re right." I said. To be safe, we landed just outside of Twoson. We got out and headed up the road to the main part of town. We couldn’t let Paula see us, well, not Paula, just Paula.

There were very few people outside. It was about six in the morning. I saw two men talking outside of Burgalin Park. "Did you here the news?" one of them asked the other. "A meteorite crashed in the hills of Onett."

"So, it started." I said. "We better hurry, I came to Twoson later today on my adventure. If I see myself, that’s it." Jeff nodded and we began to look around.

We couldn’t find her anywhere, but when we arrived at PoleStar Preschool, where Paula lived, I knew why. I saw her sleeping through her window. "Look, Jeff." I said. He turned to see Paula.

"That would explain it." He said.

"Jeff, where did you wake up today?" I asked.

"I was in my bed at Saturn Valley. Why, where did you wake up?"

"I was in my bed in Magiciant." I said.

"What? Oh, that dream world." Jeff said.

"Not anymore." I said. Jeff nodded. "So, where do you suppose Paula will wake up. The other Paula I mean."

"Well, I woke up where I fell asleep the last night. Since Paula has no Magiciant, I think it’s safe to say that she’ll wake up…" Jeff stopped. I turned to look at him. His eyes were wide with fear.

"She’ll wake up where she went to sleep last night." I said.

"That’s the same place where the other her is. This can’t be good." Jeff said.

"What do we do." I asked.

"I don’t know." Jeff said.

We sat there for almost half an hour trying to come up with a plan. I was afraid that she would wake up in the next minute. We’d hear her scream and then the universe would be torn apart. I didn’t know what would happen. All I knew was that it was not supposed to happen. All of a sudden, I saw a black cat run past me. It was Paula’s black cat, the one I had seen on her roof the day I arrived in Twoson, today. In a few seconds I saw the cat scale the wall and leap onto the roof. I turned to see what had the cat so frightened. A large brown dog was running after it, barking madly. It was barking loud enough to wake the entire neighborhood.

Jeff took off first. I followed him closely. We tackled the dog and scared it away, but not in time. A man opened his window from across the street and screamed loudly for the dog to be quiet. If the dog’s bark hadn’t woken Paula up, the man’s bark sure did. I saw Paula’s window open. She stuck her head out to see what was going on. I grabbed Jeff’s arm and dove into the bushes. "What the heck!?" Jeff asked.

"It’s Paula." I said. "She just looked outside her window."

"But I didn’t hear a scream or anything. If I woke up and saw another me I would scream." Jeff said.

"I know." I said. Then, the front door opened. It was Paula’s mom. She was getting the morning paper.

"That toast is hot, Paula." She said as she reached down for the paper. I looked from Mrs. Polestar to Paula’s window. Paula was still there, looking outside.

"What’s she talking about." Jeff asked. I looked back at Mrs. Polestar and saw that she was heading towards the bushes we were in.

"Ness? Is that you?" She asked.

"Yeah." I said. "Jeff is here two."

"Don’t get out yet." She said looking back at the front door.

"What’s going on? Did Paula see herself?" I asked.

"No." She said. "I waited until she woke up and took her out of bed. She’s eating breakfast."

"So, wait." Jeff said. "The one who is eating breakfast, is she the one who met us before?"

"No." Mrs. Polestar said. "At least I don’t think so."

"What do you mean!?" Jeff asked.

"I’m not going to ask her. What if I ask the wrong one?" Mrs. Polestar argued.

"You have to find out." Jeff said.

"Okay, stay here." She said. "I’ll be back in jiffy." She headed back to her house and shut the door.

"Oh, man." I said.

"I know." Jeff said

It felt like we had stayed in those bushes forever. When Mrs. Polestar finally returned, my leg was numb.

"So, what’d she say?" I asked.

"The one eating breakfast doesn’t know you yet." She said.

"Is she on to us?" Jeff asked. "By your questions I mean."

"No, I asked her if she was going to Jeff’s house today and she said she didn’t know who Ness was so I said that I meant Jenny, her friend." Mrs. Polestar explained.

"Well, we need to see the other Paula then." I said.

"She’ll meet you in the back yard. Go there and wait for her, but don’t be seen by the other one."

"Got it." Jeff said.

So we sneaked into Paula’s back yard and waited. Then, after a few minutes, the back door opened. Paula came out and looked around the back yard. "Paula, there you are, we’ve been waiting…" I began, but her scream stopped me. "I’m sorry I scared you." I said. "This is pretty weird isn’t it?"

"Well, come on." Jeff said. "Let’s go find Poo." Jeff and I headed in the direction of the Skyrunner, but then realized that Paula wasn’t following us.

"Come on, Paula." I said. "If we don’t find Poo we’re in trouble."

"Who are you guys and why do you want to find some pooh?" She asked.

"Oh, no!" Jeff screamed. Just then, I saw Paula standing behind Paula. We were talking to the one we didn’t know yet. That Paula must have thought we were insane, talking about pooh. The other Paula, the one we knew, took off back into the house. The one we were talking too ran off as well and I thought that was it. They would see each other and we’d never return things back to normal. But that didn’t happen. Paula’s mom stopped her from going inside.

"Those weirdos just came out of nowhere!" Paula screamed.

"There there, honey. You must be seeing things." Mrs. Polestar said. She gave Paula a big hug and signaled to Jeff and I to go to the front.

We ran as fast as we could. "I’m serious, mom. There were right here." I heard Paula say from behind the house. The other Paula was waiting at the front door.

"Come on!" She said and we ran off. She led us to the Twoson Bus Station. There we explained everything to her.

"This is too weird." She said.

"I know." Jeff answered. "We have to find Poo before we can figure this out." So we walked down the road to the hidden Skrunner and took off for the strange country of Dalaam.

On the way there, we laughed about our encounter with the other Paula. Sure, we weren’t supposed to see each other, but she probably wouldn’t recognize us when the other Ness and Jeff met her. After all, I was wearing my pajamas and had dirt on my face from tackling that dog. Jeff had twigs coming out from his hair and grass stains on his cheeks. We were pretty unrecognizable.

We arrived in Dalaam about ten minutes later. We quickly made our way to the golden palace where Poo lived. The servants there immediately gave us an audience with Poo’s master. I was afraid that the Poo we didn’t know would be there, but he wasn’t. Neither was the other Poo. "Where is he then?" I asked the old master.

"I’m afraid he is not here." He answered.

"I know that, but where did he go?"

"No, you don’t understand." He began. "Poo never fell asleep."

"What? You mean he’s still in the real…I mean, the old world?" Jeff asked.

"Call it what you will. Poo started a new training once he returned home from his journey. He said he was going to Deep Darkness to train."

"Doesn’t he sleep?" Paula asked.

"Poo is a devoted Mu warrior." The master said. "He will not rest until he is satisfied with his skills."

We left the palace with a hopeless feeling. "So Poo isn’t even in this world yet." Jeff said.

"We’ll should wait." Paula suggested.

"No." I said. "Maybe there’s a way we can find him."

"How?" Paula asked.

"We should go to Deep Darkness and see if we can find something." I said.

"Alright, let’s go, but I don’t think we’ll find anything." Jeff said.

Again we boarded the Skyrunner and headed for the thick jungles. We landed a few minutes after we lifted off and were instantly hit by the muggy air. The calls of wild animals filled my ears with constant noise. We looked around for anything. We swam through the swampy waters and rested in a muddy clearing. There was nothing. Nothing at all. Then, I saw a bright blue light flash past me. I guessed the others didn’t see it. I stood up and watched the lights move about in every which way. Then it stopped and I saw Poo.

It was him, but his body was made up of transparent blue light. He took a deep breath and then resumed slashing about with the Sword of Kings. "Look!" I said. "It’s him! It’s Poo!" Jeff stared at the blue light, shocked. Then, it dashed at him and stuck the sword through his chest. Jeff was stuck on the spot, but it was only shock. It seemed so real. Poo couldn’t see us, but we could see him. We could see what he was doing in the other world.

We stood there, staring, not knowing what to do. He couldn’t hear us, we couldn’t hear him. We have to contact him some sort of way. "We’ll have to wait until he falls asleep." Paula said.

"He’s not going to rest until he is satisfied, remember?" Jeff said.

"Yeah, he’s only been training for one day." I said.

"Wait," Jeff began, "I think I have an idea." He began to pace around the muddy clearing we were in.

"What is it?" I asked.

"Maybe, just maybe," he said, "Paula can contact Poo with her telepathy."

"Do you think that’ll work?" I asked Paula.

"I don’t know." She said. "I’ve never tried anything like that."

"Well, give it a shot." Jeff said.

Paula turned to the blue light that was Poo. He was twirling his sword around rapidly and his eyes were closed. He could have easily chopped off one of his fingers. Paula slowly closed her eyes and put her fingers up to her temples. At first, it looked like she was straining, but then she relaxed and looked very calm.

Jeff and I waited, looking for any sign that it had worked. We waited five minutes. Then ten minutes. After fifteen minutes, Poo was still twirling his sword around. His arm must have been hurting. Then, all of a sudden, he stopped. His eyes were wide open and the sword went flying behind him. Paula gasped. Poo regained his calmness and slowly looked around. "I think it worked, Paula." Jeff said. "Ask him if he can hear you."

This time it only took a few seconds. Poo nodded and then Paula said, "Yes, he can hear me."

"Tell him what’s going on." Jeff said. This message took a while, but I guess Paula had explained everything to him. Then, I saw Poo close his eyes. He was talking back to Paula.

"He wants to know what he should do." She said.

"Tell him to go to sleep." I said.

"No!" Jeff interrupted. "Maybe there’s something he can do over there to help us here." He said.

"But what?" I asked.

"I don’t know." Jeff responded. I thought about who or what Poo could find over there that would help us here. Nothing came to mind.

"I can’t think of anything."

"Well, maybe we should ask him to tell my father. He may know what to do." Jeff said.

"Okay." I said. "Ask him to tell Dr. Andonuts, Paula." She nodded.

After a few moments, Poo nodded and waved good bye. Then, he disappeared. He had teleported to Saturn Valley to tell Dr. Andonuts. Now all we had to do was wait. That was hard to do. No one said anything. I think Paula went to sleep. The conversation with Poo across worlds had tired her out. I kept thinking about how this world didn’t make any sense. It seemed like the adventure I had taken was a play or a movie over here, not a battle for the fate of the universe. It made me mad and frustrated. So I tried not to think about it, but I still did. I wished Poo would hurry up, but I couldn’t blame him. After all, he had to explain our dilemma to Dr. Andonuts. Then something weird happened, not to me or Jeff, but to Paula.

She woke up from her nap and was crying. "What’s wrong!?" Jeff asked, startled.

"I had a dream, a nightmare." She said. "You two were there, but you weren’t yourselves. You were monsters. You were on a rampage, destroying everything in your path. I couldn’t stop you. You were two powerful. You tried to kill me." She said and began to cry again.

"It’s okay, Paula." I said. "It was just a dream."

"No it wasn’t." She said. "It was real, or at least it will be." Those words sent a chill down my spine.

"What do you mean by…" Jeff began, but stopped when Paula raised he finger in silence. I turned around and saw Poo. He was talking to Paula.

"He says that Dr. Andonuts may know what’s going on."

"Well, what is it?" Jeff asked.

"Wait, he’s telling me now." Paula said. After a minute, she had the answer. "Dr. Andonuts gave him a disk. He’ll bring it over after he goes to sleep and wakes up here. Then, we have to bring it to the other Dr. Andonuts so he can see what’s on the disk."

"What is on the disk?" I asked.

"A way out I guess." Paula said. "He’s going to take a pill that’ll make him sleep so he can be here in a few minutes."

"Good." I said.

Poo took out the small pill and swallowed it. He sat down, crossed his legs, closed his eyes, and waited to sleep. As he waited, I thought about what Dr. Andonuts’ plan was. "How would a disk help us, and would the other Dr. Andonuts even help us?" I once again felt angry and frustrated. Then, the blue light that was Poo faded and in its place was the real Poo.

We woke him up and he gave me the disk. "So, how will this help us?" I asked.

"You will see." He said. "Now we must go to Winters."