"Hmm..."
Daniel looked at Elizabeth and Evelyn, both dragging him toward their museum exhibition with determined expressions.
A strange look crossed his face. Hadn't he already attended this yesterday?
"Didn't I already come here yesterday? I saw your entire exhibition, even praised both of you. Why are we going again?"
Elizabeth frowned and grabbed his right arm more tightly. "Yesterday? Don't make up ridiculous excuses just to get out of this."
Evelyn nodded from his left. "Yeah. You should at least support us after what you did."
"I already did," Daniel replied.
Elizabeth and Evelyn exchanged confused glances. Neither had any idea what he was talking about.
Daniel didn't say another word.
Something was definitely wrong. It felt as though yesterday had simply happened again.
Not long afterward they arrived at the museum in Central City. The moment Daniel stepped inside, he stopped.
The exhibition was exactly the same. Every display in the same place, decorations unchanged, even the visitors walking through the hall looked familiar.
No mistake. This was the same day.
Someone had tampered with time.
Because of the Mark of Nexus, Daniel was extremely sensitive to changes in time and space. If someone had truly rewound the timeline and forced yesterday to repeat itself, it would explain why he still remembered events nobody else did.
His eyes narrowed.
Central City...
Only one person came to mind.
Is Flash messing with time again?
As far as Daniel knew, Barry Allen was the only person currently capable of causing something like this. He should pay him a visit.
***
Cisco sat motionless in front of his workstation, staring blankly at the monitor without seeing anything on it.
The dream refused to leave his mind. It had felt too real. Dr. Wells standing up from his wheelchair. The yellow suit, the blur of lightning, Wells calmly walking toward him. Then the feeling of a hand vibrating through his chest.
His breathing became uneven as the memory resurfaced.
"No..." He rubbed his face with both hands. "It was just a dream."
It had to be. Dr. Wells couldn't walk. There was no way he could be the Reverse-Flash.
A hand rested on Cisco's shoulder.
"AAAHHH!"
He practically threw himself out of his chair, stumbling backward until he crashed into a nearby workbench. Tools clattered onto the floor as he looked around frantically, heart pounding.
Caitlin stepped back, startled. "Cisco!" She stared at him. "What the hell was that?"
Cisco blinked several times before registering who was standing in front of him. His breathing slowly settled and he placed a hand over his chest. "Oh... Caitlin." A shaky laugh. "Don't do that."
Caitlin folded her arms. "I barely touched your shoulder."
"I know." He shook his head. "I just... had a really weird dream."
"Sometimes dreams can be gateways to realities from other universes. The dream you had today could be someone's reality in another universe."
Cisco and Caitlin immediately turned toward the voice.
Daniel was standing near the entrance with his hands in his pockets, as though appearing inside S.T.A.R. Labs without permission was the most natural thing in the world.
Cisco stared at him. "Umm... didn't we upgrade our security?"
Daniel shrugged. "Those things are meaningless to me." His eyes swept across the Cortex. "Where's Barry?"
Before Cisco could answer, Caitlin stepped forward. Her attention wasn't on Daniel himself but on the countless mysteries surrounding him. As a biomedical researcher, her curiosity had only continued to grow.
"If Barry won't be back for a little while..." she began, hesitating briefly, "would you mind if I took a small blood sample? Your physiology is unlike anything we've ever encountered."
Cisco slowly turned to look at her with an expression that clearly said, Seriously, Caitlin? He's asking for Barry and you're asking him for blood?
Daniel raised an eyebrow. "That's one strange request." He thought about it for a moment then gave a small nod. "I don't mind. Although I'm fairly certain you won't find anything useful." He looked back at Cisco. "Where's Barry?"
"He went out on a call. Should be back in about fifteen minutes."
"Well then..." Daniel walked over to one of the chairs and sat down as though he had all the time in the world.
While he was here, he figured he might as well deal with Reverse-Flash too. In Daniel's opinion, Eobard Thawne was one of the most unkillable cockroaches in this universe.
Kill him today and tomorrow another version would crawl out of the future. Time remnants, alternate timelines, living paradoxes. Nothing but a pile of speedster nonsense.
"So... you said alternate universes are real?" Cisco dragged a chair across the floor and sat directly in front of Daniel. The excitement in his eyes had completely replaced the fear from earlier.
Daniel nodded. "They're real." He leaned back. "The universe is far larger than humanity realizes, and the multiverse is only one part of it."
Cisco listened without interrupting.
"There are an infinite number of worlds beyond this one. Some are almost identical to yours, differing only by a single decision. Others are so different that the laws of physics themselves no longer resemble anything you know."
Cisco's eyes widened. "So there are worlds where things happened differently?"
"Worlds where history took a different path. Worlds where civilizations rose and fell differently. Worlds where people who are dead here are still alive, and worlds where people you know never existed."
Cisco leaned forward. "And people?"
"Countless versions of every person. Some nearly identical to you. Others might share nothing but your face."
Cisco scratched the back of his head. "So that dream I had..." He hesitated. "...it could've actually happened somewhere?"
Daniel looked at him for a brief moment. "It's possible. The multiverse is stranger than most people can comprehend. Sometimes dreams are just dreams. Sometimes they're echoes."
"Echoes?"
"Fragments of another reality brushing against your own. Most people never notice them, but every now and then someone catches a glimpse."
Cisco unconsciously placed a hand over his chest again, remembering the sensation of a vibrating hand piercing straight through it.
If Daniel was telling the truth...
Then somewhere out there...
That hadn't been a dream. It had been a memory from another world.
*****
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