Lucius opened his eyes, and he found himself in the other world.

What? I thought I was asleep! he thought. He attempted to focus into the real world, but it wasn't there. It was just like when he first came to this world.

Then he eventually figured it out. When he goes to sleep, his dreams gets replaced with this world.

There seemed to be plenty of sunlight left, so Lucius left the house and stared at the dirt. He scooped some in his hand and felt it. It was perfect soil for planting.

Making a garden here would be cool. There are so many awesome plants here, Lucius thought. But first, I need to get some things in this house.

Lucius dragged a broken log over and started to carve from it. He made a simple table leg from it, then made three identical legs. After carving a flat, square surface, he packed strong tree sap on the legs and stuck them to the square, forming a crude table.

Satisfied with his work, he dragged the table back in and set it down.

He spent the next few hours making simple furniture and tools, like a hammer, a few sharp nails, a hoe for gardening, and a ruler.

His house was looking more and more like a home. He even did some amateur weaving to make a grass carpet the size of a beach towel. It was soft to his feet and didn't cut or scratch it.

He also built a fire pit in the center of his house to provide light when it became night. Even though the days were longer than normal, there was still a day and night cycle. Lucius could see that the sun was getting lower.

All of this took hours of work, but when Lucius was done, he felt accomplished. He hasn't done something so physically exhausting with high rewards in a long time. He also learned new skills, and his crafting ability was much better than it normally was.

Then he set out to look into the forest. He carried his knife in one of his hands and walked through. It didn't seem much different than the forests on Earth, but there were strange flowers, insects, and, more importantly, animals.

Several times, Lucius encountered strange animals. They didn't seem hostile and seemed more afraid of Lucius than he was afraid of them.

He found birds that seemed to reflect sunlight off them and cat-like creatures roaming the forest. Lucius soon relaxed and started to enjoy looking at the new animals and finding new plants. His boring life would now be occupied with a new world full of new things.

Along the way, Lucius gathered things to take back to his home. He brought back some seeds, strange crystals in many different colors, and other things. He felt like he was treasure hunting, exploring for loot.

Eventually, he trudged back to his home and opened the door. He found Luna sitting on a chair and examining his craftwork.

"Hey," Lucius said and set down his findings on the table. He wasn't sure if they were valuable or not, but they were cool to him.  There weren't things like it in the real world.

"Hello," Luna greeted. She seemed surprised at the woodwork that Lucius did.

"Did you do all of this yourself?" she asked. Lucius nodded.

"Yeah. I'm still not very good at it, but I'm better than I thought," Lucius said. He walked over to the fire pit to light it, but then realized he had no way to light it.

"Aw man. I forgot I didn't have anything to make fire," Lucius said. Luna looked up at the table and grabbed one of the crystals. It had a pulsing red light inside of it.

"This crystal is a Fire Crystal. If you break it on something--" Luna said and dropped the crystal on the wood in the pit and with a snap! it instantly caught fire. Flames crackled and warmed the entire interior of the house up. "--it will catch fire."

"Oh! That's cool!" Lucius exclaimed and stared at the rest of the crystals he found. There was a white one, another Fire Crystal, and a green one. What do the rest of these do? He wondered. He repeated the question out loud for Luna to hear.

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"The green one is a Wind Crystal. It's this wind blast thing," she explained. "When you crack it, the wind will gust out of it from the crack. If it completely shatters, the wind is going to go in every direction." She pointed to the white crystal. "This one is a Light Crystal. When you crack it, it won't break. Actually, it's hard to break without tools. It releases a light that could last about, uh, maybe fifteen minutes?" she said. Lucius nodded.

He sat by the fire and stared at it. It was finally turning night and the temperature was dropping. Having a fire was good for Lucius. He didn't know if he could get sick in both worlds at once, but he didn't want to find out.

"Hey Luna?"

"Yes?"

"What is the cycle for day and nights in this world?" Lucius asked. He's been curious about this ever since he came to this world.

Luna came and kneeled by the fire. She folded her wings against her back as firelight flickered across her face.

"Well, days are about eighteen hours and nights are..." she counted on her fingers. "Six hours? Yeah, six hours."

When Lucius did the math, it added up to twenty-four hours.

I guess the hours-in-a-day is the same as Earth, but the sunrise-sunset times are different, Lucius thought. He could feel his body get tired. He did a lot in one day, far more than what he normally did.

"Well, I'm going to sleep," Lucius said and got up. He walked to his sleeping area and lied down.

"Good night," Luna said.

"'Night," Lucius said and shut his eyes.

He fell into a dreamless sleep.

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Lucius then awoke to a loud harsh sound which he then realized it was his alarm clock. He swiped it off the table, the reluctantly got out of the comfort of his bed.

As he was brushing his teeth, he thought of something.

Maybe when I fall asleep in the real world, I go into the other world. Then, when I fall asleep there, I actually go to sleep. Man, that means I barely got any sleep last night, Lucius thought. He felt like a dead rabbit.

Nonetheless, he grabbed his breakfast and walked to school.

He focused on the other world while he was walking. Lucius got out of bed and opened the door. It was sunrise, the sun was flashing its brilliant colors into they sky and washed over everything. The sign of a new day was just as mesmerizing and stunning in both worlds.

After watching the sunrise for a few moments, he went back inside and put his knife to his belt. He was also going to bring along some crystals, but he realized he didn't have anywhere to put it. That's when he saw the pack.

A backpack that looked like the one he used for school lay on the ground. It definitely was not there they day before.

Not sure if this is convenient or a coincidence. Or both, Lucius thought. He walked over and picked it up. There was definitely something in it.

Lucius unzipped it and looked inside. Inside was some textbooks, a few pencils, and a mess of papers.

In other words, this was Lucius's exact backpack. When he pulled out one of the textbooks, it even had the water stain from when Lucius accidentally spilled a glass of water on it.

After seeing this, Lucius grew excited. Quickly, he focused on the real world and dropped his backpack to the ground. He opened the top and dropped his bagel in it. Then, he returned to the alternate world and opened the backpack.

The bagel was in it, just the way it was when Lucius dropped it in.

He then grew more and more thrilled. This time, he put his dagger in the back and attempted to get a copy of it in the real world.

Sadly, it didn't work.

From this, Lucius concluded that,

1) He could make copies of items from the real world, but not the other way around.

2) The backpack was his link for both worlds, even if it just made copies.

3) Once the copy was made, he could do whatever he wanted to one backpack without messing the other one up.

4) For WHATEVER reason, it seemed to work for simple items, like food. If he tried to make a copy of a gun, it wouldn't show up in his backpack.

Lucius popped the bagel in his mouth and emptied the backpack, setting the supplies on a shelf he made. Then he headed outside and stared at the ground.

He envisioned a garden here that contained a bunch of plants from both worlds. Since he could transport seeds from the real world, Lucius could introduce new plants to this world. But he didn't do it just yet since he didn't know what the effect would be either on the plant or on the soil.

Lucius went back inside and got the seeds he found and the hoe. He felt silly digging in the ground like a farmer, but since he didn't have pots, this way was simpler for organization and planting.

Soon, he finished the tilling and planting. After quickly making a bucket (literally just got some wood and carved it into a bowl shape), he watered the plants.

I sure hope that growing plants here isn't as different as Earth. It would be a disaster if it wasn't, Lucius thought as he hoped for the best.

He felt like he had a purpose. To make an everlasting garden with a ton of plants from both worlds.