Aaron Wren was never the most courageous person, nor was he particularly stoic of mind. Existential angst had permeated Aaron's soul for as long as he could remember. The poor lad felt out of place at his own office. Being thrown into fantastical landscapes through a vacuum of nothing did wonders for the already suicidal millennial's fractured mind.
Aaron woke up with a gasp. His chest ached, and his breaths were ragged and uneven. A splitting headache and vertigo assailed him as he tried to get his bearings. As his breathing evened out and his vision returned, he found himself atop a spartan mattress with no pillows, bed sheets, or bed frame. He seemed to be in a tent of green canvas. The hard ground met his bare feet as he tried to gingerly heave himself off the mattress. His headache abating somewhat, he tried to make sense of his predicament. "Amnesia," he thought. "Hit my head on the pavement, somehow survived, got taken to the hospital, and between then and now, the brain damage wiped it clean." As hard as he tried, he couldn't shake the feeling that the ground beneath his feet would open up and swallow him into an endless abyss, or that it somehow already had. Stomach-churning desperation set in, and Aaron tried to salvage his rapidly descending sanity, to no avail. Everything from black market organ traders to kidnappers to cults to crime syndicates crossed his mind. Aaron started muttering fervently, "No suture marks, I don't owe anyone money, haven't been to church in a while, what is happening?" Pinching the bridge of his nose hard, he stood there letting the weight of the situation dissipate. It felt surreal, movie-like. "Is this the Nolan alternate universe?" his strained mind ventured. The whiplash of finding himself alive in unrealistic circumstances after resigning to die promoted a bittersweet dissonance across his being. Wanting to live on but feeling the weight of his life and failures across his chest was profoundly sad. Heaving a sigh, he started walking towards a seam holding the flap of the tent. Fatalism seemed to be the only way to preserve his mental faculties, he decided.
Come what may.
A battered lion, a bruised warrior, and an impeccably dressed woman were looking at the rendering of a barefoot man in a green tent, seemingly moving in slow motion. A thin pane of water, many feet across, seemingly a portal into the tent that currently housed the Voyager.
A visibly shaken Zeva asked in horror, "Is this what I think it is?"
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Without removing her ruby eyes from the moving picture, Yuri replied, "This is just an AUM chronicle, dear. Did you forget? You had many as a child."
Nothing but the pursing of her lips betrayed Zeva's tension. "Mother," she began.
Without turning back, Yuri continued, "We don't have a WEAVER here, Zeva. The Voyager seems to have no traces of AUM in his being. We're slowing his brain down with focused TH'UM. That's why he seems to be moving so slow."
Zeva's shoulders relaxed a tad.
"What do you think?" Yuri asked, this time to a neat, well-kempt woman. Her hair was in a tight bun, and military badges burnished her uniform with perfect creases. Drill Sergeants across the multiverse would have been proud. The only chaos about her was the kaleidoscopic colors shimmering and morphing across her eyes.
"Voyager Z2411 is a bipedal hominid. Dimensional attunement-induced malaise is evident, and his mental state has shifted from confusion, desperation, desolation, briefly rage, and grief to finally resignation. Based on his initial reaction to his surroundings, the Voyager does not seem to have had any combat training. Poor musculature and an inability to regulate breathing indicate a lack of physical conditioning. Aberrant Th'um patterns in his brain also suggest maladies of personality and fragmentation of self, although he seems to have a scholarly disposition. I would presume the alien to be substantially lacking any authority of significance in his home plane, given his complete lack of any of the associations of authority, insignias, or markings of any sort. Also, based on the contraptions on his person and a sample of his clothing, I would assume he hails from a semi-automated civilization with comparatively rudimentary energy and information storage. The complete absence of AUM, though rare, has been documented in certain planes. Without an actual interrogation, this is as much as we would get from the AUM chronicle," she narrated briefly.
"Thank you, Velci," drawled Yuri, seemingly distracted.
"This person sitting here could possibly alter our very future. Is he here as a curse potent enough to end us, or is he a bastion against the evil we fight?" she murmured uneasily. "Do we kill you or keep you?" She seemed lost in thought.
"Do you think it's an act, Rex?" she asked the Xeral quietly.
"Most possibly," grunted the Leonid. "Voyagers have single-handedly caused great upheaval, good or bad. Every single one has been a myth. They are almost always chosen because they are on top of their native plane's food chain, through power or polity. This one could be a talented and malicious manipulator. His lack of AUM does not disarm me. You were the one who taught me that there are many forms of strength, Teacher."
"Well then, I guess it's time to be a hypocrite," smirked Yuri Andross as she strode towards the entrance of their large command tent, leaving behind her stunned student and daughter.
Come what may.