- into blackness. I gasped, air flooding out my mouth and nose as my ears popped, my eyes beginning to burn, then my skin. A horrible prickling chill encompassed me as I fell endlessly. I suppose this is death. I had thought death would mean abandoning my body and its sensations but this was horrible. Then I caught a glimmer from the corner of my eye, and I turned my head to look.

The light swelled, approaching rapidly, and as it came I saw I was next to a rapidly moving wall, gray with a thin black grid atop it. The light resolved into a portal in the wall which fled angling away from me as I entered. My perspective shifted; the wall hadn't moved, I'd been pulled towards and into the portal and the white cubical room within, despite having no sense of acceleration. I coughed and felt something tear inside me. The portal disappeared as I entered, leaving me in an empty space, briefly looking at my cracked and frosty bleeding hands as the whiteness took me...

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I woke, blinking, and sat up abruptly. What just happened? Disoriented, staring straight ahead, I tried to gather my memories. What happened? And this place...

It looked very much like my hospice room. The walls were the same color, the shape was very close, but the television was gone and in place of the window was a bright white rectangular light. In my examination I abruptly started as my eyes swept left to find a woman standing there. "Aaah!"

She'd been smiling but my startle startled her in turn. Attractive, brunette with brown eyes and toasty skin, dressed in a colorful unitard that covered everything from neck to wrists and yet left nothing to the imagination.

"Oh! Um. I'm sorry!" she said, hands wringing. "I saw you were ready to wake and wanted to greet you!" - except I'd swear that's not what she said. Some of the words sounded a bit like English but not all. Even so I somehow knew what she meant."

I just stared, thoughts racing through me. Who is this? Where am I? I'm in bed? My eyes flicked down to my body and found I was also dressed in something skin-tight, a shiny silver. My hands were... Normal hands, not the damaged mess I last recalled. Thankfully.

I looked back up. "Uh, hello... ?" I felt entirely strange, but I kept thinking I should be more uncomfortable. I felt... good? Like I'd finally gotten a good night's sleep. My body was no longer reporting wrongness, the pain from within my lungs gone as well as the grinding in my innards. My vision was sharper but still more than a bit wonky, though, the world still shifting and twisting around me.

"I know you must be confused, we have lots to talk about! It was so amazing finding you!" Even as the strange translation of her words bothered me her bright smile dazzled more than the light from the false window.

This story has been stolen from Royal Road. If you read it on Amazon, please report it

"I... You're right, I don't understand. You found me?"

"Yes, you fell out of the world back in 2016! We've learned so much from you!"

"I..." Fell out of the world. What.

The last thing I recall was falling into the corner. How did that translate into... No-clipping from Earth? Out of the universe? The corner... I flashed on an old horror story from H. P. Lovecraft, the city of R'lyeh, unnatural angles that swallowed people. I shuddered. She noticed my discomfiture and her smile dropped again. "Are you okay?"

"I, yes, I think so," I replied. "'Back in 2016' - so this is the future? What year is this? Where am I?"

"Well, in some ways we're still near your version of Earth in 2016, but sitting outside it. This is the 'TTS Strand Explorer 4' and we've traveled back from 2663. Our mission is... Are you sure you're okay?" As I listened I couldn't keep my eyes from wandering over her and looked down at myself, abashed, and noticed my own dress was similarly exposing, my cheeks heating. I covered my crotch with my hands, greatly embarrassed. "Um, is there anything I can put on that's less... revealing?"

"Oh." She looked nonplussed. "Obviously. You can't control your suit. Here." She turned and walked to a panel in the wall I hadn't noticed before that was blinking yellow. The panel vanished and she grabbed what was apparently a large towel or blanket, which she tossed to me. "This will work for right now. we still have to teach you how to access your HUD," she said, walking back, as I quickly draped the towel over my shame.

"HUD?" I asked, the first word that didn't automatically translate cleanly from what she was saying. No, the second. "TTS" was the other.

"It's the interface for your implant. Right now it's locked, in 'child-safe mode', since you don't know how to use it and can do yourself a mischief if you mess up." She grins again. "Since you aren't a child that shouldn't take longer than a day or two."

"Okay," I said, still feeling more than a bit bashful and uncomfortable.

"Also, we're less uptight about ourselves now, I understand your era wasn't comfortable with exposing yourselves." My eyes dropped again.

"Anyway... This is the Strand Explorer 4, a scientific vessel, navigating between the strands of the multiverse, picking up signals and items that have fallen through the cracks." I looked up to see her smiling again. "We've learned so much about our own history and the histories of other divergences, but we've never caught an actual person before!"

"Cracks... I'm having trouble understanding what you're saying. Multiverse? And things fall through what cracks?"

"It's not well understood how it happens naturally, but occasionally objects will fall out of their branes. Radio waves as well. We salvage what we find and learn what we can." She snorted a bit. "Orco, one of our analysts, says we're sailing in the dimension of lost socks."

I snorted myself. "You still have socks?" She laughed, tones dulcet to my ears.