One moment, Rory had been out for his run, enjoying the fine autumn day; the next, it was as if the world blinked back on, like how he remembered his grandparents' old TV when he turned it on. Looking around, he was no longer out running in the park; instead, he was…

Where am I? Rory questioned, startled, filled with cautious confusion.

“Ahh, so it appears I am not alone. I had assumed this was the figment of my mind, a last desperate hallucination as I attempted to grapple with what was doomed to occur. It was a bit strange for someone like me, but stranger things happened. But I suppose with another appearing here, that’s not the case.”

Rory looked across the -

Lobby. I think this is a lobby. No, wait, it definitely is a lobby. In fact, this looks like the lobby of Dr. Smith from when I was twelve.

-looked across the lobby, but rather than another human patient, there was a man, only approximately half his height, with skin as white as snow and piercing green eyes.

“Ackaestar. Professor Ackaestar by human reckoning.”

“Oh. Rowan. Though most call me Rory.” Rory nodded to the short alien. “Nice to meet you.”

“I’m surprised, I must say.” Ackaestar nodded at Rory. “You seem to be taking this in stride, considering the universe collapsed.”

Rory looked around before shrugging. “Either I’m dead, in which case this is some weird afterlife, or… well, I don’t know what else really.”

Professor Ackaestar seemed to chuckle; even for being an alien, he shared many human characteristics. “No, I don’t believe this is the afterlife at all, and in fact, I have my own theory for what is going on, mostly due to your appearance.”

“My appearance? Did I do something?” Rory questioned. He was afraid he’d somehow broken the afterlife. Whoever was in charge would be awfully crossed with him if that was the first thing he did upon dying.

“No, nothing of that sort. Simply put, you are far too detailed for you to be a figment of my imagination, and while not impossible, the possibility of my mind forming a mental construct in the form of a human rather than my own species to cope with the mental stress of our imminent universal extinction seems odd to say the least.”

“Right. I could say the same… Or, with fewer words, at least.”

The alien chuckled, shaking his head slightly. “So, Rory, may I ask as to the nature of how you found yourself here? Were you perhaps one of our brave crew aboard one of the Ricochet ships?”

“No.” Rory shook his head in denial. “I was just a normal man from Earth. I watched the fleet as it was eviscerated if that matters.”

“I suppose not.” Professor Ackaestar sighed. “I’d been hoping that perhaps they would have been saved as well, but it appears their deaths were a final one.”

“About that.” Rory wasn’t generally an overly curious person, but he couldn’t deny the oddity of where he was stirring questions within himself. “You said you had a theory as to this.” Rory waved at the strange lobby from his childhood they found themselves in.

“Ahh, yes. How well versed are you in the ‘Canopy’ theory regarding the structure of existence?”

“I saw a movie with parallel universes once.”

“Good enough.” Professor Ackaestar snapped his fingers. Notably, there were six fingers instead of a human's standard five. “My species, and many others of the galactic union, have been studying this for longer than humanity has been building their first cities. If you know how the Ricochet Ships, and Skip Drives for that matter, work, it will greatly speed this up.”

“They skip along some sort of parallel dimension.”

“To borrow a phrase from your kind, Bingo.” Professor Ackaestar seemed to have settled into his groove, at ease lecturing.

I guess he really was a professor, or whatever the equal was for his race. Rory thought to himself.

“Now, to give it further depth, those Skip Drives, and by extension the Ricochet Ships, only interact with the closest dimensional layers by our reckoning, what we refer to simply as the ‘Cogitation.’ As for what exactly this dimensional layer is, every thought ever had by any living thing in the entire history of our universe, regardless of how big or small, minor or grandiose, all created potential. This potential would form an extra-dimensional energy that eventually settled into its plane of existence just above our own, inherently linked to us through its origin as a byproduct of the potential energy of thought.”

Rory didn’t understand how that could work; he was nothing more than a physical trainer. Sure, he had an associate's degree in sports science, but it was still only an associate's degree, and it wasn’t as if it was from some Ivy League university, either.

The professor wasn’t finished, though, just getting started as Rory’s attention returned.

“Now, to continue, our universe is part of, as of our last count, a multi-verse consisting of over two hundred dimensional layers. This is important because the device the Sensen constructed was meant to collapse our local universe into a singularity, and using the ensuing energy, they would propel their species, contained within dimensional crafts, to a higher dimensional layer. It was a rather rude gesture towards the rest of the sapient life, but they didn’t seem bothered.”

Enjoying this book? Seek out the original to ensure the author gets credit.

The alien professor took a moment to breathe in, glancing around as if expecting a classroom full of students and not a single twenty-seven-year-old human.

“My theory is that both the Sensen and the rest of the universe must have had some poorly understood notion of how the mechanics of this dimensional pancake stack operated, as when the Sensen activated this device, something went wrong. ‘Wrong’ is the operative word here, as it worked perfectly well; those who built it failed in their understanding. Rather than collapsing our singular universe into a singularity and projecting themselves ‘upward,’ the rest of the dimensional layers collapsed onto us.”

“Hmm.” Rory acted as if he understood before finally shrugging. “So, uh, how are we still here? Sounds like that’s not something you could walk off.”

“Normally, no; I’d reckon it would cause an omni-singularity, a singularity composed of every single dimensional layer, except we’ve been saved by chance.”

“Saved? How?”

“Do you remember the layer I referred to earlier? The Cogitation. Being the closest layer, when all of reality was superimposed upon one another, it was the ‘first’ to collide with our local universe. This is nothing more than a theory, but considering we are having this conversation in the first place, I believe there is some credence to this theory. When the Cogitation collided and merged with our local universe, being that it was born of the energy of thought, the very same beings who had those thoughts were encapsulated. Imagine, if you will, a bubble. Did you know some species of insects on many planets can travel up and down the depths by entering a bubble? Those bubbles protect the fragile insects from the water just outside.”

“So, this is a… bubble?”

“Exactly, you catch on quick. For whatever reason, living things such as us with thoughts were encapsulated by ‘dimensional bubbles’ formed via the remnants of the Cogitation during the dimensional fusing. Even now, I’d bet outside of this protective bubble, the universe we knew and understood is a writhing mass of chaotic energy, countless dimensional layers fused and burning each other up; I’d imagine in an event much like the singularity that predated the big bang, albeit to an exponentially greater degree.”

“Hmm. I see.” Rory lied. “So… what now?”

“That is the question, young man.” Professor Ackaestar frowned lightly, scratching at his chin, which was more angular than humans typically had. “Perhaps we remain within the bubbles until whatever dimensional integrity they hold fails, and we meet our end, albeit a little later than initially expected. Or perhaps we cannot escape these bubbles, and we will cease to exist from within. Or, perhaps, the bubbles begin to float to the surface after the greater dimensional universe has stabilized, an event which may take trillions upon trillions of eons if we had to witness the passing of time from a relative standpoint rather than from within our localized reality where I’d imagine our understanding of time no longer holds any importance.”

“You sure know a lot about this, all.” Rory scratched at his chin, which suddenly began to itch, in response to the professor scratching their chin first.

“Well, that was because I was one of the leading scientific minds working to stop the Sensen. Not that it paid off anyway. It was why I questioned if you were perhaps a human crew member from the Ricochet ships; perhaps we were sorted through some tenuous connection, but as you were but an ordinary man from Earth, I can’t see that being the case.”

Rory felt like he should have some response to the revelation that the alien man before him was some form of major big shot, a leading mind in the entire universe. Still, considering that the universe had ended, Rory couldn’t find it in himself to be moved.

Perhaps a life of utter insignificance does that to a person, Rory questioned. He was smart but not significantly different from the average. He was healthy and active, but only to the degree of someone caring for themselves. He wasn’t breaking any Olympic records anytime soon. He’d gotten his degree but was not motivated by dreams of grand success; he’d been more than content to find a relatively ordinary job.

For all the mundane, average, and uninspiring nature of his life, the grand scale of the universe, of what humanity belonged to, had never felt real. He was just a single, ordinary man, and feeling fear or apprehension about what could happen, what was out there, or even the people who stood head and shoulders above him, was pointless when he was of such ordinary stature.

Thus, Rory could only nod as he listened to the most brilliant mind in the ex-universe.

“Without that tenuous connection, any theories I could propose as to why this localized space is home to only the two of us would be nothing more than wild guesses. Perhaps if you were to share more of yourself, I could come up with something.”

“Not much to say,” Rory said truthfully. “I worked at a lab researching how the body's mechanics could be stimulated externally. Usually, that meant sending electrical signals through chicken wings and pig legs, though occasionally, we got our hands on human cells or cadavers. I only had an associate degree, so I wasn’t one of the ones coming up with the big ideas. Outside of that, I worked at high schools with the athletic programs.”

“Oh?” Professor Ackaestar turned up a slightly purple eyebrow at him. “You were a mentor of sorts then.”

“Well, if you put it that way.” Rory shrugged.

“Hmm, perhaps that is the answer. Albeit a rather weak one.”

Rory was about to open his mouth to ask a question when a glance down at his hands caused the words to wither, a strange sense of morbid curiosity taking over.

“Any ideas about this?” Rory asked after a moment, poking at his body that was rapidly turning transparent.

“Two or three.” The professor admitted. “First, our bubble is collapsing, and we are about to join the multiversal dimensional energy soup. I put the odds of that low as you’re the only thing affected here.”

Rory nodded; it seemed simple enough.

“Option two. I have no recognition of this room, so I suppose it was formed from your mind. That excess energy required to manifest this room within our bubble has led to your existence being bled dry sooner than I, and whatever anchors you here are quickly fading. Odds aren't terrible, but I cannot say whether it is truly the case.”

Rory nodded once more, unbothered. His general philosophy was not to fret about something he couldn’t control.

“Finally, the last option is that our little bubble has begun to surface.”

“Meaning?”

“Oh, I have barely a scant idea. But, if I had to guess, fading away as you are means that this bubble, while it houses both of us, is not equal in how it views us or how we interact with it. Thus, whatever the reason, you are to be the first to be spat out into what now exists beyond this small dimensional bubble.”

“Meaning?” Rory asked once more, hoping for a more straightforward explanation.

“Like the claw picking up the toys from a game, you have been chosen first.”

“Oh.” Rory understood that, surprised the man was so well versed in human culture and games that he even knew of crane games. “So, I’m about to end up… somewhere.”

“Yes, precisely, assuming you aren’t simply fading from existence.”

“Any advice?” Rory asked, figuring it was worth seeing what the far more intelligent man might suggest.

“It’s hard to say, given the unknown variables. At best, I can propose to you one idea. As the Sensen activated their dimensional crusher from our localized reality, I reckon this new super-reality you may find yourself in will take much inspiration from our own. How exactly? Well, only you will be able to say.”

Rory felt it was a reasonable enough conclusion, especially given that it came from a genius. Another glance at his body showed he was nearly transparent, the process of his fading existence only moments from completion.

“On the chance you are entering some strange new reality, I must say it was a pleasure to meet you. At best, I hope that if I, too, eventually escape this bubble, we may somehow meet again.”

Sticking out his hand in what was meant to be a customary human handshake, Professor Ackaestar gave Rory a fond smile.

As subdued as Rory may have been in external emotional reactions, he wasn’t unfeeling. Giving the professor his best attempt at his own smile, he met the alien's hand, giving it as firm of a shake as he could without imposing on the diminutive alien.

“Likewise.”

With that final shake, everything went dark as Rory vanished.