Everything had come rushing into him.

All at once, everything, reality, was perfectly still.

There was nothing, and there was everything.

He knew he wasn’t here. Anywhere.

Not in his place. Not his time or reality.

He wasn’t alone.

The voice spoke into his mind. ‘We are grieved that this has happened. It was not meant to be thus.”

He tried to answer but didn’t know how. He wondered if they could understand him anyhow.

They did.

“Our ship was damaged, yours was caught inside the planar flux field generated by the destruction of our ship. We meant you no harm, but were not able to warn you away…”

A pang of deep sorrow shot through his being. His crew, his ship… Were they… were they just gone?

“We tried to save them, but there was no place for them any longer in your reality. So we have given them to you, as part of yourself. You must leave now, there is no place for you here and we must not travel beyond this place. Our… condolences, Joseph Franklin. Farewell.”

He nodded, somehow. Understanding beyond his capacity to know.

There was a new chance at life, but there was no going back now.

Things would be different now.

-Franklin, Anomalous Individual