I woke up to the sudden feeling of falling and instinctively tried to flail my limbs to catch myself in a moment of panic. That panic only amplified as I realized I couldn't move; not my arms, not my fingers nor my lips in a futile attempt to cry out for help. I couldn't even feel the wind I'd imagine whipping at me from falling, but with the feeling of my chest tightening and my stomach turning, unable to feel anything underneath or around me I could only conclude that I was in freefall. The darkness made me question if I was blindfolded or blinded, and in an attempt to calm myself down, I tried to take a deep breath only to realize that I wasn't merely holding my breath but could not breathe at all, as if I was in a vacuum. My body instinctively seeking air attempted to fill my lungs only to overwhelm me with a feeling of choking which, on top of everything else, made my mind reel in terror.

Am I gonna die?

All of a sudden, after what felt like an eternity but could have been a mere moment, calm washed over me and the prior feelings dissipated like a bad dream. I still couldn't see, feel, move or breathe but the inexplicable calm almost made me feel drowsy. With a clarity that would not beget the thoughts of this state being the result of sleep paralysis or drugs made me question if I was still sane before finally coming to the final rational conclusion I could possibly think of: a lucid dream.

Or more like a nightmare. How do I wake myself up?

Pinching myself wouldn't work without fingers I could move, if I even had fingers in this state. If it really is my dream, however, I should be able to control it.

How do I do this? Bed! Give me my bed and my room. I just want to lay down on a nice and soft bed.

I focused on the space in front of me and tried to picture my bed, which was much more difficult to imagine within a void of darkness with no boundary than expected, but I fought on while mentally calling for it.

After many futile attempts at conjuring not just my bed but my bedside lamp, a flashlight as well as a simple wide-open field of grass that was inadvertently reminiscent of a certain desktop wallpaper I gave up on this approach and tried to remember what I could about lucid dreams when a sudden buzzing static feeling of numbness assaulted my head in both sensation and sound that made me feel both dizzy and itchy. The sound slowly transitioned from electric static to radio static and finally a deafening tv static before a loud pop sounded, clearing both the noise and feeling.

"Finished integrating communicators. The subject should be able to receive and interpret your words." A mechanical-sounding voice echoed within my head as if it was speaking directly into both of my ears at the same time. "Humans were not in the databank but I am confident in my analysis of their - pardon - her physiology. Now, do you wish for me to upload my analysis as per protocol, or are we going to, as you phrase it, cover it up?"

"Of-fucking-course we are covering it up, you bucket of bolts! Not only did we break the agreement but now integrated her with a god damn hypercube and for what, to save the life of a primitive instead of covering for our asses from your blunder, captain." The second voice was both loud and guttural, more akin to growling sounds than words yet for some reason, I could understand it perfectly and not in the way of it being translated but as if I had known it all along and merely forgotten about it till I heard it spoken.

"Calm down, we are going to hide her but I will not forgo saving the life of someone, primitive or not, that I have endangered when all we would pay is a few hearings, a fine, and maybe short term indentured service. Our license will not come under question, I assure you." A third voice, this time more melodic, akin to high-pitched digital or perhaps even bird sounds but once again, even without hope of ever being able to reproduce those sounds myself, I could comprehend their meanings.

"I don't care about your stupid license, you may be fine but me and my guys are contracted to you and will be drawn in as well, and, oh boy, let me tell you, those hearings aren't nearly as favorable to us as they are to you so either spare some of your goodness for us or we are terminating right here and now. I'd like to see you get through till the end of this expedition without our protection."

"As I already mentioned, the subject is conscious and listening in right now. I'd recommend delaying this conversation until our guest is on her way lest something unnecessary slips. Captain, as the experienced one, would you lead-"

"Bah, this is ridiculous. You better be done by the end of the local day cycle or we are out." Heavy footsteps on metal started receding before suddenly getting cut off.

"Captain, if you could enlighten our guest as to her current predicament so we may proceed to our own." This is the first time the mechanical voice sounded impatient. I tried to speak, ask it what it means but no words, no sounds came out. Of course, none would if I can't even breathe.

I'm still way too calm about all this, it's unnerving. Maybe I did get drugged.

Despite the morbid thought, I still didn't feel any fear, apprehension, or worry even knowing I should. This is in no way normal, even for a dream.

"I must give you my sincerest apology for, as you may have surmised by my companion's accusation earlier, my blunder of which the nature I best not discuss but resulted in your untimely near brain death. Due to extensive damage, we were unable to repair your previous body and have as such imprinted your mind and state into a hypercube that spans dimensions, within one of which you will now dwell so long as the hypercube in question remains functioning and intact. While not normally used in this manner to preserve life, although having been performed often nonetheless, this state of being is considered the highest of honors which allows us beings of the-"

"Captain, I believe we should hasten the explanation to matters more directly concerning the subject, such as a new physical body, destination, and reason for such measures." The mechanical voice interjected, which only just now struck me as odd as well due to it speaking in English rather than some alien language I somehow understood.

A moment of silence ensued before a long, low whistle resounded in my head which my mind somehow interpreted as the equivalent of a sigh. I had no clue if that was my newfound knowledge or me misinterpreting what might be alien mannerisms by comparing them to those I'm familiar with. If I could, I would have laughed at myself for having such a thought amidst a conversation about my near-death and body loss - which would explain my loss of physical sensations and movement - but the absurdity of it all made it difficult to process and think straight.

If this were real, then I'm definitely in denial. This has to be a dream or drug-induced, or both, and not actually aliens disintegrating my body and cloning my mind in a, what, quantum computer? Wait, maybe I am dying and-

"I understand you probably have many questions, however, with such a recent integration with the hypercube, communication might prove difficult and strenuous until either you acclimate to your new state or settle into a new body, for neither of which we have the luxury of. Now, as for your body, we will fashion a new one for you as per your requests as a courtesy common with this procedure. Before we get to that, however, you may wish to consider non-human options as, while I chose a mostly human-populated planet in a different reality from the one you are familiar with, it nonetheless contains a wide assortment of species and the rather unique potential of naturally developing near any race within the known galaxies of the vast multitudes of realities. This would afford you plenty of leeway on your desired physiology without being out of the norm, even should you select a fully personalized or mythological race as we can adapt it to fit the laws of the destination reality."

Why am I still calm? I do not want to be calm right now. I feel like this is worse. I'm thinking way too much right now and I do NOT want to think about this. Please, just let me wake up.

Out of the darkness, a massive list of floating white words rose up and stopped the moment the top rose up in front of me, wherever it is that I am. I could not recognize a single word in front of me but they seemed to be alphabetically sorted, with the first couple of words starting with triple a's followed by what looked like a jumble of letters.

"I believe the data I managed to input should have visualized by now. This is a list of every race known and ever conceptualized, bar a few more recent primitives such as humans who are under protection of being influenced, studied, or otherwise interacted with to allow for natural development across all of their parallel realities. This is the reason for transplanting you from one to another, as a hypercube attached to a primitive getting discovered would escalate our current predicament, but the captain was adamant on his decision so we reached an agreement to, as I believe it goes, hide the needle in a haystack. The haystack being a myriad of parallel realities containing humans and the needle being you in this instance."

Why am I not irked by being called a primitive. I want to be annoyed by it. Will they ever explain this creepy calmness. Is it because I don't have a body?

The mechanical voice continued its explanation, seemingly having taken over from this 'captain'. "Now that it has been visualized, you should be able to interact with the list with a mere thought. While I do understand that it is extensive, this process needs to be expedited if we are to have the time to design and construct a body before we arrive at your new home."

After having practiced picturing various objects within the void, imagining the list scrolling down was a simple task as doing so was second nature to me. And I was told being on my phone won't help me in life. But while the success of manipulating the list should have brought me joy, or at the very least some form of satisfaction, it seemed like positive emotions were also gone.

Is this what robots feel like?

My enthusiasm for browsing the list died down as quickly as it came, and my will to keep reading the gibberish-looking words further deflated after scrolling past over a hundred of them without leaving the 'aa' territory of what were apparently races. Deciding on a different approach, I imagined going to the bottom of the list and thankfully it skipped right to without having to scroll through who knows how many entries. The attempt at a different approach, however, was a failure as it was the exact same scenario as previously but in reverse, with the bottommost word starting with a quadruple z. With the list being absolutely useless, I settled with the fact that even if I were accepting this as reality, with the number of unknowns and inability to ask, the safest bet would be to remain human, but elves did crop up on my mind as close enough while having a bunch of perks.

Maybe elf is the way to go.

Even while musing that idea, I still continued to scroll with large, mental flicks, hoping against all odds to glimpse at least a single race I recognized before hunting for elf if only to see for myself that these were in fact races and not a random assortment of alphabetically sorted nonsense my brain somehow conjured. I was definitely beginning to doubt whether dreams could be both this elaborate and detailed. At the very least I doubted mine could.

Just as I felt like I might start accepting this as reality and potentially getting an existential crisis or spiraling in doubt, one of the entries I scrolled past managed to catch my eye, if I still had one, and distracted my thoughts by focusing on finding it again.

V-A, V-A, V-A... wait, no way is it...?

With a target in mind, I quickly found my quarry.

Ah-ha! Vampire! Finally found something. That's actually pretty cool. I must have just missed werewolf if it's here. But no, a vampire is definitely more my jam.

A soft glow suddenly surrounded the word 'vampire' as the rest of the list faded from existence. My reaction to this change was rather delayed, and I swear if I still had a body I would probably have looked like I was dumbfoundedly staring at my own reflection waving back at me as the ramifications of what just happened hit me.

NO! No, no, no, no! Where is the confirmation?! Stop! Halt? Undo. Exit. Terminate. Delete. ALT F4. Uhhhhh...

"That was a rather quick choice, not that I disapprove. The sooner this is over, the better. Due to the lack of time, I took the liberty of uploading a significant amount of data into your new hypercube so you may have as many of your questions as possible answered, but have restricted its access to certain conditions for all of our sakes. I do sincerely hope you fully unlock it, along with your memories of what transpired here." As my consciousness started to slip, I started to wish that this mechanical voice too was alien-sounding.

Wait...