As if from a nightmare, John awoke with a sudden start. Adrenaline inundated him as he jerkingly rose to a seated position, flushing all lingering sluggishness from his system. All around him, his surroundings were still but for a rustling breeze.

It was still night. Even so, he distinctly recognized that all the sounds associated with it were absent. There was no chirping of insects, nor was there any croaking from the local tree frogs. It was as if even the nocturnal creatures had all but vanished, leaving him alone in the forest.

No, not alone, he realized with an abrupt sense of dread. His head spun as he frantically searched for his daughter. Thankfully, John found her prone form just a few feet behind him. The rising and falling of her chest swallowed his panic with it’s rhythmic movement.

Luna’s presence and immediate safety seemed to drain John of tension he didn't know he was holding. A tingling prickle that seemed to coat his skin slowly faded, and he became suddenly aware that his ears had been ringing loudly. Though, even the absence of ringing, his surroundings were still eerily silent.

After a few deep breaths, he now felt calm. Much calmer than he would expect after god knows what just happened to them. He recalled the voice which echoed within his head and with a gravitas he hadn’t known possible for verbal communication.

Or whatever form of communication that could have been considered.

It felt both foreign, yet strangely intuitive. Considering the circumstances, he found it odd that he could remember the voice’s words as clearly as if they still echoed about in his head, and they left him with far more questions than answers.

John shook his head to clear himself of the troubling thoughts. Answers could wait.

For now, he was becoming increasingly aware of a problem. The discomfort in his hand had been suppressed by adrenaline previously, but was now left unabated. It was all at once burning, stabbing, aching, and itching in an incredibly uncomfortable manner.

There were clearly serious lacerations, as most of his palm and fingers were covered in recently coagulated blood, but he would have to wait until it was cleaned to get a proper look at surface level damages.

Parts he could see beneath the blood looked to have been seared. Seared by what he had no clue, but it was a troubling revelation. On top of that, he loathed to discover that it was potentially broken as well, as no amount of prodding from his nervous system could elicit more than an excruciating twitch.

Better to leave it for now, then.

He held his hand close to his chest so that gravity helped prevent more blood from leaving his body and stumbled over to his daughter. He fell to his knees beside her.

While she was breathing, and therefore alive, he would much rather her be conscious so that he could make sure she was okay. Kneeling beside her, he tapped the cheeks of her face lightly a few times to no response.

“Luna? Hey, Lulu! Come on sweetie, wake up!” When his gentle provocations still failed to garner any response, John pondered the potential of a more aggressive approach. It was a dangerous tactic he had utilized many times in the past when nothing else seemed to wake her, but it came at unimaginably great risk. Without any other option, he decisively grit his teeth and initiated the nuclear option.

“LUNA! YOU’RE LATE FOR SCHOOL!” John waited for a few seconds with his eyes closed before he slowly peaked one open. Seeing that his daughter had still not responded, he couldn’t help but sigh. If not even that worked, then she was well and truly out.

He gently slipped his good hand beneath her skull to make sure she wasn’t suffering from an obvious head injury. When his hand came back dry, he was glad, but unsure what more he could do.

With his immediate worries temporarily abated and his existential worries pushed to the side, John took a moment to get a better grasp of their surroundings. They were still in the same clearing they had been in before, and he could only hope that meant that they were still on Earth.

Considering what happened, John ruefully admitted that nothing was impossible. Lending credence to that worrying thought, he had the concerning realization that the night sky above him was not the night sky he was used to.

Even if this remote location was good for stargazing, John knew there was no way the sky could be so bright and so full of stars as it currently was.

“What the hell is going on?” John asked no one in particular as he wistfully gazed into the distance. It was to his utter surprise then, that he received an immediate reply.

“I am so glad you asked!” The voice that called out in response was high in pitch and brimming with unconcealed excitement. It’s tone reminded him so much of a certain annoying but good natured yellow robot who hated stairs that John almost let down his guard. He chided himself silently as he recognized his currently vulnerable position.

“Who’s there?” John winced as his belated attempt to stand jostled his wounded hand worse than it should have. He was forced to grimace as he stood protectively over his daughter.

“Ooo, gnarly wound there, mister! Who told you to stick your hand in a beam of concentrated origin energy? You should be dead!” When John located the direction of the voice, he was surprised to be looking up.

There, instead of the waist-high robot he pictured in his head, was a floating orb of light about as wide as his torso. He was stunned silent as the strange intruder floated down to about five feet from the ground. He remained silent still, even as the orb stopped about ten feet away from him.

“Well, you must be confused! Worry not, human, for I shall enlighten you.” As words echoed out from the amorphous ball of light, John worried that he might be dreaming. He would have pinched himself right then and there, but his hand was proving to be a bit more stark a reminder of his wakefulness than a pinch.

“I’m sorry, what— or who, are you? I’m not dreaming am I?” Even still, John couldn’t help but ask. With no better options, and facing something that at least seemed willing to speak, he would first attempt diplomacy. Not that he was in any condition to fight.

“No, silly! You were dreaming for about four hours, and then you woke up! As for who I am, well, I have gone by many names. There are some who call me…. Tim! Tim the Guide! I just spent the last four hours absorbing the knowledge of this world, and I must say, your internet was amazing! Memes! Top texts and bottom texts! Hilarious! It took me two whole hours to get through all of your ‘YooTube’ videos alone! It’s incredible that—”

“Hold on, please, just slow down. You’re giving me a headache.” The orb of light seemed all too content to ramble on, and John’s already overtaxed mental state was quickly resulting in a migraine. He was finding the entire experience rather degrading when something the sentient orb said gave him pause. “Wait, did you just say you got through all of YooTube in just two hours?”

“‘Just two hours’ is a relative phrase, human. Did you know I’ll reach the end of my natural lifespan in just twelve of your human hours?” The ball of light that called itself Tim bounced up and down with a jovial energy John was having a hard time comprehending. It— or rather, he?— wasn’t content on waiting for him to catch up however, and continued.

“You might be happy wasting a couple of hours, but for me, time is everything! It was totally worth it by the way.” Tim the orb continued to floated about, bobbing up and down with each inflection of his voice.

John could almost imagine the thing yelling ‘Hey, listen!’ at him, if only Tim weren’t so big and lacking the cute wings fairies ought to have. Space fairies must be different.

“Right. So uh, Tim the… Guide? Guide to what, exactly?” Assuming that you’re even real, John added silently. Of course, if he were dreaming, it wouldn’t make sense for the fairy-thing to tell him anyway.

That being the case, he figured he might as well roll with it and hopefully get some answers after all.

“Why, to the multiverse of course! Or at least, as much as I know about it. Now that you mention it, I’m almost as clueless as you are!” John’s headache only continued to build as his guide’s jovial sarcasm took another bite at him.

All he could do was squeeze his temples between his thumb and forefinger and wonder how it was that this ‘Tim’ character could say such things with pride.

“Some guide you are, then.” John snorted. He wanted to be polite, but the damnable space fairy was honestly getting on his nerves. He felt a bit better getting a jab of his own in though.

“Hey! It’s not like I was born yesterday! I was born today!” Tim sounded indignant, and his words weren’t exactly incorrect, but his misuse of the human idiom did not make it past John.

“I don’t think you’re using that right.” John recognized that he was starting to feel better already. Arguing with the rude guide reminded him of his keyboard warrior days back in the 2010’s, before the internet became an arguably better place.

Those teenage years spent correcting people on the internet were finally paying off, he realized with a small smile in spite of his ridiculous circumstances.

It was almost cathartic.

“Anyway,” Tim continued, decisively ignoring him, “‘almost as clueless’ is also a relative phrase.” While saying so, Tim floated up higher above John until he had to look up at an uncomfortable angle to see his erstwhile companion. “For example, behold: your present circumstances!”

“Approximately 4 hours and 49 minutes ago, your planet was struck by the blast of Origin Energy that is constantly expanding the multiverse by absorbing other universes, galaxies, and star systems that exist in greater space. Congratulations!" The fast talking orb danced around through the air in what John could only suppose was jubilance, before floating down closer to eye level. He was still looking down on him though.

"This process is known as ‘Reintegration’," Tim continued, "as all things in existence were once a part of the old multiverse. Before it collapsed, causing trillions of universes to reset, Progenitors such as our Archaeon left systems in place to help life survive and become part of the fold once again. Or so my programming says. Quite the philanthropists, no?” When he started talking about Archaeon, as a father himself, John could recognize the tone of a child proud of their father.

Was that what Archaeon was to the fairy, or maybe the Earth as a whole? A father? He wouldn’t mind so much personally, but at the thought of his daughter calling anything other than himself ‘father’, he came to a quick conclusion.

Archaeon was definitely more like a creator. God maybe?

“So you are a part of this ‘system’ left behind by… Archaeon?” He paused for a moment as he tried to reconcile this new information with what humanity knew of their universe. Surely the best and brightest of his planet weren’t completely wrong. “And do you mean this ‘old multiverse’ was what existed before the... Big Bang?”

“Wow! You’re pretty quick for a slab of meat running on chemical electricity! The Progenitors knew the survival rate of life forms on newly integrated planets would be abysmal, so they left a few things behind that would withstand the revival of the universes, or as you humans seem to call it, the Big Bang. If Archaeon were still alive, I’m certain he would be impressed— Especially that Einstein guy, he was a relative genius!”

It was a bomb dropped so casually that John had to pause. The big bang theory, or at least something similar, was confirmed just like that? But then, if time as we knew it began with our universe, how was there ever really a ‘before’?

John realized he was way out of his depth with the current direction of the conversation and shuddered as his headache returned in full force. “Okay, I get it. You’re relatively more intelligent than us humans. More importantly, my daughter, is she…?”

“Now you’re getting it! And yes, she is very much okay. Everything interacts with the two great energies of the Multiverse a little differently. Some need time to adjust, like your spawn there. She’ll just be asleep for a few hours. Others aren’t so lucky!”

Another bomb dropped casually, this time with horrible implications.

Implications he chose to ignore.

One thing at a time, he supposed. The gears in his head, which had begun cooling off before this impromptu conversation, had started smoking again. Against his better judgement, John ran through multiple possibilities, most of which included his wayward wife across seas.

Was she also ‘lucky’? He hoped so, but there was little he could do to find out. His phone wasn’t even turning on, so he had no idea if the network was still serviceable.

Besides, the more rational part of him concluded that she was most likely in good hands. Her family loved Neah enough to not excise her despite marrying him, so surely they would take care of each other now. Hell, maybe a world-ending disaster would be enough for him to finally bridge the gap of racial prejudices.

“One thing at a time...” He repeated the phrase again, verbalized into a whisper this time. It was a process he had tried to wire into himself over years of practice to help with his writing, but it was easier said than done.

As it were, John was a natural at thinking way too much, something his wife had rightfully chided him for more than once. Instead of confusing himself further, he tried to calm himself down.

For now, he was just a guy. A mediocre man who never really excelled at anything but housework and somehow managed to scrape together the best family a man could ask for. A beautiful daughter and a blindingly brilliant wife who was now trapped— shit, he cursed silently.

He was thinking about her again.

“I think I understand, thanks. I’m John, by the way. John Mermous.” He held out his good hand for a moment, only to realize that Tim had no hands to shake. He shook his head, still gingerly holding aloft his other brutalized palm to keep more blood from flowing out.

Parts of it looked cauterized by what Tim dubiously termed ‘concentrated origin energy’, but he didn’t know how bad it looked beneath the freshly coagulated skin.

He was grateful, at least, that it wasn’t full of dirt or rocks. Memories of picking small stones from his last hand wound that he obtained on a perilous hiking adventure still gave him shudders. He would have to splash some alcohol on it at least, then bandage it.

Fortunately, his fatherly paranoia led him to pack a small first-aid kit in his car. Unfortunately, said car was a short hike through some woods, at night, with a not-yet conscious daughter to carry.

And a smoldering telescope which, as the third member of his apocalypse party, he couldn’t bear to leave behind.

Even so, he only had one hand to work with. As a proud house husband who once managed to carry 19 shopping bags at once, the idea of two trips was blasphemous.

“Tim”, he called to his suspiciously silent guide, “any chance you can help me carry something? I’m down a hand.”

“Carry something?” Tim’s pitched voice rose an octave higher, proclaiming his obstinance. “I am a guide, not a slave, human. Besides, I have less hands than you do!” Even if John suspected that talking floating magic ball of light might be holding out on some kind of assistance, he could admit that Tim had a point.

“... Touché.” He thought that this must have been how those survival experts always felt in those TV series. Walk one way for the shot and then go back for the camera, only to make the trip again offscreen.

Sure, it looked good, but John didn’t really care for optics at the moment. At the very least, he’d have to take Luna to the car first. He couldn’t leave his unconscious daughter in the middle of a field. “You’ll come with me at least, right? Still have things to guide me on?”

The guide Tim, which John remained unsure as to exactly what he was, snorted through non-existent nostrils in defiant acquiescence. He found it amusing that such an amorphous being could be so expressive, but ultimately decided not to comment.

Out of better ideas and in desperate need of the first-aid kit, John did his best to carefully drag his daughter onto the nearby blanket. If he used it as a barrier, he could theoretically pick her up without bleeding all over her.

The blanket could be washed later and, unlike his daughter, it didn’t have feelings as far as he knew. Though at this point, John wasn’t sure if he’d be surprised.

By shimmying his forearm under Luna’s knees and wedging his good hand under her armpit, John managed a pained princess-carry. With a final forlorn look at the telescope and the missed manly opportunity of carrying everything at once, he made for his car.

He was surprised to find that other than his hand, which was well and truly fucked, he didn’t feel as strained as he thought he would be. He was exhausted of course, if not by the disaster scenario then by the lack of sleep, but he still found his step light despite the second person in his arms.

Which was certainly weird, since he was never much of an athlete.

He had a lot of questions for his new luminant guide.