Chapter 1.

    I finally closed my truck door and started the engine. The construction job site parking lot was in front of the five-story building that was in the process of being built. I sat in my truck, collecting my thoughts. I looked at the bare bones of the building, the iron columns, and the beams that were being erected, the intersections that my welding team joined with fire and molten power. “So nice to finally have a three-day weekend,” I said to myself. 

The building I was currently working on was in the mountains just outside of a small city. I was lucky that one of my favorite camping spots was just fifty or so miles up the road from my current job. As I rolled out of the job site at noon on Friday for a long-deserved three-day weekend of campfires, swimming, fishing, and a few good old fashion gamelit novels, I smiled. 

I drove down the two-lane highway and pulled off onto the back roads that would take me farther back into the woods. A smile crossed my face as I heard and felt the soft hum of pavement switch to the crunching grind of a gravel road. In all my years of coming up this side of the mountain, I had only ever seen one other soul, and that was a forest service truck. 

I was about three-quarters of the way to my destination when it happened. More like things shifted. Almost imperceptible to the human sense, but as anyone who has traveled the wild, lonely roads can attest, sometimes reality becomes far more fluid than one had ever thought possible.

I was driving, the crunch of the dirt road creating a meditative fugue as I relaxed. The trees and road began to elongate as if I were moving at thousands upon thousands of miles (km) per hour. Then with a sudden snap and a wash of vertigo, I was plunged into a tremulous gray void of chaos. 

I felt myself being pulled apart. The essence of who I was floating away back into the source of all things. I did not panic, but I was not ready to be dissolved back into the primal chaos. I wrenched at the essence of myself with all of my will. Holding fast to the form that was me. I groped at the edges of the rolling sea, looking for anything that would give me a solid holding in this unreality. 

I cannot say how long I searched; maybe seconds, maybe eons. All I know is that I finally, with my hands, for lack of a better word, grasped the edge of a platform. Pulling with all of my will, as strength had little to nothing to do with one’s existence in this place. I hoisted myself up and out of the foaming mess of chaos. 

“Holy fuck… What the fuck. What the hell was that.” I groaned out loud, more to hear my voice than anything else. I laid on my side, panting. When the shaking subsided, and I felt I had enough presence of mind to stand, I did. What greeted me was terrifying; I would have pissed myself if I could have. The platform was small, maybe ten feet by ten feet, and in the center was a short pillar. The terrifying part was what was all around me or not around me. 

As far as I could see was what looked to be a frothing, undulating gray sea and above; blackness, Nothingness, a true void. I was on a small platform in between the void of nothing and the chaos foam of reality. It was scary, not the horror movie, jump out and scare you, kind of scary; no, it was a deep existential terror. One that gripped at the edges of what I could define as my sanity in this place. Now I saw something that, by all rights, nothing but the most powerful of beings should be seeing.

I had no idea how I was holding myself together, but I was. 

I took a few hesitant steps toward the pillar. Sitting on top of the pillar was an envelope with the words, PLEASE READ TRAVELER, in big, bold letters written on it. I slowly reached out my hand and took the letter, then I began to read.  

Dear Traveler, World Walker, Wanderers, and all the rest. 

If you are reading this, then you are lucky enough to have forewarning for what is happening to you. You find yourself now in a quantum nexus of chaos. This is a waiting place of sorts; that I made, for all those who find themselves magically Shanghaied from Earth, then cast aside. Either by a God, Goddess, or other such beings. For those of you who found themselves turning a corner in the woods and falling through a crack in the world, this place is for you as well. It is a place connected to the quantum foam of improbability and knowledge. This roiling sea is connected to Earth’s universe and many, many others. 

Is it connected to all universes? That I do not know. Neither do I know on to which planet or place you shall be deposited. You could find yourself on a world full of many possible magics and wonders. I do know this; if you have come from one of the Earth primes like me, you will never find yourself on such a low magic world again. 

Having come to this place through the worlds a few times now. I have found myself here with enough power on hand to create this brief respite for you. I am leaving this note to hopefully give you a better chance of success as you reenter the quantum flux. 

As you are traveling through the flux of chaos, whatever you focus on is granted. Want to learn how to wield a sword, learn to engineer, fly a spaceship, tame dragons, or wield magic; then focus on that. Things you focus on will be learned on an instinctual level, along with other skills and knowledge. This will then influence to a slight degree into which multiverse, then the universe, and then the world you will be deposited. 

The travel time is different for each person. Thus, the amount of power each person can claim is different for each. Think wisely and know this. The more power you are able to claim, the longer you have traveled and thus the more dangerous the world you will find yourself in. The danger comes from the proximity to hostile realms. Such as the demon realm. Worlds close to their realm suffer from constant demon invasions. The demons are nowhere near as bad as the abyssal nightmares and the horrors of the void. Good luck, traveler.

Sincerely, 

   Another earth human.

P.S: Please put the note back for the next person. Don’t be an ass; I will know.