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He opened his eyes to confusion expressed in visual ambiguity. The room had dissolved into a hazy version of itself, like it wasn't permanent or the walls were insubstantial. The table the Xiang was cuffed to seemed like it couldn't support a coffee mug, let alone restrain the small creature across from him.

"What's going on?"

You're seeing the world as I do. Nothing about your world is substantial, is it?

"I feel like everything here is tissue paper."

Know you see why we don't take your "ownership" of this world seriously. You are temporal, ephemeral. Nothing about your way of life is permanent or even designed to last for any substantial amount of time. This is the Flow. Now look at me.

The man turned his attention to the Xiang. Unlike everything around him, including himself, the Xiang was there. He existed. He was solid.

"You exist."

The Xiang smiled quietly. Do you understand?

"Xiang are enduring."

An excellent answer. We have patience. Everything that exists has pasts, presents and futures.

"Plural?"

Of course. You don't come from any one place or time. You could have taken multiple paths through time and space to get here, but you are here right now, just as you could be any number of other places right now, and, in fact, you are in those places now, and you did come from all of the places you were from and took all of the paths you could take to get to the places you are now. And from those places, you will go to all the places you might along all of the paths you could take.

"The Many Worlds Interpretation. All choices can and do happen in different realities. Each choice makes its own world."

Not exactly. All of these things are happening on this world. In this universe, as you understand the concept. But you can only see the one path you are currently on in the way you think of yourself as being you. Change that mindset slightly, and your viewpoint, what you see in this world, changes with it. All viewpoints are equally valid. Not all viewpoints are equally likely.

"Meaning?"

If you choose to be a certain person strongly enough, you will reduce the chances of you being anyone else to being non-zero but almost zero. This is how I knew that no matter how much I tried, I would never be able to communicate effectively with the agent who was with me before you arrived. It is also how I knew what to express in order for them to send you, someone I could communicate with, someone I could get to understand.

"We can't hold you, can we?"

*You are a child grasping the most basic concepts right now."

"You don't exist as I see you right now because of your long life. You are solid in my sight because you know who you are, what you can do, and there is nothing around you that can restrain you. You are here because you want to be. You're here to teach us. No, you're here to teach me."

I am here to teach you. You alone, of all the humans in this facility, have the capacity to understand. But they have found the key and I must leave your mind for now. If they pull you away while I'm still with you, it will tear your mind to pieces.

The world went white and then darkened, and his awareness was suddenly muted, shallow and small. The world returned to looking solid, factual, but he knew that it was not. He wondered where else he might be if not here, and what else he might be doing if not this. He wondered if he would continue to exist.