Fiction:The Library

""You have come to this place seeking another reality, another time, another life. Cross over from your world into another, and you accept my conditions. Always remember, the multiverse is infinite, but your experience of it is not. So tread carefully.""

- Voice from Beyond

The Library is an unknown pocket of reality thought to exist outside of this universe which enables safe travel through the void between realities to a select few other universes, including the First Gigaquadrant. Its location, purpose, and origin is unknown, and how to get to it is likewise a closely-guarded secret. It is a commonly accepted axiom among those few who travel the multiverse that you do not find The Library, it finds you.

The Library is a reality the size of large ovular chamber which rises an indeterminate number of floors and descends an indeterminate number of floors. There are no windows, no doors leading outwards, or an outside. Every floor is lined with a maze of datashelves of unknown origin containing knowledge of infinite universes, though none of the knowledge can be carried out of The Library except through a traveler's memory.

Time is collapsed within The Library and the life cycle of its reality appears to span exactly three earth hours, forty-seven minutes, and nine seconds. This time encompasses the Library's creation and destruction, which are fixed points in the multiverse which cannot be changed. The creation of the library occurs with the abduction, arrival, and placement of individuals within its halls––exactly where they need to be. While in the library, travelers may search the shelves and negotiate a contract with the Voice from Beyond to define their next life. As the death of the library approaches, the purple aura emanating from the library's depths intensifies until it engulfs everything, and the quiet whooshing from its center increases in volume and tempo.

Then, at the library's destruction, travelers experience a bright flash of light and wake up in their new timeline according to the laws which they negotiated with the disembodied voice. Depending on those laws, a traveler might return to The Library at the moment of its creation multiple times, and may interact with their past selves.

Encountering The Library
An encounter with the library proceeds in four phases: the search, abduction, exploration, pacting, and induction.

The Search
The axiom that "you do not find The Library, it finds you," does not preclude actively searching for it. It only means that an individual will find The Library at a time and place of The Library's choosing, according to the Library's own unknown purposes. Most individuals never find the library at all. Some might find it by opening a closet one day and finding a portal to another world. Others still might find it after decades of search and trial. If there is one consistency across all of the stories that travelers tell, it is inconsistency.

Types of Abductions
In order to encounter the library, an individual must be pulled from their original reality and brought to the library. How this occurs appears to vary from case to case.

Exploration
During the life cycle of the library, which lasts exactly three earth hours, forty-seven minutes, and nine seconds, individuals may explore the library and gather what knowledge or meet what people they can.

Pacting
In order to have any control over where they will end up after the destruction of The Library, individuals must enter a pact with The Voice from Beyond. This pact includes where they will go, how long they will stay, what the traveler remembers, what the conditions for return are (if any), what rules will govern their behavior, what occurs if they die, and what powers and abilities they will have.

Induction
Induction is the placement in the receiving timeline, which depending on the pact may be the prime timeline or an alternate timeline. All universes work according to their own rules, and one universe's rules do not apply to the next.