THE MOMENT
Avery was cranky even before he woke up in a new, unexpected place. He was tired, and hungry, and upon opening his eyes the only thing he could do was cry. The room was unlike any he'd seen before. Although, he'd seen a lot of strange sights in the past couple of days. Unnamed things that he couldn't put words to seemed to be a common occurrence in his life for as long as he could remember.
"YOU'RE HERE!" a loud, excited voice startled Avery out of his tears for just a moment. But, once he saw the source, it only made him wail even louder in fear. It was a strange, four-legged creature covered in black and white splotches.
"Nonono, shhhh, it's okay!" the creature tried to calm Avery; but, she didn't have any hands to offer any sort of comfort. "You're really special!" it said, but Avery refused to hear it. "I've called your -,"
"AVERY!" he stopped crying instantly and finally recognized a voice. "AVERY!" a sobbing woman ran into the room and wrapped her arms around Avery as tight as she could manage. He whined emotionally and buried his face against her.
"THANK YOU SO MUCH!" the woman profusely thanked the talking cow that arranged everything.
"It's all Chroma Corp.'s pleasure," Starla, the cow, nodded with large swings of her head. "Now that we've found him again, we can arrange it so he doesn't Traverse every time he goes to sleep."
"You can fix that too?" the woman asked.
"We can, we know how and why he was Traversing," Starla nodded. "And, now that you're reunited, I also suggest you visit Mundo; there's more to Avery than you know," she said.
"Yes, anything you suggest! I'll do it!" she nodded eagerly. "I don't know what I would've done without Chroma Corp.!"
"Well, as you might've guessed, we do have some experience with this kind of thing," Starla replied with a smile in her voice. "Usually we catch cases before there are any complications, I'm afraid this time was just unfortunate luck."
"What? How? Does this happen a lot?" the woman asked with a curious tilt of her head.
"That's a tricky answer," Starla replied. "'A lot' is kind of subjective. We have systems in place to identify Unique Souls like Avery, it was just a case of bad timing that he fell asleep before we realized what he could do." Avery was done being quiet and started crying again.
"Awww, I'm sorry!" the woman apologized and squeezed him again. "You're probably starving, and here we are talking. But, I did bring you some food!" She smiled as she reached into her bag and pulled out a prepared bottle that Avery latched on to immediately.
"It's a good thing you were in a Chroma hospital," Starla nodded. "I don't think there are many others that could have found him, especially if he Traversed to a new universe each time he fell asleep. It's not a great situation for newborns."