Time snapped. Or more accurately, as this was an all-inclusive process, reality snapped.

The room seemed to bend around the device. Suddenly and instantaneously Rob bore witness to the previous hour, the subsequent hour, and four other possible hours in diverging realities.

As this was a heady thing to see, Rob threw up.

Fortunately he knew it was going to happen, having seen the coming hour, complete with the reality in which he grabbed the trash can in time and the two in which he did not. Grateful to be in the reality where the spew went into the proper receptacle, Rob wiped his mouth on his sleeve and tried to maintain some of his sanity.

A dark shimmer emerged around the machine, a glimmer of hope tainted with the gloss of despair. Fate flicked her fickle finger through the void. A thousand death screams slipped through. The universe itself seemed to opening a gaping maw to swallow him up, past, present, and future.

As this was a scary thing to see, Rob crapped his pants.

He hadn’t seen that.