The unfamiliar stars are strangely interrupted by alternating mostly hexagonal patches of utter blackness, with a faintly visible framework forming the edges and forming a dome over where Thanos lies. Closer to the horizon, still interrupted by black hexagons, there is an unfamiliar nighttime landscape, with green plants and rural humanoid habitation (but no inhabitants) visible in the distance.

Three figures stand near the perimeter inside the dome, matching his height and outlined in light.

A weariness hangs heavy upon Thanos' titanic frame.

He holds his right fist tight to his chest, applying pressure to the gaping wound there.

Given time, he'll mend. He always has. Even before he was a savior, even before he was a conqueror or a visionary, Thanos had always been a survivor.

He distantly registers the presence of the figures, but pays them no more mind than the plantlife or the stars.

When he's found a comfortable position, he fixes his gaze on the horizon. Hard to tell where it'll come from, in the black of night, but he'll be waiting...

Sunrise. Thanos slows his breathing and quiets his mind. This Universe owes me a Sunrise.

Before the sunrise has time to arrive, a voice interrupts his rest.

"Why did you come here and kill?"

"I did not mean to come here. In fact, I don't know where here is."

Without even bothering to look for the source of the voice, Thanos answers its queries. He does not, however, divulge anything particularly useful.

"I've killed a lot of different things for a lot of different reasons. You'll need to be more specific."

"You arrived in this space, and at the same instant half of the bodies in this space turned to dust."

"Please rest assured: I bear no prejudice against this place or its peoples. The particular death you speak of occurred simultaneously across the entire universe, completely at random, playing no favorites to any along the way."

Pause.

"In fact, I had even odds of dying myself. I suppose fate acted in my favor, this time."

"We are first concerned not with whether it was fair but that it happened at all."

"We have seen many reasons to kill, and often there are other solutions."

"It happened. It happened everywhere that it needed to, in a single painless moment. At least, that was my intention."

He resists the urge to glance at his mangled Infinity Gauntlet.

There's something about this place he's been cast into that sets Thanos ill at ease.

Could he have made a mistake? Could his focus have slipped, after all?

No matter. He did the best he could under the circumstances and, if he fell short of his initial goal, he'll just try again and again until he gets it right.

"I traded life for time. Time that, I trust, will bring the better solutions that you allude to."

"It seems likely that your intention was not achieved, and you have traveled to stranger spaces than you intended to.

"We could send you back a step on the path you came, help you find your better solution —"

"— but we need to know what the problem is to agree to that."

The speaker walks into view; his form is as tall as Thanos's own but otherwise human-shaped; dressed in pocketful vest and pants that suggest some sort of adventurous type, but with no wear or imperfections in his clothes or his body. He is framed in Thanos's line of sight by an oval portal into another landscape, cloudily daylit and mountainous.