The Dragon and the Sparrow

It all began on Earth, where I was a debt-ridden telemarketer selling timeshares to gullible marks—a small man in a small life, taking orders, running out the clock.

Then an earthquake struck, trapping me in the rubble of my office, and a door of blue light opened as my only way out.

I stepped through, into a world with new rules. I learned them quickly. A System, abilities, spells, monsters, and dragons—a world where power, real power, comes easy for a man like me.

Just as in my world, people are the harder game. People are the ones I have to clean up after.

Because everything I do, I do for my daughter—the little sparrow on the far side of that blue door I cannot yet open.

I used to tell her stories at night, of castles and magic, of wizards and kingdoms. One day I'll learn to reopen that door, and step through like a hero out of her own storybooks.

And she will learn that the heroes were real all along. She will be more here, just as I am—no longer the daughter of a small man who takes orders, but of the one who gives them.