The Beginning

The start of all the adventures to come in my life began when I was five years old.

The only earlier memory I have is looking up into the pepper shaker, and getting pepper in my eye. But, in the matter of significant things not related to the dull thuds of Reality, the memory that changed my existence from the mundane to the paranormal was a dream...

I dreamed I was watching my mother in a hot air balloon floating down the Grand Canyon. A shadow of evil grew from the sky and spread over her, and in the oily blackness I heard the balloon's canvas pop, hot air escaping quickly. She was falling, and there was no one there to save her.
Unless...
Without really thinking of the consequences- for, as a child at that age I rarely did- I leaped from my perch on the rim of the canyon and fell into the abyss, landing on the torn canvas, grabbing the thick edges with my hands, trying desperately to pull them back together. It was too late, though. We were plummeting rapidly to the bottom, the sides of cliffs blurring in our haste. With my last reserve of strength I pulled up with all my might, willing the balloon not to fall- and found our descent gradually slowing. And stopping. Rising once more on the wind, the canvas still in my tiny grasp, I discovered- or, perhaps created- the first of my powers.
The first of the gifts that would enable me to rescue civilizations from the cold censure of Reality and the lurking evils of this new universe, a place I have simply termed Dreamworld because its adventures originate in the patterns of REM sleep.
I am chronicling these tales that they may be a respite, aid, and inspiration to any and all who chance upon them. As the Faery Queen in Neil Gaiman's Books of Magic eloquently states: "For there are only two worlds- your world, which is the real world, and the other worlds, the Fantasy. Worlds like this are worlds of the human imagination: their Reality, or lack of Reality, is not important. What is important is that they are there. These worlds provide an alternative. Provide an escape. Provide a threat. Provide a dream, and power, provide refuge, and pain. They give your world meaning. They do not exist; and thus they are all that matters."
Here is my alternative.