In this Life

Earth has always been a part of the System.  Many people only interact with it as the background noise to everyday life.  It is the hum of electronics, the turning of time, the short moments hovering between states of consciousness.  Few people ever dig deeper into the System.  But for some, they see an abandoned parking lot at 3 am, the eerie silence as if the world is holding its breath, and ask WHY? For those who start delving into the hidden mystical places of the world, they unlock a deeper System, with a user interface that allows them to cultivate strength of their own.  For Daen Amara it happened when on a hiking trip in the foothills of Appalachia in Ohio.    When an unnatural storm ripped his wife of twenty years from his arms, Daen thought all hope was gone.  When he awoke in a washed-out gulley sometime later, with a strange black and green screen floating in front of his eyes, he didn’t know what to think.  But Daen had made a promise, in this life and the next, and through the awakening powers inside of him, he knew that his wife still lived.  And the world was going to return her, or he was going to burn it to the ground.