When I walked out of the office building. The sun was blinding. It made me squint. I had been been stuck inside all day under florescent lights. An endless loop of spreadsheet-to-spreadsheet. I dreamt of them now. It had been years stuck in the same boring office. No windows. Only fluro lights.

It was always cold in the air-con. No matter the weather.

I was a punctual guy. There every morning eight o’clock sharp ready to check in. There till five, hunched over my monitor. A good little drone.

The money was okay. Not too much. Not too little. But I was alone. No friends. No family. No wife. No kids. No parents. I had made efforts to change that but they went nowhere.

Sometimes I felt tired of it all. I would feel the primal urge to quit and buy a cabin in the woods. I would think: ‘If only I was more adventurous. If only I was braver, everything would be different.’

But nothing ever changed. I was simply too comfortable to bother. Not uncomfortable enough to change anything. Just uneventful day after day. My ambitions were limited. I had no dreams. Nothing on the bucket list. I hated travel. I hated changing my routine.

I started working here when I was eighteen. When I was twenty-five both my parents died in a car accident. The only other interesting incident was that when I turned thirty - I moved. My landlord died. The kids inherited and they were selling. A hot market.

My daily routine. 6 am. Alarm on phone. Crappy android. Dress. Make bed. Clean room. Breakfast. YouTube.

Walk to work. Exactly sixteen minutes. On the way stop by the deli and by a bread roll. Eat it on the walk to work.

My office was still the same. An office with no windows. An upgrade since I was a ‘manager’. Same drab grey wallpaper from when I started. Doing the same thing. My had landed a contract for a Big Accounting Firm - and they had continued to renew the very large contract since.

Another important event. My manager quit. I had become the manager. The only change in the office from when he had arrived.

Life is supposed to be made up of memorable moments. The unexpected events. Sweet and bitter relationships. Adventures and journeys. But all of that was unknown to me. My memory was a large slab of grey nothing. With nothing to mark the time it was as if I had lived multi-year-unbroken-day.

Same day, week, month, year and season. Got up at the same time. Went to work at the same time. Ate at the same time. Lunch. Dinner. All the same time. Routine and regular.

Maybe the only thing that had changed was my hair? Instead of the clean shaven face he saw in the mirror I had grown a moustache. A small change. But still, long years of nothing, and all he had to show for it was a moustache.

That day - I stood outside stunned by the sunlight. I decided to change my routine. Head out for a walk. The urge to do this - to break his routine happened every so often. Three, maybe four times a year.

I walked down the main road. Heading towards the park. It was a summer evening, that’s why the light had blinded me. A nice warm and pleasant evening. The street and the parks were filled with people making the most out of life.

I walked like an old man. Shuffling. Precise - small steps. Hunch backed from a life in front of a computer. I walked old. But inside I felt young. The sun had temporarily put him in a good state.

When I arrived at the park. The sun began to set. The sky was lit ablaze. A mass of pinks and oranges mixed together.

At the entrance of the park was huge statue of a horse. I loved to look at that statue. It was where I went to when I broke my routine. The horse was rearing. Somehow the sculptor had precisely captured it in a moment of intense energy and motion.

I felt like it gave me a push. I felt like that. Defiant. Like sometimes wanted to breakaway - like that wild horse.

I sat on one end of a greet metal park bench. A couple sat on the other side mid-argument.

‘You’re making a mistake.’

‘No - don’t be foolish Emily. Come on. Listen -’

‘Why are you doing this?’

‘It’s not right. Why are you doing this? You’ve got to stop.’

Emily stood up: ‘You think I’m doing this because it’s fun!’

‘Then why?’ asked the man quietly.

‘I’ve got to live! Dumb question.’

Thomas felt bewildered by the whole argument. I really tried to ignore it but they were pretty loud.

Up the road - in a yellow cab - a taxi driver leaned over. Fiddling with the radio. When he looked up. A black BMW had swerved into his lane, cutting him off.

The taxi driver tried to swerve but it was too late.

You might be reading a pirated copy. Look for the official release to support the author.

Crash.

Right into the back of the BMW.

Crash.

BMW rear-ended another car in front.

Crash. Crash. Crash.

A pile up. It was peak hour.

The sequence of cars all crashing until the car at the lights in front of the park. A white Kei truck. An old white construction truck.

But Thomas didn’t notice. The couple who had been arguing earlier. Were making out with each other. I began to hate them. Thinking about all of the passion. All the annoying loved up couples who passed by.

I didn’t know anything about it. I only perceived only the monotony of my existence in contrast. Past, present and future misery. Endless days of repetition. First day similar to the last one. Nothing to look forward to before him, behind him, about him or in him.

The momentum of the accident pushed smashed that white Kei truck hard. Forcing it to speed up and jump the curb. Flying in the air at the park bench.

What was I waiting on? What was I thinking about? What was I hoping for? I thought about the couple next to him. How nice would it be for them to come home. Greeted at the door by little children. By loved ones. A shared existence. Someone who cared you exited. Who hugged you. Who told you trivial things, foolish things and things which made you happy. Who consoled you.

I thought about my empty room. It was clean. Furnished okay. But I was the only one who ever entered it. It was quiet. Nobody every spoke there. People say if walls could talk — they would have many interesting things to say. Not about Thomas. Instead the walls would probably complain about the endless dreary routine - and ask or beg for the guy to go get a girlfriend. Even a pet. A goldfish. Just do something different.

‘I wish things were different.’ Thomas though to himself. ‘I wish something would change. Anything.’

The truck flew through the air and smashed into Thomas. Somehow avoiding the couple on the other end of the bench.

It smashed into him licence plate first.

The license plate read:

TRUCK-KUN.

***

Deep within a cave. Some dust motes floating in the light. The wind pushing them. The dust motes swirled and swirled around.

Low to the ground at first. Then higher and higher. Hundreds of meters up in the air. It was a large cave.

In the cave, there were two things. A statue of a giant dragon lying on a pile of treasures.

In the atmosphere above the planet - a gem was floating in space. It was large - the size of a small pick-up truck. Flashing in and out of visibility and changing colours.

It also had laid dormant for a long time. But it began to move as if attracted to something.

It flew - slowly at first - then faster and faster.

It was hard to tell the speed in space - but it was incredibly fast. It flashed through the atmosphere with an incredible burst of light.

Mostly visible on a magical wavelength.

It was noticed by a few people.

Deep in a desert. A team of merchants sat around a tent. A bearded old man looked up. Seeing a bright flash of light across the stars, he smiled and stroked his beard.

Up in the floating isles. A group of nomadic sky-dwellers - saw it. Chattering about it back and forth to each other.

Starweave Academy. A female astronomer in the middle of making notes in a large magical book - saw flash through her window. She what she was doing and ran to the telescope - looking through it quickly. ‘A [Primordial Gem]?’

The Tempest Archipelago. An oracle. Blind. White hair. White robes. Pale white skin. She kneels on the highest level of a tower - completing a ritual. She was kneeling about to finish - when the flash of light interrupted the end. She stopped the ceremony and looked up. ‘Dragons?’

The gem flew - before crashing down into a mountain range. No - to the illusion of a mountain range.

The illusion barrier flickered after the gem flew through it. Revealing - the Dragon Sanctuary.

An entire mountain range that had been hollowed out for dragon living quarters. From a mountain range full of about a hundred grey mountains - all the outer mountains had been left intact - but the tops of the inner mountains had been sliced off at different heights.

Creating flat circular platforms for different things. Temples. Ceremonial circles. Living quarters. Then giant stone stairs and bridges had been carved in between the platforms. Creating this incredible living complex. There were gems, gold and silver markings, and a lot of beautiful intricate carvings.

The comet flew through an opening in the ground - deep into the sanctuary. In the cave with the stone dragon statue.

It smashed into the dragon statue. Forcing the dust motes into a little storm.

Then it was quiet. The dust returning to its floating pattern.

The stone dragon began to change. The grey of stone changing to black scales. He was a big dragon. Long body, massive wings, serpent-like shape.

His scales were a black-gold. But they were shiny. They reflected the dull gold of the treasure - making them even more gold.

A swirl of wind. The dragon breathed in. Then its eyes opened.

They were ruby red. Two great fiery orbs of light.

It was Thomas.

‘I died’.

My memory came back. The truck smashing into me. I had been transported to a new world. I sighed - somethings clanked. I never got to do anything.

Then a new set of memories flashed into my head.

I was a dragon. I hatched.

I was a dragon in the age of dragons. Dragons were everywhere. They ruled the land.

I ate. I slept. Hunted. Fought.

Dragons were a bunch of greedy and vengeful guys.

Truly vengeful. I had a lot of memories of vendettas. Some incredible, ridiculous, dramatic, ferocious and heroic stories.

So many causes of revenge. Beefs lasting for hundreds of years. Quiet then bursting into action. Crazy stratagems. Murders becoming massacres. Nothing but blood, blood feuds, blood vengeance.

The Dragons lived by a policy of ‘you must pay the price of blood’ if you attacked a Dragon. They had to. Every single inch of a dragon was a treasure. They practised crazy revenge for even the slightest insult. Death to the person, all of their descendants and relatives.

I had seen so much murder. My head was full of these stories.

Then the world changed.

A massive meteor crashed to earth. A gem. Magic got explosively stronger. They fought. Giants. Dragons. Mythic beasts. Elder Spirits.

Eventually the dragons won. The Gem was owned by the Dragons. The rise of the Gemlord of the Dragons and their endless empire.

Till the magic died.

No clue why.

There were a lot of gaps.

He only had few images of this time.

A massive portal ripping the sky in half and a huge number of dragons - filling the sky - as far as the eye could see flying through the portal.

A book. Big enough for a dragon to read.

Then of the dragon sleeping.

This guy had lived.

No Tavalor. His name was Tavalor.

Tavalor. Thomas.

The identities blurred together.

I was Tavalor much more than Thomas.

Who else would I be? After all my memories were 99.99999999% Tavalor.

I laughed in joy. I was a Dragon.

Something different for once.

I stood up. Or tried to. The hill collapsed under my feet. The gold had gotten so old that it crumbled to pieces underneath my weight. I felt super clumsy too. I had never been a dragon.