I never knew the outside world. Most of my life was spent confined to a bed, unable to move much of my body. I couldn’t communicate with others in the outside world as someone completely locked into their body. They tried various therapies but alas, I never developed the ability to interact with the outside world. I knew nothing about the outside world besides the cartoons and educational shows my parents put on TV to entertain me. One night my strength began to leave me and I quietly voiced a prayer in my mind. [If I could be reborn in a place far, far away from here. A place of pure imagination . . . please take me there.] The world faded to black and then I finally new peace. For a time . . . My eyes slowly opened to a large, imperial style room. Ornate tapestries lined the walls, a cool breeze fluttered through the window, and bird song filled the air. I laid in a silk gown in a large, king-sized bed with draped canopies of blue, transparent cloth. I raised my hands to my face, finally able to manipulate them for the first time; they were smaller, more slender delicate hands than a man’s. A woman’s…. The door cracked open and in walked a tall woman dressed as a maid, long elven ears jutting out from her blonde hair pulled back in a bun. She made eye contact with me and dropped the bowl of water, soap, and cloth that she had planned to use to bathe me. “Ystra,” the maid said, turning back and running, yelling at the top of her lungs. “Ystra och veni! Ystra och veni!” I blinked in surprise for a few moments after she left the room. An alien tongue I couldn’t understand. Or rather it took a minute for my mind to process it into English: “The Princess has awoken!” The maid had repeated. Had I perhaps been granted a wish to live in a place of pure imagination. As I waited for the inevitable return of the maid (and perhaps others), I decided my first course of action: