The following short story is based on characters created and/or
copyrighted by SEGA! Enterprises, DiC Productions, Archie Comic
Publishers, Fleetay Comic Publishers, and the Taki Corporation.  All other
characters were created and copyrighted by Roland Lowery.
	The author gives permission to distribute this work freely as long
as it remains intact and unaltered, and the transfer of monetary units is
not involved.
	Questions, comments, suggestions, complaints?  Send them to me at
<rlowery@taurus.oursc.k12.ar.us>.  I enjoy hearing from people who can
spell.

	Chaotic Multiverse Tale #1

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Quote for the day:

	"Great men are they who see the spiritual is stronger than any
		material force; that thoughts rule the world."

				-Ralph Waldo Emerson 
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	CHAOS! - Prolouge
		by Roland Lowery


	IT BEGAN in fire.
	Flames danced before his eyes, burned in his stomach, and seared
his skin.  They were pure, and they were purifying.  They burned through
his entire reality, leaving only clean nothingness behind.
	He felt himself wilt in the heat, only to grow back stronger.  He
changed, physically and mentally, into a healthier, purer being.
	As the fire burned him inside and out, he writhed in agony and
terror.  The last remenants of who he had been clinged stubbornly to
his shattered psyke, trying to put the pieces back together amidst the
flames.
	When his mental facilities were almost completely erased, he
took the only part of himself left and shoved it down, way down where
the flames could not reach.
	Then, it was gone.
	He had to relearn how to breathe.  He dragged in every breath with
the fervor of a drowning man.  Every time he exhaled, he felt some of the
fire inside blow out.
	He was able to see, but images meant less than nothing to him.  He
could not discern the meaning of basic shapes, different colors, or three
dimensional space.
	Ever so slowly, it all started coming back to him.  He wasn't sure
how long it was taking, because he was still coming to grips with linear
time.
	When he finally had the correct terms to sort it all out,
he realized that he was learning, on his own, at 100 times the speed a
normal person would take reading books and being taught by others. Within
minutes, he was able to work out complex trigonometry in his head without
the aid of tools.
	He sat up as his motor skills kicked in.  He found, not entirely 
to his dismay, that he was absolutely naked.  He knew this wasn't exactly
the most tenable position to be in, however.
	He looked around to find something to cover himself with, but
nothing - almost literally - showed itself to him.  The only source of
light streamed in through a small window set in a knobless door.  He was
able to see four walls, a ceiling, and a floor.
	Strangly, the walls were padded and the floor was covered with
rubber mats.  He stood up and walked to the door.  Since there was no 
knob, he pushed on the door lightly, then harder.  It didn't budge.
	Where am I? came his first legitimate thought.  He looked through
the small window, but saw nothing other than a white hallway stretching to
the left and right.
	Not knowing what else to do, he sat down and thought over
his situation.  As he turned inward, he felt something welling up inside
of him.
	Every muscle in his body went taut.  He felt anger and hatred
bubble up to the surface.
	His arms jerked out in front of him into a zombie-like position.
He concentrated the hate inside him into his hands.  They began to glow
with a pinkish-purple light.  The more his hate grew, the brighter the
glow became.
	His lips pulled back in a fierce snarl and he stood up.  A
thin whine escaped his clenched teeth.  With a blood-curdling scream, he
released the white-hot anger and hate.  Corespondingly, the purple light
around his hands blazed out and blew away a section of the wall.
	He felt dilapidated physically.  His muscles, finely toned before,
seemed to have shrunk a little.  His stomach rumbled for food.
	Ignoring all of this, he stepped through the hole in the wrecked
wall.

	Ten years later, Jim Doe, escaped mental patient, resurfaced in
the Great Forest to save an echidna, fire ant, armadillo, chameleon,
alligator, and bee from falling to their death.

	THE BEGINNING

		Roland Lowery
			<rlowery@taurus.oursc.k12.ar.us>