PROLOGUE

 
 
All around and through him was the deep, all encompassing brilliant blue.  For so long now [how long?] it had become his only refuge from the hurt, pain and ever endless stream of problems that had become his lot in...life?....the universe?....to solve.   Now, as with the many times before, as he paused within it, waiting to be dropped into yet another life that needed something put right, he caught his thoughts turning toward the wish that he could linger in it for just a while, that he could rest. And each time that thought occurred to him, it seemed that..Something ..Someone took notice of it.
 
He felt an uneasiness come over him. A thick, ominous apprehension seemed to saturate his very essence and he knew wwithout a doubt that if he were in his own body, that a cold shiver would have run down his spine.  And that feeling only continued to grow as he sensed his movement through the blue begin to slow. 
 
As his transit slowed, blurs of the life he was about to enter began to take on recognizable shape and colors, the endless silence of the blue fading as sounds began to sharpen.  Feeling the unmistakable tingle as he and the individual whose life he was about to enter exchanged places, he felt something he'd never felt in any prior Leap.  A deep, soul-cloaking apprehension that quickly escalated into an icy cold fear permeated every atom of his being. 
 
*Oh, please, no!* he cried wordlessly even as the blue faded and he felt his body become solid again. *Please don't make me do this.* 
 
**Are you afraid?** 
 
*Yes!* Sam cried out into the receding blue. 
 
**Then you must face that which you fear, and grow.** 
 
*Oh, boy,* he whispered as the last vestiges of the blue vanished. Somebody...please help me.*