The Story

                    Sam Vega is a musician who has been trapped in a vicious cycle of meaningless jobs for many years. Haunted by the Shadow Demons that follow him everywhere and hunted by wolf-like creatures, Sam is shaken by a recurring vision of being sliced to pieces by flaming swords. Feeling the thunder of urgency to break out of this habitual world of darkness and realize his true musical expression Sam quits his job as a carpenter to finish a rock opera he has been writing. Armed with an old Casio keyboard, drum machine and a beat-up guitar, Sam soon loses himself in a fantastic world of snow-covered mountains and evergreen forests in search of the Dragon of Light, Destroyer of Worlds.

                    During his recording sessions in his dark retreat Sam sits on his fire escape with a coffee and cigarette looking out over the Valley of the Darkest Places. Sam's apartment has become a cave high up on the side of a cliff. Far below him lay four sleeping wolves covered in snow. Multi-coloured light beams shoot up into space from a lake deep down in the valley forest.  Sam is safe up here. He is free to practice his meditation on raising the Dragon that will set this dark world of habitual patterns and vicious cycles ablaze with Rainbow Light Vision and reveal the clear light of dawn. 

                 On one of Sam’s drunken journeys home from the Chrysalis Tavern he follows a glowing butterfly through a gate in a derelict fence and into an overgrown lot between two high rise buildings. It is here that Sam meets Troma Nakmo living in a shack made from discarded materials from around the city. Troma, a fierce and beautiful woman with glowing emerald eyes, welcomes Sam’s intrusion into her garden with a wicked delight that Sam is equally drawn to and frightened by. Fireflies pulse light trails in the trees and bushes in her yard and a roaring fire lights up five gigantic wind sculptures, each a different colour, towering over the lot. Not one to mince words Troma sees right through Sam and his habitual patterns and tells him that this world is his projection. The only way to dispel the darkness and realize his true nature is to give up this body called Sam Vega, the projector, and sacrifice him to the demons.

                     A childhood memory flickers into view. Sam remembers a butterfly chrysalis hanging from a branch in the bright sunlight of a summer morning. The light was dazzling, the colours were alive with infinite detail. He remembers how he had sat for hours watching the caterpillar enclose itself inside the clear shell, how the chrysalis began to vibrate, emitting a thundering hum...

                      Sam soon learns that the only way he will break through his vicious cycle, dispel the darkness and realize his true nature is to give up this body called Sam Vega and sacrifice it to the demons, wolves and vultures. He retreats further into his rock opera fantasy world unable to give up his body. But, when Troma Nakmo summons to Sam's apartment the wrathful electric Herukas with their five-skull crowns and flaming swords, he is left with little choice…