Opening Chapter of The Temple (an allegory of the Fall of Adam)

The Hydrox breathed darkfire that sucked the light out of the cave. Adam’s diamond sword Gleamer refused to be sucked into the darkfire breath. Adam swung the sword and the light within the sword extended beyond its size and reached to the Hydrox, forcing a scream.

It was a high-pitched scream for such a deep voiced enemy. 

It ran back into the chaotic thicket where it could easily hide. Adam couldn’t make out the form of the dragon, but he knew its presence. Its form seemed to mold and change as it melted into the thicket.

Adam pulled back Gleamer and held the flat of its blade to his forehead. He drew his strength from the blade, given him by the Presence. 

There was crushing of brush in the thicket as the Hydrox paced in the dark, confused branches. 

It was his job to defeat the chaos creature, to push it back. This dragon was not evil or bad, it just was. 

Adam swung the sword and extended it as far as he could with his heart. A huge swath of thicket was destroyed and fled into the ground. He advanced forward and the spiders that didn’t make it to the thicket popped and snapped in mini death explosions. Adam wasn’t worried about them; he was seeking the Hydrox. 

“You come for me?” came the deep voice.

The cave was now free of thicket from the entrance to a narrowing tunnel as the thicket fled down into the darkness. There the Hydrox waited. 

 “I am here” came the taunt.

Adam froze in place, analyzing a new danger.

Then he heard the rumblings within the rocks of the Stone. The walls were cracking, and pieces began to fall to the ground. Adam didn’t move as he concentrated and drew strength from the Presence through Gleamer’s cool blade at his forehead. 

The walls then burst from within and the thicket, filled with spiders and serpents entered the cave from all sides. The thicket grew at a tremendous rate pushed out by an unseen force. It filled the cave and surrounded Adam as he stood eyes closed.

A low growling laugh from the Hydrox was getting closer it joined in the cacophony of thicket growing and clawing with the sounds of scraping, crackling and popping its way towards Adam. 

Still Adam didn’t move.

Chaos was almost upon him when Adam breathed, “Father …” 

Light burst from Gleamer and from Adam’s heart.

The thicket, the spiders, the small serpents, didn’t have a chance to run or even shrivel away. They simply disappeared in a puff of black smoke that was absorbed by the light of the Presence. After only a few heartbeats a distant voice said, “we will meet again, firstborn…” and then chaos drifted away.

Adam didn’t know how long he was in the Presence when it spoke, “You didn’t run, my love.” 

“Father …”

Light smiled, “Yes, my son.”

“Why cannot I reach the Hydrox, it seems forever out of my grasp?”

“Yes, my son” answered Light, “The Hydrox will forever be against you and you must forever be against the Hydrox. It is more than a battle in the flesh, it is a battle of the heart. Just as the chaos seeks to invade the space of our temple, so to you must always be on guard against the chaos invading your sacred space.”

“So, I will never defeat the dragon?”

“Oh yes, my son, you defeat chaos every day. It is only when you don’t fight that you don’t win.”

– Steven Wunderink