The Temple

It rolled over in its tomb, lulled, then dipped again. A great orb clenched by unwavering darkness. It twitched. Sought something more – anything more – only to shy back in the shadow and keep itself locked away from the world beyond its shelter.

This space – this reprieve from everything – this was the space it had come to know best. The space most familiar to it over the long years that it had spent waiting. Waiting.

Always waiting.

The dark nothingness before it ebbed with shapes, twisted imagery and comforting illusion played out before it. A realm of dreams and slumber. A realm of darkness and nothingness. A realm quiet and familiar.

The sounds of the cold, metal void called out through dripping, leaking liquid; through small infinitesimal beasts that barely squeaked loud enough to hear. Never spoke coherently.

Quiet and familiar.

It waited. That quiet darkness like a gentle blanket. Like a home it had grown used to. Grown into. A tomb where it sat, undisturbed.

The great orb flicked again, peered over the lip as it peeled back, allowing it to view the surrounding world. It gazed on into the blackness, into the nothingness.

It did not feel the way most feel. It was indifferent to the waiting. Tireless, yet always slumbering. Sitting. Waiting.

It was patient. It had no feeling or thought toward urgency. It was ancient after all.

More ancient than the tomb it clung to. To the tomb they’d buried it in so long ago.

It could have left any time. But it had no reason to.

The darkness was comforting. Darkness told it to wait. Gave it a period of reprieve in which it could stay; a lone orb flicking, rolling. A lone orb to view the world through parted lips. To view nothing but comforting darkness.

And so it waited. Fully at ease.

Centuries passed. It knew not what it waited for. Cared not what it waited for. It just sat, comforted and at peace within the great, looming darkness.

That darkness stretched on, on. Ever on in the metal tomb, echoing its leaking liquid drips, its unkempt pipes.

They had built this place for it. Erected a tomb to keep it caged. It did not mind it. It was not a service nor disservice. It simply was. A tomb, a metal box in which they could watch it, monitor it, and keep it slumbering.

They did so at the right time. For it was ready for slumber. Ready for rest. So rest it did.

Eventually, when it woke, they were gone. No longer watching. No longer monitoring.

They had left it, and it gazed out with that lone orb upon the world around it. Upon the great, never-ending darkness.

Again it lulled. Shied back between the parted lips as they flickered shut. A long, drawn out moment. No difference. It was darkness just the same. Whether the lips parted or opened, whether it gazed or closed. Always darkness.

It had become so familiar with that darkness.

A clang roused it. A creaking metallic pop that resounded far-off.

It stirred, the lone orb rolling back to gaze again at the nothing surrounding it. It watched on toward the sound. Watched.

Stared on at nothing.

But again, the world quelled. Settled and silenced. And again the lips drew over the orb. It thought to rest and slumber. Let itself drift momentarily toward that place of stasis.

It didn’t sleep. But it did dream. It dreamt while in that comforting darkness.

Shapes. Color; muted. Movement that stirred and drew in from that relentless darkness.

It dreamed. It saw fantasies.

But nothing it dreamt was coherent. All familiar. All peaceful. Dreams that came and went with abandon. All as easy as the darkness.

It fluttered now, orb gazing forward, toward that state of dreams. That stillness set with the quiet, rhythmic dripping of the abandoned, breaking tomb that threatened to crumble around it.

It drifted, drifted. Readied for the dreams.

Another shift. Another sound, disturbing the silence of the surrounding world.

Again, the orb flicked, rolled to view the world.

This time there came voices. The sound of men speaking to one another. Words incoherent, but there nonetheless. It could hear them speaking, and it gazed on in their direction. Somewhere off, far in the darkness. Perhaps beyond. Beyond the metal tomb that held it. The box that had allowed it peaceful slumber.

It gazed on.

Another bang. Another clang. More talking from those beyond the darkness.

A momentary pause. A brief silence, then a grunt.

And then…

A crack, slight, small; just a sliver, but… Light.

For the first time in ages, perhaps ancient centuries: light.

It crept its way along the tomb, stretching from a thin crevice.

“I got it!”

“Yeah, now keep goin. Let’s get it open so we can see what’s inside.”

The orb gazed. Stared on at the stretching light of the sundered threshold. It watched. Waited.

And for the first time in a long time, it felt. It felt eager.

It watched. Waiting now for something concrete. It didn’t just wait.

It anticipated.

For the first time in centuries, perhaps millennia, it would see. For the first time through its ancient slumber, it would again be met

with light.

It watched.

Watched on from its spot deep in the darkness.

Stared on as the corridor squeaked and squealed loudly. Almost reluctantly.

As though the tomb itself did not want to open. It sounded like it was not ready.

But it was. The orb stared on. And it was ready now. Patient and ready.

The light flooded in farther, reached through the darkness. But it did not flood in far enough to reach the orb. The orb was too far, too high, for the little light to reach. The small threshold could not hope to gouge enough breadth for the light to find way through the encroaching darkness. The tomb was too deep, far too tall, and it’s inhabitant was too grand for such a small threshold to illuminate.

Still it watched on.

Shadow. Two of them, then three. Shuffling at the doorway. The shape of men.

It could barely make out their clothes and little faces. But it could see them.

Again, with the darkness now penetrated and disturbed by light, it could see.

“You first, man. Go in.”

“Yeah, yeah, I’m on it. Gimme a light, will ya?”

Another light, thin and white poked through the darkness. It was slim. Small. Infinitesimal as the sounds of the creatures that squeaked in the darkness. But it was more impactful than those soft, familiar sounds that had dotted the darkness for ages.

The light waved about and the man began to wander inward. Another followed behind to scout the room.

The third stayed behind at the threshold.

“Anything on your end?”

“Nothin. Just pillars and puddles.”

“Same here. Lemme know if you find anything.”

It watched them. Watched as they wandered through the light-touched edges of the tomb.

Watched as they meandered in, knowing not what they searched for. What slumbered in the darkness.

It did not move. Did not stretch. It did not make known its existence.

The orb only gazed. Watched. Watched on.

The closer man fumbled back a step, nearly tripping on himself as he made way farther into the darkness. “Oh, shit!”

“What?” the other man called out. “What is it?” His light arced, waved, then honed in on the closer man as he started to make his way toward his companion.

“Just a rat. Scared the hell outta me when I saw it move.”

“Well keep lookin. There’s gotta be something here.”

They meandered and wandered, snaked their way through with their little white lights in the looming darkness for a long, stretching moment. Spoke back and forth to one another. Looking and searching, yet knowing not what they sought. They made way farther and farther into the tomb, closer and closer to the being that had slumbered. That now waited. That marked its depths.

It sat in the depths of the darkness, patient and eager. It came from the depths of darkness before. Had crawled out once of an ancient chasm when it had opened like a great maw unto the world. It was born once from darkness into the light of the world, had wandered once the world of men.

It was indifferent to experience. Did not care if it would ever do so again.

But something stirred within it now. Something small but there.

And it was eager as it watched on. Watched the men slither in upon its new chasm. Upon the tomb men had once built for it.

They had called its tomb “The Temple.”

The closer man closed in, made way ever forward with the second trailing closer to him each moment.

Their little lights reached, reached. Spread over a – thing, they called it. An appendage.

“What do you think it is?”

“I don’t know…” the second man slowed his pace, but still followed. He turned and looked behind him, grew sluggish in his movements. “Keep going. Let’s check it out.”

They drew close now. Close enough to reach if it wanted to move. But it did not move. It watched.

The lips flecked over the orb again and it blinked. Then stared on, unblinking as the light waved and waved.

The light paused, pulled upward. It reached and reached, up and up it climbed, making way from the stationary man below.

“My God…”

It trekked ever upward, reaching, reaching, until it reached the orb. There it stopped. Paused. A small, thin beam of light, stretching a thin ring against the unmoving eye.

“My God, what is that? Do you see it? What is that?”

It stared on, watching. Gazing down at the man that beheld it. So far below.

It felt now something else. Something deep and guttural. Something certain. It was no longer eager. No longer anticipating. Deep in its body it felt an empty kneading feeling. Needy and insistent. A feeling it had not felt for centuries.

It did not stretch. Did not stir from its spot. It simply opened its mouth. For the first time in eons, it opened its mouth.

A great, hollow rasp, a deep wheeze of malicious hunger – only hunger – drew long from its gaping maw as the light stretched outward from the opened doorway. As the light reached out from the thin, handheld tool to leak over its tired eye.

The orb rolled again, twitched, then locked on, settling its focus on the man far below.

Another human. Another flesh. Another meat.

“What the… What the hell is that thing?”

It reached forward with a great flayed hand, overflowing with fingers. Far too many fingers, and it plucked the man, screaming now, from his spot on the floor. The flashlight fell, smashed upon the stone, and it’s light snuffed out.

It chewed. It crunched. It swallowed.

And still that light came flooding in from the doorway. That ceaseless bright.

It reached. Reached over the other man who ran now, scrambling toward the entrance. Toward the light. It’s great hand of too many fingers stretched over the man and beyond him, curled around the doorway. It pulled itself forward, its hand too large to fit through the threshold.

The threshold did not matter. It was a mortal’s entryway into its chamber. Not a lock for its rest. It was merely an alarm for its awakening. An alarm of light meant to stir it from its timeless slumber. Its ancient, incessant waiting.

More fingers curled around the doorway, and it pulled itself up, bending the steel frame as it pulled, tired and sluggish.

As it rose, its chamber crumbled. The light called to it, beckoned it.

More humans called out, some screams deafened by scattered building debris as it fell and crumbled, crushing their small bodies.

Light flooded around it. Overtook everything.

It stood. Entering once more into the open world.

Its eyes washed aglow and it saw clearly.

Sunrise.

It was sunrise once again.