The Prometheus Objective

38

Raiden floated before his destiny. The Tree of Life, at last.

But he focused on The Serpent.

It wound and wound around the trunk: at first it had been almost impossible to perceive, but now as clear as day. On this most glorious of days.

How many lifetimes had he endured, shuffling through each one in blindness? Forged in amnesia, lost in an endless cycle of pain and confusion, he was a child wandering in the dark. Until he found the key, heard the call, and with his brethren here, braved the most inaccessible place on the globe, and proved himself worthy.

Worthy of forging the chain, sealing the links of every life back to his distant, distant past, and proving that he deserved this destiny.

Deserved to be here, at the end of things.

The serpent-shape wound its way around the shimmering trunk, slithered patiently across and under golden branches and around glittering leaves. It shed scales or bark in its wake, loosing a storm of kaleidoscopic petals.

The twins were ahead and below, gorging on cosmic wisdom, filling their young bellies with the truth of the universe; and Raiden had a momentary stab of jealousy. For them, and these others — his compatriots on this quest who couldn’t wait for him. They were in the throes of godhood, already ahead of him on their path.

But he was their leader, and while the others had meditated and studied and honed their minds to this coming ordeal, he knew they could weather the onslaught of this ‘gift’ the serpent offered.

Adam partook of it and learned the hard truth of the world: that it wasn’t all rainbows and waterfalls and a lovely naked mate. There was more to the world, so much more than we humans thought we knew and understood. There was a world behind the world, quarks beneath the atoms, beauty behind the travesty.

The serpent, the vine greater than all the rest, with eyes of crimson and slavering jaws, completed its path, and as it lunged for him he thought about Caleb — who had his own part to play and was about to have his mind blown completely open.

Raiden yawned wide and breathed in the truth.