What Came In The Fire
Selected from Annex C-3736K.
We all take a quick step back.
The crack, which started small at the base of sphere, right where it touches the water, rapidly runs up the side of the obsidian orb, radiating and fractalling outward as it reaches for the crown of the enormous glass ball. In less than a minute, the object has gone from flawless to falling apart. Superheated shards begin to flake off left and right, landing in the water and sending small pillars of whirling steam skyward as they splash into the shallows of the lake. A wave of unbearable heat sends us all scrambling even further backward, and with a sound somewhere between shattering glass and a rockslide the sphere crumbles into a pile of red-hot dust. An enormous cloud of thick white steam billows upward from the water, shrouding the crumbled sphere and whatever it contains in a scalding embrace.
We all stand back on a berm above the shore, frozen in place despite the heat. The grass nearest to the edge of the water is withering before our eyes. We still can’t see through the steam, but as it begins to clear something stirs atop the sizzling pile of volcanic glass that’s been left behind. It seems round until it uncoils, revealing its true worm-like shape, long and wriggling.
Nearly everybody gasps or murmurs in disbelief. Carol and Lorenzo begin to pray. I can only stare, entirely dumbfounded, as the steam clears and the thing writhes its way off the pile of obsidian that birthed it and onto the shore.