Without fully understanding why, the piercing gaze of the eye symbol repulsed me. I shuddered, and got to my feet. Gazing around, I ascertained that I must be in some primeval temple courtyard. Rows of ancient granite pillars, drowned in moss and draped with vines and tendrils, stretched across the length of the plaza, leading to an awe-inspiring centrepiece. A colossal, ancient temple dwarfed the smaller shrines that adorned the sides of the courtyard, its peak reaching just below the considerable height of the canopy. The creator’s had clearly taken great effort to conceal the mysterious structure, as the thick canopy above it concealed it completely and utterly.

Indeed, the temple was maddening in its shape and form. What appeared to be cyclopean vines entangling the stonework were in fact carved veins, almost appearing to pulse before my fear wracked vision. As I crossed the formidable length of courtyard, and reached the rippling, smoothed steps of the temple, another daunting realisation dawned upon me. The temple was made of a single rock. There were no visible seams. How was this possible? I frantically scrabbled in the dirt at the base of the temple, to be greeted with yet another shocking revelation. The stone continued underground. I continued digging for some time, the exact time period escapes my memory. What I can recall, however, is that somehow, inexplicably, I knew the temple was alive. Below the ground, the stone continued not as foundations, but as roots. Tangled, intricate roots.

Staggering back to my feet, fatigued by my extensive digging, I wiped my sweat-laced hands on my already ragged trousers. Ascending the temple steps, I came to an entrance that could only be described as an open pore, with the symbolic eye above it, carved deep into the stonework. Disturbingly, the eye almost appeared to have been grafted onto the stone, veins and fine capillaries emanating off from the terrifying carving, appearing to take root deep within the stonework.

Then it struck me. The temple was not made of any stone I could recognise, least of all granite. Gazing around at the courtyard, adorned with shrines and pillars, Each made out of rough hewn granite blocks, I could only surmise that the ruined complex had been constructed around the temple. Whoever had constructed the shrines, the pillars, the archways and courtyard, each apparently dating back to the dawn of humankind or earlier, had done so out of veneration. Veneration of an edifice so ancient, so inherently alien, that its birth could have only taken place millennia before the arrival of humankind.

Curioustity overcame my fear, although later I would have begged myself to have turned and ran. I entered the monolith.