Rising through the water banded by molten strands of liquid rock was an experience unlike any other. I didn't choke for lack of air and yet my lungs were full of all the air I needed as if it was being pressed into me.
The journey upward was wondrous and it ended far too quickly. At some point far into the journey the bands of lava arced off elsewhere and the water alone continued to rise to the surface.
It was dark for only a little while. Above was a watery blue blur of color that grew bigger and brighter, until with a gasp of air I burst free of the water and felt the light of the sun rain down upon my face once more. Now that I had missed.
Swimming my way to the edge of the water I was pulled clear of it by Tolak. Smiling at him I took his hand and stepped out into the ancient setting we had quietly invaded from below. The difference however in our passage into this place though was in the fact that we wished to destroy no one or even hinder them in the slightest from living in the way that they wished to.
We brought no weapons of mass destruction with us and our only means of survival was by the mercy we found within the good grace of our God, who would provide for all our needs even as He had promised, as His Word is true.
*****
Eli looked about the deep valley that stretched all around and that opened up deeply before him. What was this place?
The cliff like walls and steep sides of what must be a caldera of epic proportions rose steeply all around to the point he doubted that the thousands upon thousands of large African grazing animals that he saw for as far as the eye could see could even leave this place of sanctuary if they had wanted to. Samantha had said this was the Garden of Eden, while it didn't look as he had imagined that it would, he felt that she was correct somehow.
Admittedly a lot could change in the passage of several thousand years, along with the advent of a global flood. Reaching down he dug his fingers into the soil and straightening up he viewed what he held with a sense of awe.
Glancing to Keturah standing nearby he said, "Can you believe that once man existed as nothing but this red dirt I now hold, until God molded it and breathed the breath of life into him so that man would become a living soul?"