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It was in the torturous depths of winter that The Creature became desperate enough to seek out the God of his God, the Creator of his Creator. The relentless cold and constant fall of snow had made scavenging difficult, and he did not know how he would survive much longer. Yet he knew that no help would come from humanity; instead, The Creature trudged from his shelter to a wayside shrine that he'd observed from his hiding places. He had watched as travelers paused at the small alcove to cross themselves, to leave an offering, or, if they had the time, to kneel in prayer. Now it was he who approached the snow-covered shrine, and, having nothing but time, knelt and prayed.
O, Creator of my Creator, in Thy mercy, show me a drop of kindness, for I am drowning in a sea of misery. I am abandoned; I am alone; and I am starving for anything to eat.
He felt his heart begin to swell with that terrible ache of lonely desperation. As his head swam with hunger, there was little he could do but close his eyes as tears spilled from them. He knew that nothing would come from this, from the humiliation of groveling before a deity who owed nothing to a walking perversion of nature, to a monster he had not fashioned with his own hands, but his heart cried out anyway.
My own Creator, Your Creation, has scorned me and I have no one, he pleaded in silence, Please. Please, help me.
The wind whipped around him, the icy snow like knives against his scarred face, and The Creature felt his heart sink with despair. After a moment of silence, he opened his eyes to find… nothing.
He groaned and sank his head into his hands, sobbing into the frigid evening air. His lungs burned from the cold as he gasped for breath between stifled cries. He had no idea how long he sat there, knees frozen stiff by the snow, tears turning to ice as they fell from his cheeks, but he finally mustered up another plea.
“Why,” he mourned aloud, “Why would you let him create me only to abandon me? To declare a monster one whom he should have embraced? To turn his back on me and wish me dead?”
He opened his eyes, but whatever he might have said next froze upon his blackened lips. For there beside him in the snow lay a singular shining apple where none had been before.
His head swam with an entirely new sensation: disbelief.
“How…?”
He looked around for any signs of footprints, but the fearsome wind meant that he could see little; surely it would have covered up any tracks there might have been to find. He chanced a look into the tree above him and gasped— more apples than even he could carry hung from its boughs.
He knew that the hunger had dulled his senses, but surely he had not overlooked a tree full of fruit among the barren ones around him. No, he thought to himself, this had not been here when he had begun to pray.
Awestruck, he reached a shaking hand down toward the apple at his side. He was half-convinced it would evaporate with the wind, a delusion of his weakened mind, but his fingertips met solid matter, and a small cry escaped him. He bit into the fruit and found that its flesh was perfectly ripe, overflowing with sweetness that tasted all the more heavenly for having gone so long without anything else to eat.
He wept into his meal, murmuring his unending gratitudes into the dying wind, and struggled to understand how this could have happened. Was he dreaming? Had he died and gone to the next life? How could this be?
As he ate, he found no answers, but a realization dawned on him, it luminous rays piercing that hollow ache in him the way nothing else ever had before: the Creator of his Creator had answered him. The God of his God had looked upon his wretched, miserable form and dispensed mercy. It did not matter to Him that He had not created the Creature who asked something of Him; He did not care that he was an unsightly abomination of undead scraps. And so the Creature wondered, and he wondered, and he wondered.
He did not know whether he should try to take more the fruit from the tree, but his hunger surpassed his newfound piety. He scaled the gnarled branches, gathered as much harvest as he could carry, and returned to the weathered shack he had made camp in. He ate another apple and, more content than he could ever remember being, fell into blissful sleep.
The Creature noticed immediately upon waking that he was warm. The tremors of the wretched body had ceased, and the air felt like it would had there been a steady fire through the night. He saw, too, that the food he had gathered remained where he had left it. Increasingly unsettled, he closed his eyes to try to pray again.
Hello?
The air in the cabin moved, and the Creature startled where he sat.
Do not be afraid, said a voice within.
The Creature, for his part, was indeed quite afraid. His creator must have given him a rotted mind along with the body, for he was clearly going mad.
Adam, the voice spoke again, tearing him from his thoughts, I will care for you. Do not be afraid. And the air stilled, but did not cool.
Adam, both amazed and confounded, laid back down, and he wondered, and he wondered, and he wondered.
He had not anticipated this when he threw himself down at the shrine the previous evening. He had been desperate, but he had no reason to expect any kindness from the God He Could Not See when the God Before His Eyes had cursed him for existing. He could still scarcely believe what had happened— and a name! Finally, a name! Adam. He was- he was seen. Someone knew him as more than just a nameless, horrible Creature. Adam. At last, elevated from a thing to a person, a man, someone. Adam, Adam, Adam.
He spun the name around and around in his mind until it felt like it could one day be his own. And who could take it from him? It had been given to him, like the apples, like the unnatural warmth that pervaded his shack; given to him not by his own fickle maker, but by the Maker of his maker, who owed him nothing, yet gave him more than he had asked for. So what if he was going mad? So what if this were all a dream? Was this not the kindest life had been since the moment he first drew breath?
I will care for you, the voice had said. How? Adam now asked. But the air remained still, and did not cool.