The Year One,
A red apple came to rest on the bottom of the sea. Cowering inside the core was a half-eaten glowworm, struggling to survive. The worm gorged itself on the flesh of the apple like a man before a fast. When the sun rose over the water, the worm slept, falling into endless night. Trapped in endless night.
When the moon was high, the crescent on the worm’s head glowed incandescent silver, transforming the deep-diving moonlight into sustenance. Locked in hibernation, the worm began to grow. In mere hours it outgrew the apple core and burst out like a hatchling from a shell, although it never awoke. In spite of the smothering pressure on the seafloor, the sleeping glowworm swelled ceaselessly long and fat until it was so big that its bulk could be seen from the surface of the sea like a dark road leading east.