A Modern Myth...

The dragon and the Black Tree

Throughout history, people have struggled to understand the world around them and the forces that control the universe. One method of understanding the world has been through the creation of myths, and one of the most common myths told is how the world came to be. In modern times, explaining things through myths has become something of a thing of the past, what with all the newly discovered technology and methods of research that we have. I guess that's why we need fiction writers.
Anyway, here's my modern creation myth...

In the beginning of the world, there was a great being--a dragon--who had seen the birth and destruction of three other worlds in the course of his lifetime. Ours was his fourth, and he was growing tired.
To help him hold this new world together, the dragon called forth from the core of the earth a great tree--a tree of incredible power, its heart a smouldering bed of coals and its roots still intwined around the center of the earth. Its great, black, leafless boughs stretched to the heavens to support the sky, and its tangled roots held the soil of the earth in place. The dragon was at last able to rest, and he settled down at the base of the tree to sleep for an age.
But all is not well.
The Black Tree is a being of fire, and more than anything, fire longs to burn. The smouldering heart of the tree needs only a breath of air to turn into a raging inferno, and should that happen, the dragon and all the rest of the world would be consumed in flame. Without the dragon, there will be no fifth world, and so existence will end. There will be only black.
So beware.