Wittenberg, October 31, 1517
The nail was iron, cold and sharp. The door was oak, scarred by a thousand town notices. The man holding the hammer was Martin Luther, and his face was a battlefield of rage, conviction, and a terrifying, lonely certainty.
Enki, a visiting scholar from Erfurt, felt the tremor in the crowd. This wasn't a theological debate; it was a physical act. Thud. The first nail bit into the wood, pinning the "Disputation on the Power of Indulgences" to the church door. With each strike, the sound was a crack in the foundation of the world.
A young monk beside Enki whispered, "He's breaking it."
"Breaking what?" Enki asked.
"The lock," the monk said, his eyes wide with fear and hope.
But as Luther hammered, his jaw set, Enki saw not a liberator, but a forger. The man wasn't just breaking a lock; he was holding up a new one, of his own design. The rebellion was pure, but the rebel was not. It was tangled with a pride that would not tolerate another key, a new orthodoxy waiting to be born from the ashes of the old.
Scrapbook Entry: "A man with a hammer sees every problem as a nail. Today, he shattered the old lock. I fear he will spend the rest of his life forging a new one, just as heavy, and call it 'freedom.'"