Seated in his cramped lair, safe from those that mocked him daily, Zark gazed upon his work.

It stared at him, as he stared at it.

‘I see what you crave,’ It whispered as its eyes studied his humble abode.

“And I know what you crave,” he said back, it wouldn’t be here otherwise.

Every eye turned to him. ‘Do you? Then why are you so empty of fear?’

“What is their to fear?” He asked back. “I have nothing, am nothing, I’m weak, unwanted, hated.” They mocked him, always whispering behind his back, laughing, always laughing, as if he couldn’t hear, as if he didn’t see the contempt in their eyes.

The monument of his work laughed, his mind ringing from the intensity of it. ‘You have so much, you are unchained, you have a body, you have the great gift of change and choice. YOU HAVE LIMITLESS OPPORTUNITY!’

It peered into him, yet he did not fight the intrusion. He let it see all that he was, let it witness the folly of its words.

‘So blind,’ it sent instead. ‘To all the chances before you, transitioning, growing, rising higher within the domains of creation.”

It pressed on his mind, screaming one word: ‘ASCENTION!’

“That,” he said through gasps. “Is only open to those with power, and prestige, I have little of the former, and none of the latter.”

The pressure on his mind slowly receded, but the eyes remained trained on him, and he felt… pity.

‘So blind.’ It recited again.

‘So lost and stripped of all you knew before. The game rigged, or scaled to high, a test? Or another trick?’

For a moment, the sight bringing tears of blood and mind reeling. He witnessed things he couldn’t comprehend. It pulled back, and what he saw went with it. ‘Yet for all your blindness, we are closely aligned, you crave something I crave, so you have my aid.’

“Knowledge then,” he forced out, carefully using a hand to brush away the red tint in his eyes.

For a moment he regretted his words as the pressure struck again, his mind feeling like it was going to break. But it passed and what entered, what he learned, made everything he’d thus far endured be inconsequential to what he gained.

‘The deal is struck,’ it whispered in his mind. ‘And due is expected.’

“You will get the lifeforce you crave, and souls.” He said with a smile.

He looked at his work on the floor, saw all the flaws of the rune, the shoddiness of it, how it had barely functioned. It had been considered a great secret, a method to contact things beyond the veil. It was seen as perfect, flawless, he laughed.

“I guess we are blind,” he said. “But not as much now.”

‘We will rise,’ it whispered back pleased. ‘WE WILL ASCEND.’

“And I will finally get all that I deserve.” He said through bared fangs.