In a small, forgotten village nestled deep within the mountains, a teenage boy named Malek lived a life of quiet suffering. Orphaned at a young age, he was taken in by the villagers, but they offered him little more than disdain. To them, he was an outcast, a boy whose strange and vivid dreams unsettled those who cared for nothing but their survival.
Malek’s quiet life changed the night the cult came for him.
It was a moonless night when the leader of the cult arrived in the village, draped in gold and shadows. He was known as the Hierophant, a man revered for his power, wisdom, and supposed connection to the gods. But behind his masked face and revered status, the Hierophant was something far more sinister. His influence stretched across cities and kingdoms, cloaked in righteousness but dripping with corruption.
Under the cover of darkness, the Hierophant’s followers abducted Malek. They took him to a secret temple, far from the village, where the flickering light of candles illuminated twisted symbols on the walls. There, bound and terrified, Malek was forced to endure a ritual he did not understand. The cult leader spoke in a language that twisted the air, his voice thick with malevolence, as a dark power filled the room.
The Hierophant had chosen Malek because of his gifts—latent powers that had yet to awaken, but which the cult had sensed. Malek was a conduit for energy, a soul brimming with untapped potential that could create wealth, prosperity, and abundance for those who knew how to control it. And the Hierophant knew exactly how to harness it.
With a cold and calculated cruelty, the ritual began. Malek was violated, his body and soul both ravaged as the Hierophant embedded a parasitic entity deep within him—a dark, ancient force that fed on suffering and fear. The entity latched onto Malek’s very essence, a silent passenger in his soul, its tendrils wrapping around his gifts, twisting them to serve the Hierophant’s will.
From that night onward, Malek was a prisoner—not of walls, but of a deeper, darker bondage. His gifts, now harnessed by the cult, fueled their wealth and power. Gold flowed into the coffers of the Hierophant, crops flourished in the lands controlled by his followers, and influence spread like wildfire. Meanwhile, Malek himself was left to rot in poverty, cast aside like a tool that had served its purpose.
For forty years, Malek lived in destitution, his dreams haunted by the presence of the entity that had been bound to him. Every time he tried to rise, to find happiness or stability, his life crumbled, the parasitic force draining him of hope, of joy, of any sense of self-worth. His gifts worked for others, creating abundance and fortune for those who exploited him, while he remained shackled to misery.
The cult watched him, ensuring he never broke free, ensuring he never knew the truth of his own power. They kept him isolated, broken, and unaware that the force controlling him could one day be his to command.
But deep within Malek, buried beneath decades of suffering, something else remained—a spark of resistance, of unbroken will. Over time, that spark grew, though Malek could not yet feel it.
On the eve of his 55th year, the awakening began.
It started subtly, a shift in his dreams. The nightmares of the parasitic entity were replaced by visions of light and power. He saw a younger version of himself, untouched by the darkness, standing before a door of pure energy. Beyond the door was something he had forgotten—his true power, his gifts, waiting for him to reclaim them.
One night, as Malek lay in the squalor of his tiny home, he felt a change in the air. The entity within him stirred, but this time it felt different. Instead of feeding on his despair, it trembled. It was weakening. Malek’s awakening had begun, and with it, the parasitic force that had controlled him for so long began to lose its grip.
The Hierophant, sensing the shift, sent his followers to Malek’s home. They had grown fat on his suffering, their wealth and power tied to his enslavement. But now, they feared him. For the first time in forty years, they feared what he might become if he broke free.
They came to stop his awakening, but it was too late.
As the cult members entered his home, Malek stood waiting. He had felt the power inside him rise like a tide, swelling with each passing moment. The entity, once a parasite, had been weakened by his growing strength, and now Malek could feel it slipping. He closed his eyes, focusing on that spark of power deep within him, the power that had been his all along.
With a single thought, Malek shattered the bindings the cult had placed upon him. The entity shrieked as it was torn from his soul, dissipating into nothingness. The decades of pain, poverty, and misery fell away like a discarded skin. For the first time, he was free.
The cult members cowered before him, their faces twisted in terror. They had no idea how powerful Malek had become. The gifts they had stolen from him for so long now surged through his veins, unbound and uncontainable. He could feel the energy of the world around him, the flow of abundance that had once been siphoned away by the cult.
With a wave of his hand, the wealth they had accumulated over the years was undone. Gold melted into dust, crops withered in the fields, and the power they had built upon his suffering crumbled before them. Malek stood tall, his eyes glowing with the power of his awakened soul, a power the cult had tried to suppress for four decades.
The Hierophant himself came, furious and desperate, but even he could not stand before the awakened Malek. The parasitic force that had once bound him now recoiled from his very presence. With a single word, Malek banished the Hierophant’s power, reducing the cult leader to nothing more than a mortal man.
In the end, the cult was destroyed, its wealth and influence stripped away as quickly as it had grown. Malek, now fully awakened, stood as a force of his own making. His gifts, no longer shackled, flowed freely, bringing abundance not to the corrupt and powerful, but to those who had been forgotten, just as he had been.
And so, after forty years of torment, Malek reclaimed not only his power, but his life. His soul, once bound by darkness, now blazed with the light of his true self, free and unbroken.