Ascension

Imagine that, suddenly, everything was taken away from you. Your home, your belongings, even the sun. Sent to live underground, you have to toil away in the mines for hours, the monotony of your efforts interrupted only by a sharp bark of a guard, a crack of a whip, or the drip of water from the dark ceiling above. Your food is as tasteless as it is colorless, but you eat to survive. Everything you do is to survive. Eventually, you have children, who grow up and learn how to survive themselves, long enough to have children of their own, who they then teach to survive. And with each generation, knowledge of the sun, trees, and fresh air, become bedtime stories told to help the children go to bed.

Sometimes, you’ll find that you’ve been graced with a special talent. You are smarter than those around you, you have the voice of an angel, you’re more beautiful than most. Try as you might to hide them, eventually you will inevitably attract the attention of a guard, and they will send you in for evaluation. If deemed worthy, you are sent to work the surface as a slave for the King, trading the cold, damp darkness for the warmth of the sun, trading your family for a life of slavery, never to return back to your home.

This is the life I have been born into, but it’s not the life I am going to live. Survival is getting harder and harder, and my people are fading away into the darkness. I will be the one to lead them into the light.

Ascension is a story about challenges, love, and self-discovery.