Heinrich Joseph Nest had always had strange dreams.
For most of his life, he chose to ignore them. His father always said that dreams would not put food on the table and he would have to learn his trade if he wanted to survive. After he spoke of his dreams one time too many he was beaten and ordered never to speak of them again.
His father wasn't even really his father. He had been found in a field one day, a naked child, clutching only a small, round object made of metal. Herman and Frida Nest had no children of their own and so they had decided to take him in. He still carried the round thing today, although he had no idea what it was. Every attempt to get it open had failed. Most of the time he forgot that he even had it, which was why his father had never thought to sell it or melt it down to produce more material.
He did what his father wanted. He dutifully listened and learned as his father explained and demonstrated the practices of a blacksmith. In time he became rather good at his job and the people of the village enjoyed many of the items he created. He married a woman and had two children. He was, in all respects very ordinary. He feared God and kept the King's peace and enjoyed a beer every now and then. A nice enough man but not very interesting.
Yet he still had strange dreams. He dreamt that he was a very different man, a wicked man. A man who took great delight in murder and blasphemy and all things foul. A man who would stop at nothing to become the absolute ruler of all things. There were other things in his dreams too. He dreamt of enormous clouds rising from the ground to the sky like mushrooms. He dreamt of men made of metal and ships made of flesh. He dreamt of trees that could walk and cities that could sing.
Worse than the dreams were the drums. He heard them his every waking hour. He had told nobody about the drums. He knew what would happen to him if the villagers heard that he was hearing things that weren't there. They would say that he was possessed by a demon and would surely kill him. So he kept up his normal, everyday life and never let anyone have cause to suspect anything else.
It might have worked too, were it not for what happened one night while he was at the tavern. A strange man came in, one who nobody had ever seen before. There was something off about him, something unsettling that made the other patrons avoid him. Heinrich was almost tempted to refuse when the man asked him if he could be shown to the blacksmith's shop.
As soon as they were away from the crowd, the man attacked him. He pinned him down and stuck his fangs into his throat.
Heinrich Joseph Nest died that day. And when he was born again, he laughed and laughed and laughed. Because now he had clarity. He knew why he had dreamt. He knew who he really was.
He was The Master. Reborn.