One by one, my ravens come.

Their blackened talons scrape a shiver of anticipation up my ancient spine. Trapped down here, they are my eyes. I gave them human skin. I had only the power to create a thin illusion. A closer look would reveal a flash of black beak and oily feather. But the mortals never look. Sitting in their hollow tubes from here to there, eyes averted. Is it the scent of their own doom that makes them look away?

My ravens are hung in dirty rags. With plagued faces, they sit on the floor. No one cares to see them, so they are free to watch. Abandoned by the species they assume to be part of. They watch and they see. All acts captured in their beady black eyes. Stored like chewed worms in their gullets, regurgitated for me. They come to me deep underground, slipping easily from the crowds because they are invisible. If only the mortals knew what lurks in the cavernous recesses beneath their metal cocoons. I have room enough for thousands of ravens.

They bring me acts of cruelty, spite and greed, retched from their stinking mouths. Each act I swallow, gobbling like a blind baby bird, hungry for more. I smile as the mortals carelessly sin, their complacency feeding me, so that I grow stronger as each day passes. Sinews stretch and strengthen with each misdeed, selfish thoughts steel my will, turned heads sharpen my yellowed teeth. Look away from those in need, abandon the weak and plough forward, encased in your roaring carriages, rip up the insides of the world, disturb the long dead.

Well, I am not dead. I am Odin, the one surviving heathen god, the war monger and sower of strife. And I am coming.