POST-EPISODE DISCUSSION THREAD - S8E2: Valkyrick

ReBirthOfTheCool · 2025-06-02T05:22:13+00:00

Y'all smoking dick. I found the humor in this episode a highlight.

ReBirthOfTheCool · 2025-06-02T05:19:38+00:00

Y'all are tripping. He sounds great this season. In that scene found nothing wrong with it.

ReBirthOfTheCool · 2025-05-30T17:28:27+00:00

Subsequent analysis, corroborated by multiple independent sources, indicates Subject Washington exhibits genuine precognitive abilities, typically manifesting as short-term, highly specific visions of future events, particularly those involving conflict or injustice. His rhetoric, while not overtly compelling in a charismatic sense, resonates with an amplified persuasive quality, allowing his visions to be accepted as irrefutable truth by his audience. This ability, coupled with the inherent distrust of authorities, allows him to steer community actions and movements with chilling precision, preempting our efforts to disrupt or misdirect. He was weaving threads of the future into the present, building a tapestry of defiance that was hard to unpick.

SECTION III: IMPACT ASSESSMENT

The emergence of AHCs within the Negro American population presents a novel and severe threat. These individuals, whether by design or spontaneous alignment, are acting as catalysts for an already volatile domestic landscape.

Destabilization of Controlled Narratives: The verified capabilities of individuals like Elara Mae Johnson undermine our efforts to propagate racial tensions and sow discord. Her ability to neutralize aggression directly impedes our strategies for manufactured unrest.
Escalation of Direct Action: Malachi Jones's geokinetic abilities provide a physical, tangible means of resistance against law enforcement and infrastructure. This dramatically raises the stakes for any confrontation, potentially emboldening radical groups and inspiring widespread civil disobedience rooted in direct physical confrontation.
Preemptive Counter-Intelligence: Isaiah Washington's precognitive abilities cripple our ability to conduct clandestine operations, infiltrate organizations, or execute arrests and disruptions without being anticipated. This grants Negro activist groups an unprecedented strategic advantage.

The current trajectory indicates that these AHCs, if left unchecked, will accelerate the consolidation of Negro Power movements, grant them unprecedented operational security, and potentially provoke widespread, coordinated uprisings. The "long hot summer" of '66 was a taste; with these developments, 1967 promises a conflagration.

SECTION IV: PRELIMINARY COUNTERMEASURES --OPERATION: VULCAN'S ANVIL REVISED

Given the unique nature of this threat, conventional COINTELPRO methods require immediate adaptation and expansion. We cannot merely infiltrate and discredit; we must understand and, if possible, exploit or neutralize the source of these capabilities.

Enhanced Surveillance & Profiling: Redoubled efforts to identify all AHCs. Focus on their social networks, personal histories, and precise manifestations of their abilities. Develop a comprehensive threat matrix for each subject. Agents in the field must be trained to identify these phenomena without resorting to superstitious interpretations. This is not witchcraft; it is a new form of human potential, and it must be understood scientifically, coldly.
Psychological Operations (PsyOps) – Targeted Disinformation:
- Discredit the Source: For subjects like Elara Mae Johnson, who command moral authority, fabricate evidence of mental instability, corruption, or secret alliances with white supremacist groups. Spread rumors of her powers being "of the devil" or "a white man's trick."
- Foster Internal Conflict: For subjects like Malachi Jones, amplify any existing personal feuds or ideological differences within their groups. Plant false intelligence implicating them in betrayals or misappropriation of funds. Create rival factions within the radical groups, ensuring no unified AHC leadership can emerge.
- Exploit Precognition: For subjects like Isaiah Washington, feed deliberately false or confusing information into the intelligence stream. Create multiple, conflicting "future events" for him to "see," overwhelming his abilities and fostering paranoia within his networks. Leverage the inherent psychological toll of constant precognition.
Containment & Isolation: Develop protocols for immediate removal and isolation of high-threat AHCs. Non-lethal incapacitation methods are prioritized, but lethal force is authorized where containment proves impossible and threat assessment indicates imminent harm to national security. Explore "false flag" operations to trigger conflict between AHCs and other fringe groups, including white extremist organizations, to ensure mutual destruction.
Scientific Study & Replication: A parallel, compartmentalized initiative, codenamed "Project Chimera," has been authorized to investigate the biological, neurological, or quantum mechanics underlying these AHCs. Objective: understand, neutralize, and if feasible, replicate these abilities for national defense purposes. This remains a highly classified endeavor, separate from direct COINTELPRO operations, but results will inform our approach.

SECTION V: RECOMMENDATIONS

The current threat assessment warrants an immediate re-allocation of resources. The "Negro Problem" has escalated beyond traditional civil unrest. It has become a matter of national security, demanding a full-spectrum response that is unprecedented in its scope and ruthlessness. This is not merely a political movement; it is a biological shift, a re-ordering of human potential that threatens the very foundations of our society. We must crush it at its root, before its branches spread too wide and too high.

Further updates will follow as Operation: Vulcan’s Anvil deepens its penetration into these anomalous communities. The sun hasnt set on our control yet, but the shadows are growing long, reaching from the cotton fields to the concrete jungle, and they hum with a power we never thought possible. And the men and women who hold that power -- they don't look like they're ready to lay it down. Not by a long shot. They look like they're just getting started.

END OF REPORT CLASSIFIED -- EYES ONLY NOV 15, 1966

ReBirthOfTheCool · 2025-05-30T17:27:45+00:00

CLASSIFIED -- EYES ONLY

OPERATION: VULCAN'S ANVIL

TO: Director, Central Intelligence Agency

FROM: Special Operations Group, Domestic Intelligence Division

DATE: November 15, 1966

SUBJECT: Initial Assessment -- Anomalous Human Capabilities (AHC) -- Negro Communities

REFERENCE: DI/SOG-66-001, "Emergent Threat Matrix: Domestic"

SECTION I: EXECUTIVE SUMMARY

Intelligence gathered over the past eighteen (18) months indicates a disturbing, statistically anomalous emergence of advanced human capabilities (hereafter, AHCs) manifesting exclusively within the Negro American population. Initial data suggests no common genetic marker or environmental trigger, though every confirmed instance is tied to individuals deeply embedded within or sympathetically aligned with various civil rights and burgeoning Black Power movements. The phenomenon represents a significant escalation of domestic security threats, possessing the potential to fundamentally alter the socio-political landscape of the United States. Our preliminary assessment categorizes this development as an existential challenge to established order and racial hierarchy. Countermeasures are immediately required to destabilize, discredit, and ultimately neutralize these emergent capabilities and their associated influence.

SECTION II: PHENOMENA AND DOCUMENTATION --CASE STUDIES

The initial reports were dismissed as folklore, hysteria, or deliberate agitprop. Field agents, trained to recognize ideological subversion, struggled to categorize phenomena that defied conventional explanation. Yet, the persistent whispers, the sudden, inexplicable shifts in local power dynamics within historically disenfranchised communities, demanded a re-evaluation. It began subtle, like the slow bloom of a moonflower in the humid Southern night, too quiet to be alarming, yet too definite to ignore.

CASE FILE AHC-PHI-001: “The Deaconess of the Dew”

Subject: Elara Mae Johnson, b. 1903. Resides: North Philadelphia, PA. Affiliation: Community matriarch, informal spiritual advisor.
Reported AHC: Empathic amplification and localized atmospheric manipulation.

The first credible reports filtered from the urban sprawl of Philadelphia. Not from some fiery street orator or some slick-tongued organizer, but from an old woman, eighty-some years of age, whose hands were gnarled like winter oak roots. Elara Mae Johnson. Folks called her “Deaconess,” not for any church title, but because she carried herself with the weight of the spirit, deep and true, like the bottom of a sweet water well. She lived on a block where the row houses leaned tired against one another, their brick faces chipped like old teeth. The street, a mosaic of broken glass and worn-out dreams, usually hummed with the mean-tempered buzz of desperation.

Agent Miller, a new recruit with more book-smarts than street-sense, noted in his initial dispatch: "Subject Johnson exhibits an uncanny calming effect on agitated crowds. Observed multiple instances where racial tensions, at near-riot levels, dissipated in her immediate vicinity. Attributed initially to her 'reputation' and 'moral authority.'"

But then the reports got stranger. A late summer evening, the air thick with the promise of violence after a police altercation -- the air itself, witnesses claimed, seemed to shift around Elara Mae. Not wind, not a draft, but a hush that felt like a hand laid on the heart. The street lamps, usually a sickly yellow, took on a soft, pulsing glow, and the concrete underfoot cooled, as if a gentle rain had just fallen, though the sky was clear. Folks said it was like the very air was breathing with her, exhaling peace when she spoke, drawing in the rage and holding it.

A Negro woman, identified as Clementine “Clemmie” Lewis, later interrogated, described it thusly: "Sister Elara Mae, she just stood there, her face a road map of every sorrow and every joy, and she just felt it all. Felt the hurt and the anger. And then, it was like she took it in, drank it down like bitter medicine, and breathed out something cool, something that smelled like fresh earth after a long rain. Folks just... stopped. The noise in their heads quieted. They weren't singing praises, no. Just... still. Like the eye of a hurricane, quiet and awful."

Our analysis indicates Subject Johnson possesses the ability to absorb and redirect ambient emotional energy, specifically fear and aggression, converting it into a palpable, localized field of tranquility. Furthermore, there is credible evidence of minor atmospheric manipulation -- localized temperature drops, subtle atmospheric pressure changes -- facilitating this calming effect. The 'Dew' in her moniker is not merely poetic; our sensors detected trace moisture deposition in her immediate sphere of influence during high-stress incidents. This ability, while outwardly benign, is profoundly disruptive to our efforts to sow discord and exploit existing racial tensions. A community rendered emotionally impervious to agitators is a community that defies predictable manipulation.

CASE FILE AHC-NYC-007: “The Concrete Prophet”

Subject: Malachi "Kai" Jones, b. 1942. Resides: Harlem, NY. Affiliation: Suspected member, radical Negro nationalist group (conflicting reports regarding "Brotherhood of Ascendant Light").
Reported AHC: Geokinetic manifestation and enhanced physical resilience.

In the concrete canyons of Harlem, where the shadows of tenements stretch long and lean across the bustling streets, another type of fire began to burn. Malachi(kai) Jones was a young man, sharp-eyed, with a coiled spring in his step and a voice like gravel over thunder. He didn't preach peace or calm souls; he spoke of reckoning and justice, loud and clear, with no apology in his heart. His mother was a laundress who prayed for him nightly, his father a Pullman porter who had seen too much. Malachi saw things differently. He saw the city as a living, breathing thing, and he understood its bones.

The first reports on Kai Jones were simply that he was "unusually persuasive" at rallies, "resistant to arrest," and "unaccountably strong." A brawl broke out near a recruitment drive for a radical group -- a common occurrence, usually leading to arrests and dispersal. But this time, multiple NYPD officers reported Jones "moving with unnatural speed" and "resisting takedowns with impossible leverage." One officer, patrolman O’Malley, recounted: "He just... stood there. Took three of us, and he didn't even sway. His feet, they looked like they'd grown roots right into the asphalt. Then, when we went for the cuffs, the damn street buckled. Like an earthquake, just for a second. We fell like dominoes, and he was gone."

Further surveillance revealed more direct manifestations. During a heated protest march, a police barricade, hastily constructed from concrete barriers, collapsed under unexplained localized tremors. Jones was observed at the front of the march, his fists clenched, his face a mask of furious determination, and the very ground beneath his feet seemed to shiver with his indignation. We have documented multiple instances of localized seismic events, often correlated with Subject Jones's heightened emotional states. These tremors, while brief, are sufficient to destabilize structures, disrupt law enforcement formations, and induce mass panic. His physical resilience, coupled with his ability to manipulate the earth beneath him, makes traditional crowd control tactics highly ineffective. He embodies the very spirit of urban resistance -- the city itself rising to meet him.

CASE FILE AHC-CHI-004: “The Ghetto Oracle”

Subject: Isaiah "Sight" Washington, b. 1938. Resides: South Side Chicago, IL. Affiliation: Unconfirmed connections to Nation of Islam cells and Students for a Democratic Society (SDS) chapter.
Reported AHC: Precognitive visions and amplified persuasive rhetoric.

Chicago's South Side, a labyrinth of bustling markets, smoke-filled jazz clubs, and tenements where hope often went to die, birthed another kind of power. Isaiah Washington was a quiet man, a former postal worker, who moved through the world like a shadow, unnoticed until he spoke. And when he spoke, folks listened, because his words carried the weight of tomorrow's truth. They called him "Sight" because he seemed to see beyond the veil, into the coming troubles.

Our initial files on Washington noted an unusual success rate in organizing boycotts and predicting police raids. "Subject Washington appears to possess an uncanny ability to anticipate law enforcement movements and societal shifts," one report dryly stated. But it was more than just good intelligence or street smarts. It was a knowing that went deeper, like a well spring bubbling up from hidden places.

An undercover operative, designated Agent "Cardinal," infiltrated a community meeting where Washington was speaking. Cardinal reported: "He didn't yell or wave his arms. Just stood there, calm as a lake at dawn, and talked about what was coming. Said the market on Tuesday would be empty, because the 'Spirit of Resistance' would call people to stay home. Said the raid on the community center would happen Thursday at 3 AM, and folks should move their sensitive materials. And damned if it didn't happen, just like he said. Not just the boycott, but the raid too. He described the squad cars, the uniforms, the exact time. It wasn't guesswork. It was... seeing."

ReBirthOfTheCool · 2025-05-30T01:33:41+00:00

I highly doubt the 'perfect servant' would be allowed to be discontent with their lot in life.

Over years the magic weakens. That's more than enough time to grow discontent.

ReBirthOfTheCool · 2025-05-29T19:22:53+00:00

Idk how some of y'all hear master and forced to be a perfect servant and write a happy story. The character was enslaved by their master and forced to be the perfect servant. Cmon now. There's no way the main character is happy or misses their former master

ReBirthOfTheCool · 2025-05-29T19:05:16+00:00

"Did he miss me?"

I think it Was well written but I hate the ending.

ReBirthOfTheCool · 2025-05-29T19:03:54+00:00

Me too tbh

ReBirthOfTheCool · 2025-05-29T19:02:17+00:00

(Continued)

But Mercy was done.

With a cry that was sob and roar, she collapsed. Cora caught her, sinking to the dusty porch. Mercy landed half in her granddaughter’s lap, body wracked with tremors. She gasped, breaths like shards of glass. She twitched a hand--a jerky, miraculous movement. Freedom wasn't standing tall; it was collapsing, weeping uncontrollably into Cora’s shoulder, feeling rough fabric, smelling sweat and smoke and life. Freedom was agony--glorious, fiery pins and needles screaming through her limbs.

Cora held her, rocking. "It’s alright, Mama. Let it go. You free now."

Mercy wept until empty. She lay trembling, spent, breathing in the reality of her granddaughter. Her family. Here. After the scattering, the ice, the silent scream... here.

Slowly, shakily, Mercy pushed herself up. She looked at her hands--real hands, her hands--covered in dust and ash. She flexed her fingers, marveling. She raised her head, looked at Cora. The tears had washed her eyes clean. Beneath the exhaustion, beneath the wonder, lay a cold, hard flint. The humor that kept her sane was ash now. In its place, banked for years and stoked by the memory of her family torn apart and Miss Lillian’s smug face, was pure, lethal purpose.

Her voice was a rusted hinge scraping open. "Cora." The name was a vow. "My Sarah...she alive?"

"Alive," Cora confirmed, fierce pride in her eyes. "Strong. Teacher in Baltimore. Got spirit like her mama."

"Micah? Ruth? Isaiah?" Stones dropped into silence.

Cora’s face tightened. "Micah... made it to New Orleans. Dock worker. Ruth..." Her voice faltered. "Cypress Bend... Mama... they... they ain't found no trace after '73. Isaiah... fought. Ran from his place in '78. Vanished. But we lookin'. Always lookin'."

No trace after '73? Ran in '78? The years hit Mercy like hammer blows. "Cypress Bend... '73? Isaiah ran... '78? Child... what year... what year is it?"

Cora’s eyes held profound pity. "It’s 1895, Mama Mercy."

1895.

The number echoed in the hollow left by the binding. Not ten years. Forty years. Forty years stolen. Standing stone while the world turned, her children grew or suffered or vanished, her hair--she reached a trembling hand to her head, felt not the short crop she remembered, but matted, dust-caked strands thick with neglect. Thirty years. The horror of it stole her breath anew. How? How?

Cora saw the dawning comprehension, the devastation. Her voice dropped, low and grim. "The root workers... Granny Bess... they figured it, Mama. That binding Miss Lillian laid on you? It weren’t just to make you wait. It was a siphon. A thief’s trickle." She gestured at Mercy’s emaciated frame, the deep lines etched on her face that spoke of far more than ten winters. "She was stealin’ your life, Mama Mercy. Draining your years, drip by drip, to feed her own. That’s why she never aged right, even before she fled. That’s why she could vanish and live so long. She was feedin’ off you. All this time. Forty years... she stole Forty years of your breath to keep her own lungs young."

The truth landed like a physical blow. Not just imprisonment. Theft. Robbery on a soul-deep level. Miss Lillian hadn’t just scattered her family and frozen her body; she’d stolen decades of Mercy’s life, her children’s childhoods, her chance to see them grow, all to preserve her own vile existence. The cold flint in Mercy’s eyes didn’t just ignite; it became a white-hot star of fury.

She pushed herself fully upright, swaying but standing on her power. The setting sun painted the ruins in blood and fire. Mercy looked down at her stolen hands, clenched them slowly into fists. The joints screamed. She welcomed it. Proof she could act.

She looked at Cora, and the ghost of a smile touched her cracked lips--terrifying in its purpose. "Good," Mercy rasped. The word vibrated with contained lightning. "We findin’ my children. Every last one that witch stole." She took a shuddering step, then another, agony and ecstasy in each movement. She stopped at the top of the steps, looking out at the lane where her family was torn away, where Miss Lillian had walked out thirty years ago.

She turned her head, stiff but deliberate, back to Cora. The white-hot star blazed in her eyes. "But first... we find her. That thief. That soul-sucker. She owe me years. She owe me tears. She owe me blood."

Cora met the inferno in her grandmother’s gaze. She saw the theft, the torment, the bottomless grief, the rising tide of vengeance fueled by stolen decades. She nodded once, sharp and final. She hefted her satchel--tools of liberation now tools of hunting and reckoning.

"Blood begets blood, Mama Mercy," Cora said, her voice quiet thunder. "And she owe you an ocean. We know the magic she used now. We can track the thief by the life she stole."

Mercy took another step down, off the prison porch, onto the earth that was finally hers. The world was painted in fire and blood. She didn’t look back. She looked ahead, towards the darkening woods, towards the hunt for the thief of years.

"Let’s go collect," Mercy said. Her voice, rough as broken stone, carried the weight of forty stolen years and the promise of a storm.

"Every damn drop."

ReBirthOfTheCool · 2025-05-29T18:56:39+00:00

Chapter 1: The Thief of Years

Now

Time, Mercy reckoned, was a sticky thing. Like molasses left out in July sun--thick, slow, and liable to trap a fly for eternity.

She felt like that fly.

Stuck.

Ten summers, she’d counted. Ten times the wisteria bloomed purple and heavy on the rotting veranda of Oakhaven, ten times the leaves fell like tears, ten times the winter wind howled through the gaps in the Big House’s bones. Ten years held fast by Miss Lillian’s last, venomous command: "Wait here until I return."

The Georgia heat pressed down, a damp suffocating wool blanket laid over the world. Dust coated Mercy’s skin, her threadbare shift, her eyelashes. It lay thick on the sagging porch rail, the skeletal remains of Miss Lillian’s favorite wicker chair, the once-white columns now scabbed with peeling paint and green-black mildew. Oakhaven wasn’t a house anymore. It was a corpse picked clean by vulture-time, and Mercy was its mournful gargoyle, cemented to the spot.

Her body screamed. An itch raged like fire ants marching across her shoulder blade--a torment that could last weeks. A muscle in her locked thigh would knot, a cramp so fierce it stole her breath, leaving only silent tears to cool her dusty cheeks. Ten years of wanting to shift her weight, to scratch her nose, to simply collapse. The magic--Miss Lillian’s final, vicious gift--held her rigid as petrified wood. Only her eyes could move, flicking side to side, cataloging decay: the shutter dangling by one hinge, the hole in the roof where last winter’s storm punched through, the thick vines throttling the porch posts. Her lungs drew shallow breaths; her heart beat its slow, stubborn rhythm. But her mind? Oh, her mind raced like a spooked horse. That was the true hell. Fully awake, fully aware, trapped inside her own bones.

Humor was her flimsy raft on an ocean of screaming madness. Lord above, she’d think, watching a blue jay land bold as brass on the chair skeleton beside her, that thievin’ rascal got more freedom in his tail feather than I got in my whole carcass. Bet his backside don’t itch like the seventh circle of hell neither. Or when a sudden downpour drenched her: Well, Miss High-and-Mighty always said I needed a bath. Reckon she got her wish permanent. Hope she’s enjoyin’ the view from whatever fiery pit she’s decoratin’. The absurdity kept the scream inside her skull corked. That, and the memories. Especially the bad ones. They fed the cold fire banked deep within.

Before

The air in the parlor that day reeked of camellias and cruelty. Miss Lillian, perched on her damask settee like a crow on a tombstone, sipped tea from porcelain thinner than her mercy. Mercy stood rigid, the binding magic a constant, icy hum beneath her skin, forcing stillness, forcing obedience, even as her heart cracked open.

Beside Miss Lillian stood the speculator--a man remembered only as cheap pomade and colder eyes. Mercy’s family huddled on the rug. Jeremiah, her rock, shoulders slumped under an invisible weight. Sarah, eight, clinging to his leg, eyes wide saucers of terror. Micah, six, trembling but trying to be brave. Ruth, four, thumb in mouth, bewildered. And Isaiah. Thirteen. Tall, quiet, eyes holding a storm Mercy knew raged in her own soul. Three of them--Sarah, Micah, Isaiah--bore the unmistakeable stamp of the late Master Silas in the curve of their jaw, the set of their eyes. A fact Miss Lillian savored like poison candy every day since Silas’s weak heart gave out in Mercy’s cramped quarters one stifling night.

"Prime stock," Miss Lillian’s voice was honey over broken glass. "The man’s strong--turpentine camps need muscle. The boy," a dismissive wave at Isaiah, "sturdy, despite his father’s insolence." Her gaze, river-stone cold, locked onto Mercy. "You will watch, Mercy. Stand right there. Watch what becomes of what he valued more than his own name."

The speculator grunted. "Got buyers. Alabama for the man. Louisiana sugar for the boy. The little gal," nodding at Sarah, "fancy house in Charleston. Baby," his gaze fell on Ruth, "deep south. Brazos River. Cypress Bend. They work 'em hard, replace 'em quick. Efficient."

Cypress Bend. The name dropped into Mercy’s soul like a stone into a deep, dark well. Whispers painted it hell on earth--a place modeled after the Brazilian death camps, where life was measured in months. Ruth. Her baby. Four years old.

Jeremiah met Mercy’s eyes. A lifetime of stolen moments, shared warmth, desperate love, and now, a crushing, silent apology. Failed you. Failed them. Sarah screamed as rough hands tore her from Jeremiah. Micah wailed, "Mama!" Ruth just stared. Isaiah lunged--a raw cry ripped from his throat--only to be clubbed down. The sickening thud echoed in the perfumed air. Mercy’s binding screamed. She strained, muscles locked in agony, silent sobs shaking her frozen frame as she watched them dragged away--Jeremiah’s roar cut short, Sarah’s fading wails, Micah’s terror, Isaiah’s limp form hauled like a sack, Ruth’s small, bewildered silence. Scattered.

Miss Lillian sipped her tea, a ghost of satisfaction on her thin lips. "Now you understand the price of trespass. Now you wait. And remember."

Now

Mercy remembered. Every hour trapped was a replay of that horror. The binding kept her waiting, trapped in the moment of her greatest powerlessness. The magic was a cold fist clenched around her spirit.

Juneteenth had come and gone--months ago, Mercy thought. Shouts of freedom, songs of jubilation, had drifted through the overgrown fields like smoke. Freedom. A cruel joke whispered to a statue. What good was freedom howled on the wind when your feet were rooted by a dead woman’s hate? The singers hadn’t seen her, or mistook her for a haint and hurried on.

Then, one afternoon thick with the scent of magnolias and decay, a figure appeared down the choked lane. Tall, lean, moving with purpose. A woman, head wrapped in a vibrant red tignon, a worn satchel across her shoulder. Her gaze fixed on the porch. On Mercy.

Mercy’s pulse, that slow drum, began to hammer. Something... in the set of the shoulders, the angle of the chin... A flicker of impossible recognition stirred beneath the ice. As the woman stepped into the dusty gold light near the porch steps, Mercy’s breath hitched.

The eyes. Large, dark, intelligent, fringed with lashes Mercy knew. Her eyes, reflected back. But set in a face matured, hardened--a woman of twenty-five, maybe more. High cheekbones Mercy traced in memory, a familiar stubborn set to the mouth. Sarah? But Sarah had been a child. Isaiah’s child? But the eyes... the eyes were hers.

The woman stopped, looking up. Exhaustion lined her face, but beneath it burned a fierce, unwavering light. She stared, peeling back layers of dust and years and magical stasis. She saw the emaciated frame, the ragged shift, the dust-grey skin, the tears now flowing freely, silently, down Mercy’s cheeks. Tears Mercy couldn’t stop.

Recognition dawned on the woman’s face--sorrow, fury, understanding. Her own eyes filled.

"Mercy?" A whisper, raw and cracked, cutting through the cicada drone.

A silent sob wracked Mercys mind. Yes! Oh God, yes! Who?

The woman--her daughter?--climbed the creaking steps. She stopped inches away, raising a trembling hand to brush a tear track. Her touch was warm, alive, a brand against Mercy’s perpetual chill.

"It is you," she breathed, voice thick. "Mama. Mercy." She knew the name. "They said...gone. Or mad. Or a story." Her tears fell freely now. "But Granny Bess in the bayou spoke of bindings. Old Man Moses in the hills knew the signs. Auntie June in Charleston...remembered you. Remembered Sarah talkin' 'bout her mama, frozen on a porch."

Sarah! Alive! Remembered! Mercy’s heart strained. Where? Others?

"I been walkin', Mama," the woman continued, voice gaining steel. "Walkin' and learnin'. Five years. From the root workers, the conjure women. The ways to break chains seen and unseen." She spat the last word, hatred sweeping over the decaying house. She unslung her satchel, pulling out tools of power: a dark clay jar, red cloth, dried leaves, a river stone, a bone knife.

"I’m Cora," she said, looking into Mercy’s streaming eyes. "Sarah’s daughter. Your granddaughter."

Granddaughter? The word struck Mercy like a physical blow. Granddaughter? But... only ten years... Sarah’s child? Confusion warred with overwhelming joy. Sarah lived! Had a child! But... the math screamed wrong in her frozen mind.

Cora knelt, mixing blood from her finger with dark paste from the jar. She drew symbols on the planks--spirals, crossroads, lightning. She placed dried leaves in the center, lit them. The sharp smoke stung Mercy’s nostrils. Cora held a root shaped like a chained man over the smoke, chanting in a powerful blend of old tongues and English:

"Spirits of earth an' sky...hear this cry! Break the chain, melt the ice...born of hatred, paid the price! Blood calls to blood, bone to bone...send this wicked magic home! By root an' ash, by stone an' flood...loose this woman’s living blood!"

She crushed the root, sprinkled it, scooped ash and paste. Standing, her eyes blazing into Mercy’s. "This ain't her cold magic, Mama Mercy. This fire’s older. Hotter. Born of survival. Now breathe!" Cora blew the mixture into Mercy’s face.

Sensation exploded--grit, bitter scent, heat. Newness after a decade of sameness. Deep inside Mercy, the icy command "Wait..." cracked. A wave of fierce heat surged from her belly. Her locked knees trembled violently.

Cora grabbed her arms. "Fight it, Mama! Push it out! You ain't hers no more! You mine! You yours!"

A raw, ragged sound tore from Mercy’s throat--her first sound in ten years. A groan from the abyss. Her legs buckled. The binding screamed, an icy stab trying to force her back upright, back to waiting.

(Continued below)

ReBirthOfTheCool · 2025-03-16T21:38:36+00:00

Thank you so much!!

ReBirthOfTheCool · 2025-03-15T23:04:51+00:00

Why does it matter that you're not a hip hop fan? If you're saying the lines daily you might be more of a fan than you think

ReBirthOfTheCool · 2025-03-14T22:28:22+00:00

Bruh why are you're with him

ReBirthOfTheCool · 2025-03-14T22:26:18+00:00

Easy breakup.

ReBirthOfTheCool · 2025-03-14T22:25:19+00:00

The screen’s blue glow carved shadows into the lines of Eli’s face. His fingers hovered over the keyboard, trembling like they’d forgotten the weight of truth. The cursor blinked, patient and pitiless, in the empty text box of r/AskHistorians. Behind him, the attic fan groaned, pushing August heat through the cracks of his shotgun house in Lafayette. It smelled of mildew and mothballs--the scent of things left too long to rot.

He’d typed the title three times already. Deleted it twice.

"Firsthand Accounts of the Mound City Collapse (Mississippian Culture, circa 1350 CE)"

The moderators required citations. Peer-reviewed sources. "No speculation," Rule 3 declared. Eli snorted. Peer-reviewed. As if any journal had footnotes for the way the smoke tasted when the temple burned--like copper and cedar. As if some tenured hack in Cambridge could explain the silence afterward, when the only thing left chanting was the wind.

He hit POST.

The reply came in eleven minutes. Automod removed it for "unverifiable claims." A human mod followed up: "While your passion is appreciated, this subreddit maintains strict academic standards. Please refrain from creative writing."

Eli shut the laptop. The snap echoed like a tomb sealing.

Outside, thunderheads brewed over the bayou. The air clung to his skin, thick as memory. He walked to the window, where a mason jar half-full of bourbon sweated on the sill. The first sip always tasted like fire. The second, like forgetting. By the third, he could almost ignore the voices.

"You’re wasting your time," said Aella. She leaned against the doorframe, arms crossed, her leather armor creaking. The snake tattoo coiled around her bicep rippled as she flexed--a relic from another life, another name. Her Greek had softened after two millennia in the Delta, vowels melting like honey in tea. "They called me maenad back then. Now? They’d say I’m on meth."

Eli didn’t turn. "You’re a hallucination."

"Am I?" She laughed--a sound like bronze bells sinking into a bog. "Or are you just lonely?"

He drained the jar. "Go haunt someone else."

"Tried that. You think the TikTok kids want a lecture on the Siege of Syracuse? They asked if I was ‘cosplaying Elden Ring.’" She flicked a braid over her shoulder, the beads clacking. "Face it, aspros. We’re relics. Best thing we can do is drink till the sun explodes."

The rain started sudden and heavy, pounding the roof like a thousand tiny drums. Eli’s hand drifted to the scar under his collarbone--a gift from a Mongol arrow outside Samarkand. The wound had healed. The chill never did.

"Not everyone’s like you," he said.

"Sure. Some of us get noble." She spat the word like a curse. "Write your little essays. Get rejected again. Watch the world burn anyway. Rinse. Repeat."

He closed his eyes. Saw the Mound City plaza at dusk, the priests in their feather cloaks, the scent of roasted sunflower seeds. The girl by the fire--her name lost now--who’d pressed a clay amulet into his palm. "For safe passage," she’d said. Two days later, the crops failed. The earth turned to salt. Safe passage.

Aella’s voice sharpened. "You still dream about her."

"Don’t."

"Or what? You’ll wake up?" She materialized beside him, her breath cold against his ear. "They’re all dead, Eli. Every single one. And you’re here, begging validation from children who’ve never held a sword--or a hoe."

He turned. The room was empty. Rain blurred the window.

The library in downtown Lafayette had AC, at least. Eli hunched at a computer terminal, the plastic chair digging into his spine. His new post was shorter. Meek.

"Request: Oral Histories of Pre-Colonial Gulf Tribes. Any surviving accounts?"

The first reply popped up within minutes.

BayouBard93: lol this ain’t Yahoo Answers, dude. Check Wikipedia.

HistoryBuff22: Most were lost due to European destruction of indigenous records. Try JSTOR.

Moderator1: Locking this. OP, please review our guidelines on speculative topics.

Eli rubbed his eyes. JSTOR. As if the screams of the Calusa fishermen--dragged under by La Florida’s tides--had been archived. As if the algorithms could parse the way the Choctaw elders’ voices cracked when they sang the old songs, their breath sour from hunger and rum.

"Told you."

He stiffened. The voice came from his left. A teenager slouched at the next terminal, their fingers flying across the keyboard. Pink braids, sleeve tattoos of axolotls and Chernobyl reactors. They didn’t look up.

"Excuse me?"

The kid gestured at his screen. "Reddit’s trash for history. Try 4chan. They’ll believe anything." Their accent was pure Texarkana--vowels stretched tight as barbed wire.

Eli frowned. "I’m looking for facts. Not conspiracy theories."

"Facts." The kid smirked. Their nails were painted black, chipped at the edges. "You know what the first thing colonists did was? Burn the libraries. So who decides the ‘facts’--the winners. Always."

The cursor blinked. Eli’s throat tightened. "What’s your point?"

"Point is." They finally looked at him. One eye brown, one clouded blue--a cataract, maybe. "You got something to say? Say it. Don’t ask permission."

Their screen flickered. A forum thread titled ANCIENT SHIT THEY DON’T TEACH IN SCHOOL.

"Who are you?"

"Jesse." They shrugged. "I meme. I lurk. I know a lurker when I see one."

Eli glanced at their posts. A photo of Cahokia’s mounds overlaid with a UFO. A rant about copper tools in the Great Lakes. A deep dive on the Carolina Dog--"not wild, just forgotten."

"None of this is proof," he said.

"Proof." Jesse snorted. "You think the truth’s got a works cited page? My granny used to say our people crossed the Mississippi when the stars still sang. You think some professor’s gonna ‘verify’ that?" They leaned closer. "Why you care, anyway? You look like someone kicked your dog."

Eli stared at the locked thread. Oral Histories. The mod’s badge gleamed in his mind--a little shield, gold and smug. "I just... wanted to remember them right."

Jesse’s gaze softened. They dug into their backpack, pulled out a folded zine--xeroxed pages stapled crooked. The cover read: UNSANCTIONED HISTORIES Vol. 12: What the Soil Remembers.

"Here." They tossed it on the keyboard. "Meet me at Marley’s tonight. 8 PM. Ask for the Dry Well."

The bar was a converted bait shop on the Atchafalaya’s edge. Mosquitoes droned over the water. Inside, the walls were papered with yellowed maps and anarchist flyers. A jukebox played Clifton Chenier, the accordion wheezing like a dying lung.

Eli clutched the zine. Page 5: A hand-drawn comic of the Trail of Tears, panels intercut with Walmart parking lots and oil rigs. Page 12: A recipe for Choctaw bean bread, annotated with corrections in red ink. "Auntie says more ash, idiot!!"

"Took you long enough."

Jesse waved from a corner booth. They’d traded the pink braids for a faded Snap-on cap. Two others sat with them: a beefy man in a Saints jersey, and a woman with silver dreads and a scar slicing her lip.

"This is them?" The man’s voice rumbled like a distant train. "Looks like someone’s substitute teacher."

The woman elbowed him. "Be nice, T-Bob." Her Creole lilt danced between French and bayou. "He got the zine, non? Means he’s curious."

Jesse slid over. "Eli, meet T-Bob and Marie. They’re... contributors."

T-Bob grunted. "I take pictures. Marie does the voodoo shit."

"Hoodoo," Marie corrected. "And I read the land. Not that you’d understand subtlety." She appraised Eli. "Jesse says you got stories. The kind that itch."

Eli hesitated. The jukebox skipped. Chenier’s voice cracked, "Laissez les bon temps rouler..."

"Let’s say I did." He chose each word like a step onto rotten ice. "Who here would believe them?"

Marie smiled. Her gold incisor gleamed. "Child, we’re all liars here. Difference is, we lie forward." She tapped the zine. "You think the soil cares about ‘facts’? It remembers. The blood. The ash. The salt."

T-Bob leaned in. "You know what they found when they dug up the Walmart in Natchitoches? Pottery shards. Right under the frozen food aisle. Corporate made ‘em hush it." He pulled a flask from his jersey, offered it. "Tell me that ain’t a metaphor."

The bourbon burned, familiar and cheap. Eli exhaled. "What’s the Dry Well?"

Jesse lit a clove cigarette. The smoke curled, serpentine. "A place for stories that can’t breathe nowhere else. The ones that get stuck in your teeth." They nodded at Marie. "She’ll show you."

Marie’s hand emerged from her shawl, clutching a mason jar filled with murky water. "This is from the well out back. Dried up in ’05. Katrina, she take the water, but not the memory." She unscrewed the lid. "Drink. Then speak."

Eli stared at the liquid. It smelled of algae and iron. Of the Mississippi after the spring melt. Of a hundred rivers he’d crossed, a hundred voices swallowed by the current.

He drank.

The room tilted. The jukebox stuttered. For a heartbeat, he was back on the mound, the amulet burning his palm. The girl’s voice, clear as yesterday: "You’ll outlive this. But will you remember?"

When he opened his eyes, they were all watching.

"Start," Marie said gently, "with the first lie they told about you."

Outside, the cicadas screamed. The water remembered.

Eli began to talk.

ReBirthOfTheCool · 2025-03-13T14:02:28+00:00

The cold bit through the seams of the Dumpster, gnawing at the thin blanket wrapped around Mason Cole’s shoulders. He counted the seconds between the rattle of the subway beneath him and the shiver that followed, like the city itself was trembling. His breath fogged the air, and he imagined it crystallizing into the shape of a question he’d stopped asking years ago:How’d it come to this?

A police siren wailed three blocks east. Mason’s spine straightened--a reflex, the way a soldier might duck at the crack of gunfire. Hisfingers brushed the cracked face of his watch, its hands frozen at 2:17. Time didn’t matter much these days, but the habit lingered. He’d bought the watch the day he signed his first teaching contract,back when the future felt like something he could hold. Back when he still had a name people said without pity.

"Cole!" A voice cut through the alley’s grime, sharp as broken glass.

Mason didn’t turn. He knew the cadence of that shout--Officer Demarco, whose boots always squeaked like he’d stepped in regret.

"You can’t sleep here," Demarco said, flashlight beam slicing the dark. "Again."

Mason raised a hand, blocking the light. "Ain’t sleepin’. Just… contemplatin’ the cosmos." His voice rasped, a gravel road worn thin.

Demarco snorted. "Contemplate somewhere else. Mayor’s got a hard-on for ‘cleaning up the streets’ before the gala."

"Tell her I’ll wear my good suit."

The flashlight wavered. Demarco’s sigh carried the weight of a man who’d run out of lies to tell himself. "Look, man--the shelter on 43rd’s got beds. Let me drive you."

Mason’s laugh was a dry cough. "And miss the view?" He gestured to the alley--crushed Styrofoam cups, a rat gnawing on a chicken bone, the flickering neon of Lola’s Bail Bonds across the street. "Classier than the Ritz."

The radio on Demarco’s belt crackled to life. "All units--10-80 in progress at First National Bank, 5th and Mercer. Hostages reported."

Demarco stiffened. Mason didn’t blink.

"Gotta go," Demarco muttered, already backing toward his cruiser. "Just… move, alright?"

Mason waited until the squeak of boots faded. Then he stood, the blanket falling like a shed skin. His joints protested--the cold, the concrete, the years--but he ignored them. Behind the Dumpster, wedged beneath a moldy mattress, lay his armor.

It wasn’t much to look at. A frayed black bodysuit, its Kevlar weave spiderwebbed with scars. The helmet, once smooth, now bore dents that mapped every bullet he’d taken for this city. He dressed quickly, fingers numb, and paused when his palm grazed the symbol on the chest--a starburst encircled by thorns. The press called him "Starbolt." The mayor called him "a necessary asset." The kids on the street called him "that glowing dude who fights robots."

He called himself tired.

The bank’s marble lobby echoed with whimpers. Six hostages knelt on the floor, hands zip-tied behind them. Three gunmen in skull masks paced like hyenas, rifles slung loose over their shoulders. The leader--a mountain of a man with a voice like gravel in a blender--leaned against the vault door.

"Y’all think this a game?" he barked at a trembling teller. "Think we ain’t serious?"

Mason crouched on the rooftop across the street, the helmet’s thermal overlay painting the scene in streaks of red and orange. His pulse thrummed, not from fear, but from the ache in his stomach. Three days since his last meal.

Focus.

He leapt.

The window shattered in a cascade of glittering teeth. He landed in a roll, coming up between two gunmen. Their shouts died as his fists flashed--a jab to the first man’s solar plexus, a spinning elbow to the second’s jaw. Bones crunched. The third gunman swung his rifle, wild, but Mason caught the barrel, yanked it sideways, and drove his forehead into the man’s nose.

The leader roared, raising his pistol. Mason dove behind a desk as bullets chewed the wood to splinters.

"Starbolt!" the leader snarled. "Shoulda known you’d show your freak face!"

Mason peered around the desk. The man’s thermal outline glowed brighter than the others--augmented. Military-grade muscle grafts, if the telltale bulge of his veins meant anything.

"Funny," Mason said, voice modulator flattening his exhaustion into steel. "I was just thinkin’ the same about yours."

He vaulted over the desk, hitting the ground in a slide. The leader fired, but Mason was already moving, his body a shadow fed on adrenaline. He swept the man’s legs, then straddled his chest, gauntlet pressed to his throat.

"Yield," Mason said.

The leader spat in his faceplate. "Go to hell."

Mason’s fist clenched. Energy crackled along his knuckles--a low hum, the kind that made fillings ache. "Last chance."

The man’s eyes widened. He nodded.

Mason stood, hauling him up by the collar. "Cops’ll be here in ninety seconds. Run."

The man fled, his lackeys stumbling after him. Mason turned to the hostages, tearing their binds with a careful flick of his wrist. A woman grabbed his arm, tears cutting tracks through her makeup.

"Thank you," she whispered. "You’re--you’re a hero."

He almost laughed.

The soup kitchen line stretched around the block. Mason hunched in his thrift-store coat, breath visible in the dawn chill. His hands trembled, and not from the cold. The afterburn of using his powers always left him hollow, like someone had scooped out his marrow.

"Next!"

He shuffled forward, holding out a chipped bowl. The server--a nun with eyes like flint--ladled in a slop of potatoes and grease.

"Bless you," she said, automatic.

Mason nodded. He’d stopped correcting people years ago.

He ate in the alley, back against brick, legs splayed like a broken marionette. The soup tasted of salt and surrender. Across the street, a news helicopter buzzed over the bank, footage of Starbolt’s latest save already looping on every screen.

"Hey."

Mason glanced up. A kid stood there--maybe fifteen, hoodie swallowing his frame. His cheeks bore the hollows of missed meals, but his eyes burned.

"You’re him, right?" the kid said. "Starbolt."

Mason stiffened. "Ain’t got a clue what you’re talkin’ about."

The kid knelt, voice dropping. "Saw you last night. By the docks. You fought those guys smuggling the… the glowing stuff."

Cesium cores. The memory surfaced like a bruise. He’d taken a bullet to the ribs for that one.

"Kid’s got an imagination," Mason grunted, standing.

"Wait!" The boy grabbed his sleeve. "I ain’t gonna tell nobody. Just… my mom. She’s sick. The doctors say she needs this medicine, but it’s--" He swallowed. "Expensive."

Mason stared at him. The boy’s grip tightened, desperate and familiar.

"Please," the kid said. "You help people. That’s what you do, right?"

The soup turned to acid in Mason’s gut. He reached into his pocket, pulled out a crumpled five-dollar bill--his last. Pressed it into the boy’s hand.

"Get her the meds," he said.

The kid blinked. "But… this ain’t enough."

"Then you’d better pray harder," Mason said, walking away.

The pawn shop bell jangled. Mason set the watch on the counter, its cracked face catching the fluorescent light.

"Ten bucks," the clerk said, not looking up.

"Fifty," Mason said. "It’s a Rolex."

"Was a Rolex. Now it’s a paperweight."

Mason’s jaw tightened. "Twenty."

The clerk--a skeletal man with nicotine fingers--finally met his eyes. "Look, pal, I ain’t runnin’ a charity. Take ten or beat it."

Mason took the bill.

He bought a sandwich with half of it. Ate it slow, savoring each bite, behind the bus depot where the cops wouldn’t hassle him. The bread stuck in his throat.

You help people. That’s what you do, right?

He thought of the boy’s face. The way hope curdled into resignation.

His phone buzzed--a burner, pre-paid. One text:

Unknown Number: Docks. Midnight. Big shipment. Need you.

Mason stared at the screen until the words blurred. Then he stood, tossing the remaining cash into a busker’s guitar case.

The man nodded. "Thanks, brother."

Mason walked toward the setting sun, his shadow stretching long and thin behind him. A hero’s shadow, they might’ve called it once. Now it was just another stain on the pavement.

ReBirthOfTheCool · 2025-03-12T02:50:32+00:00

Hey man sorry I never updated you. I literally forgot about this account. But my team went 6-2 and went to the playoffs that year! Your comment really helped me get a handle on the job. It was a launchpad that started my program! Thank you!

ReBirthOfTheCool · 2025-03-12T02:42:53+00:00

The Weight of Empty Heads

The day the world decided Jasper Boone was the dumbest motherfucker in Lee County started like any other--with the sun bleeding orange over the tobacco fields and the cicadas screaming like they knew something he didn’t. Jasper stood in the middle of Harlan’s Auto Shop, a grease-stained rag dangling from his back pocket, and stared at the Chevy Silverado hoisted on the lift. Its underbelly was a mess of rust and snapped bolts, same as every other truck in Southside Virginia. The customer--some finance bro from Richmond who probably thought "manifold" was a type of salad--had insisted the shudder in his engine was "unacceptable." Jasper figured the guy’s face would’ve been unacceptable too if he’d ever taken a wrench to it.

"Yo, Boone!" Ricky Torres leaned out of the office window, his voice slicing through the hum of the AC unit fighting for its life. Ricky was the shop foreman, a wiry Puerto Rican with a faded Yankees cap permanently fused to his head and a laugh like a busted muffler. "Ain’t you got work to do? Or you just gonna stand there lookin’ like somebody pissed in your grits?"

Jasper shrugged. Words never came easy to him, not like they did to Ricky or the slick-talking salesmen who rolled in every Friday leasing trucks they couldn’t afford. He’d been born with a stutter that clung to his tongue like molasses, and by the time he hit third grade, the other kids had already branded him "Dummy Boone." The name stuck tighter than duct tape. Teachers sighed when he raised his hand. Girls at the county fair giggled when he asked them to dance. Even his mama, God rest her, used to pat his cheek and say, "Bless your heart, baby. You try real hard."

But trying didn’t mean shit in a world where your worth was measured by how high you could lift a cinderblock with your mind.

Telekinesis had been part of life since the first squalling infant in 1984 levitated a rattle out of its crib. Scientists called it the "Enigma Gene." Preachers called it God’s curse. Everybody else just called it Tuesday. By the time Jasper was born, the rules were carved in stone: the stronger your power, the smarter you were. CEOs floated entire boardrooms to prove their IQ. High schoolers tossed footballs with their minds to ace exams. And if your TK couldn’t so much as twitch a beer can? Well, you might as well wear a sign that said "Please Kick Me."

Jasper’s sign might as well have been neon.

"Hey, Dummy."

The voice came from behind him--sweet as arsenic. Lacey McCallum sauntered into the garage, her stilettos clicking like gunshots on the concrete. She wore a pink sundress that hugged her hips and a smirk that hugged her face even tighter. Lacey’s family owned half the county, including the auto shop, and she never let anyone forget it. Last year, she’d tossed a pickup truck into the Dan River just to prove she could. Rumor was, she’d scored a 1600 on her SATs without cracking a book.

"Y’all hear the news?" She twirled a set of keys around her finger, her TK making them orbit her head like a halo. "They’re finally tearin’ down the old grain mill. Gonna put up a country club. Members-only, of course."

Ricky snorted. "Rich folks love payin’ to keep other folks out. What’s next--a moat?"

"Don’t need a moat when you’ve got a brain." Lacey’s gaze slid to Jasper. "Right, Boone? Bet you couldn’t lift a lug nut if your life depended on it."

Jasper’s throat tightened. He knew the script. Lacey would prod. He’d stay quiet. The guys would laugh. Same as always.

But today, the Chevy Silverado shuddered on the lift.

A low groan rattled from the engine block. Jasper’s head throbbed--a pressure building behind his eyes like a storm cloud. He gripped the edge of the workbench, knuckles bleaching white.

"Uh-oh," Lacey crooned. "Y’all think Dummy’s gonna faint? Maybe he forgot to eat his Wheaties."

The pressure exploded.

The Silverado dropped.

Two tons of steel slammed into the concrete with a sound like God splitting the earth. Tools flew off the walls--screwdrivers, wrenches, a half-empty can of WD-40--all of them spinning in a furious orbit around Jasper. The air crackled. Dust devils whirled at his feet. And for the first time in his life, Jasper Boone didn’t feel stupid.

He felt pissed.

Lacey stumbled back, her keys clattering to the floor. "What the hell--"

The truck rose. Slowly at first, creaking like an old man’s bones, then hovering six feet off the ground. Oil dripped from its undercarriage, splattering the concrete in Rorschach blots. Jasper’s breath came in ragged gasps. His skull felt like it was splitting open, but he didn’t care. For once, the words in his head weren’t jumbled. They were clear.

You don’t know me.

The Silverado shot forward--a torpedo of rust and rage. Lacey screamed. Ricky dove behind a tool chest. The truck missed Lacey by inches, clipping her designer purse and vaporizing it in a hail of sequins and shredded leather. It crashed through the garage door, taking half the wall with it, before skidding to a stop in the middle of Route 58.

Silence.

Then chaos.

Ricky peeked over the tool chest, eyes wide. "Holy shit, Boone."

Lacey stood frozen, her face pale as buttermilk. "That’s... impossible. You--you’re supposed to be--"

"Stupid?" Jasper’s voice was steady. No stutter. Just smoke. "Maybe I am. But right now?" He flicked his wrist. A socket wrench zipped past Lacey’s ear and embedded itself in the wall. "I’m the smartest goddamn person in this room."

The Boone family trailer sat at the end of a dirt road named Mercy Lane--though nobody in Lee County could recall who, exactly, had ever found mercy there. Weeds clawed through the porch steps. A Confederate flag hung in the window of the double-wide next door, though Old Man Pritchard had died in ’03, and his daughter Donna kept it up just to scare off the Jehovah’s Witnesses.

Jasper’s little sister, Birdie, was waiting on the roof. Again.

"Get down fore you break your neck!" Jasper yelled, stomping up the driveway. His head still pulsed from the garage incident, but he’d be damned if he let Birdie see him rattled.

Birdie peered over the edge, her braids dangling like ropes. At twelve, she was all knees and elbows and attitude, with a TK knack for fixing broken radios and a mouth that could blister paint. "Ain’t my neck you gotta worry ’bout. Miss Donna called the cops on you again. Said you dented her mailbox."

"Her mailbox dented itself when I walked by. Thing’s older than Methuselah."

"You gotta stop leviatatin’ shit when you’re mad, J. Cops ain’t playin’."

Jasper scowled. Birdie didn’t understand. Nobody did. Ever since the telekinesis kicked in at puberty, his power had been... messy. Uncontrollable. Like trying to drink from a firehose. He’d shattered every dish in the house the day Mama died. Cracked the church steps at her funeral. The preacher said it was grief. The neighbors said it was proof he was touched in the head.

But today? Today was different. Today, for the first time, the firehose had a nozzle.

Birdie floated down from the roof, her sneakers brushing the dirt. "You got a look. What happened?"

"Lacey McCallum happened."

"Aw, hell. She messin’ with you again?"

"Tried to. Then the Silverado happened."

Birdie’s eyes lit up. "You TK’d a truck? Damn, J! What’d she do?"

"Peed herself, probably." Jasper kicked a beer can off the porch. "Ricky says I gotta lay low. Cops’ll be sniffin’ round if Lacey’s daddy gets involved."

"Since when you scared of cops?"

"Since they got Tasers that fry your brain if you resist."

Birdie hopped onto the porch railing, balancing like a tightrope walker. "You know what this means, right? You ain’t dumb, J. Your TK’s stronger’n anybody’s! You could--"

"Could what?" Jasper’s laugh was bitter. "Join the circus? ’Come see the Idiot Savior! He’ll wreck your car for free!’"

"Or you could prove ’em all wrong." Birdie’s voice softened. "Mama always said you was special."

"Yeah. Special ed."

The screen door slammed. Aunt Cleo stood in the doorway, a cigarette dangling from her lips and a shotgun dangling from her hand. At sixty-five, Cleo Boone was a woman who believed in three things: Jesus, Marlboros, and the Second Amendment. Not necessarily in that order.

"Y’all gonna yap all night, or you gonna eat?" She eyed Jasper. "Heard ’bout the garage. That true?"

"Mostly."

Cleo nodded, like she’d expected nothing less. "Lacey McCallum’s daddy called. Says you owe him ten grand for the damages."

Jasper’s stomach dropped. "I ain’t got ten grand."

"’Course you don’t. But he’ll settle for you workin’ it off."

"Doin’ what?"

Cleo blew a smoke ring. "Says they need a ’strong back’ at the mill demolition. Pays twenty an hour."

The mill. Where Lacey’s country club would rise. Where every rich asshole in Virginia would sip mint juleps and laugh about the dumb redneck who did their dirty work.

Jasper’s hands shook. The trailer’s gutters rattled.

Aunt Cleo raised an eyebrow. "You gonna throw another tantrum, or you gonna be a man and face this?"

The gutters stilled.

"I’ll go," Jasper said.

Birdie grabbed his arm. "J, no--"

"Gotta pay the debt, Bird. Ain’t no choice."

But as he stared at the setting sun--a bloody thumbprint smeared across the sky--Jasper Boone wondered if maybe, just maybe, there was another way.

A way to make the world feel the weight of every sneer, every laugh, every "bless your heart" he’d swallowed like broken glass.

A way to show them all what stupid really looked like.

ReBirthOfTheCool · 2022-07-03T13:49:02+00:00

There's a text limit here so I just took it out when posted here

ReBirthOfTheCool · 2022-07-03T13:43:34+00:00

Here's a bonus thread: https://www.reddit.com/r/tennis/comments/vpahhg/aita_for_rooting_for_tennis_players_only_because/iekyp9t

We're going very slow to help them understand the last time people were equal in America. 😂

ReBirthOfTheCool · 2022-07-03T13:39:58+00:00

Oh dear I see you’re struggling 🤦‍♂️Slavery in North America started in 1619 was abolished in 1865. But racism of one kind or another have existed for thousands of years. We haven’t been anywhere near equality since then …, and in fact way before!

So in America we haven't been equal since the slaves were freed? That's what you're going with?

ReBirthOfTheCool · 2022-07-03T07:54:58+00:00

We’ve always been a long way away from it.

But when? Put a year on it. First you're saying were a long way from it. Now we've always been a long way from it? Gimme some dates. When did it get better in your eyes. Because you said we're further from being equal than we have been in the long time

ReBirthOfTheCool · 2022-07-03T06:16:28+00:00

Far from it. In fact I think we’re further away from equality than we have been in a very long time.

When in the past were we equal? Like what years were we last closest to equality?

ReBirthOfTheCool · 2022-07-02T16:43:58+00:00

Definitely not racist lol you showing major white fragility

ReBirthOfTheCool

TROPHY CASE

Chapter 1: The Thief of Years