Memories Of A Monster: A Balancing of Fates

  --- Booker H. Freeman ---

  He was somewhat… adrift at the moment.

  When he first arrived after… leaving home… forever, he’d drowned himself in the festivities. Working to turn himself into someone his mama and grandad would be proud to call their kin… (in spite of everything.)

  And he had made something of himself!

  Or rather he was in the process of it.

  He may not have been the biggest name in New Orleans but he was fairly well known within his circles and clubs. Both for his talent as an entertainer, and his friendly inquisitive nature allowing him to make connections and learn skills he’d never dream of as a child. Enough so that a couple more years and have everything he’d need to open his own club.

  Something he was only holding off on to… prevent any unpleasant questions about where he got his money.

  (Which was probably for the best.) Given how little he actually knew when he was making this fresh start of his, he would’ve been conned for everything he had pursuing a dream he didn’t know how to make real.

  All in all, he’d say he was satisfied with his current lot in life and making a respectable amount of progress towards his goals. The only real problems he had were these… quiet nights. The ones where he had nothing planned and nothing to really do with himself.

  The ones he couldn’t distract himself with…

  Despite himself his mind always drifted back home, wondering if he could change things… He knew he couldn’t, not even with his help… but that didn’t stop him from dwelling on the regrets. The signs that he should’ve noticed sooner…

  He wandered the streets of the city, hoping it would answer his prayers and offer him some kind of respite from his guilt… One he neither deserved nor found.

  Faint strands of magic danced across his fingers, invisible to the eye of the common man but not him or any other ‘Voodoo Boy’ as the locals had begun calling the more… talented folk like him and his mama. Playing with it had become something of a nervous habit ever since his meeting with him, the meeting that allowed him to work the roots far better than his mama ever could.

  He wondered if she’d be proud of him for what he could do now, given how many lessons she’d given him. Sharing every bit of magic she knew with his ever curious mind. Even if she herself had only discovered that magic to try and keep up with her precocious child, rather than any true desire to know more than the simple blessings and protections she used to help people. (Not that they helped her in the end…)

  It was a bitter thought, one that had the magic in his hand taking on a stronger form, becoming more solid, darker, visible to even those without an eye for magic. So much like the tendrils of darkness that had wrapped around him when he’d offered Booker that deal.

  A deal he still wasn’t sure whether or not he regretted… Not with what he now knew about… everything.

  He clenched his fist, viscerally crushing the darkness in his hand.

  Not that that did much in the grand scheme of things given how he was still damned in more ways than one…

  With a sigh he took in his surroundings, trying to figure out where exactly he’d wound up and how to get back to somewhere more familiar. It was during said search that he noticed the faint sounds of groaning in the air alongside the sound of someone taking a beating.

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  A sound he’d unfortunately grown more than familiar with over the years…

  Some part of him wanted to turn and walk away, a reminder that this was not his problem, that he’d just end up being dragged down with whatever was happening. Mugged dead in a back alley with no one to mourn him or even remember him fondly after he was gone…

  The same way things likely were for whoever was on the receiving end of this beating…

  He felt the magic dancing across his fingers once more, not the darker stuff that had been clinging to him, but the gentler magic that always reminded him of his mama… Of the things she’d do with her magic…

  (...)

  Despite how foolish it likely was he made his way towards the sounds of the beating, just a few alleys away, his heart pounding in his chest all the while.

  Regardless of this ill advised decision, he was however in enough control of himself that he didn’t rush straight into the alley, instead peeking around the corner and taking in what exactly was going on.

  Namely the four white men beating a fifth man on the ground, one trying oh so desperately to shield his head as he begged them to stop.

  He couldn’t help but grimace at the sight. He knew he had the power to… intervene but… given what happened the last time he used said power…

  (I… I can’t…)

  To his shame he merely stood there watching the beating for far longer than he should’ve, until the men finally grew bored and spat upon the man they were assaulting, chuckling amongst themselves all the while. A casual cruelty as if there was nothing wrong with what they were doing.

  Still, even as his teeth ground together he pulled away from the alley and ducked into the alcove of a nearby doorway, waiting for the men to pass him by. His eyes narrowed at their backs as they passed him without notice, before he shook his head clear instead focusing on what he needed to.

  Rushing into the alley he quickly made his way to the downed man, taking in his many injuries. The many bloody cuts and bruises spread across his dark skin, as well as the bits of bone sticking through his flesh revealing the same colors within that every man had regardless of color. Injuries so vicious that if he was left here there was little doubt of what his cruel fate held…

  “I… I’m sorry…” He apologized to the man, feeling so… impotent…

  The man only wheezed in response, his eyes glazed and barely seeing.

  He forced himself move, to remember his many medical lessons from college when he was studying to become a doctor to help legitimize his mama’s work… lessons he hadn’t made use of in years…

  More in nervous habit than intentional thought, magic danced around his fingers, seeking to be used to help this poor man the way his mother had taught him. Her lessons came more easily than the college’s given how desperately he clung to her every memory.

  And bit by bit those lessons worked, allowing him to ease the poor man’s suffering, unaware of the way his magic was once more becoming visible to the world around him. A dark monstrous shadow slowly coiling around him.

  Sadly, this was not enough to actually save the man. His fate having been sealed by Booker’s hesitancy.

  “No… No. No!” Booker cried, slamming his fist into the stone over and over, his knuckles bleeding as he subjected himself to an ounce of what this man had suffered.

  His teeth gnashed together, as he forced himself onto his feet, fully aware of the fact that the men responsible for this were out of his reach. Long gone with faces only half seen as Booker stared down at the man he’d failed to save.

  There was no doubt in his mind how this would play out, having seen it several times over the years. The cruel fate that the innocent could die so easily unavenged while those responsible for their cruelties would get away with it solely due to the color of their skin, the wealth of their checkbooks, or weight of their names.

  Unbidden a laugh escaped him at the joke that was fate, the idea that the cruelties of man were preordained rather than the choices of monsters.

  His eyes rose to meet his shadow, darker than black on the wall before him, its shape almost reminding him of a black rabbit. One that he could just imagine smiling at him with its blood red eyes.

  Lessons with his mother flitted through his mind, words and spells to bless and protect the innocent. Words and spells that could so easily be twisted by a properly precocious mind

  And so for the first time he sent a curse out into the world, one that would bring forth every ounce of suffering those cruel men had inflicted upon this innocent man.

  (After all,) A mad grin spread across his face as the spell took hold. (Someone has to balance fate…)

  Patreon Thanks

  Thank You:

  -Rush99999

  -Crazyone47

  -Spheal Lover

  New Perk Unlocked:

  -Balance The Scales: Whenever an enemy harms a non-enemy in Booker's presence, they gain a stack of [Hexed] for every Health State the non-enemy is missing.

  *Hexed: Decrease this unit's Crit Chance, and increase Crit Chance against this unit. (Out of combat this shifts around success/failure thresholds.)

  Alright, our next Memory belongs to [Pride] so please pick a memory.