Conjuror

They tried to destroy us.

We were simply too strong.

Which is why I am currently sprinting through the woods for my life. Dry brush stinging my face and arms as I haphazardly speed deeper and deeper into the woods. I have no idea where I am going, but I can’t stop or they will kill me. Not just because of my powers, but because I did what none of the others could. I got out.

It had been two years since the Feds laid siege on the abandoned building I was squatting in with a few other conjurers, at least that’s what the government calls us, who were trying to lay low. At the time we were the lucky ones because we still looked human but we couldn’t always control our abilities. When the Winter Solstice took place, Saturn and Jupiter aligned for the first time in almost 400 years. The “Great Conjunction”, as it was called, had all of the new age practitioners in an excited uproar. With all of the energy that was supposed to be occurring, there was a running joke that we would be getting super powers. No one actually expected black people to develop these wild abilities but at midnight on December 21, four years ago, something activated in black folks around the world woke up able to fly, teleport, manipulate the elements, and a whole host of other things. Many people were excited and testing their knew abilities freely in the streets. I was afraid. Nothing good came from being black and too powerful.

Within a few weeks people began to disappear but because they were black, no one really noticed. But we did. There were “mysterious” bombings across the continent of Africa, that we only found out about because of social media. Those of us who were able to hide our abilities, laid low. Those who developed noticeable characteristics—tails, wings, or physical mutations—weren’t so lucky. They were easily rounded up for the “safety of everyone”. We had no clue where they were taken, but they were never seen again.

What the government was doing was trying to figure out how to extract our abilities for profit or weaponize us. The irony is that the government could not figure out how to properly extract the DNA because our powers came from what they called the “Eve gene” which is a derivative of the genetic makeup from the oldest human discovered in Africa. The powers were activated by melanin. I know because I was caught.

Millions of diasporic people from around the world were hunted, turned in by their neighbors for reward money. Large black populated cities in the United States were decimated. Atlanta, D.C., Memphis. All leveled. Not to mention the wanton murder of black bodies for sport. I will never forget the way the blood flowed through the street that first year.

Whether we showed signs of difference or not, we were forced out of cities. I was thrown out of my apartment and forced to squat in an abandoned building. Things seemed to quiet down because those who weren’t killed or abducted went underground. We scavenged in the dead of night, knowing that unless you could pass for something else, you would not be able to procure food or work.

When the Feds were tipped off that there was a group of conjurors hiding outside of the city, they decided to take me to one of the facilities. I had a power they wanted and could potentially control. I could emit sonic waves that would not only cause paralysis but I could use it to track living things by bouncing the waves like a bat or whale. Another irony for the universe, since I would rarely talk. Before the Conjunction, I was an IT specialist working remotely. I preferred my solitude. I guess God has a cruel sense of humor in that way.

For two years I was largely kept muzzled and hooded in a cell so that I could not use my abilities. I was transported on various military missions. I could never see but I heard everything. I was a weapon. There is a strange mercy in never seeing the faces of those I was forced to kill but the screams are something I will never be rid of.

I was actually being used for another covert operation when I caught someone slipping. Because the government never cared to dig too far into the backgrounds of the conjurors, they did not know about my background in technology or my past as a juvenile delinquent. I had small stint as a pickpocket. I could probably still hotwire a car in five minutes flat.They say that when you lose one of your senses that the others become more keen. I now know that to be true. With only my ears and nose to really guide me, my hearing became especially good to where I became able to decipher even the smallest of items. Some time ago, I couldn’t say how long, I heard small piece of metal fall to the floor near me. I intentionally tripped and fell to the floor. My cuffed hands hit a small uniform pen. I grabbed it and managed to stick it into my jumpsuit backwards so it pricked my palms every time I walked. A reminder that one day someone would make a mistake that would give me an opportunity to run.

Some rookie was not on their job and left my noise muffling muzzle loose enough to pull down. I had become so numb to going on these operations and never caused any problems. It led my handlers to believe that they had broken me. They got lazy and stopped double checking that I was not a threat. I waited until I was seated back in the Jeep and picked the lock to my handcuffs. I had been practicing every day until I was able to quickly, and quietly free myself. I held the cuffs still and gathered myself. I had to move quickly. I counted down from five….four….three….two….one. In one motion I dropped the restraints and ripped the muzzle down. I shrieked at the top of my lungs. There were 3 guards in the back of the Jeep with me who had taken off their wave blocking headphones. They covered their ears screaming while the vehicle began to swerve until it ran off of the road and began speeding down hill. I wrenched the door open and jumped. One of the guards tried to grab me and missed me by inches. Tucking my body I rolled for a bit before I got up, and began running.

Even with the sound of blood pounding in my ears, I swear I heard yelling and leaves crunching under heaving boots behind me. I stumbled over an elevated root lurching forward but the ground seemed to be moving. I tried to brace myself but my surroundings looked like a Salvador Dali painting. It was what I would imagine a bad trip on drugs would have felt like, not a cocktail of terror and adrenaline. Ahead of me I could see a dark figure moving through the trees, eerily still, as though the woods were not twisting around us. He must have been manipulating my perception. One thing I learned during the Conjunction, if it seemed extremely strange it was a probably conjuror. The only detail I could make out was a gold heart on his chest gleaming from the sun. Though this struck me as strange, I didn’t have time to ruminate on the strange familiarity. I had to keep moving. I closed my eyes, took three deep breaths steadying myself. I didn’t know if the person warping the woods was friend or foe, but I would rather take my chances being killed by my own kind than be dragged back to the labs.

I lunged forward toward the trees where the other conjuror had been standing. I could not tell whether I was running or fall but I kept willing myself to move. The twisting around me was beginning to churn my stomach, but sheer obstinance drove me as I continued tilting and reaching for the now empty space between the trees. There was nothing there, but that was the area I’d fixated on. The vertigo was making my whole body want to wretch when I felt someone grab my arm and pull roughly. I tried to struggle when I was whirled around face to face with the gold heart locket that I gave to the only person that could ever read my mind.

“Henson?” I blanched. I knew I was hallucinating when I saw the mischievous dark eyes, deeply set into obsidian skin now covered in a thick unkept beard.

“Anani.”

“What the hell are you doing here? Where am I?”

“You’re in Florida but we have to get to the Haven.”