The top floor was fitting for the final battle. It gave a clear view of Newburgh, the home we were fighting for. It was a place of hope—of dreams forgotten and held back for far too long by corruption and sin.

A major source of that darkness…was standing right in front of me.

“Wasted potential.” The first words of Mr. Payne were low, yet so powerful because of his strong voice. He stood tall in a brown suit with his arms behind his back. “When I look at the two of you, I see nothing but wasted potential. You both possess enough aspiration to go far in life without my assistance. You could’ve been like me, a driving force in our community with enough power to revolt against our suppressors, but you chose to rage against the machine designed for your own people.”

“Nah, we could never be like you,” Darius stated. “All you preach is cap. You got these dudes out here thinkin’ you the key to the promise land, but it’s all to make you look good. They just doin’ your dirty work. Believe me, I know.”

Mr. Payne snickered. “Ah, Darius. Why are you here, anyway? You have passion. Soul. It’s why I’ve left you alone for all these years. I allowed you to succeed on your own, and yet, here you are, throwing my generosity away and becoming a failure. I despise failure.”

My teeth grinded from frustration. “Look at this.” I gripped onto my blue hoodie. “This belongs to my father. Malachi Quinn Campbell. Does that name mean anythin’ to you?”

His eyes widened as his arms fell to his side. For once, he showed emotion.

“Interesting. So, it all comes full circle.” He smirked before bursting into a maniacal laugh. “Perfect. Yes, Zayn, I remember your father well. Like you, he didn’t trust the process. He tried to destroy it because he didn’t understand it, so he was eliminated. By him.”

He pointed to Darius, who flinched before seething. I looked at him and shook my head before placing my headphones around my ears and turning back to Mr. Payne.

“Mr. Payne. Lorenzo. Before we do this, I wanna tell you somethin’: people here can achieve greatness. All we need is a clear path. You claim you’re here to help, but a real leader in our community would guide us in the right direction and not give us false dreams like those in higher power have always done while they looked down on us. So, with that said, today is the day I show you what it feels like to be human.”

Unfazed by my words, he cracked his knuckles with a grin and tilted his neck to the side. A blur of a shadow whizzed past me toward Darius, slamming him into the wall behind me. The impact knocked him unconscious, with the darkness darting to Mr. Payne’s side before morphing into its true form: the colossal Shadow.

“Don’t worry about him, Zayn. I only assured this confrontation will be between me and you. Promise.”

The Shadow backed away, but I didn’t believe him. Regardless, it was all adrenaline from here. I was terrified of both Mr. Payne and the outcome of this clash, but at the first sound of the rap beat bumping in my ear, I shot past those fears and lunged with a straight punch.

My fist connected with his face, and what was the result? Laughter. Freakin’ laughter by a man who delivered a blow right back with a swing of his arm. Had this power not been flowing through me to endure the hit, I would’ve been knocked out just like that.

But I did have the power, and I was gonna use it to drop this behemoth.

I delivered body shot after body shot, each landing with more force as the beat got harder and the lyrics more aggressive. The chorus broke in just as I swung a right hook to his jaw, only for it to be countered by a fierce strike to my chest that sent me back a few feet. I couldn’t stop now. I needed to keep going.

Rushing back in, the smooth vocals of the R&B track that played next allowed me to bob and weave his incoming assault and catch him with a few jabs to the chin. Still, nothing worked. Despite the music giving me the agility and finesse to avoid his hands, it was pointless if I couldn’t hurt him. All I did was delay the inevitable: him catching me once the song ended.

The impact of my body hitting the floor was so hard, my headphones flew off in the direction of Darius’s body. He then launched me further back with a kick to my ribs, saliva spilling on the floor.

How the hell was I supposed to stop this guy? He was a damn tank.

“Had enough, Zayn?”

“No. I feel pain every single day, somethin’ you can’t relate to.”

I crawled backwards to create some distance before stumbling to my feet and picking up my headphones. He chuckled before sighing and shaking his head.

“Can’t you see, Zayn? We live in a society of weak and confused individuals. I am going to give them strength. Direction. They will have purpose, and that is to crush the government which has enslaved us. We will be bigger than the whole world. We—”

“All garbage. There’s no we. You’re just a villain who wants power. You should be real with yourself, but you can’t do that ‘cause you don’t know what it’s like to live in reality. You may see it, but you don’t understand it. The hardships that real people go through mentally, physically, and emotionally, are what you consider weaknesses. It’s not. It’s what makes us human, not a machine like you.”

His cocky and laid-back demeanor would be his downfall. It gave me the opportunity to scan my environment and skip to the next track in my playlist: a jazz song Ashanti had sent me last night. My injuries healed faster than expected, and I was ready to charge back in—this time with an idea.

I swung my arm to psyche him out before grabbling a fire extinguisher off the wall mount and spraying him with it. He covered his eyes and stumbled backward, giving me time to hit play on the hardest Hip-Hop track in my playlist and brace myself to deliver the strongest punch I’ve ever thrown.

This was it. This was my chance to hit him with a knockout blow to the face and—

A case of content theft: this narrative is not rightfully on Amazon; if you spot it, report the violation.

Smack. My victory was shut down by the Shadow’s vicious strike. A firm grip then wrapped around my waist before I was lifted in the air and tossed against the ceiling—my headphones being smashed to pieces from the impact. Still, the creature did not let go. I was brutalized without remorse, each slam on the floor being more painful than the last.

Teardrops fell from my eyes that merged with the blood spilling out of my mouth. I cried for my life like never before, but the torture continued with no way to stop it. That’s when I truly believed only death could answer my plea for relief.

It should have been over for me. It really should have. But the demon grew bored of its toy and flung me like an old rag doll, sending me against the wall with extreme force. Despite being alive, I could do nothing after the crash. My body already accepted defeat.

“I tried to warn you, Zayn.” Mr. Payne looked down at me and smirked. “This is what’ll happen to the government and those who side with it. Do you honestly believe those officials will let you be free after seeing your capabilities? No. You’re just another statistic to them. They’ll use you until you wish you were dead, so I’ll do you a favor and end your life now.”

He lifted his foot, ready to stomp my face into the floor. That is until Darius’s voice was heard.

“Get away from him.” I saw Darius with a gun in his hand through my blurry vision. He pointed it at Mr. Payne. “I’ll blow your damn brains out, Lorenzo. Back away from him.”

“I’m the one with the power, Darius. You must need a reminder.”

My heavy head dropped to the floor after being too weak to look up anymore. The loud pops of two gunshots sent a jolt through my body that almost pushed me to rise from my grounded position, but it was the agonizing screams of Darius that forced enough movement to sit up and see him being bashed around the room like I was by the demon.

“Please stop,” I begged, coughing blood. When the Shadow was done, Darius’s unmoving body was bruised and battered beyond belief. I prayed he was still breathing.

Mr. Payne turned to me and gave sight of the bullet holes in the chest area of his suit. He removed his jacker and unbuttoned his shirt, revealing not only his wounds, but an S print deeply embedded into his skin that looked almost satanic.

“Yes, this is it. This is what I’ve wanted to feel for so long.” He gaped down at the bleeding holes in his chest, rejoicing with a holler of excitement. “I feel alive.”

I had to stand, or I would die after his celebration. Get up, Zayn. Get up.

“You should have minded your own business, young man. I told you this is how it would end for you, and I am always right.”

He was wrong.

I rose with shaky legs. “No. No, my life isn’t over. I’m gonna keep fightin’ ‘til I’m happy. I can’ stop. I won’t stop. I’ll never give up until my demons are purged.”

I could hear it. The music. All of it in my head—clear as day—without the need of a device. Instrumentals and lyrics from different songs and genres of music all mixed in my mind as my vision became black and white. Only the rainbow aura that manifested and danced around my body was in color. So many emotions. So many possibilities. This power was unlike anything I’d ever felt before.

Hypnotic colors swirled around my fist, leading Mr. Payne to question, “Where is that energy coming from? Even your eyes have changed… What the hell have you become?”

“Your destroyer.”

Bursting forward, the instant my knuckles connected with his torso, a wave of vibration shook the room and caused Mr. Payne to tremble. The Shadow refused to intervene as he called out for defense against each of my rapid blows that sent shockwaves through his body.

The machine was being torn apart.

He swung his heavy arms wildly in a desperate attempt to create some separation, but I ducked and hit him with an uppercut on my way back up. He quivered more with every jab I delivered, unable to keep his composure.

Despite the overflowing energy within me, I could feel it wasn’t going to last. I needed to act now and break his control over our society. Forever.

Channeling all the power into my hands, the thrust of my arms created a sonic boom that shot Mr. Payne through the steel wall of the room. He was defeated. Done for. There was no way he was getting up from that.

Almost out of time, I fell to my knees from the numbness of my limbs. Growing weaker with every passing second, I laid flat on the floor as I could hear Mr. Payne’s muffled voice through the shattered steel he was buried under.

“I…was protecting us. Other leaders from far and wide will come now and take over. This place…has no hope.”

I lifted my head off the floor to see his leg shaking underneath the rubble. “You’re wrong. We, the people of this society, are the hope.”

His foot twitched one last time before he remained still. The Shadow snarled before vanishing in a black fog that slowly dissipated. Color returned in my vision as Darius groaned on the floor. With all my energy depleted, I was able to pass out in peace knowing we had both survived the war.

Our society was now free of pain.

☾☼☽

Two days had gone by before returning home from the hospital. Other than joint pains and soreness, I suffered aftereffects of the war like random flashes and earaches that not even doctors could diagnose.

Still, none of it was in vain. Newburgh had already become cleaner and safer with the absence of Mr. Payne, who was taken into custody by Obsidian and brought to who-knows-where. Some members of the Silicon Cogs who survived the war turned their lives around and contributed to Darius’s request to open a YMCA program for troubled teens. He plans to name it after my father, Malachi Quinn Campbell.

As for Tory and Ashanti, they sat by me with smiles on a stone, circular structure in the complex. They’ll be with me through everything from here on out, including my mom, who I told about my nightmares. She intends on getting me help as soon as she can, but right now, my life is all about hanging out with my best friend.

And girlfriend.

“Hey, whatever happened with all that social media drama?” I asked Tory, who was looking up at the sunny sky.

“After news about Mr. Payne came out, people online started to see the real things goin’ on ‘round here, so the heat on me kinda simmered down. I still gotta deal with trolls here and there, but it is what it is, you know? Gotta ignore the hate and love yourself and your accomplishments.”

“Exactly,” Ashanti agreed. “But speaking of love,” she glared at him, “I heard you was talkin’ to Ciara.”

Tory laughed. “Yeah, I hit her up at eleven-eleven last night and we talked for hours. I figured, she’s hot, I’m hot; we’d be lit together.”

“Oh, hell no.”

Ashanti got up and started chasing Tory around the area. He shouted at me, “Yo, get’cha girl, bro.” I chuckled, not about to get involved.

We were all at peace, but the fun and games ended with the sudden appearance of Agent Dai. The three of us stood in anticipation as he approached.

“Excuse me. Is now a proper time to discuss an urgent matter?” he asked. “Or should I say, an important proposition?”

“Go ahead.” Ashanti was eager to hear.

“I should inform you of Lorenzo Crowe’s fate before I proceed: he has been taken from Obsidian custody to be sacrificed in a ritual.”

“What?” the three of us questioned at the same.

“Within the shadows lie a cult known as the Black Mask. They are responsible for all abnormal manifestations and require someone with the Mark of Sin to reach the next stage in their diabolical scheme. They must be stopped before the ritual is complete. It is not an exaggeration when I say the entire world is at stake, which is why I am here: to propose an offer to join Obsidian and help us take down the Black Mask.”

He was serious. I didn’t know what to say.

Tory was the first to react with words. “Bro, this is too crazy. Like, say if we accept, right? What happens to our normal lives?”

“And our families?” Ashanti added.

“You need not worry. Your family will be safe, and you will remain here until you are called upon. Though Obsidian officials will be keeping an eye on your location at all times, I, as well as my partner, have already vouched for you. All that is needed is your allegiance to Obsidian and our cause, as well as keeping your abilities a secret from the world. What is your answer?”

The three of us—who just a week ago were kids shackled by our demons—looked at each other with newfound freedom and purpose. A silent agreement was sealed with smiles. My next words would make us heroes.

“We accept.”