A Night In Mississippi
The hum of the old 1967 gas station sign buzzed in the quiet of the Mississippi night. A single overhead light flickered, casting long shadows over Marcus Blackthorn as he leaned against his car, waiting for the pump to finish. The gas station was small, run-down, a relic of the Deep South. The air smelled of gasoline and burnt tobacco, and somewhere in the distance, the sound of cicadas filled the silence.
Marcus had been traveling for days. After securing a set of classified documents from his contact in Texas, he was en route back to New York when he stopped to refuel. The papers he carried contained something astonishing—photos from a mysterious crash site in Kecksburg, Pennsylvania, eerie blueprints eerily similar to Nazi Die Glocke, and technical notes from Dr. Hans Kammler. The most intriguing detail was the repeated mention of a mineral labeled ‘Genesis Element E’, or as Marcus now called it, Genesis Element Erythium.
But before he could get back on the road, he noticed something was off.
A group of men had emerged from the darkness, six in total, dressed in worn jeans and boots, their shirts unbuttoned at the top, cigarettes glowing between their fingers. One of them stepped forward, his posture casual but his intent clear.
“Evenin’, boy. You lost?”
Marcus didn’t answer. He could smell the alcohol on their breath, the hostility in their stance. He’d seen this before—many times, across centuries, in different lands, under different banners. The same hate, the same ignorance, wrapped in different symbols.
Another man, taller than the rest, nudged his friend and sneered. “Don’t look like he’s from ‘round here. Ain’t that right, Sam?”
The one called Sam spit on the ground and chuckled. “Well, he sure ain’t actin’ right. What’s a nigga like you doin’ in our town this late at night?”
Marcus exhaled slowly. His instincts told him this wasn’t a robbery. This was a message. A warning.
He had no weapons—he didn’t need them.
The moment Sam stepped closer, Marcus moved. Lightning-fast.
He grabbed the man’s outstretched arm, twisting it behind his back in one fluid motion. A sickening pop filled the air as the shoulder dislocated. Sam howled in pain, falling to his knees.
The others reacted, but they were too slow.
Marcus stepped into the next man’s attack, redirecting his punch into his own ally’s stomach before snapping his wrist like a twig. Another lunged with a knife—Marcus sidestepped, elbowing him across the jaw so hard that the man spun before crumpling to the ground.
Within seconds, all six men were on the dirt, writhing in pain or unconscious.
But just as he turned to leave—
Glass shattered. Flames erupted.
One of the men, barely conscious, had thrown a Molotov cocktail into Marcus’s car. Fire swallowed the documents inside, curling the edges of the classified pages into ash.
Marcus clenched his jaw. They had destroyed the physical evidence.
But it didn’t matter.
He had already memorized everything.
Still, something inside him burned hotter than the flames licking at his car. An old anger. A deep, searing wound that no amount of time could heal. He stared at the men on the ground, clutching broken limbs, fear in their eyes now instead of arrogance. He could kill them all. Right now. Easily.
But then what?
Would it change anything? Would it undo what centuries of hate had built?
No.
So instead, he walked past them, stepping into one of their pickup trucks. The keys were still in the ignition. He drove off without a word.
As Marcus sped down the empty road, the reflection in the rearview mirror caught his eye.
A Black man in America. No matter how long he walked this Earth, that would never change.
The thought gnawed at him. He had seen empires rise and fall. He had fought wars in the shadows, helped shape the course of history without ever being remembered. But here, in this time, in this country, he could never blend in.
And for the first time in a long time, he asked himself:
Should I fight?
The Black Panther Party was rising, mobilizing across the country. They understood something that Marcus had known for centuries—a small, well-trained force could change the course of history. They were learning to fight, to defend their people. But they lacked true warriors.
Marcus could teach them. Not to kill, but to survive.
Not because he wanted to be a revolutionary. He had no interest in being on the front lines. But he could help.
With a small smirk, Marcus pressed his foot to the gas and drove off into the night. The revolution was brewing. And whether they knew it or not—
They had just gained a ghost.
Was this just another mission? Or was this something more?
For the first time in centuries, he wasn’t sure.
