“Breaker of Chains”

The year: 1850 , Location: Georgia. A young boy born into slavery  under a hot summer sun would grow up to work the fields like his father before him. A wooden sign at the entrance read Trask Plantation as the long path led from the main road past the fields where both the boy and his father would spend 18 hour days. Skinny and frail the boy was, making his tasks harder than most. The field master, drunk on power, would punish the child’s father in efforts to make the boy work faster and more diligent but sometimes just out of cruel enjoyment. The air was stiff as the whip cracks and painful screams were heard across the acres alongside the boy’s cries. Those that witnessed stood frozen in fear. With the final cracking sound the boy’s father fell lifeless on top of his bag of cotton. “Now Get Back to Work” the drunken tyrant yelled with a slur.

As the boy’s lowered head and raised eyes dropped the last tears, vengeance boiled through his veins. His powers activated, breaking the chains on his hands and feet, slowly levitating above the cotton fields with chains dangling from his wrists and ankles. The overseer couldn’t believe his eyes and turned toward the master house in efforts to escape. The snake-like chains moved through the air across the field by the power of the boy’s hand direction. The chains slapped and wrangled around the overseer’s body like prey caught in a trap, wrapping tighter, violently crushing him. The enslaved people were excited and terrified all at once as the chains began to break with the passing by of the floating boy. The boy would find that his power to control metal also slowed cell degeneration, causing him to age slower. Now free, he would grow and unpleasantly experience the many eras of how the world treats those who are different.

“Breaker of Chains”

Story & Concept by Chuck Styles

December 2022

*these characters are in no way officially associated/affiliated with any brand or company and their stories are original to the creator