Obsidian Shards: Afro-Horror Tales

Mitochondrial Assimilation

Author's Note: 

I originally wrote this story for a contest, and so it's much shorter than what I usually write. There were longer drafts that go into more detail, which I had to abandon. I will post one of the longer drafts later. But for now, I give you Negroes, America, and a monster called God. 

"I got a man, Lord." The back of my neck grew hot as I suddenly remembered the torches and lanterns all around me being held by the same white men that had just brought us to a mound of dead Negro and Indian bodies just to make us watch as they added to the pile. Even if the Lord could give me what I wanted, what guarantee did I have that he would deliver before those white folks could pick me or my Samson for another sacrifice?

I took a deep breath and ignored the pit that was opening up in my stomach. I cleared my throat and continued looking straight at the heap of corpses before me. "I got a man that I love. He treat me right, Lord. Never made me feel like less of a man for loving him. I want to be happy with him, but I already know that ain't possible for us. No matter how many wars them men up North start, me and him won't ever be free. But can you give me something close to that? A little farmhouse of our own, where we can live off the land and be away from anyone that'd ever bother us. Please, God?"

The waxy, white liquid in the moat surrounding the death heap began to shift and bubble. Though I'd seen it happen to the people before me, I still felt my chest race as one of the bubbles stretched itself forward. It slid up the walls of the moat then slithered through blades of grass as it came towards me. It moved like a snake, but with a human-like intention befitting  an arm with no hand or bones. I shuddered as it began to crawl up the side of my body, and my eyes watered with the scent of sickly sweet decay that wafted from it. The wax arm folded itself around my neck, then held it's round end in my face for a few seconds. I'd have known what I had to do even if I hadn't just watched others do it before it was my turn. Without a single word, the slime instructed me to open my mouth and receive it.

It didn't taste like anything at all. I wouldn't have known it was there were it not for the burning. The fire filled every part of my body including parts I never knew I had. I became aware of new dimensions of myself, more than just my limbs and torso. I could feel my organs, I knew their shape and texture as if I was holding them in my hands. I could feel the content of my own flesh down to it's smallest partition. I felt that liquid fill me up and push out everything it didn't need. I felt the blood burst from my eyes, ears, nose, mouth, and every other opening that I had.

I felt the smallest part of it go into the smallest parts of me, and there I felt something else. An old thing that was just as much its own being as it was me. It had been with me as long as I'd lived, giving me life and power when I needed it most. I felt God enter every part of my body, and I felt it obliterate that other thing everywhere it found it. In that other thing's place, God took up post. My body would only know power and strength if God allowed it.

At some point, I must have passed out. I woke up with Master Jacobson standing over me, with a curiously raised eyebrow that asked if I was okay, and a frown on his mouth saying that I'd have to pick myself up even if I wasn't. I pulled myself up from the pool of blood that was one part mine and one part everyone else before me. I walked over to the others that had already been baptized, and I waited for everyone else that hadn't yet gone. I heard murmurs among my group, of how close we were to freedom now that we were true Americans, and had completed the same rites these white men had when they first arrived. I heard them talk of how they were going to thank their masters for baptizing them. They were happy to finally be equals under God, soon to be free of the yoke of slavery.

None of them spoke to me.