I was panting. Hard. I could hear the dogs barking angrily, their combined sound creating a terrifying roar that chilled me to the bone. Every fiber of my being wanted me to stop, to return to my master, to go back to my work and to pretend this never happened. The Dickerson plantation was safer than this. The master yelling "Levi do what you are told!, and beating me causing my brown skin to scar was pretty hard, but escaping, that... that's deadly, and that was exactly where I was now, running from the men my master hired to catch me, with no one to protect me but my mama.
We ran for hours, continuing north as fast as possible, weaving around the the trees until we reached an issue, a creek. We stopped, and I threw a stick into the water to see how deep it was. It was very deep. We weren't gonna be able to escape that way. My mother knew how to swim, but she was too old and frail to be able to. I was 14 and very strong, but I couldn't swim. We were trapped. The men and their dogs caught up to us in no time and I took a step back.
"Yer not gernna be able to escape now, slave," warned one of the men.
There were three of them, all with brown hats and coats and large muskets. One was blonde, one brown haired, and one was gray. Each had a wrinkled face, and around each of their necks hung peculiar necklaces. Strange crosses, even on all sides. As peculiar as they were, I felt like I had seen them before, somewhere...
As I stared at the men, my mama punched at them.
"Leave ma baby alone!" She yelled.
Without hesitation, one of the men raised their musket, and fired at my mother, killing her on the spot. I dropped to my knees and shook her,
"Mama! MAMA!" I cried as a shook her.
I looked up, my eyes red with tears. They're not supposed to do this, I thought, they're supposed to take me back to the plantation, where I'd beat and not want to escape again.
One of the men raised their muskets and leveled it to my face.
Just as he was about to shoot (if he was going to shoot), a figure dropped from a tree. He killed two of the men with blades that seemed to come from his wrists and then turned and stabbed the third. In 5 seconds flat, all of my mothers murderers were dead. The man looked at me. He had a hood and wore a long white coat with a white undershirt. In fact all of his clothing save for his brown boots and gloves were white. On his wrist were silver wrist guards, from which I assumed the blades came from. At his waist hung a stopwatch of some kind that had a faint glow.
"Wh-who a-are you?," I stuttered, still in shock from the recent events.
The man's face was covered in darkness. Partially because it was night time, partially because of his hood.
"What is your name child," the man asked in a northern accent.
"Levi," I replied softly.
"Come with me Levi," the man said warmly.
"Sir, can you help my mama?" I asked frantically.
The man walked over to my mother. He took two fingers and put them to her neck. He held his fingers there for a while and then shook his head.
"I'm sorry, but she's... gone," he spoke quietly, almost in a whisper trying not to upset me.
Even though I was a teenager, even though I had endured the closest thing to hell anyone would ever see, I dropped to my knees and cried. Tears ran down my face dropping to the ground and landing on the shadowy grass. I looked up, eyes puffy from crying, and said the words that would change my life forever.
"I'll come."