Part I – Rebirth in South Central
The sun bled through torn curtains, thin shafts of gold cutting across a room worn by poverty and resilience. Paint peeled from the walls, flaking like the scales of some forgotten beast. The linoleum floor was cracked and curling, its once-bright pattern dulled by decades of footsteps. In the far corner sat a twin bed, its frame squeaking with every shift.
Upon that bed lay a boy—no, a man trapped in a boy's body.
Isaiah opened his eyes to the familiar ache of memory. His limbs were chubby, uncoordinated; his cheeks soft; his voice still high-pitched. But inside—inside burned the fire of seventy-eight years. He remembered cities he had built, corporations he had led, lovers lost, enemies crushed. He remembered dying, alone and bitter, his empire crumbling like sand.
And then—rebirth.
Now, in this small House in South Central Los Angeles, 1980, he breathed in the scent of oatmeal cooking in the kitchen, thick and sweet, curling through the doorway and clashing with the stale smell of cigarette smoke embedded in the wallpaper. The clink of a spoon against a pot rang out like a patient metronome.
"Isaiah," came his mother's voice—soft, but edged with exhaustion.
Maria stood at the stove, stirring the pot. Blaxican, her features a mosaic of African and Mexican heritage, her hair pulled back in a scarf with strands escaping to frame her caramel-brown face, lined with worry, though she was only in her twenties. Life had demanded too much of her too soon.
Isaiah watched her with eyes far older than hers. He wanted to tell her everything—about business, about money, about survival—but what wisdom could a toddler voice offer without sounding insane? He had to play the role of a child, though his mind throbbed with strategies, regrets, and longing.
Maria turned, a chipped bowl in hand, and set it on the table. "Come eat, mijo."
He slid off the bed, his small feet slapping against the cool floor. Each step felt strange, even humiliating. Once, he had commanded boardrooms with words sharper than knives. Now, he waddled across peeling linoleum in thrift-store Superman pajamas. He climbed onto the chair, hands gripping the edge, peering into the bowl of steaming oatmeal.
"Eat up," Maria said, sitting opposite him, pushing the sugar bowl his way but using only a sprinkle—rationing everything, stretching every dollar.
Isaiah scooped a spoonful, blowing on it as a child should. Sweetness coated his tongue, but beneath it he tasted the bitterness of circumstance.
"Mom," he said, his small voice carrying a seriousness that startled even him, "I'm gonna make things better for us."
Maria laughed—not mockingly, but with the tenderness of someone who knew children always dreamed big. "Ay, baby, just eat. That's how you'll make things better—by growing strong."
Isaiah nodded, hiding the storm inside. Growing strong wasn't enough. This neighborhood, this system, was designed to break them. She deserved more than peeling walls and sleepless nights. But all he could do was shovel oatmeal into his mouth, each bite a vow.
The day stretched on, the sounds of South Central filtering through the thin walls—radios blasting funk and soul, cars backfiring down cracked streets, voices rising in arguments, children laughing in the courtyard below. The world outside was alive, messy, and dangerous.
Maria left for her shift at the laundromat by noon, kissing Isaiah on the forehead before handing him to Abuela, who lived next door. Bent with age but strong in spirit, the old woman's eyes gleamed with stories from another world—Aztec warriors, La Llorona, saints battling demons. Isaiah listened, rapt, though he carried lifetimes of his own stories.
He saw the power in her myths, the way they held the other children captive, their eyes wide with belief. Stories were survival—they wrapped pain in meaning and clothed hunger in hope. Abuela had her pantheon; he had his. The time for prototyping was now.
The thought translated instantly into action. He crawled under the sagging floral couch, the musty scent of old fabric filling his nose. His small hands swept through the dust bunnies until they closed around a new weapon: a stub of a red crayon. He stepped back out into the courtyard's harsh light. The concrete, rough enough to scrape skin, burned his knees as he knelt. He didn't care. He pressed the crayon against the ground, the lines shaky at first, but guided by the precise memory of a world away.
A figure took shape on the rough, gray canvas of the concrete—a warrior with a defiant shock of spiky hair, his fists clenched, an aura of power radiating from his very form. The strokes were the imperfect, waxy lines of a child's crayon, but the idea behind them glowed with a fierce, undeniable energy.
The first indication of an audience wasn't a sound, but a sudden theft of light. A shadow, long and distorted, fell over the warrior he was drawing, followed by the soft scuff of a sneaker on the pavement nearby. He didn't need to look up; the shift in the atmosphere was data enough.
"Who's that?" The voice belonged to a boy with a frayed Dodgers cap, his curiosity overriding his caution.
Isaiah paused, his red crayon hovering over the concrete. He saw the boy's worn sneakers, the other children slowly drifting closer, forming a loose, silent semi-circle. This was the moment of engagement, the first transaction.
"A fighter," Isaiah said simply, his voice clear and steady. "Stronger than anyone. He protects people."
The words were a spark thrown into dry tinder. The kids leaned in, their initial skepticism replaced by a burning curiosity. He could feel their attention, a tangible force. He was no longer just a little kid scribbling on the ground; he was a storyteller, and they were his first congregation. Even Abuela, who had been watching from her doorway, shuffled closer, her old eyes squinting to see the hero emerging from the pavement.
Fueled by their focus, Isaiah's small hands moved faster. He wasn't just drawing a picture anymore; he was conducting an orchestra of imagination. He added crackling energy lines around the warrior's fists, bright yellow sparks that seemed to leap off the concrete. He drew a snarling, monstrous beast opposite the hero, its claws sharp and menacing. With each new line, a collective gasp or a whispered "woah" would rise from the small crowd.
For an hour, the cracked lot in a forgotten neighborhood was transformed. It became an arena, a battlefield, a world alive with heroes and villains, epic struggles and desperate hope. A police cruiser rolled by, its presence a heavy, oppressive shadow, but the officers inside only saw a group of kids gathered around some scribbles on the concrete. They moved on, oblivious. To them, it was nothing. To Isaiah, it was the first successful test of a new form of currency.
As the sun began to dip, painting the sky in shades of orange and purple, the small crowd finally dispersed, their minds filled with new myths. Isaiah was left alone in the growing twilight, the temporary masterpiece on the concrete already starting to fade. He had the data he needed.
That night, when Maria returned, weary from her shift, she found him not in the courtyard, but sitting on the floor in the corner of his room. The stub of the red crayon was worn down to a nub, and a single sheet of paper—the back of a discarded shipping manifest—was held carefully in his hands.
"Mi amor," she said, her voice soft, "what have you been doing all day?"
Instead of answering, he simply stood and held the drawing out to her. It was a strategic presentation, a test to see if the new, upgraded product would resonate with his most important investor.
She took the paper, her rough fingers gentle on the edges. Her eyes, so often clouded with worry, widened. She saw the figure from the courtyard, but this time it was sharper, more permanent, captured in the bold, waxy red. She saw the impossible energy he had tried to capture. A slow smile spread across her face, a genuine, radiant expression that lit up the dim room.
"Isaiah," she whispered, her voice filled with a sense of wonder. "This is... he looks so strong." She knelt down, her gaze shifting from the drawing to him. "Mi artista," she said, the words a profound and validating reward. "My little artist."
Isaiah clutched the red stub of the crayon to his chest. It was not a toy. It was a relic from his first victory.
Later that night, as she tucked him into the twin bed, she placed the drawing on the small nightstand beside him, a place of honor.
"You really worked hard on your fighter today," she said, her hand cool on my skin.
I gave her a sleepy, reassuring smile, the vessel's response masking the Titan's satisfaction. "He protects people, Mama."
She smiled back, a warm, loving expression that knew nothing of the corporate war this single image was meant to launch. "Sleep well, mijo. You rest now, too."
She turned off the light, leaving me in the familiar darkness of the small room. My eyes remained open, staring at the ceiling, my mind already running simulations for the next day's operation. The yellow chalk had been a test. The red crayon was a successful prototype. Tomorrow, I would take the finished product to the stage—the cracked concrete stage below my window. I could already picture the scene, hear the colliding sounds of radios and the rhythmic thud of the basketball that would, inevitably, fall silent.
I drifted to sleep, not with the peace of a child, but with the cold, calculated certainty of a titan on the eve of a new creation. In the echo of memory, I heard the voice that had cast me here, its demand now feeling less like a punishment and more like a corporate mandate.
"What will you create?"