Hollow: Descended from the Angel of Death

I think it's time for me to introduce myself. My name is Hollow Black; where did I get the name Hollow you ask? Well, let me tell you about it, but you better grab some tissues because it's a sad start.

When I was a baby, maybe just a couple of months, I was found in the arms of the "Angel of Death" statue in the Lakeview Cemetery in Cleveland, Ohio. I was found by a kind older man who had been taking flowers to his wife's grave when he spotted me. The older man scooped me up and took me to the local police department.

The police searched everywhere but found nothing on me, so I was sent to an all-girls group home where I was raised by a catholic woman named Hellen Goodman. Hellen wasn't an evil woman, but she took one good look at my ink-black hair, ivory, pale skin, and rose-red eyes and called me the spawn of satan.

Since I didn't have a name, Hellen named me Hollow Black and only took enough care of me so I would survive. When I was five years old, I learned the hard way that I could see the dead.

Mrs. Goodman already didn't like me, but when she saw me talking to "Imaginary friends," she shoved me in a closet with only a thin blanket and a pee-stained twin mattress to sleep on.

It started one night when I woke up to the sound of whispers in my room. At first, I thought it was just my imagination playing tricks on me, but then I saw them. Ghosts, spirits, apparitions, whatever you want to call them, they were all around me, watching me with their hollow eyes. Some were crying, others were screaming in agony, and some were staring blankly.

The first time it happened, I screamed so loud that Hellen came rushing into my room, thinking I was being attacked. I tried to tell her what I saw, but she just dismissed it as a nightmare and made me go back to sleep. But it wasn't a nightmare; it was real. And it kept happening, night after night.

At first, I was terrified, but as I grew older, I started to embrace my gift. I learned that if I gave the ghosts something... I usually give them flowers... that it could help them cross over to the other side. It wasn't something I could tell anyone, though. Hellen already thought I was demonic, and I didn't want to give her any more reason to hate me.

So, I kept quiet and started sneaking out at night to visit the cemetery. I would leave flowers on as many graves as possible and talk to the spirits visiting me. They told me stories of their lives, loves, and regrets. Some were angry and bitter, others were sad and lost, but they all just wanted someone to listen to them.

I was ten when the girls from the group home started teasing me, calling me a demon freak and saying I was sent from Satan. One of them pushed me down onto the grass, and as I lay there, I heard the rush of blood in my ears and felt the shifting blades of grass beneath my body.

I tried to inhale, but my breath came in short gasps, and I could feel a wave of anger smoldering within me. My hands clenched up tight, my knuckles turning white as black smoke emanated from them and sunk into the ground below. I touched the earth and felt it grow hot with intensity.

It felt like a thousand paper cuts all over my hands, but this burning pain made me scream.

We were all shocked when the bodies of dead animals rose from the ground, their eyes glowing red and their fur standing on end. They surrounded us, growling and snarling, their teeth bared. The girls were screaming, and I was frozen with fear, unsure of what to do.

I could taste the fear in the air and the salt of my tears.

It tasted like acid seeping into my mouth, and my tongue started to bleed.

But then I heard a voice, a raspy, feminine voice, telling me to calm down. It was a voice I had never heard before, but it felt familiar as if it had been with me all along. I closed my eyes, took a deep breath, and focused on the voice.

Suddenly, the animals stopped growling and backed away. The girls were still screaming, but I was able to stand up and walk away, feeling a newfound confidence within me. I didn't know what had happened or how I had done it, but I knew that I was different from other people.

Mrs. Goodman was horrified by what happened and decided that I needed to be punished, so she locked me in the basement for days without food or water.

It was then that I knew she had to escape, so I waited for the right opportunity and managed to slip out of the group home unnoticed. I wandered the streets for days, stealing food and sleeping in alleyways. That was when she met Raphael Jenkins.

Raphael owned a local boxing club and took pity on the young me, and took me in, and taught me everything he knew. He showed me how to face my fears and meet them head-on and how to channel that burning rage inside of me into something productive. Under his tutelage, I learned how to fight, move with grace and precision, and be a force to be reckoned with.

It wasn't long before I started competing in amateur boxing matches, and I quickly gained a reputation as a fierce competitor. People started calling me the "Black Phoenix" because of my dark hair and piercing red eyes, and soon my name was on everyone's lips.

But despite my success in the ring, I always remembered the spirits that had visited me in the cemetery. Whenever I had a spare moment, I would slip away into the night and visit the graves, leaving flowers and listening to the whispers of the dead.

Now that you know a bit more about me, let's continue with my story...