Rise from the Ashes

Part 1: Mason Hardy

Chicago, Illinois 1998, a woman named Eliza birthed a boy, the father was nowhere to be found. Eliza named the boy Mason, Mason Hardy. He had his grandfather's eyes and his father's jawline. He grew up on the Southside of Chicago as one of the few white kids, he didn't go through as much as his father and mother before him but he did fight almost every single day of his life for survival. It was rough being the only white kid in a black neighborhood. He watched himself, he played basketball with the local kids, he developed into a good player and a promising young man. His intelligence was not to be doubted; as humble as the boy was he knew that he was smart. His mother struggled to put food on the table some days, she struggled to keep the lights on, she worked as a stripper and men were in and out of Mason and Eliza's house constantly. Mason's great grandfather took a liking to the boy, and Mason spent a lot of time with the man. He learned how to fix up cars, how to shoot a gun, his Papa put him through kickboxing to give the young man an outlet for his anger. His Papa, Frank was a pillar of the community, a tow truck driver that helped everyone he could. The man made sure that Eliza and Mason had food and shelter. He paid for Mason to kickbox and play on the school team for basketball. Eliza taught Mason how to be a man. How a man is to treat a woman, this led to a lot of physical altercations between Mason and these "clients". One night one of these "clients" stormed out of the house calling Eliza a cunt and a bitch and Mason dashed out of the house to stomp out this bastard. He caught the man before he got more than a block away, he brawled with the man, leaving him in a pool of blood and teeth. On the way back to his house Mason heard gunfire, and he began sprinting until he saw the ambulance and cop cars outside of his house. He shoved past the tape, the police and the other EMS workers. He saw his mother lying down, gasping for air, a bullet in her abdomen, another in her chest, and a third at the base of her neck. Mason climbed into the back of the ambulance and watched as they tried to save his mother. With her dying breath she looked to her son and spoke the final words of "Tyler did this he's..." the heart rate monitor flat-lined. This thirteen year old boy held his bloodied, dead mother in his arms and cried, sobbing, screaming, roaring in agony and anger. His 74 year old Papa tapped him on the shoulder, tears in his own eyes and told him that Mason would be living with him from now on. Mason had to put his mother in the dirt three days later. Frank saw the look of vengeance in the young man's eyes and he made Mason promise to not go and seek revenge until he was sure he was ready. Mason agreed and got to work, he worked on cars, fixing them up for his Papa, he kickboxed and became a champion and got to a fifth degree blackbelt by the time he was seventeen. Shortly after graduating high school Frank died as well, leaving him with a hundred grand and the lessons that he had learned.