38 – Stories the Night Remembers
[They told stories about him when I was a kid, Back in Haiti some other kids and older people used to try and scare me about Roi Minuit ( Midnight King) boy... I was scared, so let's dive in and read about how they used to tell me about him lol]
(Sit out on the porch too late, linger by a gutter after curfew, or sneak behind the mango grove, and you'd hear it. "The Midnight King will find you." The voice came from old aunts, uncles with half-drunk rum on their breath, or cousins trying to prove they were braver than they were. The story was always the same.
He'd stand in the dark pretending to be your friend—same face, same laugh, same posture—and when the clock struck twelve, that friend would start to grow. Taller. Broader. Shadows thickening at their feet like spilled ink. Horns of black fire rising from their shoulders. Until all you could see was a monster in the skin of someone you trusted. Then you'd run, or you'd scream, or you'd pray.
That was the Midnight King in the human world: a threat, a phantom, a bedtime guardrail.)
But in the Loa's world, he was something else.
Before he was a king, before he claimed the throne of night, he was simply Makroz. A young fighter with long arms, quicker than hunger, cleverer than most. His shadow bent before he did. His eyes saw the places light couldn't touch.
And he had a friend—Zed, the Zobop Leader. Makroz had a shadow power that he was born with, same with Zed but his power was fire. Hot-headed, bright, always hungry for the next fight, the next laugh, the next challenge. They weren't brothers by blood, but they may as well have been. Where Makroz brooded, Zed joked. Where Zed rushed in, Makroz slowed the pace. Together, they were a storm.
The Loa Wars were constant. Settlements rose and fell. Some years it was raids, others it was full-blown war. Makroz and Zed decided that if peace would never last, then they would become too strong for anyone to bother.
That's how they found themselves staring into the Abyss of Hell.
It wasn't a metaphor. The Abyss was real: a vast pit with a spiral staircase running down its walls, descending floor after floor. The further you went, the heavier the air pressed, the darker the silence became. No one knew how deep it ran. Old Loa swore the Abyss was endless, that it counted your soul as you counted its steps.
Makroz tilted his head toward the black spiral and smirked. "Shall we?"
Zed grinned, flames dancing in his palm. "Let's see what this place holds, let's get strong my brother so we can protect everyone."
They descended.
The first floor was a forest of stone spires where ash-skinned wolves prowled. They struck from the shadows, fangs like obsidian knives. Makroz met them in the dark, his own shadows swallowing their forms, blades slicing clean as whispers. Zed burned bright beside him, every punch an explosion, every kick a burst of heat that sent wolves screaming into smoke.
They laughed as they fought. Zed cracked a joke about how Makroz's hair always stayed perfect even in battle. Makroz replied, "That's because you sweat enough for both of us." Their laughter echoed louder than the wolves' howls.
Every tenth floor had a boss. On the tenth, it was a wolf the size of a house, eyes burning silver. It howled, and the sound shook the spires.
"Big puppy wants a walk," Zed said.
"Then burn the leash," Makroz replied.
Zed's fire flared into a dragon's maw, clamping around the beast's throat. At the same time, Makroz's shadows stretched into chains, locking its legs. The wolf tried to leap, but the fire-dragon crushed its jaw as shadows pierced its chest. It fell in silence, smoke rising from its corpse.
They pressed on.
Twentieth floor: serpents made of water, scales shimmering like glass. They struck in waves, drowning the staircase. Zed boiled the water with a single roar of fire, steam exploding outward. Makroz shaped shadows into harpoons, skewering the serpents through their gaping jaws.
Thirtieth floor: giants of stone with molten veins. They threw boulders the size of houses. Zed melted the rocks mid-air, laughing, "They're just giving me ammo!" Makroz darted through the smoke, shadows wrapping around the giants' ankles, dragging them down while Zed punched through their skulls.
They kept going. Floor after floor. Fifty. Seventy. One hundred. Each time the foes grew stranger, stronger. Demons of wind that sliced with invisible blades. Beasts of lightning that shattered the ground with every step.
And Makroz and Zed kept laughing.
By the time they reached the two-hundredth floor, their names were legend. Makroz, the man whose shadows devoured light. Zed, the firestorm who burned through armies. When they returned from the Abyss, their people bowed, not because they were afraid but because they were proud.
The settlements crowned them leaders. Makroz was given dominion over the night, called King of Shadows, King of Midnight. Zed was already leader of the Zobop, his fire feared and honored alike. Together, they ruled in peace, keeping the Loa Wars at bay, avoiding pointless bloodshed.
Until Djab Baka came.
The Bakas were trouble even before war. They were short, muscular Loa with the strength of mountains and the gift of earth. They could split the ground with a stomp, call boulders from the sky, crush enemies in their hands like twigs. They raided human villages, dragging people from beds when doors were left unlocked. They haunted alleys, pulling wanderers into shadows that weren't Makroz's.
When Djab Baka's tribe struck the Zobop settlement, they came like a quake.
The earth split open, swallowing huts whole. Spikes of stone jutted up through roads. Their roars drowned out the drums. Zed stood at the front gate with his generals, flames already wreathing his fists. Makroz who was visiting Zed at the time was caught in this battle aswel, he didn't hesitate and shadow Travel to help his bestfriend, Makroz appeared beside him, shadows stretching like wings.
"You sure you don't want me to sit this one out?" Makroz teased.
Zed snorted. "And let you steal my glory? Not a chance."
The Bakas rushed. Dozens, then hundreds. Each step shook the ground.
Zed's fire surged into a wall, cutting their charge in half. He clapped his hands, sending waves of fire rolling across the battlefield. Bakas screamed, their stone-hard skin cracking under the heat.
Makroz slipped into their shadows. One moment he was at Zed's side, the next he was behind enemy lines, his blades slicing from the dark. A dozen Bakas fell before they even realized they were being cut.
The battlefield was chaos. Stone and fire clashed, shadows struck unseen. Makroz laughed as he fought, calling out, "You're getting slow, Zed! Must be age catching up."
"Age?! You forgot we live for thousands of years" Zed roared, his hair blazing like a comet. "Watch this."
He stomped the ground, fire bursting upward in a column so hot it turned stone to glass. Three Bakas shattered in the explosion, their screams cut short.
"Show-off," Makroz muttered, before his shadows erupted into spears, skewering five more.
The battle raged, and for a time, it looked like they would win. But then came the retreat. The Bakas pulled back suddenly, vanishing into cracks in the earth they had torn open themselves. The Zobop cheered, thinking they had fled.
Then Zed's heart sank.
Annaïs was gone.
His daughter. His light. His fiercest joy. In the confusion, the Bakas had taken her.
Zed roared, flames bursting high enough to set the sky alight. His generals rushed to him, ready to pursue, but he waved them back, eyes burning with grief.
He turned to Makroz.
"Brother," he said, voice trembling but steady, "I need you. Not my generals. Not my army. You. Help me bring her back."
Makroz's face was shadow, unreadable. But his voice was firm. "You didn't even have to ask."