Sometimes, I hate my life. Seriously. My name is Stephen L'Atelier. I was born in the City of Montreal, Province of Quebec, on the seventh day of February 1989. My father, Jeremie L'Atelier is White, of French-Canadian descent. My mother, Annette Jean-Francois, is Black, of Haitian descent. She moved to Canada from the City of Cap-Haitien in Northern Haiti three years before my birth. My parents lived together but were never married. They split a year after my birth. My father later married Nicole Chang, an immigrant woman from the region of Shanghai, China, and my mother had a long string of romantic failures with men of all races, before settling into a lesbian relationship with Big Bertha, this Australian-born construction worker who runs a company in Sherbrook. How's that for an origin tale? Wait, it gets better.
A lot of people born under the sign of the Aquarius think they're special, but I'm actually worth the hype. You see, I am kind of different. My mother has a secret, one she's never told anyone. She comes from a long line of Witches. Actual Witches. She can do all kinds of stuff, from moving objects with her mind, a power called Telekinesis, to communicating with the Spirits of the Dead. That sounds pretty cool, right? I wish I could say that I inherited my mother's powers. They're pretty cool. Nope. My condition is much worse than hers. Every time I get really angry or scared, I...change. What do I change into? I'm not one hundred percent sure, exactly. I turn into an ape-like, massively muscular bipedal creature covered in thick reddish fur. A creature with yellow eyes and wicked, seven-inch claws that can slice through Titanium. A creature of superhuman strength and speed. A monster.
I call my alter ego The Freak, because that's what it is. The scary part? Whenever I change into The Freak, I am still myself. I always remember everything. It's my body that changes, not my mind. According to my mother, The Freak is my true self and my human side is the disguise. When she told me that, I really freaked out. I refuse to believe that this creature is my true self. I consider my true self to be, well, me. Whatever that means.
In my normal state, I'm nothing special. A five-foot-eleven, skinny guy with light brown skin, curly Black hair and pale green eyes. A lot of people ask me if I'm Hispanic because of my skin color but I consider myself Black. I don't consider myself biracial. I embrace my Black heritage and show it with pride. My mother and I have had problems because of that. When she lived in the island of Haiti, my mother was married to a guy named Claude. Apparently, he was really mean to her and abused her. The thought of any man abusing my magically powered mother kind of shocked me, but she assured me that domestic abuse could happen to anyone regardless of their level of ability in any domain. She loved this Claude guy and he beat her. This disgusted her with Black men in general. That's why she mainly dated White guys, Hispanic guys and the occasional Chinese guy before she met Big Bertha. My mom can't stand Black people, especially Black guys, and thinks White folks are the saviors of the universe. The fact that her only son considers himself one hundred percent Black irks her to no end.
