I work as a sorcerer in the US, and my side hustle is building Gundams.

Seattle's rain always carries an unyielding damp chill, clinging stickily to the skin like an inescapable haze, clearly dividing the city's light and darkness.

Twenty-year-old Michelle huddled in a sheltered alley at the dock, clutching a wad of ink-smelling US dollars between her fingers, her knuckles turning white, her inner turmoil thicker than the autumn rain and mist.

The five thousand dollars in his pocket were given to him by a doctor at Johns Hopkins Medical School; the amount was tempting.

But holding it in his hand felt like holding a red-hot iron, making him restless and uncomfortable.

Michelle was a native-born, working-class Black man from Seattle. His mother was bedridden, and his two younger siblings were still in school. He earned a meager living by carrying heavy loads at the docks.

Just when life was beginning to brighten, he got a girlfriend and thought he had finally found his own little happiness.

Not long after, his girlfriend told him that she was pregnant and insisted that the child was his.

Overnight, young people were overwhelmed by enormous, utterly unbearable economic pressure and plunged into utter despair.

He worked desperately, traveling to three different places a day to earn his meager wages through his own efforts.

The pressure was so intense that he could hardly breathe, and several times he thought about giving up and simply running away.

A week ago, a well-dressed white man approached him, saying that he was physically fit and an excellent candidate for a "neurological health study" at the medical school, with free check-ups and generous compensation.

The initial payment of five thousand dollars immediately solved his family's urgent problem, and Michelle agreed almost without thinking.

He followed the kind man to a place in Seattle that he had never heard of before. It was a place he had lived in for 20 years, a neighborhood that seemed to have never existed in the world and had suddenly appeared out of nowhere.

Surrounded by lush greenery, layer upon layer, he would never have known that such a secluded area existed near his home if no one had brought him here!

He will have his medical check-up at a high-end "clinic" here, a place completely different from the hospitals he is used to.

There were no bustling patients, only an unbelievably luxurious old-fashioned wooden villa. In the living room on the first floor, there was a specimen made from the head of a stag. Everything was in the style of a luxurious villa owned by an old-fashioned Southern plantation owner a hundred years ago, which made him, a low-class black man from the downtown area, feel both unimaginable and extremely oppressed.

He was led by a maid dressed as a lady through the luxurious house for a long time before finally arriving at the clinic section.

The cold marble floor, the long corridor that seemed to stretch on forever, the glaring white lights—walking inside, even breathing felt oppressive.

There were no warm greetings in the consultation room, only various cold instruments.

After undergoing various tests, the doctors there told him that a rare "brain worm" was parasitizing his brain, and if he did not receive timely treatment with their special medicine, he would soon lose his mind and become a walking corpse.

He was skeptical, after all, it was one of the most prestigious medical schools in Seattle, and as a working-class Black man, he had no choice but to believe in these "authorities".

The days that followed were filled with endless medication and examinations.

Swallowing the dark green pills left a metallic, sweet taste in his throat. Drinking the pale pink liquid made his head feel like it was being pricked by countless needles, and strange shadows kept flashing before his eyes—sometimes twisted tentacles, sometimes bloodshot eyes. The doctor said it was the brain worm struggling in its death throes and told him to hold on a little longer.

He gritted his teeth and endured it. Whenever he felt he couldn't go on, he would touch the cash in his pocket, think about his mother's medical expenses, and think about his younger siblings' bread, and tell himself that it was all worth it.

He asked the doctor, who simply said it was a normal bodily adaptation reaction and told him not to worry about it. The doctor also said that he would receive the remaining $10,000 after the research was completed.

The generous reward temporarily put Michelle's doubts to rest, but the physical discomfort and the suffocating atmosphere of the hospital weighed heavily on his mind.

He couldn't pinpoint what was wrong, but he felt something was off. He should have been incredibly happy and joyful to have received the money that could save his family.

But he was restless all day long, always feeling like someone was watching him when he walked on the street, and waking up in the middle of the night covered in cold sweat.

He dared not tell his family, fearing his mother would worry, so he could only keep all his panic inside, and his whole body became increasingly haggard.

It wasn't until he brought these things up while drinking with his childhood friend Bruce that the latter said he had recently heard of a voodoo doctor who had recently gained fame, and that he could try to find this guy named Lynn to get some advice.

……

When Lynn was brought to the fountain square by Jack, he saw this young black man with his hands tightly clasped together, looking at him with a conflicted expression that seemed to suggest he wanted to run away but didn't know what was wrong with him.

"Hey, you're Lynn? That witch doctor who's recently risen to fame?"

Bruce asked the question first because he noticed that the witch doctor Jack had found was a white man, and so young. He looked thin and weak, and didn't have any of the tattoos or exaggerated attire that a witch doctor should have. He didn't have any of the mysterious and shrouded Haitian voodoo cult he had imagined.

"Yes, it's me. What can I do for you? Jack already told you about my pricing, right?"

"Yes, I've already told them."

Jack nodded to Lynn, then squatted down to the side with a spectator's expression, quietly watching what would happen next.

"They say witch doctors can communicate with spirits, man, but to be honest, you're white and don't look like a witch doctor at all, so I don't really trust you. Can you guess what happened to my brother?"

Ruth was outspoken, but her eyes held a deep sense of wariness.

"No problem, but if my buddy's predictions are accurate after the psychic session, you'll have to pay according to the rules."

Just as Lynn was about to speak, Mike stepped forward and answered for him.

"Of course, we are devout followers of Voodoo."

Bruce patted Marshall on the shoulder, and the latter took out a roll of $500 bills and showed it to him.

"OK……"

Lynn is now trying his best to make money, pay off his debts as soon as possible, and gain his freedom. So he opened the system and pointed at the other party with the virtual panel.

[Poor orc Michelle Carter, his mother is bedridden, his younger siblings are raising him, and he's even taken in a son who isn't his own… His health is already terrible; he's been subjected to at least three strong doses of unfinished psychotropic drugs. This illegal human experimentation has severely damaged his body, and within six months his health will be completely destroyed, leading to his untimely death.]

"..."

Staring in disbelief at the information on the box, a sense of utter absurdity swirled within his mind!

"Isn't this the Baltimore Cthulhu story that Prisoner A told in his live stream?"

"What?! I... I actually encountered something so hellish in real life?"