At first, all he was aware of was a sense of weightlessness. There was nothing else—no scent, no colour, no light nor darkness. Nothing seemed to surround him, nothing to distinguish whether it was hot or cold.
Slowly, it began to change. Darkness formed, riddled with pinpricks of light. White, yellow, blue…and then, feeling came. What had started as an unpleasant tingle became a painful prickling, like a series of pushpins pressing against the surface of his skin all at once.
“He’s waking up.”
He recognized the voice, but how, he didn’t know. He wasn’t sure of who he was, much less who anyone else might be.
As he came more into himself, the darkness and light surrounding him grew blurry, and after a moment, began to take shape. With a jolt, he bolted upright, nearly smacking his head against that of the figure looming over him.
“Welcome back,” said the figure, smiling, “you had quite a close call. We weren’t sure whether you’d make it, or not.”
“Who are you?” He asked, his voice hoarse from lack of use, “Who am I?”
The figure stared across from him, exchanging a look with a second figure he hadn’t noticed before.
“Nothing to worry about,” the second figure assured the first, “a temporary side effect, that’s all. He’ll be right as rain with time.”
Before he could ask again, the first figure, tan of skin with luminous, golden eyes lined in black kohl, spoke. “My name is Horus, and my companion is Anubis; we are brothers. Though you may not remember it now, we are actually well acquainted.”
“We are?” Bewildered, he tried to sit up, only for both figures to gently push him down again. Narrowing his eyes in displeasure, he said, “If this is true, then you should have no trouble telling me what my name is.”
“Of course,” said Horus, “you are Phenex, elite solo operative of the Regulations Force, First Unit; begotten by the sun and fostered by Ra, myself, and more recently, the Greek god, Apollo.”
“Who—” he began, but before he could get the words out, images began flashing through his mind; first of a figure, golden-skinned with orange-amber eyes, muscular of build yet tall and lean, a thick coat of dark peach-fuzz hair on his head and a curly goatee on his chin. A golden, banded headdress sat upon his head with a symbol of an eye painted on it. The figure in his mind appeared to be smiling at him, in the kindly way that a father might.
Instinctively, he knew this to be Ra, and with that realization came clarity. Ra, the Egyptian All-Father with close ties to the sun; the same god he’d first laid eyes upon when he’d been born from a solar flare, who had rescued him as he’d fallen and taken him in when he was nothing more than a scraggly bird-chick of some kind…
Phoenix. The word came, unbidden.
Yes, that was it. He had been named by Ra, granted a crude, archaic spelling of the name—of what he was—the legendary bird of flame.
Phenex.
Before he could give this further thought, other images flickered through his mind, albeit unnecessarily, for he now remembered who they were. The first was of the god beside him, Horus, only minus the scars he now bore. His eyes were almost entirely black, except one iris was the colour of the sun, and the other a brilliant, silvery-white like the moon. Though he wasn’t wearing it right now, memory-Horus wore a headdress similar to Ra’s, decorated with plumes and the same eye painted on its front.
The second figure was Apollo, wavy chestnut hair sweeping his shoulders and his emerald eyes laughing, a brilliant smile lighting his face. The mental images didn’t focus on Apollo for long before they continued on to his son, Asclepius, teaching a much-younger Phenex how to use the healing arts for more than just himself. Soon after came Forneus, the dark-haired, silver-eyed daemon whom had been his closest friend for hundreds of years, the first true friend he’d had since entering the Regulations Force and who had stuck by his side ever since. The next figure made his chest tighten, her jade-green eyes filled with tears; the first mortal in over three hundred years to teach him how to love and forgive again, after humans had betrayed his trust during the Witch Trials…
The memories flitted by one after another, until they became a sickening blur.
“I have to go,” Phenex said, attempting to get up only to have both Horus and Anubis push him back down again, “I need to get back to the council, tell them everything I—”
“What you need to do is relax,” Horus said firmly, “after that little ‘supernova’ stunt of yours, you’re lucky to be alive.”
