Exit Egypt

[Amon/Alex's POV]

Amon could feel the life drain from him as the blood continued to seep out of the wound on his back. He vaguely registered people gathering around him and the feint chattering of voices, but he heard them as if he was underwater.

The noise of the voices faded as he sunk deeper and deeper into the water. He didn't think it would be, but the drifting away was peaceful.

Was he dying?

Hah! What a silly thought to think. There was nothing he could do about it anyway.

Out of nowhere, a sharp pain shot through his chest and made him suck in a breath. His eyes flew open and he bolted upright, grabbing the first thing he could find. A gentle hand urged him to lay back down.

He was completely disoriented, his vision blurry. The first thing he noticed were the colours; lots of dark greens, browns and greys. It was nothing like the bright yellow colour palate of ancient Egypt.

The next thing he registered was the thing he had grabbed reflexively; a hand, holding his so tight the knuckles had turned white.

Then came the face of the person behind the hand, staring at him worriedly; a white complexion, black hair and grey eyes. The combination felt alien for a second, and then suddenly, the image snapped into place.

"Dad?" he asked confused, his voice quiet and raspy. His dad's eyes instantly misted over with relief and he kissed the hand he was holding.

"Thank God," he whispered, his voice heavy with emotion. "Do you have to scare me this badly every single time?"

"Sorry," Alex chuckled, but then noticed his dad's frown wasn't ceasing. "What's wrong?"

"Nothing, buddy. We'll talk later, ok? Just, take it easy for now," Mar said, the deep frown still edged on his face. Alex shrugged. If his dad wasn't going to tell him, he wasn't going to beg for it.

It seemed like Alex had made the jump back to his own time. The problem was that he wished he hadn't. Would he be able to make it back? To live as Amon until the end of his days?

Doubtful.

Maybe he had lived Amon's life until the end of his days? Was that what triggered the flashback leaps? A (near) death experience? Then, did that mean he'd done this before? All those years in the hospital, he'd been soul-leaping? He didn't remember though.

A flash of neon yellow caught his attention. When he turned his head to look at it, he was just in time to see a stretcher being loaded into an ambulance.

On the stretcher lay Otto's motionless body.

His eyes widened in shock. Why was Otto on a stretcher? And why wasn't she moving? He wanted to get up and run towards her, but couldn't.

"What's this?!" he asked incredulously as he noticed the thick bands strapping him down to his own stretcher. "No! I need to get to Otto! What's wrong with her? Why are they loading her into the ambulance?!"

"Sssh," his father shushed him, but he didn't calm down.

"No! Don't take her away! I need to see that she's fine! LET ME GO! I NEED TO SEE THAT SHE IS FINE!" Alex kept yelling.

"Alex there's nothing you can do. She's going to the hospital, she's in good care," his father tried to reason with him, but Alex didn't want to hear it.

"LET ME GO!" he yelled as he was slowly but steadily wriggling his way from underneath the cords tying him to the stretcher.

"Let. Me. Go!" he grumbled as he tried to get free with all his might.

"I'm sorry," his dad said, not sounding sorry at all, and a sharp pain in his shoulder followed. He froze and looked down in disbelief at the painful spot to see the last of a syringe be squirted into his arm.

"No," Alex protested, but already quickly lost consciousness yet again.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

When Alex woke up again, he was laying in a hospital bed, his clothes were replaced for pyjamas and everything was quiet.

He didn't know how much time had passed since his dad had tranquillised him. He was freaking angry that his dad had done so, but honestly, he understood.

He had been overreacting, maybe even panicking, which was unusual for his doing.

Normally, when he'd wake up from such a traumatising situation, he would just be calm and let his father check on his health.

This was the first time he had freaked out. The first time he'd resisted. Which was unwanted if you looked at it from a medical point of view. He blamed it on Amon's influence. Hurray for anger management issues. But luckily, that wasn't the only thing Amon had passed on to him.

After breaking the gate to the afterlife in Duat, he had discovered that magic was like a second nature to him. He just had to think of a notion and the magic would twist and bend all around him.

For example; he'd magicked Neferet's new lute and sandals into existence. It were exact replica's of product you could find in that day and age, just a little better.

Now he could see magic everywhere. It was flowing all around him, so thick that he could feel it. And the strangest thing was that he could remember it always being there. He'd just ignored it.

"Hmm," Alex hummed as he thought, and the energy started bending. When he looked to his hand, a little flower had appeared. It was a bright yellow buttercup. He twirled the flower around between his fingers and watched as it spun.

Amon had been powerful, but Alex was not. The little flower he'd made appear had drained him to the point of feeling dizzy. No more magic for now, it was too dangerous.

As if to confirm his thoughts, his dad half-stormed into the room.

"Where did you get that flower?" he asked as he stared at it, his brow wrinkled in confusion.

This set off a little alarm bell in Alex's mind and he quickly looked around the room. There it was; a camera. It wasn't attached to the wall, so it probably was something his dad had set-up temporarily.

It didn't matter, his hand hadn't been visible the second he'd made the flower magically appear, but all the more reason to stop using magic though.

"I was holding it when I woke up," he lied. His dad looked skeptical, but as predicted he didn't counter the argument.

"I've calmed down now," Alex said. His dad raised an eyebrow.

"So I've noticed," he said.

"How's Otto?" Alex asked.

Mar laughed, shaking his head in disbelief. "You think I'm stupid enough to tell you twice?"

Alex blinked in confusion, but didn't say anything. Did that mean she wasn't ok?

"Alex, what happened before you called me?" his dad asked when Alex didn't react.

"Before?" Alex asked surprised. Shit! To his conscious mind that was three whole months ago! "It's a little fuzzy..."

"Well, try anyway," his dad said humourlessly. Was that worry he spotted?

"I remember having the snowball fight at the park. We'd just finished it, I'd won," he traced back his memory. "Otto hadn't joined the game, so once it was done I went to look for her, just to find that she'd already left."

This bit of information seemed to surprise his dad.

"I found her on my way home," he continued, remembering in full detail now. The wave of emotions he'd felt back then coming back in full-force. "She wasn't moving, so I rushed over. There was this huge bump on her head, but as I bended over to get a closer look, I noticed my vision fading. It had caught me off guard, so I was barely in time to call you. And that's where you found me."

"That's all?" Mar asked after a moment of silence. He sighed, shaking his head and rubbing his face. "Damn, then we really do have a problem."

"Huh?" Alex asked confused.

"Here I was, hoping you'd clue us in on some new invisible drug, but no such luck," Mar mumbled, more to himself than to Alex. "She's in perfect health, yet she won't wake up and we don't know why."

"Wait, ... she hasn't woken up?" Alex asked. He felt as if the whole world had stepped on the emergency break.

"Alex, is there anything you can think of?" Mar asked, sounding strangely desperate. "Anything to help us figure out what's wrong with her."

That's when it hit him, why his dad was asking so many questions. Mar was afraid that Alex's "disease" had become contagious and he wasn't able to cure it. He hated that he couldn't heal his precious son. He hated that he didn't even have a clue.

But Alex did have a clue. He had a very good clue thanks to Haruw and Osiris. Yet, he couldn't bring himself to tell his dad.

His dad was a scientist. He wouldn't believe this "fairytale" about gods and magic! He'd say that he'd lost his mind. He wouldn't believe a word he'd say.

Very different from how he'd told Merenre about his "vision".

"It wasn't me, dad," Alex said after a moment of silence. Mar looked up in surprise. "She really did bump her head. I think she might be recovering from a concussion."

Mar sighed.

"I'll take a closer look, but the last time I examined her, there was no sign of a bump," he said, stalked over to the bed and planted a kiss on Alex's forehead. "I have to go. Rest well, I'll come to visit you again some time later."

And so Mar left.