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𓄂 "Looking in the mirror, staring back at me isn't so much a face as the expression of a predicament." ·.·.·.·.⊹✩✧ ⋆ ☾ ⋆ ✧✩⊹.·.·.·.·
Something very strange was happening to Steven Grant. Only a few days ago, he had gone about the mundane tasks of his everyday life quite happily. He woke up still chained to his bed, fed his pet goldfish, and went to work at the museum gift shop. At the time, Steven had been quite bored and nonchalantly wished that something interesting would happen to him. Now, he would give anything to go back to that much simpler time. This morning he had woken up vividly remembering the way he had ripped apart a vicious Egyptian jackal with his bare hands the night before. He tried to brush it off as a dream, much like the last time he awoke to the memory of a threatening man with a cane and a scale tattooed on his wrist, but this time he could not ignore the obvious. After all, you can't really play dumb when being shown actual security footage of you vandalizing museum property. And that's how he found himself unemployed and standing in front of yet another storage locker in a desperate attempt to try and make sense of these "dreams".
Steven lightly shook the two objects in his hands, as though to reassure himself that they were still real. He had found them hidden in the wall of his flat. One was a flip phone, the very one that he had used to contact Layla only a day prior. Layla: the mysterious woman who had called the mysterious phone obsessively for the past couple of months. Surely if anyone could give Steven answers, it was her, but she seemed to be just as confused as he was, calling him by the name of Marc. So instead Steven moved onto plan B, which was initiated by the second object in his hands: a key. The label on the key was a red symbol, which was the same symbol plastered on the building he was standing in front of. It was the fifth storage unit he had visited today, and so far no luck. Steven took a deep breath before stepping into the building.
A man sat behind the front desk, lazily playing with rubber bands. Steven approached him nervously. "Hiya. I'm looking for a storage locker. It's under Steven Grant. If it's not under Steven Grant it might be under Marc," he rambled "I don't have a surname, just Marc. I know it sounds-"
Thankfully, the man interrupted him before he could reveal too much in a fit of nervousness. "Of course. I know you. #43, right? I never forget a face." The worker lead him down a long hallway to a room, marked with the thick black numbers that supposedly belonged to Steven's locker. After he unlocked it the worker nodded his head at Steven, his blue company hat tipping slightly, before he sauntered back in the direction they had come from. Steven's hands were shaking as he pushed open the slightly ajar door, though in the moment he couldn't exactly pinpoint what it was that he was afraid of.
The room was was dark and made entirely out of silver panels. Shelves filled with unusual objects and large boxes littered the room. There was also a small cot tucked away in the corner. However, Steven payed no attention to any of this, as he was too focused on the black duffel bag that sat almost pointedly at the opposite side of the room. He approached it cautiously, before pulling back on the zipper to reveal it's contents.
"Oh my god." Steven pulled out item after item, each more terrifying than the last. A gun, various forms of currency from around the world, a passport with his face on it but a different name, the golden scarab from his dream. Except, it couldn't have been a dream, could it? Not as the very same scarab sat heavy in his hands, as though trying to prove it's realness.
"Steven, I need you to listen to me very carefully." Said man jumped at the words. His reflection in the dull silver walls started slowly making it's way closer. Steven stood in his spot, only able to muster enough courage to give a wave and a quick greeting. The reflection spoke again. "I know you're scared. I know you're confused. You weren't supposed to see any of this."
"No? Well, bit late for that, innit? So, what? Am I, like, meant to be some sort of mad secret agent or something?"
"Yeah, it's a little more complicated than that."
"More complicated?! Like what, am I possessed?!" Steven was starting to get frustrated, his tone getting louder by the minute. "Are you, like, a demon? Or-"
The reflection interrupted, trying to soothe Steven to no avail, so he gave up and instead went straight to the point. "I can't have you interfering in what I have left to do. So this is what's going to happen," the reflection gestured to the back corner of the room with his hand, "You're gonna go lay down on that cot back there, and you're gonna take a nice nap."
Now this sent Steven over the edge. Well, as far over the edge as the ever so polite Steven Grant could go. "Are you joking?! I'm never gonna go to sleep again, you hear me?!" He was shouting at this point. "Look, I don't care how bloody handsome you are! Tell me what it is you are! What are you?!"
The reflection sighed. "I serve Khonshu. I'm his Avatar. Which means you are too. Sort of. We deliver Khonshu's justice to those who hurt the vulnerable."
Oh, this man was crazy. Though, perhaps that also made Steven crazy, because this man was technically him. Either way, he wasn't sticking around to find out. "How about this, I'm gonna take this bag full of illegal shit, yeah?" he said, grabbing the black duffel bag as he made his way to the door, "And I'm gonna go straight to the authorities, and they're gonna put me away so I don't hurt anyone else, and hopefully NHS will fill me with enough pills so that you get out of my head!" he shouted at the reflection, whom he had figured out by now was Marc, the name from the passport.
And with that, the conversation was over. Or at least, Steven had thought it was over. He slammed the door behind him as he stormed out of the room, lights flickering around him. He was about to make his way to the exit when a tall inhuman figure stopped him in his tracks. It's head resembled a bird's skull and the bandages wrapped around it's body fluttered behind it as it slowly made it's way toward Steven. He had never run so fast from something in his life. Even when he burst out of the building and into the daylight, he didn't stop running. That was, until he tripped over his own two feet and nearly got run over by a motorcycle. The rider peered down at him and he was about to get up and apologize when a vaguely familiar voice called out, "Marc? Where have you been?"
"...Layla?"
.·.·.·.·⊹✩✧ ⋆ ☾ ⋆ ✧✩⊹·.·.·.·. AUTHOR'S NOTE Nora doesn't even show up until episode three but I thought it was important for the context of the story to include episode two. It's gonna take forever to write though. Anyways, thanks for reading my story. Don't forget to vote if you liked it! ·.·.·.·.⊹✩✧ ⋆ ☾ ⋆ ✧✩⊹.·.·.·.·
