Page 45 of Phoenix Chosen 2

This was not what I’d expected when Feather said the elevator would give us what we needed.

“There’s just one problem,” I say. “I’m not a phoenix. That’s what’s tripping me up about this whole thing. How can I have any powers when I’m just a normal human?”

“You weren’t an omega before,” says Kalistratos. “But you got pregnant.”

“Yeah, I never got to ask Aethereos about that…”

“Also, you were able to feel that Airos was a phoenix,” he reminds me. “That isn’t something a normal human can do.”

He’s got a point. But then, why wouldn’t I feel it inside of myself? Wouldn’t I know?

But maybe Ihavefelt it. What if the strange blooms of warmth I imagined were coming from the phoenix chicken figurine were actually coming from within me? Maybe. But I have no idea what it means or how to access it.

“Alright,” I say. “Well, we must be here for a reason.”

“It’s a rite of passage,” Kalistratos says excitedly, like he’s remembering words he was told a long time ago. “The circle of stones represents both a birth nest and the never-ending flow of time. The phoenix cycle of rebirth.”

“Okay, so… I just sit in this circle?”

I sit cross-legged on the ground.

“Yeah,” Kalistratos says. “Exactly like that, and…”

He extinguishes the single flame, plunging the cave into complete darkness. I fight to subdue a panicked reflex but still find myself reaching to my hip for a flashlight that isn’t there.

We’re still inside the building, I remind myself.We’re still under his protection here.

As my ears adjust to the silence of the cave, I hear Kalistratos breathing somewhere in front of me. My heart thuds noisily. A moment passes.

“Uh… So… Now what?” I say.

I can picture Kalistratos’s blank stare from the silent reaction.

“I…don’t know,” he says.

“Oh, great.”

“It was a long, long time ago. I just remember that I was eventually able to summon a flame in the palm of my hand. After that, everything else came naturally, like running after learning to walk.”

“Alright. Then tell me how you use your phoenix powers now. How do you access them?”

There’s a brief silence as he thinks.

“It’s like opening a cage deep inside of me, in my soul, and allowing the phoenix there to come forth and take over my physical body.”

“Oh-kay…Open a cage.”

I sigh. It’s like he’s handed me instructions to build a piece of IKEA furniture that’s missing the first twenty steps and the little tool I need to even get started.

“Try it,” he says.

“Yeah, okay.”

I sit there with my eyes closed, even though it’s completely black inside the cave, and try to think about the cages inside me.

I remember the time when I was sixteen, out on a camping trip with my dad and Uncle Carl. I remember sitting around the campfire, nervous as all hell about the thing I was planning on finally getting off my chest. I can see Dad’s face as I tell him my truth, and how disappointed he looks. I hear him shouting at me, his refusal to see me for who I am. I remember Uncle Carl trying to calm Dad down, and how he later comes and takes me aside and reassures me that I’ve got nothing to be ashamed of, that I’m gonna be just fine.

God rest Uncle Carl’s soul. Those few words gave me the courage to leave my parents behind once I turned eighteen and step into my own world where I could be whoever and whatever the fuck I wanted to be.

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