The boy woke up in a forest, feeling foggy and disoriented. He didn’t know where he was, didn’t know what he was doing, didn’t even know who he was. He looked around him, trying to get some sense of… well, anything, but there was nothing around but the woods. So he decided to pick a direction and start walking. If he was lucky, he figured he would find something that would give him clues as to what had happened to him. He wasn’t lucky, not in that way.
He walked for what seemed to him like hours (although it wasn’t much longer than 45 minutes) before he encountered anything of note. He saw someone in a tree. Not a person, but not not a person. It was obvious that they weren’t human. Purple skin, purple hair, and even their irises were purple. They sat in a tree, unmoving.
“Hey!” The boy yelled. “What are you doing here?”
They glanced down at the boy, then jumped down from the tree and approached quickly. They didn’t seem to be running; it was as if their walking was sped up.
“What are you doing here?” The boy repeated.
The purple humanoid shrugged. “Resting. Don’t usually get interrupted.” They spoke quickly and softly. “Why are you?”
“Why am I…?” The boy echoed. “Oh, why am I here? Uh, I have no idea.”
“Lost?”
The boy hesitated. “I don’t know. I guess I am. I don’t remember anything.”
The purple person frowned. “Sounds tough.”
“Yeah, I don’t recommend it,” the boy said with a laugh.
“Hungry?” The purple person asked. “Know which berries hurt humans.”
The boy’s stomach growled. He hadn’t realized he was hungry until now. “Yeah.”
The purple person pointed out a bush. “Like those. Careful about thorns, but not dangerous. Just pointy. Seen people eat them before.”
The boy plucked a berry from the bush and examined it. “These are blackberries, aren’t they?”
“Don’t know what kind. Tastes good though.”
The boy bit into the berry. Yeah, that was a blackberry alright. The boy tried to think how he knew what it was, but nothing came to mind. He just knew, without any memory of having them. He grabbed more and ate them.
“You got a name, dude?” the boy asked, simultaneously racking his brain trying to remember his own name.
The purple person said something that the boy didn’t quite catch.
“Huh? Horus? Like the Egyptian god of… uhh, something?”
“Different words. More sounds than your word,” the purple person said, then repeated themselves. “Ho-riss.”
“Horys?”
“Close enough. Maybe humans can’t hear the middle part.”
“Uh, okay?”
“And your name?”
“Uh, call me… Max!” the boy blurted out. Yeah, that name felt right.
“Max. Good to meet.”
“Uh, if you don’t mind my asking… What are you?”
Horys shrugged. “Might not have a word. Lived from beginning, even before ground. Didn’t really pay attention much.”
Max thought about it for a second. “So you’re like… a god of time?”
Horys shrugged again. “Don’t know. Sort of?”
“Cool,” Max said, grinning. This was very cool.