In Search of Identity and Purpose

The silence in the Tavish house was a solid, oppressive thing. It settled on Henry’s shoulders like a shroud, heavier than the grief that had hollowed him out over the last three weeks.

Sarah and Robert Tavish had been the anchors of his world—warm, stable, and utterly devoted. They had adopted him as a baby, saving him, as Sarah always joked, from certain doom in a world of boring beige. Their tragic, sudden exit via a rain-slicked highway had not just killed them; it had dissolved the reality Henry had known.

He was seventeen, just three months shy of his eighteenth birthday, legally adrift, and profoundly alone.

He stood in the garage, sorting through boxes marked "Childhood Memorabilia," the air thick with the smell of dust and motor oil. He picked up a chipped ceramic bird Robert had made in pottery class, a silly, lopsided thing. The memory of Robert’s booming laugh as he presented it to Sarah hit Henry with savage force. The object slipped from his wet fingers and smashed onto the concrete floor.

Henry didn’t cry. He felt something far worse than tears: a blinding, incandescent rage coupled with a desperate, crushing sorrow. He sank to his knees, clenching his fists until his knuckles turned white.

I need them back. The thought was a raw scream deep within his chest.

The instant the wish formed, the temperature in the garage plummeted. A low, vibrating hum filled the air, not the sound of electricity, but something deeper, like a celestial tuning fork. A brilliant, sapphire light erupted from Henry’s hands, washing over the shattered remnants of the ceramic bird.

Henry stared, frozen, as the fragments lifted an inch off the ground, rotating slowly. They didn't just reassemble; they flowed, the light welding the pieces together until they formed a whole, seamless bird, slightly translucent now, humming faintly.

The light vanished. Henry snatched up the ceramic object. It was cool beneath his fingers, perfectly repaired, and heavier than before.

He had known he was adopted, but he had always assumed the difference was purely genealogical. This… this was something else. This was magic, raw and terrifying, sprung from the deepest well of his teenage despair.

The fear was immediate and paralyzing. He spent the next two weeks navigating probate and paperwork, moving through the motions of selling the house. The money left to him was substantial, but useless without purpose. He bought an old, reliable Ford Econoline van, paid cash, and stocked it with essentials. He didn't know where he was going, but he knew he couldn’t stay where the walls whispered his parents' names.

His first stop was the small, unmarked box the lawyers had handed him—contents related to his original adoption. Inside, among the certified copies and closed files, was a faded blanket, and a single, cryptic note written in elegant cursive on rice paper: He is pure light. Guard him well.

The note settled one thing: the Tavishes had been protecting him from something incomprehensible. Now, the burden of comprehension was his alone.

The road became Henry’s classroom. He drove west, putting distance between himself and the life that had been severed. Every night, camped near a silent forest or on a windy desert plain, he practiced.

His powers were strange. They didn't feel like a tool; they felt like a resonance. When he focused, he could mend broken things, purify tainted water, or even subtly influence the emotional state of a passing creature—calming a frantic coyote or soothing a weeping child in a rest stop.

He needed a lexicon for what he was.

His first major foray into identity was science fiction. The powers of light manipulation and restructuring matter suggested an advanced biology. He spent a week in Roswell, New Mexico, wearing dark sunglasses and reading every conspiracy theory available.

He tried to communicate in clicks and whistles, assuming his "home world" might be non-verbal. Nothing. He tried to sense cosmic radiation or the pull of distant stars. He felt nothing but the ordinary chill of the desert night.

His powers felt inherent, but they were intrinsically tied to feeling—empathy, despair, necessity. They were too messy for advanced alien technology. They lacked the cold, hard logic of physics. He was too grounded, too flawed, too human in appearance. He dismissed the Alien theory, deciding he lacked the necessary intergalactic backstory.

He needed magic, codified and controlled. He found a dusty occult bookstore in Santa Fe, buying volumes on dark arts, summoning, and elemental manipulation.

He attempted a simple ritual in the van: chalk circle, candles, Latin incantations copied meticulously from a grimoire.

When he tried to summon a protective barrier, nothing happened. He tried to draw energy from the earth—a warlock’s staple—and felt only the weight of the soil beneath his tires.

His powers were instantaneous, requiring no verbal key or arcane focus. They flowed from his core, bypassing the necessary study and apprenticeship required of a warlock. Furthermore, his light wasn't the volatile, unpredictable force of chaos magic; it was clean, precise, and almost medically sterile. He found himself drawn overwhelmingly to acts of creation and healing, not dominance. He was no sorcerer.

The third possibility, fueled by desperation and a late-night marathon of mythological documentaries, was the most grandiose: he was a demigod, or perhaps even a minor deity, abandoned on Earth.

He drove to the dramatic peaks of the Colorado Rockies, finding a dizzying precipice overlooking a chasm. If he were a son of Olympus, he should be able to command the elements.

He focused all his energy on the clouds gathering in the distance. He demanded thunder. He pleaded for lightning to strike the peak opposite him.

Instead, his power manifested as a soft, comforting warmth. It didn’t blast the granite; it gently cleared a patch of fog, revealing a stunning ridge for a moment, then faded. He found he could steady the trembling of a mountain goat caught on a narrow ledge, but he couldn't shape the earth.

He was neither a God of Dominion nor a Master of War. The power he wielded was too subtle for the pantheon. It lacked ego.

Henry sat on the edge of the world, feeling the familiar, aching sense of being homeless. He wasn't Alien, Warlock, or god. He was a category of one.

Henry pulled the van off the highway onto a quiet stretch of farmland outside Denver. He felt defeated, leaning his head back against the worn upholstery.

His life had been defined by profound care—the love of the Tavishes. His powers were defined by profound mending.

He re-read Sarah’s delicate note: He is pure light.

The words clicked into place, forming a shape that was impossible yet undeniably right—a concept so deeply spiritual it was immune to scientific proof or mythological precedent.

If he was not of the physical world (Alien), and not bound by the rules of men (Warlock), and not in command of the physical cosmos (God), perhaps he was something existing only to serve the greater, unseen design.

An Angel.

The idea filled him with a quiet, undeniable certainty that none of the other theories had provided. Angels were divine messengers, healers, and sometimes, guardians. They were often depicted as light, dressed in human form, carrying no need for ritual or thunderous power. Their purpose was selfless intervention.

It explained the purity of the power, the focus on healing over destruction, and the strange, weary exhaustion he felt after using his abilities—as if he was tapping into a resource not meant for regular human use.

He had no proof. No dusty Bible text confirming his identity, no hidden feather wing sprouting from his shoulder. But he no longer needed proof. He needed purpose.

If he was meant to be a guardian, a messenger of light, he would start acting like one.

He decided that the search for his origin would now be conducted through service. He would use his powers to find the limits and nature of his being, one small miracle at a time. The world was full of broken things.

His first act of service was minor, yet deeply satisfying. He drove into a small town and stopped at a roadside diner. He watched a young mother across the aisle struggling to entertain two toddlers while staring miserably at her final bill. She was juggling three jobs and clearly running on fumes.

Henry ordered a coffee, then subtly focused his energy. Not on the woman, but on the slip of paper the waitress left. He didn't turn paper into gold; he nudged reality. He focused the brilliant, sapphire energy—his inner light—and pushed it into the ink. When the woman finally picked up the bill, the total due was exactly zero. A phantom "Paid in Full" was inscribed beneath the total.

The woman gasped, believing it a mistake by the staff. She hurried to the counter, confirmed the payment, and returned to her children, tears of relief welling in her eyes.

Henry watched her, feeling the familiar drain of energy, but also a warmth he hadn’t felt since before the car crash. It was a warmth of profound usefulness.

Henry continued his journey, the van moving like a silent, benevolent shadow across the landscape. He wasn't looking for a celestial address; he was looking for opportunities.

In Nevada, he pulled over when he saw a mangled dog, a collie, dragging itself toward a culvert, its hind leg clearly shattered by a passing truck. The creature was whimpering, its eyes dull with shock.

Henry approached slowly, kneeling in the dirt. He placed his hands gently on the animal’s leg, focusing the light inward. This was a difficult task—realigning bone and sinew demanded precision. The energy flared, but it remained contained and focused. The collie let out a sharp cry, then went limp as the bone ground back into place. When Henry drew his hands away, the dog lifted its head, looked at him with immense, intelligent eyes, and then, slowly, stood up. It tested the leg, then bolted right into the van. Henry had made a new friend.