Chapter 21: Shadow of the Day

Morgan thought being dead was supposed to be pain free, but she felt like she was dying all over again. Everything was still black, and she was waiting for the light at the end of the tunnel since she met an angel and was unofficially told that heaven was a real place where she was going to get to be with her mother. Her throat felt obstructed, though that wasn't really a problem since she didn't need to breathe. Though, she could feel the rise and fall of her chest anyway, which was odd. The light was beginning to show itself. A little speck of white in the darkness. Her stomach was burning, but Morgan figured that it was because she wasn't in heaven yet. She was just on her way, not having yet escaped the pain. She was ready to be in heaven, but the closer she got to the light, the more she realized she was seeing a blurred room through the slits of her eyes. She could hear the beeping of machines next to her and the faint sound of people talking somewhere. She could smell cheap coffee masking the scent of an aggressive amount of cleaner and sterilization.

She wanted to speak, but the second she tried she began sputtering and coughing, trying to fight the tube down her throat. Morgan realized that she was in a hospital. There was a breathing tube down her throat. It was the kind of thing you weren't supposed to try to fight but she couldn't help but try to breathe on her own. She was writhing in pain as she looked around. Her dad was sitting in the chair to her left by the door to her room, doing something on his laptop. Her whole body was radiating pain as she released a loud groan following some rather exasperated choking sounds from her inability to let the tube breathe for her. It was near impossible to calm down. Dean looked up at her, his daughters pained eyes shining from the fluorescent lights above her.

"Hey, hey, hey, calm down. I'm gonna get a doctor, okay Kiddo?" Dean looked to Morgan to see if she was comprehending what he was saying. She was still kind of out of it, but through the tears falling from her eyes from the pain, she winced and nodded, trying really hard not to choke on the tube running down her esophagus. Dean rushed out of the room and wasn't gone long. When he returned there was an arsenal or what Morgan assumed were nurses and maybe a doctor or two that helped her. Someone was pumping her pull of pain medication as someone else checked the bandages on her stomach to make sure she didn't hurt herself amidst her struggling. Someone else was checking her leg, and judging by the weight Morgan assumed it was secured in a cast. The doctors were talking to her but she didn't pay attention. She just let the medicine run it's course and nearly threw up as they pulled the tube out of her throat.

Morgan wanted to speak, scream, say anything, but her throat hurt to much to make any sound. Not even a remote squeak of acceptance that she was alive. Though she wasn't quite sure she wanted to be. After everything, she just did her best to hold herself together. If not for her own sake, then for her father's sake who just sat in the chair next to her as they tended to her broken body. If only someone would tend to her broken soul. But they didn't have any doctors on staff that certified in helping you cope with Dead mommy issued, getting attacked by a monster, being a telekinetic psycho, and murdering your own boyfriend to save yourself from the monster inside of him. It was a lot of different emotions to feel. Having her father there made it better, but it was like putting a little Hello Kitty bandage on a near shattered window. It wasn't going to save her sanity. It was too much. Her brain wouldn't stop exploding with painful memories and a strange nostalgia for the pain they caused. She just wanted everyone to stop touching her, but if she used her ability, she would be exposed. So she let them poke and prod her with needles until they had all the samples and diagnostics they needed to monitor her. She was stabbed by an aggressively serrated and mystical knife after all. Once they were all gone and she was loaded with drugs that she couldn't pronounce, Dean moved his chair to sit closer to his daughter.

"I know it's gonna hurt to talk, so I'm just going to ask yes or no questions, okay?" Morgan nodded in response to her father's determination to figure out what happened.

"Do you remember going to the Halloween Party?" Nod. She hated this method of communication. She just wanted him to hear her. I just want to hear her voice, she heard inside of her head. It was weird, muddled like someone was talking to her with her head underwater, but she assumed it was the medication making her hear things.

"Were you drinking?" He asked. Nod. Oh god. She heard it again. Clearer this time.

"And you went in that house with Jonah?" She nodded. I hate this. She heard it again. She was beginning to recognize the voice.

"Did he get possessed when you went upstairs?" She shook her head. He must have been one already, the voice chimed in again. It was just so familiar.

"Was he already possessed before the party?" She nodded. I'm going to kill whoever caused this… Rip their lungs right out of their meat suit, Morgan heard it and realized that it was her father. Her eyebrows knit in confusion.

"Do you know how long he was a demon?" He asked her and this time, she held still, trying to reach back. If she could hear him, maybe he could hear her. "Morgan?" He tried to get her attention, but instead she grabbed his wrist.

He's been a demon since homecoming night… after the dance. She explained. Dean's eyes went wide.

"Is that you?" Her father questioned, holding her hand as well now.

Yes. She told him. It was weird communicating this way. It was like moving things with her mind but instead of physical objects, it was her thoughts.

"How are you doing that?" Dean asked, looking slightly worried and slightly pained. She was worried that maybe her thoughts were too loud inside of his head, or maybe she was forcing them into his mind a little too invasively.

I think this is what Cas meant when he said my psychic ability was growing. She explained. He nodded this time. Her head was starting to hurt. I kinda don't get how I'm doing it, but it hurts, she told him. He nodded.

"Just one more question. How did he lure you up to that room in the house?" He asked. Morgan needed a minute to think. It was all kind of foggy now that she was sober, in pain, and on hospital strength pain medication.

I did a lot of things last night that I'm not proud of. So when I got a little out of hand, Jonah… the demon anyway… took me to the house to eat food and drink some water. He said i would feel better if I did. Then he took me upstairs and we sat in one of the rooms since it was quieter and then he kissed me and things almost went too far and I pushed him off me with my ability. Basically once I did that it was over. He told me a witch used her magic to make sure that every time I used my ability on him, it would become easier and easier for him to resist. And then… and then… Morgan felt like her nose was running. It was like she had a splitting headache. Her eyes rolled back and her eyelids fluttered as she felt the blood dripping out of her nose, just barely touching her upper lip.

"Morgan!" She heard as her whole body began seizing. She blacked out

Morgan had 2 seizures that day. They doctors said that she had a minor brain bleed, but it had resolved itself. They confirmed it with brain scans and the next day, she was allowed to leave the hospital but had to come back in a week for a check up. Morgan was sitting in her room now, stuck on her bed with her cast. She had a broken tibia, a broken rib, and she now had to recover from a very deep stab wound. The doctors had told her that she was lucky that the knife hadn't gone any further than it had. It could have severed some nerves in her spinal column or an artery, either paralysing her or killing her father than she almost did. Morgan didn't want to do anything. She just sat there, in her bed, not moving. Her dog, Zoey, who was now showing grey fur around her mouth and nose even more than before, would just lay next to her and only get up to be fed and walked whenever Sam came by to take care of it. Dean never touched the dog. He would just come into the room, see if Morgan wanted to eat or if she wanted something to drink, but she wouldn't say a word. She wouldn't even touch anything. She was still covered in bruises, she was still broken, and since everyone at the party saw her, bleeding and her leg bent at an odd angle, she couldn't even be healed by Castiel. They all knew something happened.

The police came and collected Jonah's body, canvassing the whole scene, not finding a trace of anyone that could have stabbed the two of them. Morgan had told the police a heroic story, that someone barged in when she and Jonah were hanging out in the upstairs house. Morgan went looking for a bathroom and some guy in a black hood with a knife found her and pinned her up against the wall. She fought him, he hurt her, Jonah heard her screaming and came running after her. The guy in the hood stabbed her, she pulled the knife out of herself and tried to stab him, but he took the knife and stabbed Jonah to stop him from saving her. Morgan told them that she thinks that the guy probably left because he knew they were gonna die or something. She didn't even have to pull fake tears. Lying to them about how Jonah died made her cry enough for them to believe it.

The school called and said she was excused from classes for a week because of the whole ordeal. All of her friends were blowing up her phone, asking her if she was okay, asking her if she wanted to talk. She didn't. There were even more people texting her that somehow had her number that were all asking her what happened. She was sure everyone knew, but she was also sure that there were a bunch of rumors swirling around right along with the truth. She didn't care. At this point, the more she talked about it, the closer she may get to breaking and somehow telling someone that she killed her own boyfriend, but no, it's okay, he was just a demon from hell inhabiting Jonah's body trying to take her because apparently some other demon higher up on the satanic foot chain wants her.

She just laid there, in her pajamas, remaining absolutely still. The only thing significant about her in this moment was that she was breathing. Her eyes were unfocused, angled towards the ceiling. The only other sensation she had was her dog sleeping next to her. Morgan reached out with her mind. She switched off the light, but she didn't go to sleep. It could be the middle of the day, the middle of the night, and she couldn't tell. She just laid there, in the dark, waiting for her most recent medication to kick in. The moment she felt numb, she then let herself fall asleep, despite her creeping fear of dreaming about him.

Goodbye, Jonah, she thought to herself as she drifted away.