My Múirn Beatha Dán Chapter: Breaking the Habit
I don't want to be the one the battles always choose
'Cuz inside I realize that I'm the one confused
I don't know what's worth fighting for or why I have to scream
I don't know why I instigate and say what I don't mean
I don't know how I got this way I know it's not alright
So I'm breaking the habit, I'm breaking the habit tonightBreaking the Habit by Linkin Park
My head was swimming, and my yucky hospital lunch was threatening to come back up. I couldn't understand what was going on here. Standing before me were two of the same person, two Hunters. Somewhere in the back of my head knew that one of them wasn't real, that something was wrong, but my brain wasn't able to sort out what it was. All I could do was stare. What on earth was going on here?
"Morgan, listen to me," said the Hunter closest to me, the one I'd been just talking to before the other one walked in. He pointed at the other Hunter across the room by the door and said, "He's not the real Hunter. I am. He's probably using a glamour to hide his real appearance."
"Oh, really?" snapped the other Hunter. "Who's to say that I'm not the real Hunter? I am the real Hunter, the only Hunter. That's the fake! Morgan, please, you have to---"
"Don't you be telling Morgan what she has to do!" shouted Hunter Number 1, cutting off Hunter Number 2 off in mid-sentence. "She can decide for herself. Obviously that's not the real Hunter. I am."
"No you are not! I am!"
"I beg to differ with you there! It's completely obvious as to who the real Hunter is. I am!"
"Alright, stop it! Both of you!" It took me a second to recognize that voice as my own. "This is ridiculous! What's going on here? Why are there two Hunters?"
"Clearly one of us isn't real," said Hunter Number 1. "As you can see, I'm the real one. He's using a glamour, like I said before, to keep his true appearance hidden from us. It's Cal, trying to get to you, Morgan. Don't let him fool you."
"Morgan, don't listen to him," Hunter Number 2 said, coming closer to my bed. "He's the one using the glamour. He is Cal, and I am Hunter. Come on Morgan, you have to decide for yourself which one of us is real."
"I know, I'll ask you guys questions that only Hunter would know," I said, trying to think of one. "Let's see…"
It was hard trying to separate the things that Cal would know about me and the things that Hunter would know. Hunter knew a lot of stuff about me, since we'd done a complete Vulcan mind meld not too long ago. But Cal also knew quite a bit about me. Maybe I should ask a question that Hunter wouldn't know, I thought, thinking of something that Cal knew about me and Hunter didn't.
"I've got one. In my first circle, everyone had to banish something. What did I choose to banish?" I asked. I didn't think that Hunter knew that one.
"Limitations," they both said, and I frowned. Okay, so Hunter did know that one. Oh, this was so confusing! Hunter Number 2 came closer still to my bed, and finally when he was right next to me, he bent down and pulled the collar of his shirt down, and I saw a scar there, on his neck. Automatically I reached up and traced it, and then I remembered: Hunter Number 1 didn't have one! He was the fake!
I pointed to Hunter Number 1 with an accusatory finger. "You're lying, Cal. This is the real Hunter. You're the one using the glamour."
A sinister smile crept onto the face of the fake Hunter. "Right you are, Morgan. I'm the fake! But are you really so sure that it's Cal behind this glamour?"
"Well who else would it be?" I asked stupidly. "Selene?"
"Not quite." A hand passed in front of the false Hunter's face, and when his hand fell back down to his side, a man stood in front of us, a man I'd never even seen before. And the plot thickens, I thought. This just continued to get stranger and stranger. "Recognize me?"
"Actually, no," I admitted, turning to Hunter, who was glaring at the man.
"Well that's because---"
"Morgan. Morgan!" My eyes snapped open at the sound of my sister's voice. I sat up abruptly in the hospital bed to see my mom, dad, Mary K. and Aunt Eileen standing around me. I stared at them each in turn for at least a minute before my brain finally recognized them as my family.
"It was a dream," I said quietly, mostly to myself. "Everything, it was just a dream." I shook my head and looked around the room at my family again. Four pairs of eyes stared back at me before I finally said, "I was having this really weird dream."
"You were whining," Mary K. said, flipping her shiny hair over her shoulder. "That's why I woke you up. It was really weird. You were whining and scowling in your sleep, like you were confused and then mad or something. It was kind of creepy, actually."
"Sorry," I said sheepishly, feeling stupid and childish. That dream had been so vivid though, like it was really happening. I think my brain was actually convinced that it was happening, but it was only a dream. That man in it though, the man pretending to be Hunter, he seemed oddly familiar, though I was fairly certain that I'd never seen him before in my life. I had to talk to Hunter about this, but for now I tried to convince my family that I was fine.
A/N: I know that it's really short, but I figured that I should update relatively soon, considering that I left you all hanging with the last chapter. I promise to make the next chapter longer than this one. Until then, please review and make me a happy person, just to let me know if you have any ideas for the next chapter or if you have any suggestions on how to make this story even better!