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"Ah, Morgan," came a deep voice from the corner of the room. She looked up and saw her father standing by the fireplace, his back to her. "It's been a while."
"Dad?" Morgan stammered, her heart pounding in her chest. She couldn't help but feel uneasy – something about him seemed off. He turned to face her, and her blood ran cold as she took in the sight before her. This man was not her father.
"Who are you?" she demanded, her voice wavering despite her best efforts to sound confident. "Where's my dad?"
"Your father is… indisposed at the moment," the stranger replied cryptically, his eyes fixed on hers. They were the same piercing blue as her own, but there was something unfamiliar, almost sinister, lurking within them.
"Indisposed?" Morgan echoed, her brow furrowing in confusion. "What have you done with him?"
The man chuckled darkly, his lips twisting into a grotesque smile. As he did so, his teeth began to loosen, falling out one by one with sickening clatters onto the wooden floor. Morgan stared in horror, unable to tear her gaze away from the macabre scene.
"Wh-what's happening to you?" she whispered, her hands trembling as she took an involuntary step back.
"Isn't it fascinating?" the man said, his voice garbled by his toothless mouth. "The things we lose along the way…" He reached out a hand toward her, and Morgan recoiled, her pulse racing with fear and revulsion.
"Stay away from me!" she screamed, her breath coming in short, panicked gasps. "Who are you? What do you want?"
"Answers, Morgan," the man replied, his disfigured smile never wavering. "And I think you have them."
"Answers?" she repeated, her mind racing as she tried to make sense of the situation. "I don't know what you're talking about. I don't even know who you are!"
"Ah, but you will," he promised, taking another step toward her. "You will."
As Morgan's scream tore from her throat, she felt a sudden, horrifying sensation in her mouth. It was as if each of her teeth had come alive, wriggling and twisting like worms burrowing their way out of the earth. She choked on her own cry, her hands flying to her face as her teeth began to break free from their bony moorings.
"Help me," she whimpered, tears streaming down her cheeks as she stumbled backward, away from the stranger. "Please, make it stop."
"Your vulnerability is so...endearing," the man said, his voice a muffled gurgle. He took another step toward her, and the floorboards groaned with his weight.
Morgan could feel her molars sliding from her gums, leaving behind bloody sockets. The pain was unbearable, but the terror was worse. She could hardly bear to think about what was happening inside her mouth, let alone the stranger who stood before her, somehow responsible for this nightmarish torture.
"Who are you?" she managed to gasp, spitting out a few of her own teeth onto the cabin floor. They clattered against the wood, echoing the hideous sound that had filled the room just moments before.
"An old friend. A forgotten memory. The shadow that has haunted your every step since you left these woods," he replied cryptically, his eyes glittering with malice. "And now, I have brought you back here to face the truth."
"Wh-what truth?" Morgan asked, her voice quivering with fear and pain. She tried to focus on the words, anything to distract her from the relentless agony in her mouth.
"Ten years ago," the man continued, his voice growing cold and hard. "You were framed for murder. You spent a decade locked away, but you never stopped searching for answers. You never stopped fighting for justice. And now, the time has come for you to learn the truth about what happened."
"Tell me," Morgan whispered, her heart thundering in her chest as she struggled to hold onto both her sanity and her dignity.
"First, you must suffer," he said, his face twisting into a grotesque grin. "You must pay the price for your relentless pursuit of the truth."
"Please," she sobbed, her breath hitching as another tooth fell from her mouth. "I've already suffered enough. Just tell me who you are. Tell me why you're doing this to me."
"Patience, Morgan," he replied, his voice dripping with false sympathy. "All will be revealed in due time."
As the last of her teeth tumbled from her mouth, Morgan's vision blurred with pain and terror. She sank to her knees on the blood-spattered floor, her hands still pressed against her face as if she could somehow force her teeth back into place.
"Please," she cried out one last time, but the stranger only watched her with cold, emotionless eyes, waiting for her to break.
Morgan's eyes snapped open, her heart pounding as she tore herself from the grip of her nightmare. Her breaths came in shuddering gasps, and she could still feel the phantom sensation of her teeth falling out, one by one, in a sickening cascade. She forced the gruesome image from her mind, but the memory clung to her like a cold sweat.
"Dammit," she muttered under her breath, rubbing her face with both hands in an attempt to chase away the lingering dread. Sleep was a lost cause now. She had to ask herself how disturbed she'd become in order to have a dream like that, one so vivid and real that it almost felt like a memory.
Throwing back the covers, Morgan swung her legs over the edge of the bed and padded across the cold floor to the kitchen. The sun wouldn't be up for hours, but there was no sense in trying to sleep any longer. At least the storm had passed.
As she filled the coffee maker with water, her thoughts drifted back to that horrible dream. The vision of the man... he was supposed to be her father, and yet he clearly wasn't him. She wondered if her subconscious was trying to tell her that she never really knew her father at all.
