The Thirteenth Card
Characters
Create your own story with WhatIf!
Create your own story with WhatIf!
Characters in this story
- Morgan Thigpen — A gentle-looking storm of intuition, loyalty, and quiet creative power.
Story transcript
Morgan: I didn't see this street five minutes ago.
Fortune Teller: You weren't looking for it then.
Morgan: I'm following a card.
Fortune Teller: No. The card is following you.
Morgan: Are these cards moving?
Fortune Teller: Only when they remember someone.
Morgan: You laid out three.
Fortune Teller: The Child Moon. The Lantern. The Star Door.
Morgan: Past, present, future?
Fortune Teller: Past, present, and the future you might survive becoming.
Morgan: That's me.
Fortune Teller: A small you.
Morgan: I remember hiding here. I don't remember feeling this loud.
Fortune Teller: You called it imagination because other people called it too much.
Morgan: Was I always this afraid?
Fortune Teller: No. You were always paying attention. Fear came later.
Morgan: Why are there pieces of everyone inside me?
Fortune Teller: Because you mistake empathy for an assignment.
Morgan: I can feel when people are hurting.
Fortune Teller: Then notice. Don't volunteer to become the wound.
Morgan: Is this what awakening feels like?
Fortune Teller: At first, it feels like having every window open during a storm.
Future Morgan: You took your time.
Morgan: You're me.
Future Morgan: One version.
Morgan: Do I actually get old?
Future Morgan: Rude. Yes.
Future Morgan: You finally stopped asking your life to look ordinary.
Morgan: What did you choose?
Future Morgan: Art. Honest friends. Leaving when love started sounding like a threat.
Morgan: Did you stop being afraid?
Future Morgan: No. I stopped letting fear make every decision.
Morgan: Who stayed?
Future Morgan: The people who didn't need me to disappear to feel safe.
Morgan: Are those things real?
Future Morgan: Real enough to remember you.
Morgan: The moths are looking at me.
Future Morgan: They carry the feelings you keep turning into jokes.
Morgan: And the antlered ones?
Future Morgan: They guard the feelings you keep calling inconvenient.
Morgan: So my inner world has wildlife.
Future Morgan: It has always had wildlife. You just kept feeding it after midnight.
Morgan: Is that... me?
Fortune Teller: A possible last page.
Morgan: I'm dying.
Fortune Teller: Everyone in this shop is dying. You're simply seeing it without the usual distractions.
Morgan: Why is she smiling?
Fortune Teller: Because she lived long enough to stop treating an ending like evidence against the whole story.
Morgan: I don't want to see this.
Fortune Teller: You don't have to want a truth to learn from it.
Morgan: Why did you bring me here? How did I even get in?
Fortune Teller: You walked through the rain carrying every dream you called nonsense.
Morgan: I don't remember opening a door.
Fortune Teller: You didn't. The card did.
Morgan: Why me?
Fortune Teller: Because your gift is waking up, and you keep using it only to apologize.
Morgan: Why do I keep dreaming about books underwater?
Fortune Teller: Because your memories are still readable, even when you bury them.
Morgan: The lantern room?
Fortune Teller: The child you were asking to be found.
Morgan: And the red door?
Fortune Teller: A path you haven't chosen yet.
Morgan: So dreams aren't predictions?
Fortune Teller: Some are maps. Some are locked rooms. Some are just your brain being dramatic.
Morgan: Make it stop!
Fortune Teller: Look at it.
Morgan: The faces don't have faces.
Fortune Teller: Because they are every voice you obeyed while abandoning your own.
Morgan: The ink is in my lungs.
Fortune Teller: Then stop running long enough to ask what it is protecting.
Morgan: My anger.
Fortune Teller: Good. Anger can be a door too.
Morgan: The roots are wings.
Fortune Teller: Only because you finally stopped calling them chains.
Morgan: It's blank.
Fortune Teller: So are most futures before you arrive.
Morgan: What do I write?
Fortune Teller: Something you can keep when the magic wears off.
Morgan: I choose to stay awake.
Fortune Teller: Good. Now leave before the shop gives you homework.
Morgan: Wait, do I owe you for the reading?
Fortune Teller: Tea.