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Senior year was underway. Despite everything that happened over the summer, I thought it was behind me. Like always, I was wrong. For everything that happened, for everything that changed me, there was one encounter that took on a life of its own.

Literally.

When I met Scribe, the creature made of paper, he told me he had plans to study me. He told me he wanted to keep me and learn all that he could about my new species. Then, as if to contradict himself, he let me go. I made the mistake of believing he wasn't a creature of his word. He kept me, just not all of me.

There were spells meant for cloning and duplication. I had experience with one such spell, but the one that Scribe used left me completely unaware of my being replicated. He let me go, but he kept my copy in captivity. While I was at school, with Wes, hanging out with Velmer and joining The Ring, my copy was stuck in the endless hallway. But he didn't stay that way.

It was a Tuesday night. I had just gone through the process of becoming a member of The Ring earlier that afternoon. To be honest, it wasn't much of a ceremony. Nerf sent a few texts, and I met some people after school. Still, it was a long day. I was getting ready for bed when something caught me off guard. There was something in my closet. It made such a sudden sound I felt the need to pick up something to defend myself.

"Come out," I said, but who or whatever it was didn't listen.

It could have been the ghost that haunted my game console. It could have been the leprechaun back for round two. It could have been Santa looking to pick another fight. With the tiny ray gun I got from Velmer, I approached the closet door and swung it open. Immediately I dropped the gun. I wasn't expecting what I found.

I was lying unconscious on the floor. It wasn't me, though. It was a copy of me.

"What the fuck!" my double exclaimed as he looked up at me.

He jumped up, and I jumped back. We both kept our distance from one another. Why did stuff like that always have to happen when I was in my underwear?

"What are you?" I asked, with wide open eyes.

"What am I? What are you?" He argued, as if I insulted him by implying he shouldn't have been real.

Our fur was the same. Our eyes were the same. Even our voices mirrored one another. But his clothes were different. They were like a negative of my usual look. There were plenty of creatures in the world with the power to shapeshift, but I could tell my double wasn't one of them. There was something about him that seemed too familiar to be faked.

"What time is it," he asked as I backed up enough for him to step out of the closet.

"It's 9:45 I think," I said hesitantly.

Before either of us could say anything else, there was a knock at the door that startled us both.

"Don't forget to take out the trash in the morning," Dad said.

It took some trust, but we were able to lower our guards enough to talk. It was like speaking to a living mirror, but it wasn't my first time dealing with two of me.

"Maybe we can use the spell mom gave us to put ourselves back together," my double suggested.

"I don't have it anymore," I said.

"What did you do with it?" he asked.

"I tossed it," I admitted.

He face palmed himself. That's what I did when something ridiculous annoyed me.

"You tossed it?" He said.

"I don't use magic anymore."

"Are you insane," he complained.

"I wasn't expecting another of me to show up to tonight. Where did you even come from," I argued.

"Scribe. He's had me trapped for a little over a year now," Pitch 2 admitted.

"A year?" I exclaimed.

"How long has it been?" He asked.

"A few months, but how did you escape?" I asked.

"He let me read books, but he didn't keep track of what kind," he explained.

"And you think he's just going to let you go?" I argued.

"I'm not going back." He said.

We weren't getting anywhere helpful. He took a seat at my desk, and I took a seat on the edge of the bed. We tried to calm down. It wasn't like the movies. Neither of us was trying to kill the other. There was no hostility in the room, but there was sespeechless uneas. It was all unexpected, to say the least.

"We have to get another copy of mom's spell," I said.

"No, If it's not what made you, then it probably won't work anyway" he explained, implying that I was the copy.

"You're the copy," I said

"And how do you know that? You don't even use magic anymore," he retorted.

"I'm smart enough to know I'm the real me," I said.

"The real me wouldn't give up magic," he debated.

"He... I would."

Arguing wasn't going to get us anywhere, but it was so easy to erupt.

"Let's not fight. This doesn't have to be a fight. If we're going to be mad at anyone, we should be mad at Scribe," he suggested, and I agreed.

"Right," I said.

We sat in silence, unsure of how to move forward. I was still in my underwear, and it was getting late, though. It felt rude, but I needed to sleep.

"I have school in the morning," I said.

"I haven't slept in a bed in forever," he said.

"Oh," I said.

I was going to suggest he use my old sleeping bag or something.

"I guess we could share it," I suggested against my better judgment.

"You're not going to try to kill me in my sleep, are you?" He asked before I could.

We were both able to laugh at the bad joke. The best part about having a doppelganger was having someone else who understood my sense of humor.

He got out of his clothes, and part of me felt awkward watching another me strip. While I waited in bed, I saw the first visible difference between us. He had scars, and a lot of them. With our natural fur, it was hard to see things like that, so to notice so many meant his were significant.

"How did those happen?" I asked as he took off his pants.

He wasn't sure what I meant at first, so I pointed to his chest. He looked away before answering. I couldn't tell if he was embarrassed or upset by my noticing the marks, but I could tell he felt something.

"Scribe wanted to know how I'd deal with different kinds of danger. He called them tests," he said.

I tried not to stare, but he had my body and my face.

It was hard turning out the lights then sharing a bed. There was something familiar about having him there beside me, but frightening as well. We slept with our backs to one another, but I had the constant urge to turn over and make sure he was asleep. If I was still awake, he must have been. Had the bed been bigger, it might have been more comfortable, but we had to be close to keep from falling off the edges.

When I woke up the next morning, my double was gone. Part of me wanted to believe it was all a dream, but as I sat up to check my phone, I quickly realized just how real everything was. My phone was missing from my bedside table. As I looked around, my bedroom door opened. I was expecting dad to walk in, but it was him. It was my double, but he looked different. His fur was black, night sky black. He had my phone.

"What are you doing," I asked as I got out of bed.

I held my hand out for him to return my phone, but he ignored me. He stepped around me and picked up my backpack.

"Wes texted," he said.

"I'm gonna need my phone back," I said.

He finally stopped moving and looked up to acknowledge me.

"What are you doing, what's up with the black fur?" I asked.

"Makes it harder to see the scars," he said before I took back my phone to check whatever he said to Wes or anyone else.

"You're not going anywhere, so why does it matter?"

"I'm going to school," he said.

"No, you're not," I argued.

I might have laughed at the horrible idea if it weren't so obvious he was serious.

"I've been held prisoner for a year by the world's worst librarian. I'm going to school," he said as he snatched back my phone and slid it in his pocket.

"There can't be two of us out there," I argued.

"Then take the day off, I'm already dressed."

"No," I exclaimed.

I couldn't convince him to stay home. My double was hell-bent on leaving the house. There was a tension growing between us every time we clashed, so for the sake of keeping cool heads, I let him walk with me to school. We could have taken the bus, but more people would have seen us. I honestly thought we wanted the same things. I thought we would look for a way to merge, but when we got to school, Pitch 2 decided to ditch me. He vanished before we made it to home room.

"So, there are two of you again?" Wes asked.

We were sitting in Spanish class while our teacher was out of the room printing something in the library. We should have been going over phrases, but I couldn't think straight while my double was missing.

"It's not my fault this time," I said.

"But there are two of you," Wes reiterated.

"He wouldn't stay home," I explained.

"But there are two of you," Wes repeated a third time.

"Yes, there are two of me," I answered.

It's a good thing we sat in the back of the room. I didn't want anyone finding out about my other half.

"Where's he now?" Wes asked.

"I don't know, I lost him when we made it to school," I said.

"How do I know which one you are?"

"He's black," I said.

"He's black?"

"He made his fur black," I explained.

"So that would make him 'Pitch Black' and you 'Pitch White,'" Wes joked.

"Wes."

"What? If there are two of you, then we need a way to differentiate," he added.

Our teacher Ms.Granger finally came back. Under her arm were copies of our assignment for the day. Even as she passed out the papers, Wes and I didn't waver from our conversation.

"He won't be around for very long. As soon as we find a way to merge, he'll be gone," I said in a whisper.

"But when do I get to meet him? It's not every day your boyfriend has a doppelganger," Wes questioned.

As class finally got underway, Wes and I tabled our conversation. It was hard to concentrate. I couldn't understand why the other me wanted to come to school so badly only to up and disappear. It was imperative that I find him.

I joined The Ring, a club with only two rules that I knew of. Don't talk about it with humans, and don't use magic. My double still used magic. If he managed to get away from Scribe, he must have been good. He was likely a better magician than I ever was. Needless to say, my membership was in danger.

After Spanish class was over, I skipped most of my other classes so I could look for my copy. I came up short at every turn. I didn't think it would be so difficult finding someone who thought the same way as me, but maybe he didn't. A year in captivity, and worse, a year of torture had to be capable of changing a person. Still, if he was anything like me, I should have found him, and eventually, I did. Though, it's more accurate to say he stopped hiding.

I found him outside the cafeteria during lunch. He was eating. Lucky for me, no one usually ate outside because of Montana's unpredictable weather.

"Where have you been?" I asked as I stepped outside onto the grass.

"I've been thinking," he said before taking a seat with his back against a tree.

He seemed at peace as if I weren't standing over him. The way the air flowed through him, it was majestic in the most off putting way.

"I don't think I want to undo it," he said.

He didn't need to specify what he was referring to, we both knew.

"What!?" I exclaimed.

"I can't merge with you, too much has changed," he said.

"Nothing has changed," I argued.

"For you, maybe. But for me, I'm a different person," he continued.

"There can't be two of us."

"Would you rather I kill you and take your life instead," he said without the slightest hint of hesitation.

"That's not funny," I said.

"I wasn't joking."

He looked up at the clouds, and I looked down at him. I cast a shadow over his body, but I felt more in the shade. Had a version of me changed so dramatically?

"I looked around. I wrote a spell that let me be invisible today," he said.

"We can be invisible without magic."

"Not without being naked, but my point is, I got to see Wes, Velmer, BJ, and even you," my double confessed.

"And?" I asked as if I didn't find the admission creepy.

"I can't go back to what you are," he said.

"How do you expect all of this to work?"

"When I was planning my escape, I didn't expect to come back to the same life I lost, but seeing it today, I know I can't go back. I'll take a new name and start fresh," he explained.

"You have my face!" I exclaimed.

"I changed my fur, I'll change my clothes, people will never know," he argued without ever becoming flustered.

"What about Mom and Dad, what do you think they'll say when they realize there are two of us?"

"There's no way to undo this without help from Scribe, so there's no use in fighting me," he said as he finally turned his eyes to mine.

I looked away.

"This is crazy; how can you just throw your life away?" I guilted him.

"You're worried I'll ruin things for you, but you keep forgetting we're the same. We were the same. I don't want to hurt you. I just can't be you."

He wasn't wrong. Having two of myself was asking for trouble, especially when I was trying to find something to turn my life around. It was too risky. But how did he see through me so effortlessly?

"Why did you need to come to school if you were just going to do this?" I asked.

"So I could see everyone before I reintroduce myself," he explained with a grin.

It's the strangest thing seeing your own smile.

"As what?" I asked.

"Call me 'Danger,' 'Danger Rabbit,'" he said with a straight face before returning his gaze to the sky.

"You're insane."

"You get to be Pitch, I get to be something else," he said.

"It won't work," I argued.