"Yet you still run. What does that tell you about yourself?"

She passes by the knife rack and picks two of them up.

"That I'm not willing to be stabbed by a psychopath like you!"

She aims with one of the knives, tracking where Thea runs. "A psychopath? Well, I guess that's true," she says, somewhat to herself, then continues a bit more loudly, "Nothing to say about your problems though, just blaming it on others!" And throw.

Thea ducks under the table, evading the knife. "Knives are not my problem! My friends are not my problem!"

She gets up and runs in the direction of the hallway.

The copy glares when Thea dodges the knife, and takes aim again. When she runs to the door of the hallway, the copy launches the knife and her and then follows her out.

Thea gets clipped on the arm by the knife, but continues, "My family is not my problem. My fucking society is not my stupid problem! You are just my imagination and should summarily fuck right off!"

Cynthia hits the intersection just outside Thea's house just as Thea finishes those words. Seconds late?! Always the bride's maid and never the bride... Wait, I'm sure that didn't make sense. I'd rather this didn't happen to me.

"Hey! Get outside, whoever just said that, MANDATORY! The bride has arrived!" Okay seriously. Still didn't make sense. Why can't i sound sensible while I'm not focused on talking?

Inside, the darkness of the unlit house seems to pull itself closer to the 'imagination Thea', a distorted cackling making it's way past "it"s lips...

Theo's just about to open the door when she hears the shout, and so she continues and starts to run out of the house. Looking behind her, wary for more knives, she sees the darkness bunch together, and shouts, "Not my fault! Not my fault!"

"Yeah yeah, not important! Back behind me, watch out for wild shots, and ignore my scary-thing since she's actually really nice and all!"

The cackling from inside quickly reaches a crescendo, the darkness having obscured the 'imagination' billows outward, sweeping over the two, blocking their sight for a few moments...

... And when the darkness clears, there's a creature left behind. It's very obviously not the copy that was there before, yet also at the same time, it's very obviously related to it.

It's a misproportioned copy of Thea, as though a child attempted to draw a picture of her. It has an extra set of arms, and has a weird blurring around the limbs – if you don't look too closely, they're very obviously moving slowly, but as soon as you try to determine precisely where they are and what they're doing, it gets somewhat... fuzzy.

The monster makes a loud hissing noise and throws a knife in the direction of the girls. It's weird – the knife just suddenly appeared, somewhere around the blurring.

Thea runs behind the other girl, then looks behind her and sees the monster. Eep! Eeeeep! That is not okay and still might be a hallucination and so might this other person! She is not okay.

Cynthia barely needs to move to stay out of the way, it wasn't aimed at her.

When Thea stands behind her, she reaches back and touches her shoulder, attempting some sort of reassurance. "Recommend actually getting behind a dumpster. Stay just in-sight, but atleast a bit away from me, right?" Cynthia then turns toward the monster. "Well, still always a Shadow all the end of it, right? Here's a proper target! Libby, time to shine!"

Her sentence is punctuated by her left hand raising, then clenching into a fist, scattering blue sparks around. The space in front of Cynthia begins to shift...

Just infront of Cynthia phases in a different creature as if someone slid a transparency bar from 0 to 100 over a few seconds. Blue sparkles cascade outward during the transition.

Standing there, a head taller than Cynthia (who is likely 3-4 inches under 6') is a human-shape created out of hair weaved like a rope, its limbs resembling more the muscular system than actual body parts. The head seems to have a short set of its own hair separate from its body, kept looking like Cynthia's. The 'face' is merely a blank curve, that ends into a knot where the neck is on the front. It stands with its limbs apart, but standing straight vertical.

Once formed, 'Libby' releases a "SKREEEEE" noise towards the 'Shadow Thea', the wind picking up pace between the monsters to slam into the Shadow. A first attack, to get the enemy's attention.

"Okay," she says agreeably, because who can you trust if not the friendly hallucination who's going to get rid of the monster for you?

And off she runs, to go hide behind a dumpster. Then cry. Lots of crying will occur. She'll just have a little breakdown, where nobody can hear her, because she is really not a fan of this whole thing, thank you very much.

The Shadow gets buffeted back but manages to stay on its feet, limbs still producing the weird blurring effect. Focusing on the origin of the attack, it throws a knife in that direction instead.

Excellent. Focus on the target. Both of us on that remark.

Already prepared for that, Cynthia latches onto one of Libby's arms, Libby jumping to the side further away from regular Thea. Cynthia is let off, and Libby moves back into the center of the road with long strides that leave the hair extending to get more distance. Another skree sends another buffeting of wind at the Shadow.

The girl is safely out of the way, and I'm not directly in range, focus on Lib! Then I can get the good attacks flying.

In response, the monster hisses again and throws another knife. It would seem it only has one trick.

If it's only one trick, this'll just be disappointing... Or, ya know, for the best?

Libby remains mobile enough to dodge a second off-balance knife, especially with full focus from Cynthia. "Alright, finish it Lib, GARULA!" Blue sparks cascade from a second hand-clenching from Cynthia. Libby conjures a set of slicing blades out of wind (showing up a greenish color), and launches them from a frontal angle all at the monster. Libby follows up with a charge forward, slamming an expanded arm into the pelted top, slamming the beast to the ground. A few moments are spent beating on the downed foe before it breaks apart into clouds of black mist that dissipate.

"Ta-da! Dealt with. Alright... Girl is, over there." Cynthia walks over. "It's dead. Probably. Not an issue anymore though. Death is kinda wobbly when--..." Not good consoling. Need a second myself i guess.

Sorry, Thea is busy sobbing quietly here. Too busy to listen to a hallucination.

Time passes. Cynthia spends the time leaning against the side of the alley, where Thea can see her but Thea is somewhat obscured. Occasionally she hums, stretches, makes little noises, but doesn't really interact for awhile. After this while, she pulls out a broken wind-up pocketwatch and stares into it's gears (the faceplate is gone).

"Uh, time's going to be up soon. Things will go back to normal for tonight. I know it's messed up, but it'll stop for now, alright? I'll still be here afterward. If you want me to."

Thea thought the hallucination had disappeared. When she realizes that actually, it's still there, she wipes her eyes and gets up.

"What do you mean?" she asks. Maybe her subconscious has a nice, handy schedule for when she's going to start imagining things. It's better than the alternative, at least.

She remains not looking towards Thea, in some attempt to not bother her. "Midnight hour lasts an hour, and it's almost over. It'll go back to 'normal'."

"What was that thing?"

"Do you want the real answer or the one that'll help you sleep tonight? I mean, i can get into detail anytime. As long as I'm not at school, or I could at school if you attend."

Thea raises an eyebrow. "... The 'real' answer, how about? It was a monster; I'm not gonna be sleeping tonight anyway."