"You decided." She inhales a deep breath. "Things that show up during the Midnight Hour, besides people like us, generally we call Shadows. That one was a more major one. It was you, or atleast some part of you. Shows up, goes mad, and if we're not quick enough, a body shows up in the river. Or on a telephone pole. Depends."

"Uh-huh. Right. Cool," she says, then mutters to herself: "I'm hallucinating a fantasy horror film. This is just brilliant."

Giggles. "Not hallucinating though. I know I'm creepy, that's how everybody remembers me in school, but this is real. I'm Cynthia, by the way."

"Of course I'm not hallucinating. It makes so much more sense that this is all real, and there was just a creepy mind-reading copy of me that tried to kill me," she says, cheerily. "I'm Thea, by the way."

"Feel free to think that for awhile. But it'll happen again tomorrow. And tomorrow. So on. If you aren't going to sleep through it, can you atleast tell me ahead of time?"

"It repeating that frequently doesn't make me think it's less likely to be a hallucination. ... Wait, I can just sleep through it?"

"For awhile. An extra hour of sleep is nice... I mean, you're still here but nothing will really bother you if you stay asleep."

"What do you mean 'for a while'? ... Do the creepy terrors get worse if I sleep through them more often?"

"No, no. Full moons make them do weird stuff. Like tonight. It was too quiet and you showed up. I'm usually too paranoid on full moons to sleep."

"Yeah, I'm still not seeing any reason to ever be awake at midnight again, whether this is a hallucination or not. It's gonna be inconvenient, but so what."

"So, for the rest of your life, you'll be in bed by eleven, asleep before twelve. No matter if a telemarketer or nearby noise wakes you up at 11:59PM, you can be asleep? Nighttime flights or drives, romantic intents, sudden emergencies? Never awake, always sleeping. Never wondering what happens in this in between, never wondering if the next night might have something happen again? That nothing might come for you?"

As if on cue, Libby the hair-pile pokes her head from around the side of the alleyway, staring with a flat face towards Thea.

"Sounds better than being attacked by monsters for an hour, each day, every day, for the rest of my life."

Meanwhile, Thea's thinking about some actual, important things, rather than bickering with the probably-imaginary character. She's not sure whether she wants to convince herself that it is or isn't a hallucination. Pros of being a hallucination: The world isn't literally out to get her. Cons of being a hallucination: She's crazy.

"Attacked for an hour? Nah. There's ways to avoid them and spend the hour undisturbed. Issue is the full moons. I wouldn't put it past them to, I dunno, break open your window to get to you?"

She sighs. "Probably less than a minute left. Lib, go on back. I like not getting headaches." Libby fades out into non-existence. "Can we talk tomorrow? After you have a day to relax."

Okay, well, things fading into non-existence is weird if this isn't a hallucination, so she's a little surprised at that, but she responds, "Yeah, I guess, if you get here before midnight."

"I said anytime. I can show up whenever, get called on my cell, so on. Can't bring Libby along or anything, but that's not an issue. Hang on a second."

She looks back down at her pocketwatch, before pocketing it. A few seconds pass...

And within another blink of an eye, everything turns back to normal. The moon and clouds return to white, streetlamps flick on along with any cellphones, and the coffins are replaced with normal people going about their night. The familiar sounds of cars and city resume as if never interrupted. The Midnight Hour ends, and everything turns back to normal.

Cynthia is still standing there.

Well, it means that if she's hallucinating, it's not explicitly linked to the time (or what she thinks the time is).

... It'd actually be kinda weird if she went into fully-fledged hallucinations with no other symptoms. She doesn't think she's had other symptoms? Then again, that party was pretty bad, and she did tempt fate with the whole 'at least my drink wasn't spiked!' thing, so maybe she's on drugs or something; she wouldn't know, she's not got experience with them.

"Well, that's relieving. You might actually be telling the truth. ... No offense."

Thea pulls out her phone to check whether it's working.

The phone works fine. It's showing the time from before, ticking up the seconds from 12:00:01 AM.

"Do you want my number? Or do you just want to meet up here again tomorrow?... Tonight. Uhm, in twenty-two hours?"

"Yeah, about two hours before the... thing... should be fine. If I can get your number too, that'd be good."

"Midnight Hour. So, 10PM. Sure. Number's the local, with 1-0-0-4." She pulls out her cellphone, turns it on, leaving it in the palm of her hand to play it's jingle. It's a crappy black rectangle touchscreen.

Thea's phone is a not-so-crappy black rectangle-ish touchscreen. It is not quite her most prized possession. Probably.

"Alright," she says, then adds Cynthia's number to her phone. "I guess I will see you tomorrow."

She looks a bit drained.

"Mmhm. Need me to walk you home or anything?" She has no idea they're across the road from her house.

"Thanks, but that's my house right over there. Where the monster came from." She blinks a couple of times, then, feeling a bit like she should be offended, says "... I wasn't just in some random house."

"Sorry. You might've run to a friend's house or something? I'll... Go somewhere else then. Goodnight." She shrugs.

"See ya tomorrow," Thea responds, then walks over to her house.

And her dad is apparently fine, but was staying up to make sure she got home okay. Fortunately, he hasn't heard anything about the state of the party.

She goes to her room and has a further breakdown.

... Eventually, she falls asleep. Zzz.