Thea gets back to her room and listens to some music for a bit. That conversation definitely didn't go as well as it could have.

... It was probably at least somewhat her fault, but she doesn't think it was totally so.

She's back at the alley by 23:45, trying to be a bit more cheerful. Stupid nightmare hour, or whatever it is.

Cynthia shows back up at the far end of the alley at 11:50. She's good with keeping track of time, what with an hour every night without a good clock.

She still walks around staring at the ground ahead of her, but looks up a small distance away and stares, expecting Thea to be there later. At least I grabbed some chicken strips for her. Do I open with that?

Thea's looking at her phone right now, so she's not actually going to respond to Cynthia until she's approached.

Cynthia walks over and pokes Thea on the arm. "Hi. Grabbed some chicken strips if you want them." She stands just a bit too close to be comfortable.

The poke was a little unnecessary – Thea had already noticed Cynthia – but that's fine. "Uh, thanks," she says. "So, look, I'm sorry about earlier. I think we were just misunderstanding each other – I wasn't trying to just ignore you, but I guess I wasn't being very helpful by continually changing the topic."

"We? Oh, uhm, sure. Yeah. Weird stuff that doesn't make logical sense off the bat, complicated." Cynthia pulls off her backpack, and rummages past the contents.

>Dollar store plastic sword, tag still attached from this afternoon
>Pair of plastic water bottles, full
>Pack of paperclips, some already spilled into the bottom
>Two notebooks, one tattered and bigger, other more intact and from the cafeteria
>Sweater, a pair of socks rolled up in the pockets
>Hand towel, dollar store with a picture of a rainbow on it
>Change purse, mostly empty
>3 of 6 of a plastic tab of cheap beer
>Math homework, halfway done
>Chicken Strips from a local cheap burger joint, in a takeout bag

Cynthia pulls the chicken strips out and hands them over. She also has her pocketknife with an orange handle, pocket watch without the face/hands, and her cellphone in her pockets.

Thea... puts them in her bag, smiling. Totally not weird to just put some takeout in her bag prior to potentially getting attacked by monsters. Everything's fine.

"So. Uh. You said I might be able to summon a thing like Libby? To help me?"

"Sure. Just wait for the Midnight Hour to come on and I'll guide you through it. It sounds silly, but when it works, it works."

"Right. So, at least yesterday on the full moon, the moon went yellow, the clouds went green, grass went weird, there were red puddles, and people got coffined. Is there anything other than that? Or is it just that and the occasional monster?"

"That's the usual stuff, yeah. Monsters - Shadows, vary in amounts."

Beep beep. Her cellphone alarm goes off, and she takes a minute to silence it. Cynthia then pulls out her pocket watch and starts to wind it.

"Always coffins and the color-problems. Cars and trains stop working, electronics stop too. I think there's something that makes the people waking up ignore little changes in case you bump a table and spin a knife around, but that's just a guess."

"When you say they stop working, do the cars and trains just gradually slow down, or do they instantly stop? And do they start back up again immediately after? ... I'd expect there to be more crashes if they just slowed down."

"Blink at the start, stopped. Blink at the end, they start. It keeps the people back in the same spot they coffined. I jumped in front of a car once, walked away during the Midnight Hour. That guys expression afterward was hilarious."

She makes a token effort at a laugh, not really finding it very funny. "What about, like, bikes and bicycles? And I'm guessing it's the same with planes? Do all vehicles just stop?"

"Planes, I dunno. Never left the city. Bikes..."

She stares vacantly off into the sky, muttering "Have I seen a bike in the Midnight Hour..."

"... Have you ever tried being in a vehicle when it happened?"

"Who would have me in their car? I think we'd just be sitting in a now stopped car."

... Surely she has parents who might drive her around?

"Well, I'm not planning on testing it, but you could end up still moving forward at the same speed, and then suddenly the car isn't. Or the cars only stop if they have people in them that get put into coffins. I don't know, but I guess it restricts when I can travel. ... Is there any point to being awake and attacking the monsters, or running away from them? Like, do they just respawn at the beginning of each night, or do they have limited numbers, or... don't you know?"

"Well if unmanned cars in motion suddenly sprung forward at midnight I think someone would have noticed." Giggling.

"One at a time... They seem to show back up, but you can clear a patch for a bit of diligence. Doesn't mean they won't wander back... And the point to being awake? Shoot, I shoulda brought it, but, I used to have this leg-brace thing I needed to walk around... I meant bringing my little handicap card! My right leg was a little wobbly all the time. Now it's normal, and the rest of me can spring back better. Doesn't bother me unless I get really tired or beat up."

"... What? You attacked some monsters and you no longer need a leg brace?"

Okay. Well. If it has magical benefits, she might just see where it leads.

"Well it's tiring to keep Libby out, and even then, the Midnight Hour seems to tire you out quicker at the start. Once you get used to it, you kinda... Adapt? Like a bunch of training. I'm pretty sure my ankle is just partially sideways by default and I just don't notice walking on it anymore."

"Oh. So... it's not a magical thing? It's just because you've practiced it a lot?"

"Zuh. When you wake up without any pain in your leg that you've had from childhood you can make a guess if it was from being hit by a giant beetle making it unable to compare or something. My vote is magic. Blobs barely hurt anymore, depending."

"Hm. Well, if it has benefits like that... I can see why you'd keep doing it? I mean, if last night was the worst that it really gets, because it was a full moon, and I have a thing that does all the fighting for for me... it's probably better to do that, rather than sleeping and hoping that nothing attacks me?"

"Too many assumptions there. I'm all for being prepared instead of hoping and sleeping, but it is my weird hobby. I walk around, track some stuff. Figure out other things."

"Oh, yeah, and it hurts if you or it gets hit. It's you in a way after all."

"Oh. Eugh."

Well, this is a bit of a rollercoaster. First, she thinks she's hallucinating a nightmare scene, then it turns out she's probably not hallucinating it, then she finds out that she can skip it, then that she can only probably skip it, and then that it might actually benefit her, except it's also painful.

Why can't she just find something nice for once?