✓| If Looks Could Kill, scream v

act one, 𝗲𝗽𝗶𝗹𝗼𝗴𝘂𝗲

Mrs. May raises a brow, "I'd like to discuss this topic a little more if you don't mind."

Starr swallows her fears, "My best friend, Amber, she um—she killed two of my other friends before she killed my father."

"Is that what brought you two closer?" Mrs. may jots down a few notes, "the death of your father?"

"One of them. Yes." Starr sighs.

"When you booked this appointment, you noted that you've been having some hallucinations...when did those appear?" Mrs. May asked.

"Around the age of ten," Starr admits, "—but then they stopped, but they came back again."

"When exactly did those hallucinations return?" May looks up from her notepad.

"Around the time the killing started to happen..." Starr just then realizes.

"You see, sometimes hallucinations can reappear when something triggers it. These killing may have somehow caused these hallucinations to return."

Starr laughs making the psychiatrist frown, "is something wrong?"

"Sorry—it's just," Starr slows down her giggles, "the things that I'm hallucinating—aren't real."

"Well...yes, that's kind of the point." May have a soft smile yet a concerning gaze.

"No," Starr rephrased, "like, the person I'm hallucinating—I have know clue who they are."

"So you say." May smiled, causing Starr to frown.

"So I say?"

"The mind—you see," May crosses her legs, placing her arms on her knees, "it's a very powerful thing, more powerful than us humans may realize."

Starr squints. "What are you saying?"

"I'm saying," she smiles, "don't underestimate the power that your brain holds."

"So you think this person that I'm seeing is real?" Starr sighs, "I'm telling you, I would know if they were real."

Mrs. May nods, "okay—okay...I want to try an exercise with you, you don't mind do you."

Starr shifts in her seat, her eyes traveling down the psychiatrist worryingly, "I guess not."

"Great...I want you to lay back on the couch, and close your eyes."

Starr does as she's told. She felt her body relax when her head hit the pillow.

"Now I want you to think of this young girl you've been imagining, are you doing that?"

Starr takes a deep breathe, "mhm."

"Now what is this persons name."

"Ophelia." Starr murmers.

May uncrosses her legs. "I want you to say that name outloud, and as you repeat it, let your mind wonder to the first thing it thinks of, okay?"

"Ophelia...Ophelia." Starr's eyes could be seen moving under her eyes lids, "Ophelia. Oph—"

"Ophelia, go away!"  A ten year old Starr orders Ophelia Burns to leave the tree she'd climb onto.