[color=6ecff6][u]Emily Dawson[/u][/color]

	The police officers, Selena and Russel, switched into cop mode. They looked very brave, and she felt safer with them around. [color=6ecff6]"Brave because they're police, or police because they're brave?"[/color] She murmered to herself, lowering her hands from her face and dropping her palms to the floor. She breathed in, out, in, out. She felt better. Tears were still falling down her face. She sniffed, shutting her eyes tight. 

	[color=6ecff6]"Oh, I don't know, Keandre. I don't know."[/color] She rose shakily to her feet, keeping her purse on tight.[color=6ecff6] "This is the first time where in a long time where I wished I was suffering from a delusion. But I took my pills this morning. We're experiencing this hallucination together, so it's the closest thing to real we're going to get."[/color] Emily said. She wiped tears out of her eyes.

	[color=6ecff6]"Doctor Stanton wouldn't want this for us. I hope you guys will be okay." [/color] Emily glanced over her shoulder, wincing once again at the sight of Doctor Stanton's sorry state. Valerian had done some kind of examination of the corpse. They circled Doctor Stanton nervously.

	[color=6ecff6]"We should wait until the real police arrive, I think. Because...they're going to want to ask us questions we can't answer. We have to be there to say we don't know anything, otherwise they might think we do know something." [/color] Emily said to them. 

	[color=6ecff6]"Does anyone want a cookie?"[/color] Emily asked suddenly. She removed them from her purse and set the box of cookies down on the ground. She popped open the lid and removed a sugar cookie, sandy and tan, and took a small bite. Now there were eleven cookies remaining. She left them there for the others to eat, should they so choose. [color=6ecff6]"It's good."[/color]

	
	Chewing, Emily pondered something quietly. [color=6ecff6]"You're clever, Valerian, very smart and noticing and perceptive type of person, I wonder what you noticed and should I notice the same things?"[/color] Emily whispered to herself. She finally fully entered the room as the two police officers sped off to locate the suspect.

	[color=6ecff6]"They won't find anything; it doesn't feel right. Nothing feels right. It's like I'm looking at the treeline, a dark treeline with something tall shifting between the trunks and peering back at her- back at me. Waiting, and watching, and I want to see it, and dare it to destroy me. A forgotten feeling, a lost feeling, one that was supposed to go away with the medicine but here it is, and here I am."[/color] The girl whispered under her breath. She'd described this feeling before in therapy. It would be familiar to the others. When spoke of it her eyes appeared as if they were looking somewhere else, as they did in this moment. 

	Cookie in her hand, Emily creeped towards Doctor Stanton. [color=6ecff6]"If everyone showed up, there wouldn't have been a cookie for you."[/color] Emily said aloud, sadly. 

	[color=6ecff6] "I don't think you suffered. This all happened after you were dead, didn't it? Can't paint art on a moving canvas..."[/color] She kneeled down, closer than most people would be comfortable with to the body. She saw the note, read it.[color=6ecff6] "Communion ends. Disperse. No...I don't..."[/color] Her eyes were cast downward to the powder. [color=6ecff6]"What's that?"[/color] She quirked her head to the side.

	Without even thinking, Emily reached down, dusted her cookie with the dark powder on the floor, and took a bite.

	She coughed, awkwardly. [color=6ecff6]"Oh, oops."[/color] She turned and looked to the people behind and around her with wide eyes, dark dust and sugar crumbs on her lips. Like she was a child and they'd just discovered her with her hand in the cookie jar.