Specter

The specter would simply not go away, and leave him in peace. "Hey! You should try these crepes, they're fantastic!" The mint green unicorn practically inhaled the pastries inside the display case.

Half her body was transposed inside the case, while the other stood outside of it. In truth the whole scene might be mistaken for one of a horror movie, if not for the very out of place pastille colored equine.

"Mmmm... boy these sure are good!" She exclaimed with a wide smile, or at least he thought that's what she said. It was very hard to tell given her mouth was full of food. He wondered how that was even possible given that she wasn't even real. He had his answer once she disappeared behind the coffee bar as the crepes seemingly reappeared, or perhaps they were simply never taken at all? That seemed the more like case, the man thought.

He shook his head and trembled slightly. 'I'm losing my mind...' he thought to himself, unaware of the cashier calling to him.

"SIR!" She screamed, finally grabbing his attention.

"Oh sorry about that." He stammered and looked at the coffee list thinking about what he wanted to drink.

The unicorn popped up in front of his face causing him to reel back slightly. His wide eye expression at the sight of something others could not see was quite disturbing. More then a few of the coffee house's patrons stared at him with mild concern, and there were hushed whispers about drug use, and LSD. Followed by some soft laughs.

The unicorn pushed further into his space, the smile on her lips growing. "OH! You should order something sweet! With caramel, or a moka-" The unicorn started sprouting seemingly random drink ideas to the man.

He ignored them all and ordered quite flatly, "I'll have a Venti Latte." It was the flattest voice he could manage, as he tried to hide his apperint insanity from his fellow patrons.

"Awww... but that's no fun." the unicorn pouted.

The cashier picked up a cup and started writing on the side, "What's the name for the order?" she asked in a huff.

"Markus." He paid the cashier with a slightly crumpled twenty he pulled from his pocket. Normally, Markus would be more neat with his cash and store it in his wallet. Earlier when he was taking money from the ATM, Lyra terrified him by popping out of the front of the unit. He was forced to just shoved the money in his pocket as he ran away from the terrifying unicorn who had succeed in scaring him half to death.

Markus moved off to the second waiting line and waited for his drink. He occupied the time by watching his ghost move around the baristas, and explorer the equipment behind the preparation line.

"Hey! What does this thing do?" Lyra poked at the bagel slicer behind the counter. Markus wanted to yell at her to stop playing with it, that someone could get hurt. Then he remembered that she wasn't even real.

The coffee house patrons were all quite aware that Markus was having some issues at the moment and kept their distance. One of the woman in line pulled her child back from approaching the man and whispered something in her kid's ear.

The baristas did their best to make his order as quickly as they could, to try and get him out of the place.

Finally having grabbed his coffee he made a quick break for the door, hoping to run from the spectacle he had caused. The server watched him run out and shook his. He was one of the stranger customers he had served all week. Turning he whispered "Weirdo" to his colleague, who nodded his agreement.

As Markus practically ran out of the coffee shop he couldn't help but think that he didn't need this, not now, not today. 'It's the stress.' Markus thought to himself, the stress was making him hallucinate a talking mint unicorn who was currently trotting besides him asking a bunch of inane questions about the street signs.

"It's the stress." He repeated out loud to himself.

"What about stress?" The unicorn looked up at him with some concern in her eyes.

He ignored her and went back to mumbling about stress. She quickly walked in front of him, blocking his path. Markus stopped in front of her. He didn't really consider her non-corporal nature, and the ease at which he could have just passed though her.

"Hey. Are you alright, Markus?" Her voice was almost pleading this time.

"NO! I'm seeing an imaginary talking unicorn! I'm not all right!" Markus yelled to his figment. He quickly became aware that he was still in public and that people were now staring at him. More then a few walked away from the cearly deranged man, and the rest kept their distance.

Lyra felt bad, she didn't mean to make her human friend's life difficult. She lowered her head and whispered "But I'm not imaginary." Before disappearing in a puff of green smoke.

Markus blinked his eyes and looked around for her. He was quickly relived that she appeared to be gone. For now at least. He glanced at his watched and felt his heart skip a beat. His legs started moving before his brain could fully process it all. He was going to be late. Very late.