I love seeing people's expressions of fear, especially if I was the one which caused that fear. It brings me joy, a fleeting happiness, that dissipates over time so that I must chase the next high by scaring another person, leading to a vicious cycle. The more terror the person experiences, the more satisfaction I gain. It is addicting, an addiction others will say is perverted.
The addiction got worse ever since I awakened my ability, allowing me to chase even bigger highs. I could conjure up the most brutal, gory hallucination or illusion just to mentally break someone. I could let them hallucinate their skin melting off their muscles, or an alien monster bursting out of their belly, or make them 'watch' themselves massacre children. These would probably cause someone to go mentally insane, and the worst part is that it would probably bring me to the point of orgasm. But in the back of my mind, I knew my actions were morally wrong, and they would lead to consequences mentally and get me in trouble with the law.
Scaring innocent people may be extremely fun, but it could potentially traumatise them for life. Some could argue mental injuries are worse than physical injuries because they are harder to heal. It just isn't fair for those people to suddenly get jump scared or experience shocking hallucinations just for me to laugh at them. That is why I've tried to limit myself, slowly reducing the frequency of my 'pranks', and not letting myself go too far. But with an addiction, it's always a challenge.
Also, in a society with powerful and logic defying powers such as mine, there have obviously been laws put in place to minimise the damage these powers can cause. People are prohibited from using their abilities publicly, especially using them on other people, which would lead to harsher punishments. Only people with the permit to use their abilities in a specific place such as their work place, can publicly exercise their abilities. If a criminal is proven to have used their ability in public, it would be punished with prison time.
This forces me to reduce the number of pranks and change up the location every time to reduce the chances of me getting caught. The victim will not know it was a hallucination or illusion, but if they report it to the police, the police may figure it out if the story of the victim was outrageous. That's why I try to make my pranks realistic.
I f*cked up on my last prank. I literally conjured a little girl demon with a gaping maw. Thankfully, this should be my last prank on innocent people as I will soon become a hero and release my pent up frustrations of villains instead. That came out wrong. Let's just hope the woman doesn't call the police.