(With Sam and Andrew's group.)

  They walked for a while through the streets of the town. During that time, they found absolutely nothing... apart from something strange that I'll tell you about later.

  "Hey, Andrew," Sam asked. "Are you sure the conclusion Mat came to is right?"

  "I don't know, but... it seems to be right, up to a point."

  "You're referring to the relationship of curses and accidents, right?"

  "That's exactly right."

  "So... well, but we still haven't found anything..."

  "Right..."

  They kept walking until they came to a corner where there was a traffic light and also a phone booth. They stood there for a moment, thinking about what they were going to do. There were several people walking around at that hour, and a moderate amount of cars was passing by (it was six o'clock).

  "Hey, Andrew."

  "Yes?"

  "...(And the shadow chasing you... doesn't he know where we could look?)" said Sam in a low voice. Yes, quiet voice is in parentheses in case you didn't notice. Well, Sam spoke that way so no one would hear her, so they wouldn't look at her in an unpleasant way.

  "(Well... no.)"

  "Why?"

  "...(He hasn't been separated from me for years, I'm afraid of that, but it's true,)" Andrew answered her.

  "...(I understand.)"

  Did you know this story is from Royal Road? Read the official version for free and support the author.

  While they were talking, a boy with brown hair, dressed in a white polo shirt with long sleeves and blue shorts, was playing near the street with a ball. Sam noticed this and approached the boy, saying:

  "Hey, it's not okay to play with the ball near the cars, it's dangerous and you can get hurt. Could you go play somewhere else, pretty please?" she said in a voice that felt warm... yes, something like that.

  "Ok, Miss," the boy replied and walked away from the street.

  Sam returned to Andrew.

  "Whew... these kids..." said Sam. She seemed to be... tired?

  "You were scared and embarrassed to talk to that kid, weren't you?"

  "Of course not!" Sam shouted.

  "Well... I believe you," he said in a mocking tone.

  "Hey! Hmph," Sam crossed her arms.

  At that moment, the boy went back to playing with his ball near the edge of the sidewalk. As he bounced it on the ground, it rolled out into the street. The boy chased after it. Sam didn’t notice this time. The people walking by didn't notice either because they were minding their own business, but Andrew did.

  The boy, already on the street, started to approach the ball, but...

  "Hey, watch out!" shouted Andrew as he ran toward the boy, who was about to be hit by a car. Andrew had reacted a little late. At that moment, there were no cars in the other lane, although the closest one was about fifty feet away.

  "!"

  "What the heck am I doing?"

  Before the car could hit the boy, Andrew jumped up, propelled by the shadow, and reached the boy, pushing him out of the way.

  .

  ..

  ...

  The car hit Andrew. The man driving the car got out and approached him. People around were watching what had happened.

  "H-hey, are you okay?" the man said, scared. Then... he just got hit by a car, how can he be okay? Well, he might be. "It's just that they came out of nowhere and..."

  "Yes, yes, I'm fine!" said Andrew, his body bruised and his head bleeding. It wasn't great, but still... "But... is the boy all right?"

  "He is!" said Sam, who was with the boy, who only had a small scrape.

  A lady who had been watching called an ambulance from the phone booth.

  "Young lady, I just called an ambulance."

  "Thank you, ma'am," Sam said, addressing the lady, who was standing on the corner, about ten meters away.

  After a while, the ambulance arrived. They inspected Andrew and the boy, confirmed the boy was fine, but took Andrew away to help him. Sam went to the phone booth and told her grandparents what happened to Andrew and that she was going to stay with the boy until his mother returned.

  As it was, she stayed there with the boy. His mother didn’t show up, so she decided to walk him home, which was somewhat nearby. As they walked, Sam noticed that the boy had some kind of dark aura, like black flames, on his chest.

  "What?" Sam wondered, after getting a good look. She was frightened. "But... how did this happen?"

  "Miss?" the boy asked.

  "Ah, nothing, nothing," Sam answered, quickly returning to a calm face, though she was nervous about being with someone she didn’t know and worried about what she had just seen.