The child first stared at the hair tie on the ground for a while longer.
Then he took two steps back and picked it up.
Several strands of black hair were still tangled around it.
He had to return it to Sparrow.
That was what he thought.
But where had Sparrow gone?
The seven- or eight-year-old child followed the direction in which the hair tie had fallen with his gaze.
To the depths of the alley.
Turning right along that narrow dirt path would lead to the cluster of old houses in the village.
A faint drag mark could be seen in the mud, as though something had been dragged all the way there. The withered grass along the path had been flattened, winding crookedly onward, and a few dark red drops of blood seemed to speckle the ground.
Clutching the hair tie, he followed the trail forward. He was actually very scared.
This child, only seven or eight years old, had heard the stories about the village's old houses.
The elders said those ruined houses were unclean.
And more than one person had claimed to have witnessed something unclean near those old houses.
If Sparrow had hidden here...
Then she was really going all out, wasn't she?
In this game of hide-and-seek, Sparrow ought to win.
Thinking that, the child began making his way toward the old houses.
He clenched the hair tie tightly and walked deeper inside.
For some reason, the child's fear of the old houses in the village vanished without a trace.
Only a faint curiosity remained.
A strange smell flooded into the child's nose.
He stepped over the broken courtyard gate that had toppled onto the ground.
The ground was covered in waist-high, withered grass that had long since turned golden yellow, though one could