The doctor brought the mushroom-haired little girl's attention back.
"Can you tell me about the shadow you saw?"
The doctor got straight to the point.
They'd done enough groundwork.
It was time to get down to business...
The mushroom-haired little girl paused with the candy in her mouth.
The shadow...
Right.
Her mom and dad had said...
They'd brought her to this hospital today...
Because of the shadow.
She didn't really understand, though...
The shadow wasn't a patient.
Why did she have to come to the hospital because of it?
But her mom and dad had said they were coming, so she'd come.
They'd said that once she got to the hospital, she'd understand why.
Now...
Was she about to find out?
"Is that all right?"
The doctor's expression was gentle.
There wasn't the slightest sense of pressure.
Instead, she seemed relaxed and casual, as if they were just chatting.
The mushroom-haired little girl looked at her parents again.
Child's Mom and Child's Dad smiled and nodded at her.
The mushroom-haired little girl felt reassured.
She nodded.
She stumbled through an account of all the times she'd seen the shadow.
"...The shadow was really obvious."
The mushroom-haired little girl emphasized, "She was really obvious."
"There were snakes on her."
The mushroom-haired little girl shrank back a little.
Her memories of the snakes seeming to lunge at her on two occasions weren't pleasant.
"...It was scary."
The mushroom-haired girl licked the candy in her mouth.
Its sweet taste comforted her quite a bit.
Child's Mom and Child's Dad glanced at each other.
This was the first time they'd heard their child describe in such detail what had happened when she encountered the shadow.
Though she stumbled over her words...
Her account made sense.
It