Huh?
The little girl with the mushroom-shaped haircut froze.
What did "if you need anything" mean?
"Nana."
The child's mom changed the subject.
"Do you remember what the doctor told you?"
Huh?
The little girl with the mushroom-shaped haircut blinked.
What the doctor had told her...
What?
The doctor had told her quite a lot...
Did Mom mean... what?
"About the shadow."
The child's mom looked into her eyes.
She felt they couldn't put this off any longer.
The child was being affected more and more.
The child's pupils contracted sharply.
The sh-shadow...
After a few seconds of blankness, the child's eyes lit up a little.
Oh.
She remembered.
The doctor had told her...
The child froze.
"The doctor told you..."
The child's mom spoke each word slowly. "The shadow you saw was only in your dream."
"It wasn't real."
"It didn't really exist."
"Understand?"
The little girl with the mushroom-shaped haircut opened her mouth.
Mm.
That was what the doctor had told her.
But...
The little girl with the mushroom-shaped haircut couldn't fully accept what the doctor had said.
She had doubts.
"Actually, just like Dad and Mom told you before..."
The child's mom continued, "The shadow you saw was only a hallucination."
"Whether it was a dream or a hallucination..."
"The shadow you saw was fake,"
the child's mom said with absolute certainty. "It didn't exist."
"Nana."
The child's mom's gaze burned into her.
"Do you understand?"
The little girl with the mushroom-shaped haircut's lips trembled.
She didn't make a sound.
She wanted to nod.
But some vague feeling in her heart made her unable to.
"Nana."
The child's mom was a little surprised.
The child had always been well-behaved and obedient.
She'd said all this...
In the