Huh?
The woman and the man looked at each other.
"What do you mean?"
The woman was puzzled.
"What Yaya said just now..."
"Wasn't that what happened in her nightmare?"
Why had she nodded and shaken her head?
Was that what happened or not?
The girl with the ponytail pinched her cheek.
The pain pulled her out of her momentary daze.
She had almost fallen back into that nightmare from before.
"...The beginning was the same..."
The beginning was the same?
The woman and the man were slightly taken aback.
Did that mean...
"What happened after was different?"
The woman blurted out.
The girl with the ponytail nodded.
"After..."
"It was different."
That day, she had been frightened, but she had run away quickly.
And the strange man hadn't caught up with her.
Later, she had run into an old grandmother.
That collision had been like...
She had escaped from the unsettling, dim world where the strange man was...
And returned to reality.
Her surroundings had grown bright.
But in the dream...
The strange man had caught up with her.
The sound of his footsteps had lingered beside her ears the whole time.
Like a shadow that never left her.
Like a maggot burrowing into her bones.
Goosebumps had covered her body.
Fear had seized her entire being.
She had grown more and more terrified.
She had almost completely fallen apart.
Especially when she felt the strange man reach out to grab her...
The fear in her heart had reached its peak.
Then...
She had woken up.
She had still been shaken.
Her face deathly pale.
Her whole body trembling like a leaf.
Until her mother appeared.
Her mother had hugged her.
And comforted her.
The familiar voice and scent, along with the feeling