Aiden gently put down the little girl. Carefully, he asked her, “Where exactly?”

She only shook her head. “I don’t know.”

He calmly thought while looking at her.

What’s going on? She bypassed the security of the park all by herself? Could she be a ghost? But Valeria said ghosts have the form of a rotten corpse. Hellen was there too, she didn’t disagree with that statement. Could she be one of the animals whose genetic experiment went wrong? But…

He looked at the little girl once again. Round face, chubby cheeks with a hint of pink, small nose, long hair which weren’t tied.

She? An animal?

Examining closely, her hair felt like they hadn’t been washed in a long time. Her clothes were also of a different fashion than one he usually came across. He kneeled on one leg in front of her, and lightly brushed the edges of her skirt with his fingertips.

Amazing craftsmanship.

After the Great Smog, production had taken a hit, and it also included those of clothes. A lot of factories all over the land were shut down or destroyed. The few which were running now focused more on the quantity rather than quality to provide for the masses. There might only be a select few producing quality goods to cater to the top brass of humanity, the true privileged class.

Aiden himself had a few of those quality clothes. But even they couldn’t compare to the fabric he felt. Not to mention it looked like the cloth hadn’t been washed in a long time either. Considering all things it was truly surprising.

Just where did she come from?

“Big bro. Hungry.”

No matter what, he should first take care of the girl then decide what to do. Just in case, he sent a message to aunt Hellen and Lucas about what transpired and put the phone back into his pocket.

“What is your age?”

“5.”

He engaged in idle talks with her as he picked her up again and headed towards the exit with the wine bottle in his other hand. He deposited it in the management center of the park, informing them he’ll return for the bottle later, and asked to see the CCTV footage. He wished to see how the little girl had entered the park.

The security put the wine bottle in a refrigerator and asked another young security guard to show him the way to the control room where all the footage was placed. When asked who the girl was, he simply said she was the sister of his friend. The privileged community was big enough for them to not remember every member, nor did they care enough, or put enough attention in their work to question how the little girl could have entered the park.

Then, Aiden saw it.

*****

The little girl was walking by the side of the road. Her eyes constantly glanced at the entrance of this park which was only for the privileged. The CCTV only extended to areas in and a bit around the park, so Aiden didn’t know where the little girl had come from beyond that.

He watched, as when she was still quite a distance away from the park, one of the guards opened the gate for a visitor after confirming their identity. Instead of closing it back, they were distracted by the barking of a dog nearby. Of the two guards, one went to deal with it and the other was co-incidentally called by a superior for some work.

By pure luck? Seriously?

Her walk in the park was similarly unrestricted. By coincidence or luck, something or the other always cropped up for the security guards in her way. Other people in the park exclaimed how beautiful the girl was, but Aiden noticed, as soon as anyone who had even a flicker of doubt flash past their face regarding if she belonged here, something would catch their attention, distracting them from their original thoughts.

Aiden was thankful the security guard wasn’t paying attention and was busy with some work given to him. Or he would’ve surely found the situation odd as well. Suddenly, Aiden stopped to think,

Is this a coincidence too?

He looked at the little girl in his hand. She was smaller than someone of her age ought to be. Who knew when, at some point she had already rested her head against his chest and slept.

Gently, he left the room after watching till the moment when she met him. Thinking of something, he left the girl at the management center, telling the guards he would pick her back later but she immediately started crying no matter how he coaxed her. The guards joked about how attached she was to him, but they didn’t know the situation, nor did he plan to tell them. Finally though, he relented and took her with him.

He was wary after seeing the footage. The situation was clearly abnormal with how everything seemed to work in her favor, but unless he had concrete proof or even a foreboding of her being harmful to him, he was willing to care for her.

Realizing his thought process, Aiden sighed as he walked.

How could I be doing this? Am I weak to kids? To their charms?

He had never really come across any kid other than his own sister, and that was when he himself was a little boy too. He didn’t possess such an elaborate articulated thought process, it was more feeling based back then. According to the planning by the government, there were also bound to be little no kids for him to interact with.

It wasn’t that the government held sway over whether you could have a baby, but that during the fragmentation of major cities, the families were asked about their future plans regarding more kids. As earlier explained, it was so that education and other social activities could be effectively carried out without much problems.

So it was the first time Aiden had come in contact with a little girl her age. His feelings of care and concern felt foreign even to himself as he poured it over the little girl. Due to events in his life, except for his little sister, feelings had become somewhat unavailable for other people in his life. A wall between him and other people.

Is this a gap in my rational thinking? One I couldn’t prepare for since I had no experience related to this?

He looked at her sleepy face once again and hesitantly thought.

It’s not a bad feeling to have this gap in my thought process.

His walk became gentler unbeknownst to him as he beheld the sleeping little girl.

Taking the bus, he disembarked at the Rosanne’s Cuisine once again and carefully woke up the girl.

I even forgot to ask for her name.

After taking a seat near the window, he gave order to the familiar waitress and asked the drowsy little girl,

The author's narrative has been misappropriated; report any instances of this story on Amazon.

“Sooo… what’s your name?”

“Mimi”

“That’s your real name? Not a nickname?”

She nodded her small head. “Real name.”

“What about your last name?”

She shook her head. “No last name.”

Weird.

He placed her beside his seat and texted aunt Hellen to check if there was someone called Mimi in the records of the town. She had the key to the administration office. He intended to make use of it to determine if mimi was from the town.

The next hour where they engaged in small talks was perhaps the first time he felt relaxed in a few days. He had a stray thought as he sipped some cocktail.

I might as well have gone to meet my sister if I had so much free time at hand.

He didn’t know he’d be met with such heavy news one after another either. The possibility of even aunt Hellen not being able to solve the situation put the most burden on him. He knew from her teachings that it was better to resolve the situation with ghosts than leaving its range. It was never sure if the ghost would follow you or not. So the Bureau always suggested getting the target off your back before leaving the range.

It was the entire reason they had stayed behind to deal with the helping ghost rather than leave with Lucas. And now that his childhood friend had gotten entangled with the ghost, it was clear he couldn’t leave him behind. He suppressed the urge to smirk as a thought popped into his head.

Evander wished to gather our group to save me from the powerful ghost. And no one except Lucas arrived. Evander didn’t turn up himself, an irony. I wasn’t entangled with the powerful ghost he wished to save me from. Another irony. Lastly, it was Lucas who hurried ahead to save me, who mistakenly fulfilled one of the conditions, such a fucking irony.

“Snacks!” Mimi exclaimed as she put her hands up.

“Alright alright! We’ll go.”

Aiden paid the bill and left the restaurant with Mimi in tow. The store from which he usually bought snacks was located more near the outer edge of the town, he couldn’t walk all the way there from Rosanne’s Cuisine which was near the center of the town.

Time for the bus again.

He put down Mimi and let her walk on her own when she insisted on it. By the time they waited for the bus, he talked some more with her. As expected of a kid, she had a lot of energy to talk about endless amounts of things. Unexpectedly though, she didn’t remember a whole lot about herself, her parents or anything for that matter,

When he straight up asked her if she wasn’t from this town, she couldn’t answer that either. But rather than ‘I don’t know’ like every time before, she answered ‘maybe’ this time.

Finally, he spotted a bus coming their way. As soon as he entered, the machine let him know this ride was free for his group of two for being the 1000th passenger.

Instead of celebrating he looked at Mimi, who had no clue what was happening.

This luck is fucking strong. Is some ability at play here?

He put it at the back of his mind and took his seat near the end of the bus. Mimi was looking at everything around her in wonder, asking all sorts of questions as he patiently answered them one by one.

“Why is the bus red?”

“It looks good. You don’t like red?”

“I like blue. Let’s paint it blue.”

“We can’t paint the bus haha.”

“Why not?”

“Because it isn’t our property.”

“What is property?”

“Something which you can own.”

“But we are sitting in the bus. Isn’t it ours?”

“I wish it worked that way. If we go by your logic, the bus would belong to everyone who sits in it, so it won’t be ours alone.”

“What is the problem in that?”

“Not everyone likes blue and we still can’t paint it.”

Mimi put her hands by her side as she insisted. “Everyone likes blue.”

“Haha! Why do you think so?”

“Because blue is the best obviously.”

“My best color is purple though.”

Mimi dramatically cried out a long nooo as she hit him with her fists. It didn’t hurt, but he changed his favorite color.

They stepped down from the bus not too far off from the shop. He asked her upon arriving about what she would like to eat. He sat on his heels as he looked her in the eye, waiting for her answer. Out of nowhere though, her eyes watered as tears fell down her cheeks. Panic gripped his heart as he was stuck frozen gazing at her.

What did I do?

He felt hurt when she replied teary faced, gasps and sobs interrupting her speech. “I-I really.. gasp don’t.. gasp know.” She attempted to clear rub her eyes and clear her cheeks with her small hands as she continued talking, “Why do you.. gasp keep asking me?” Her eyes were read, cheeks stained with tears as more kept trickling down the corner of her eyes.

Aiden finally reacted as he pulled her into a hug, apologizing and reassuring her about how he won’t ask again. He heard her speak near his ears, her voice still mixed with heavy breathing. “I really don’t remember anything. I promise. I’ll tell you if I remember anything. I came to you because you felt like the closest person to me. I am sorry.”

“Don’t be sorry.” Aiden firmly said as he held her by shoulders and looked her in the eyes. He took out his napkin and cleaned her face as he suggested, “Let’s try everything.”

It was a wonder to behold when she yelled “POTATO CHIPS” loudly in the store as soon as she took a bite of it, earning stares from other customers. He had paid for all kinds of snacks but upon trying them, Mimi was hell bent on only eating the potato chips.

He kept laughing as she yelled ‘potato chips’ every time she took a bite, albeit in a hush voice now when he told her not to disturb others by shouting. He was glad there was a seating area in the store itself or else he would have had to go elsewhere for Mimi to eat the snacks.

It took her 20 minutes to finish packets of potato chips before they finally exited the store. He asked the cashier to keep the rest of the snacks he paid for, and only deliver them to his home after he called. He remembered that the helping ghost was in the aunt Hellen’s house but he would rather not let others face danger when it could be avoided,

He glanced at the time on his watch and decided that it was enough. His mind was far lighter than when he had left the 3rd murder site. He was in a much better mood even if the threat of the ghost still remained.

Just as he was walking on the road to head towards the nearest bus stop, he caught sight of a man walking strangely on the road. More precisely, he was limping, and he was approaching him. Aiden looked back to check but there was no one behind him.

He subtly put Mimi behind him and stood still, ready to react to whatever the man might do. Looking closer, he had long black hair, reddish brown eyes and a rather impressive face.

He is injured.

Aiden guessed as he looked at damp red on his right leg.

“No need to be on guard. I am not here to harm you.”

Aiden retorted when he realized the man was talking to him. “No one who wants to harm will say so.”

“I don’t have to bicker with you.” He leaned on a wall nearby for support and continued, “Look, I know you might doubt me. But I am here to help you. Listen carefully to what I say. I don’t know if I’ll even be alive to help you again.”

Without letting Aiden interrupt, he held up his hand and continued, “Let me finish, ask whatever you want to after I am done.” He took a more comfortable stance to take support and looked around to check if there was anyone around. There were none. Very few people actually even bothered to come to the outskirts of the town, as for the snacks, there were others in the town too.

“The ghost you are dealing with is far more powerful than you think. Humanity may not even have many capable of dealing with it. But there is a way to defeat it, a very minute chance. Before I tell you about it though, I want to ask, are you serious about dealing with the ghost?”

Aiden was shocked when he heard the man speak about what might as well be top secrets of the town. His first suspect was Elias leaking the news. But if Elias knew about a way to combat the ghost, he wouldn’t have ran away.

Lucas is already trapped with the ghost. I would anyway have to deal with it. It won’t hurt to listen to him.

He nodded his head, glancing at Mimi from the corner of his eyes. She was quietly standing behind him clutching his pants.

“Yes, I am serious. Tell me.”