As they walked, the landscape around them began to change. The trees lining the path grew denser, and the distant sound of the river mixed with the soft whisper of the wind through the leaves. The silence between them was comfortable, both lost in their own thoughts, but occasionally they exchanged a glance or a word that offered reassurance.

The boy still didn’t know the girl’s name, and she hadn’t asked for his. It seemed that, in this moment, names weren’t important. They were two lonely travelers, united by fate, and that was enough.

After several days of walking together, they reached a small village. It was nothing more than a handful of scattered houses, surrounded by fields that appeared abandoned. There was something strange in the air, a feeling of unease that made the boy glance around warily.

“Something’s not right here,” the girl murmured, stopping at the entrance to the village.

The boy nodded. He could feel it too. The houses were silent, and no one was working in the fields. The wind seemed to carry a strange murmur, as if the air itself were trying to warn them of something.

They decided to continue, slowly approaching one of the houses. When they arrived, they knocked gently on the door, but there was no answer. The boy looked at the girl, who shrugged before trying the door. To her surprise, it opened easily, revealing a dusty and disordered interior.

“Where is everyone?” the boy asked quietly, looking around.

The house seemed to have been abandoned in a hurry. Half-eaten meals lay on the table, and personal items were scattered across the floor. However, there were no signs of struggle, no indication that anything terrible had happened.

The girl approached a table and picked up a piece of parchment. She unfolded it slowly, and as she read the words written on it, her face darkened.

“It’s a warning,” she said finally, handing the parchment to the boy. “Someone or something made them leave.”

The boy took the parchment and read the words, written with shaky hands:

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“The wind brings rumors of darkness. Flee by nightfall, for those who remain will fall under the mantle of shadows.”

“Shadows?” the boy whispered, feeling a chill run down his spine.

“I don’t know,” the girl replied, “but it seems they didn’t want to stay to find out.”

They decided not to stay in the house much longer. Although there were no immediate signs of danger, both felt it wasn’t safe to stay in the village any longer than necessary. They left the house and walked through the empty streets, looking for any clue about what had happened.

As they walked, they began to notice something strange: the shadows on the ground, cast by the sun, seemed to move unnaturally. The boy stopped abruptly when a shadow, which didn’t seem to belong to anything, stretched across the ground, writhing as if it were alive.

“Did you see that?” the boy asked in a trembling voice, pointing at the shadow.

The girl stopped as well, her eyes fixed on the ground.

“Yes,” she replied tensely. “I saw it.”

Both took a step back, away from the shadow that continued to move across the ground. They didn’t know what was happening, but the message on the parchment had been clear: something dark and dangerous was lurking in this place.

“We need to get out of here,” the girl said urgently.

The boy nodded, and they both started running through the village streets, their quick footsteps echoing in the silence. As they ran, the shadows around them seemed to come to life, sliding along the ground and walls, as if they were chasing them.

The boy didn’t look back. He just ran, feeling his heart pounding in his chest. The stories his mother had once told him about the dangers of the world now seemed to come to life before him. The shadows weren’t just a metaphor; they were real, and they were there, hunting them.

Finally, after what felt like an eternity, they reached the edge of the village, where the abandoned fields gave way to a dense forest. They didn’t stop until they were deep within the trees, where the air was cooler, and the danger seemed to have disappeared.

Both collapsed to the ground, exhausted, breathing heavily. The boy looked at the girl, who was just as shaken as he was.

“What were those shadows?” he asked, still out of breath.

The girl shook her head, her face pale.

“I don’t know,” she replied. “But I think that’s what made the people abandon the village.”

The boy fell silent, processing everything that had happened. He knew the world was full of dangers, but this was different. The shadows weren’t something they could fight with strength or wit. They were something older, something deeper.

And as he sat there, on the forest floor, one question settled in his mind: Was this part of what he was searching for? Or was it just the beginning of a new danger he wasn’t prepared to face?

The journey had changed, and with it, so had the nature of the dangers they faced. The shadows were hunting them, but the boy knew one thing: they couldn’t stop now.