"Mama… who's that man?"
The little girl murmured as she tugged at her mother's coat.
Her mother, too lost in her phone, didn't look up. She barely even noticed the stranger approaching.
A hood covered the stranger's head, hiding their face completely. From the darkness, the girl could only make out their silhouette tall, lengthy and broad-shouldered. She could tell he was a man. He moved strangely, his body leaning one way while his head tilted the other, as if his neck couldn't quite hold him straight.
He stopped outside the streetlight's reach, standing at the edge of the shadows as though the light itself might burn him.
Then the streetlights began to flicker.
And the girl began to scream.