I stepped in front of it, yelling and screaming, attempting to deflect the creature's attention away from the girl, but it flowed through my body as if I were made of smoke and closed in on her. As the beast pounced, she continued to say her meaningless mantra and closed her eyes, fearing the worst. The beast was hurled sideways to the floor and away from the girl with a loud boom. I turned to see who had fired the shot when the scent of gunpowder filled the air. An elderly man emerged from the crumbling security post at the street's start. His cap was firmly on his head, and he was clad in filthy brown fabric. As he marched across the unpaved path to confront his foe, his slippers produced a flip-flipping sound.
I took a step back as he walked bravely past me, a determined expression on
