The rain still showed no sign of stopping. Alex gently took off his coat and covered her with it.

"Well, it was better to be a bit damp, not really a big deal", he thought. After all, even if he caught a cold, his immune system was probably stronger than this delicate girl.

As he walked her home, they chatted along the way. Alex asked her many things he had always been curious about.

"Where are you from?"

"I'm from Vermont. I arrived in Florida for the first time today. It's indeed very modern and developed here, just as people say."

"But... how can you..."

He was about to ask how she could live without any family support from childhood to adulthood, but before he could finish his sentence, a thief suddenly emerged from a dark alley, swiftly cut the strap of the crossbody bag Alex was wearing, and ran off. Inside the bag was his entire livelihood, his whole life, everything he had left to salvage his existence. It contained a wallet with a few dollars in it for rent and food for the day, as well as some spare change, and the keys to his home. Alex silently resolved to retrieve it, even if it meant risking his life.

Alex ran, and he ran hard. The rain showed no sign of stopping. He ran until he no longer remembered when the girl walking beside him had been left behind. The streetlights flickered on and off, and the light seemed dim. He was standing at a three-way intersection, not knowing which way the thief had gone. Alex cried out in desperation. Why was life treating him so cruelly? Suddenly, he felt someone touch his shoulder. Startled, he quickly turned around, and it was her. She looked surprisingly composed, her hand still holding his coat over her head. She gazed at him with great tenderness and asked,

"Are you okay? You were running pretty fast. Running like that in the rain, aren't you afraid of falling?"

"I'm fine," Alex said, breathing heavily. He tried to conceal his frustration and despair, burying it deep within himself. "But now, I don't know how to go on living. He took everything from me."

"It's okay. Come with me!"

Alex didn't understand what she meant. His head was still spinning so much that even in his own situation, he could see just how desperate and miserable he truly was. But Alex reluctantly obeyed, following her in a daze. They reached a corner, and suddenly she turned to him, saying,

"Close your eyes."

Alex didn't understand what she was up to, but he complied. He closed his eyes. When she said, "Open them again," he did, and there it was. It was... his bag. Alex was overjoyed. The emotion that erupted in him was indescribable. It was like a warrior winning a battle in a life-and-death arena, as if everything had been arranged in his favor. He couldn't contain himself, but he remained alert and composed. He asked her again,

"How did you..."

"Let's go back now! Standing here in the rain is not a good idea! Hurry before the thief calls for backup. Quick, let's go!"

Before Alex could finish his sentence, she interrupted him with an urgent plea. She was right. For now, they should just get back home.

The place Alex lived in was a row of tightly packed, small, but not entirely squalid dormitories. It was cramped, but not to the point of being a rat's nest or dirty. This was probably sufficient for the living standards of a poor student like him in Nevada.

As Alex opened the door, the nimble girl swiftly darted inside ahead of me. Suddenly, she turned back to look at him and asked,

"Do you live alone?"

"Yes," he replied.

"Here?"

"That's right. Where else would I live?"

"Oh. It's just..."

"I suppose you're about to say my place is too shabby, aren't you?"

"Oh no, not at all! That's not what I meant! It's just that it looks better than I expected. In this country, the wealthy look down on the poor. And the poor, well, they often don't even have a place to live. It's quite pitiful. I never thought I'd be able to stay in such a comfortable place."

"This girl is indeed peculiar..." Alex thought to himself. "Well, never mind, I'll think about it later."

He almost let go of the bag, but he caught it in time before it slipped from my hand. He went to the bathroom to wash my face. My hair was soaked, and my clothes were damp from the rain. Perhaps he should take a shower. Meanwhile, the girl explored every nook and cranny of his small dormitory, examining everything as if she were discovering a new creature in a foreign world. Her eyes were curious, meticulously examining everything, from the unwashed pan in the sink to the teapot, and finally shifting her gaze to his cluttered bed. Without hesitation, she dove onto it and lay there comfortably.

"This place is really cozy. Can I lie here?"

"But my place only had one bed... Well, I suppose I can yield it to her." - Alex thought himself

"Yeh, sure... make yourself at home," Alex replied, with the tone somewhat reluctant.

"Do you normally sleep here?" she asked.

"Yes, but it's no problem. Tonight I'll spread a blanket and sleep on the floor."

Finishing his sentence, Alex draped a towel around himself and headed to the shower. Anyway, he needed to wash away the sweat and the scent of this relentless rain. As the water cascaded down, he pondered over the events about to unfold. "What should I do next?" - Alex keep overwhelmingly running in his chaotic mind, seeking a respond to an unanswerable question." "Everything happening to me at this moment felt like some kind of unfinished business from a previous life. It rushed at me in a dizzying whirl, force me to be unable to catch my breath." *sigh* -"It was like a jumbled mess, spinning around in my head. Should I resign myself to fate, or should I firmly reevaluate my decisions..."

While lost in thought, suddenly he was being hit up to the reality by the girl's voice from outside.

"Are you done? Come out here and see what I found!"

"What? Are you rummaging through something? Please don't get things all mixed up, or I won't know how to tidy up afterward," Alex said from the showering room, with his exhausted yet unbearable voice. He begged the girl could be able to hear, but yet he is also remaining quite hopeless.

" All I can think of now, well I hope at least, she wasn't a bad person, or not some kind of thief pretending to be pitiable, coming to take away the meagre earnings I had to toil so hard for, which were meant only to help me get through the day. I hoped that this girl would be compassionate towards my situation and not resort to such tactics." - Alex keep swinging around his messy and exhausting mind

After drying off, he put on my clothes, then stepped outside to ask again,

"What did you want to show me earlier?"

"Are you done? Come here."

Alex came closer, to where she was sitting, she was looking through a photo album of his childhood pictures. Which he remembered to put it in a box and hide them somewhere already and haven't looked at for years. Those photos were back when he still had a father. He looked at them, his eyes stinging a bit. He missed my family from the past, even though it was now just a pile of ashes of memories, yet it still brought a twinge of sadness when he thought back.

"Yes, that was my family, but they're no longer here."

"What's a family?" the girl asked innocently, with a slightly amusing touch of naivety.

"Huh, that's an odd question," Alex confused, yet also showing a bit of surprises through his voice. "Haven't you ever had a family?"

"No."

"Alright then. Let me clarify for you. A family is a group of people, including grandparents, parents, and children. Grandparents are the parents of parents, just as parents are the ones who give birth to children." Alex slowly speaking, realized in the end how stupid it is to explain such a common phenomenon like this, as that does not make he sounds smarter.

"Oh, I see," she nodded.

This time, Alex cannot stay any minutes being patient to tolerate hiding his curiosity for this strange moment. He finally decided to ask about the origins of the girl sitting in front of him.

"So, who are you and where do you come from?"

"Ah, my apologies, I forgot that I haven't introduced myself yet. My name is Sam. I come from a remote village in West Florida. I don't remember how I was born actually, only that the person who brought me into this world was a dear old man, his name is Henry, the revered pastor of Basil Church. But three years ago, he was killed by those thugs, along with many others in the church... I was only lucky to escape death. And somehow, I ended up lost here."

- "Why are you looking at this? Is there something surprising?" Alex inquired.

- "Can't you see? There's something that piques my curiosity, particularly in this photo," she replied, pointing at the picture of Alex's family, his father holding him when he was just three months old. But strangely, upon closer inspection, there seemed to be something faintly obscured. As if it were pressing onto something.

He snatched the album and scrutinized the photo once more, then removed it from the album. Indeed, there was nothing behind the slot in the album.

However, on the back of the photo, there was a line of writing, inscribed with faded ink. He couldn't read it clearly. After all, this photo was over 22 years old.

- "Shall we try heating it up? I vaguely recall learning that certain invisible inks are written with substances like vinegar or lemon juice, which are acidic in nature. If you heat it over a flame, you'll be able to read it," she suggested.

- "That makes sense. Let's give it a try."