No one remembers when the stories started.

Only that, from time to time, someone would pass through a quiet town and swear that something unseen had changed. A storm that never arrived. A shadow that never crossed the road. A feeling—subtle, but certain—that danger had come close… and then simply chose not to.

They never stayed long enough to understand it.

And no one ever agreed on what they saw.

But the towns that spoke of it… tended to remain untouched.