So, first of all have fun reading!

Acid test
(or: I still hear these words ...)

The beeping woke her up. In the middle of the night the beeping started suddenly in the house. She sighed, slowly sat up in her bed. She was still half asleep, she had just been suddenly ripped out of her sleep. Her eyes were still slightly clouded when she looked at her alarm clock. Three o'clock at night, the beeping had stopped in the meantime, but now she was slowly waking up. In any case, she wouldn’t be able to fall asleep again that quickly. She shook her head to get rid of the last bit of tiredness. She yawned again, then got up. A slight shiver came over her as she quietly left her room and went into the hallway. It was dead quiet in the house. She actually wanted to go into the living room to read a little there, but she had to pass Conan's room (note: Well, now we all know where we are XD. At Ran's home, of course).Maybe it was a bad premonition, maybe just pure interest .... In retrospect, she couldn't tell anymore, which is why she stopped and listened briefly at the door. Did she just want to know if Conan was sleeping? Or had it been completely different. Did she unconsciously associate this beeping with the cause and wanted to know whether she was right? The little boy was definitely not sleeping. No, he was awake, and she could hear him talking softly ... "You know what time it is!" Ran was quite sure that it was that crazy cell phone that had beeped. This earring-sized cell phone. At least she knew this technical masterpiece, she also knew that Conan had it with him most of the time, if not always. And this beeping had woken her. She couldn't help but stop at the door and keep listening. After all, it didn't happen every day that you were woken up at three o'clock, which was caused by a phone call.She stood there at the door, trying to hear something, but nothing happened in Conan's room at first. Presumably he first listened to the caller in peace. As she was waiting in front of the door, she got a strange feeling again ... Lately it has been there more and more often. Whenever she thought about Conan ... Every time she wondered why he was lying to her all the time and could still look her face. Oh yes, she knew ... She knew everything, at least as far as Conan's real identity was concerned. It was just a coincidence, the one time while investigating the case. Not anymore ... Somehow she had seen him use this watch, fire something and then her father fell back into this half-sleep. After that, she watched him solve the case out of the corner of her eye. The thing was clear, he could no longer deceive her. A brief reverse transformation didn't help either, it had unmasked him. And now the only option left was to wait and see.She didn't mean to worry him by telling him that she knew everything. He certainly had his reasons for not telling her the truth yet. But somehow she hurt it. But she was reluctant to admit it.

"Why now please?", Conan still sounded a bit sleepy, but also a little surprised. Ran leaned against the door, sighed .... She spied on him, although to be honest, she didn't want to. She trusted him, but she was afraid for him. "All right, I'm coming!" Came Conan's room. Ran pulled himself up again, went on into the living room .... She hadn't even turned on the light when she heard Conan's door .... First the careful opening, then the careful closing. She swallowed, trying to suppress the bad feeling that was spreading inside her. She heard the steps hurried to the front door ... A little rustling, probably the way he quickly put his shoes on.Why did he want to leave now, at this ungodly hour? She still hesitated, she still didn't know what she wanted to do at all. Follow him? Stay here? Conan, no Shinichi, was really old enough to take care of himself. But if you look closely, he was trapped in the body of a 7-year-old boy at the moment, he wasn't the 17-year-old high school student who could get into a slightly more dangerous situation. No, he was a little boy now who, realistically, needed help from time to time. But he would certainly not want to accept it, he would say he would be back in a moment, and still go off alone. He wasn't going to let her in, no matter how much she wished. Asking him to take her with him would definitely be of no use, it would be completely pointless. so there were really only two options left. Follow - or stay here and wait. 50 to 50 ... Now what? Now what would be the right thing, was there any right and wrong at all?Didn't it matter what she did? Wasn't it wrong to follow him and thus run the risk of being discovered and thereby unsettling him? But it was also a big mistake to stay here and wait, despite all these concerns. Above all, she had that bad feeling again, which she could still remember so well. Exactly the same as back then in Topical Land. Exactly the same ... That feeling that told her that something bad was about to happen. Just like when Shinichi disappeared and Conan showed up. One and the same person - but so different. The rustling in the hallway had stopped, and there was a short silence again. As if he were to pause again and look around one more time, possibly one last time. Then the steps went to the front door, which was opened again very carefully. She was still not entirely convinced of what to do now.

What was the end of the song? She ran after him. How could this little kid run so fast, she kept asking herself as she ran after him in the streets.A couple of times, she almost lost him, and now and then she even ran the risk of being seen by him. As she followed him, a light drizzle set in, a look at the sky revealed that it would almost certainly start pouring in the foreseeable future. And still she ran after him. It must have been a good fifteen minutes since she left her house. Where did Conan want to go and not to forget who he wanted to meet. Questions about questions and no answers. She wouldn’t get any that soon, not before they got there. But then the questions were superfluous. In the meantime they had deviated a little from the main streets and were now walking through smaller streets that they would almost call alleyways. She kept more and more distance from him, something told her that they would soon be where Conan wanted to go. Intuition ... and she relied on that too.Again and again she looked three times around the corner, behind which Shinichi had just disappeared. But only two or three times ... because then she had briefly lost sight of him. She no longer knew where he was, had waited too long around the corner. She would have loved to call his name, scream loudly. But she couldn't do that, then she'd get noticed, and she really didn't want that. She wanted to follow him secretly, so that he didn't have to worry. The only thing she intended was to help him in an emergency, when he himself didn't know what to do next. She couldn't and didn't want to do more. And if that meant she had to spy on him, then that's what she would do. She didn't try to lose him again, as she did in Topical Land. No, once was enough for her in any case. Once and never again, she wanted to feel so helpless and abandoned. She strode carefully into the alley in which he had escaped from her.Repeatedly she looked around to both sides, not allowed to notice anything. She just had to find him again ...

"No last words Kudo?", She heard from the right, even as she turned there she heard the shot .... The bang as it tore apart the silence of the night. In front of her eyes, although she didn't know exactly what had just happened, a terrible scenario played out .... She stood, her gaze fixed straight ahead in the alley and it seemed to her that she would see what was next in front, right behind the corner ... Conan .... The alley became blurred, became more and more indistinct, time seemed to stand still! There was no more breeze ... It was quiet! Dead silence! If she hadn't heard the shot herself a few seconds ago, she would doubt it now. It was so peaceful ... so quiet as a mouse. Was that just an illusion earlier? It had to be like that, the opposite just couldn't be true .... That would be too terrible not to imagine.She quickly wanted to get rid of this horror vision in her mind's eye, she tried to ignore it. Her heart started racing ... She heard the pounding in her head. She would have loved to slump down here on the floor, close her eyes and cover her ears. She didn't want anything to get through to her ... She didn't want this illusion that she was trying to create to suddenly, through a wrong movement, dissolve a wrong sound into thin air. But she couldn't ... She was trembling all over as she slowly turned in the direction from which the bang had come. But deep inside she already knew what she would find there. She knew it, so the shock she'd been expecting was a lot smaller than she'd thought. Yes, although she had been prepared for it .... Although she had already had the situation in her thoughts and played it through .... Her tremors got worse .... Her throat was as if constricted.She would have loved to scream, call his name ... would have loved to run to him. But it was as if she were suddenly paralyzed, as if she couldn't take a step forward. Her body no longer obeyed her. Why?? It was so important to come to him now, to help him ... Why ??? Why couldn't she just start walking? She wanted to leave, but she couldn't. She was still standing there, staring into the alley .... She couldn't even shake her head anymore, and even found it difficult to swallow. But she finally had to start running .... Had to go to him. // Come on .... // even though she tried so hard, she still didn't move in his direction. Tears slowly ran down her cheeks ...

Then, after an infinite amount of time had passed for her, it was very easy to start ... The loo in her throat got smaller and smaller. The closer she got to him, the faster her