I walked my cousin home to protect her from a potential killer

What I’m going to say is what happened to me when I was 9 or 10, I don’t remember the exact date, but this incident still creeps me out to this day. We are German (I specify this because this is important to the story), my mom has a sister my aunt that lives with her husband and their daughter who is my cousin 3 years younger than me. Our families are very close, we live in the same neighborhood and go over each other’s homes all the time. Every other weekend, my cousin and I would sleep over each other’s homes (I’ll make it clear this is important as well). When I was a child, I got to sleep in my own room, my cousin had to sleep on a mattress in her parent’s room. <br><br>That weekend, I slept over my cousin’s house.<br>The next morning my cousin and I decided to walk home. This was perfectly fine, I mean we live in a safe neighborhood. We walked around 9am, we were on the road leading to my house, when this guy came out of nowhere and approached us. He looked very weird, he was a tall, thin guy with a raspy voice and even though it was pretty warm outside, he still wore a hoodie. He looked at my cousin and said “Do you know how pretty you are?” in German. My cousin was confused and started to look at me, I asked him “What did you just say?” and he repeated what he said. My cousin started to look scared and I told her to walk away. Right away, he started walking next to us and that’s what I think traumatized me. <br><br>This guy, after we walked away, walked after us, and started talking to us in lines like “You look so pretty” “Do you have a boyfriend?” while my cousin started crying. I was just a 9 or 10 year old, I didn’t know what to do. I told him to go away but he didn’t. I kept telling my cousin to walk faster, but all he did was speed up and walk faster than us. I’ve never been so scared in my life. One thing that stuck with me was when he asked my cousin “What do you think if we were to be boyfriend and girlfriend?”. She of course said no and he kept repeating the same lines. I told him to go away one last time, he didn’t listen. <br><br>In an act of self defense, I started yelling at him in English, something like “LEAVE US THE FUCK ALONE YOU WEIRDO!”. I’m not sure what happened, but after I said it, he suddenly stopped, turned around and walked away into a parking lot. I was so confused at first but then I remembered English is the first language I speak. I was so glad that it worked that I hugged my cousin and we both cried. We walked home, and she told my aunt what happened.<br><br>She was very upset, I’m sure of it. She told my mom and my mom asked me if I was okay and if that guy came back. It didn’t, thankfully. A few months later we found out the guy had been arrested for kidnapping a 7 year old girl. Thankfully she was found a week later.<br><br>I don’t think about this incident often, but it still creeps me out to this day.