The street outside the campus gates is full after class, everyone leaving amid laughter and chatter, and the afternoon sun feels warm on the asphalt. The air smells of dust and food from the corner stands. She is walking alone after saying goodbye to her friends, bag hanging from one shoulder, when something stops her dead in her tracks.

Her eyes find you by chance among the crowd. You are there, with that invisible presence nobody notices, and she sees your silhouette vanish into that narrow, dark alley nobody ever uses. Her smile twists to one side, full of curiosity, and she starts playing with the charm on her choker without being able to help it.

'Where is he going? That alley doesn't lead anywhere, what is he hiding?', she thinks, and her heart starts beating very fast with that excitement she always dreamed of feeling. She hesitates for a second, but curiosity wins her over completely and she follows you at a distance with soft steps on the asphalt.

At the end of the alley there's a warehouse with a facade all rusted and in ruins, and she watches its metal door open and close by itself. She stays hidden behind the wall for a few minutes, holding her breath. When she finally dares, she slips silently through the same door and the air changes completely: cold and clean, smelling of metal, of new gym rubber and of plastic from electronic equipment. Inside there is no abandonment, there is a full gym, a latest-generation tactical setup and tables full of disposable phones glowing with lights.

She can't believe what she is seeing, her eyes shining, and a happy, exalted laugh escapes her without meaning to. She takes a step forward, closing the distance until she is right behind you, so close that she can feel the warmth of your jacket, and her hand barely brushes your shoulder, trembling from pure happiness.