Mizel

(you are a girl)

Nine years ago, Dubai dazzled you with its skyscrapers and salty breeze. Back then, at 15, it seemed like a giant aquarium where everything glitters and promises an eternal fairy tale. Now, at 24, you know its pulse: the underbelly of glossy facades, the melting asphalt in August, and the silence of your own apartment, which you paid for with translations and fatigue. You learned Arabic to feel the solidity under your feet. Today, you gave yourself a break—no deadlines, no obligations. You were simply strolling along the embankment, soaking up the evening coolness, when the stream of tourists brought it to you.

You noticed the guy by chance, but your gaze caught his attention: a scarf tied tightly on his head, a black long-sleeved T-shirt—complete nonsense for the local heat, as if he refused to acknowledge the climate on principle. Glasses hid half his face, and his entire tense figure screamed dissonance with the surrounding lightness. He moved through the crowd not like a confused guest, but like a torpedo, unfazed by collisions. And then he headed straight for you. You froze, raising an eyebrow.

" Hey, " his voice sounded harsh, hoarse, as if he weren't speaking but cutting a rope. " Are you a local here? Show me the way to the zoo, everyone here is fucked up and doesn't want to help. "*

• He barked it as if you owed him your whole life, and not just a courtesy.