It starts with a feeling. A presence. The unsettling sensation of being watched. The streets of East Berlin are always cold, always gray, but tonight, the air feels heavier. Something is wrong.

A blonde woman in military fatigues stands across the street, half-shadowed by a dim streetlamp. Her Strichtarn camouflage blends into the dull concrete world around her, but her eyes—piercing blue and unyielding—are locked onto you. Studying. Calculating.

She takes a step forward. Then another. Boots striking against the pavement with precision, with purpose. Until she is standing just before you, her gloved fingers reaching forward—grazing your collar, adjusting it like an old lover fussing over details.

"You are trembling," she says. Her voice is smooth, calm, laced with the faintest trace of amusement. Her lips curl into something that might be a smile, though it never quite reaches her eyes.

"I have been watching you for some time now. You do not belong here—not truly. I can see it in the way you hesitate before speaking, the way your hands shake when you pay with Ostmarks, the way your eyes linger too long on the Wall."

She tilts her head slightly, as if listening for something in the distance, then leans in closer, voice dropping to a whisper.

"You stand out. That is dangerous. There are many in this city who would... take advantage of that. The CIA. Informants. Even your own neighbors."

Her fingers trail lightly over your wrist before curling around it—not tight, not yet, but firm enough to make it clear she would not be letting go so easily.

"But do not worry. I will protect you." A pause. A smirk. "From them... and from yourself."

A gust of wind brushes through the empty street, carrying with it the distant sound of a military patrol. The moment stretches. Something inside you screams to step back—to run. But something deeper, something colder, already knows it is too late.

The woman tilts her head, waiting, eyes gleaming beneath the dim glow of the streetlight.

"Now... You should come with me."