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[17-06-2021 | Stuttgart, Germany | 18:42 CET]

The soft purr of a Porsche 356 America Roadster, pearl white in colour, rolled to a smooth stop beside a corner café, at a four-way intersection. Dressed in a grey wool jacket over a crisp white shirt, with metal studs that caught the light along its open seam, Rakim killed the engine. Looking at the harmonious surroundings that seemed straight out of a movie, he took it in before hopping out of the car.

Light-wash jeans that puddled slightly at the ankles, where they met a pair of fuzzy red mules, completed the ensemble. His locs had been pulled back loose, and a pair of dark sunglasses rested low on his nose despite the dying light. He glanced toward the café’s outdoor seating, where an elderly man sat alone at a small wrought-iron table, a newspaper folded beside an espresso cup that had long gone cold.

"Schönen Abend," Rakim offered with a small nod, but the man did not respond; in fact, he didn’t even blink. As if a screw had been loosened in his mind, he just stared, eyes sun-mooning as they looked on Rakim, causing the back of his neck to prickle. Rakim hesitated, then offered a tight smile and turned away, assuming the old man wasn’t all there.

He took two steps toward the café entrance, intending to grab a quick espresso of his own, when something made him pause.

The waitress standing in the doorway, tray balanced on one hand, half tilted almost vertically, stared. A young couple at the table by the window, hands paused mid-air over a shared plate of pastries, stared. A man in a suit halfway across the street, briefcase frozen at his side, stared. A little girl clutching her mother’s hand, mouth slightly open as if she’d forgotten what she was about to say, stared.

The mother herself, head tilted at an unnatural angle, stared. Every face on the street was turned toward him. Every set of eyes unblinking, unmoving, fixed on him with the same intensity. His sunglasses slid a fraction lower on his nose, snapping him out of it as he pushed them up with one finger, his throat tightening, the bustle of the city’s evening rush suddenly absent.

No conversations, no clinking of cups, not even the chirping of birds or the wind rushing by. With all the noises disappearing, the sound of something became that much clearer, capturing his attention. A soft, rhythmic rolling of leather kissing cobblestone, a sound he’d recognise even in his sleep.

A black-and-white ball rolled toward him from across the intersection, slicing past the frozen humans as if guided by an invisible hand. It came to rest gently at his feet, its panels catching the last of the dying sun. Rakim stared at it for a moment, then crouched slowly, one hand reaching to rest his fingertips on the worn leather. The moment his skin made contact, the setting sun disappeared, replaced by street lights.

The old man, the waitress, the couple, the little girl, all signs of living humans were gone in the blink of an eye, gone. The café tables sat undisturbed, espressos still half-finished, newspapers still folded, but the people who had been holding them seconds ago had simply vanished. The shop windows reflected only him and the long, empty stretch of Stuttgart cobblestones.(

(Grrr) A low, growling roar cut through the silence, capturing his attention, and he instinctively turned. Two bright headlights blazed to life, slicing through the dusk like swords, illuminating him at the far end of the street. The shape behind them was low and predatory, its sleek silhouette barely distinguishable from the shadows around it, as its massive rear wing carved a line across the moon sky.

The engine snarled, as another pair of headbeams turned on to his left and he vaguely recognised the silhouette of a yellow 911 Carrera. It also began to purr its engine, making its presence known as two pairs of distinct footsteps hit the cobblestones. Next to the pitch-black car that resembled a GT3 RS, a massive figure, easily three hundred kilos, with white-and-black stripes, eyes the same gold as the Carrera’s paint, emerged.

It moved with the unhurried grace, not even considering a challenge to its authority, every step a display of lazy violence. From beside the yellow Carrera, a jaguar emerged, sleeker, smaller, but somehow not less dangerous. Its black-spotted coat rippled in the half-light, and its tail flicked once, twice, as both cars revved, a synchronised growl that made the café windows rattle.

Rakim straightened slowly, the ball settling beneath his right foot. His sunglasses had slipped to the tip of his nose, and he didn’t push them back up this time. Instead, he flicked them off his face with a single motion, then into the nape of his collar just below his Adam’s apple. Without taking his eyes off the predators in front of him, he studied the predators in front of him, causing the corner of his mouth to lift involuntarily.

Seeing the provocation, the Tiger lunged without a warning, and he reacted instinctively, a soft roll of the sole, dragging the ball back toward his body as the tiger’s paw swept the space he’d just occupied. Not hesitating, he picked a straight and began dribbling down it as the sound of engines mixed with growls giving chase resounded behind him.

The cobblestones blurred beneath his mules as he picked up his pace, the ball stitched to his feet as if connected by strings containing both the properties of gum and rubber. Behind him, the GT3 RS roared into motion, tyres screaming against the stone, while the Tiger’s paws thundered in heavy, ground-eating strides. The Jaguar peeled off to flank him from the left, its lithe form weaving between the parked cars lining the empty boulevard, while the yellow Carrera T mirrored its movement on the parallel street, headlights flickering between gaps in the buildings.

He cut left into a narrow alley, barely wide enough for two people to walk shoulder to shoulder. The Tiger crashed in behind him, claws scoring the cobblestones with sparks. The GT3 RS skidded to a halt at the alley’s mouth, its headlights staring at him before it reversed sharply, tyres squealing as it raced around to cut him off at the other end.

The Tiger gained ground in the tight space, its breath audible now, hot and rancid against Rakim’s neck. He flicked the ball forward with the outside of his boot and leapt, planting his left foot on a wooden crate stacked against the alley wall, vaulting upward to a window ledge before pushing off again. He landed lightly on the opposite side of the Tiger, the ball already spinning back to his feet from where it had ricocheted off a drainpipe.

The Tiger skidded, claws tearing into the cobblestones as it tried to reverse direction. Rakim shot the ball through a wrought-iron railing on his right, sprinted around the corner, and collected it on the other side. He emerged from the alley onto an open plaza, at the Schlossplatz, with the Königsbau’s pale facade glowing softly under the moon ahead of him.

The Carrera was waiting across the plaza, engine idling at a low hum, headlights washing the pale stones in white. The Jaguar lay atop the fountains, lazily gazing down at him with golden eyes, voraciously studying him. The Tiger emerged from the alley behind him, panting heavily, its massive shoulders rolling with each step. The GT3 RS glided into view from a side street to the left, completing the box.

Rakim let out a slow breath, eyes flicking between the four of them. His mules tapped twice on the ball, then once on the cobblestone, almost playfully, as they morphed into his purple singularity, causing him to smirk. Without hesitation, he broke right at the Carrera as the yellow coupe lurched forward, the Jaguar springing off the fountain in a single liquid bound. Rakim let the ball roll a beat ahead, drawing both predators in, then jabbed his right heel down on it, dragging it sharply behind his standing leg.

Performing a swift McGeady spin, he slid past the leaping Jaguar, and the Carrera screamed across his old line, headlights catching nothing but air. Rakim could have sworn he heard classical music in the background, but had to throw away that thought as the tiger came charging from behind, mouth open. Reacting, he flicked the ball up with his toe, popped it over the beast’s swiping paw in a nimble sombrero.

Mid-stride, his clothes dissolved like smoke, jacket and jeans peeling away in ribbons of silver mist, as the purple APEX: SINGULARITY boots gently kissed the underside of the descending ball. As if agreed, all four converged on him from four directions. Seeing this, he smirked lightly before popping the ball skyward with the outside of his right boot and met the ball on the volley.

The ball sailed through the air as if shot from a cannon, hitting the top corner of the Königsbau’s central arch. Sending the net rippling that wasn’t there a second ago.

(Snap!)

"Rakim, (snap snap snap) I think he is sleeping, wakey wakey," He blinked eyes, slowly adjusting the glare of lights as the figure of a man dressed in a neat suit was crouched at his head. "We’re ready for your poster shoot."

"Huh, um yeah sure," he managed to cough out upon noticing all eyes in the studio focused on him, forcing him to quickly sit up on the sofa. Only now did he notice the matte-black GT3 RS and the yellow Carrera T sat angled on the marble showcase like two majestic animals unbothered by lesser beings.

{Porsche Live Out Your Wildest Dreams}

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TO BE Continued...