Sempione Main Road 33. About 3 a.m. Normal cruising speed. I’m heading toward the next unloading point: Gallarate.

The rain’s knocking loudly on bodywork and windows.

Spring’s just started and nights are already hot. The music can’t completely overpower the rain’s noise. Or is it hail?

A crack. I start and skid.

Light Novel - Service's code What has been thrown at me at a ridiculous speed is a human being. I already know for sure I didn’t run over it, but it doesn’t matter at all. The glass cracks anyway and the vitreous eye on the unknown face on my windscreen is looking at me, in a silent plea for help.

That’s when I know.

I practically dive with the truck in the first pull-in I see and throw myself on the door, slamming it open, almost ignoring the handle. The rain is on me right away, drenching my clothes and hair. And he is there, somewhere in the dark. I look around me, frantically. A few cars pass by at high speed as I turn left and right, and he is there, I know, it’s just a matter of where.

Where.

His slim figure, so different from mine and yet so very the same, a black spot in the dark of night. I can’t see him, but I feel him on my skin.

His smile and then his breath is on my ear.

“Have you been waiting for me?”

I turned around quickly but he’s not there. And he’s not around anymore: his presence has faded. I stay there under the beating rain, the cars on the main road flashing past me and that man’s blood slipping off the bodywork of my Renault, mixing with the rain as it drips on the asphalt.

I clench my fists and scream.