There's a particular hall in the school, once used for Hydraulics practicals, which was later moved to a new location. Since then, the hall has remained unused and open to all students. Students in the civil engineering faculty turned it into a charging station for their gadgets. Often, due to poor electricity supply in the town, some students go to the hall just to charge their phones, even when they don't have lectures for the day. As a result, the hall is always crowded with students and gadgets like laptops, chargeable lanterns, phones, and power banks scattered on the ground.
On a Thursday morning, the CEC301 lecture was canceled, much to the delight of all Civil Engineering students in the 300 level. As usual, a lot of them moved to the hall to charge their phones.
"Hmmmm, this hall is always as crowded as ever. Do you have an extension box?" Festus paused at the entrance, seeing the hall filled with people like a marketplace.
Elvis, standing beside him, opened his bag and looked inside. "Of course, I'm carrying it. It's totally impossible to get a space to charge a phone in a place like this without owning one's extension box."
The two friends walked in, greeting familiar faces they knew, and finally found a spot. They plugged in the extension box and their phones. For such an adventure, one dare not leave their phone unattended. Everyone charging their phone must stay close to secure it; otherwise, it could lead to a theft story. The two friends stayed close to their phones while they charged.
"Elvis, your phone is ringing," Festus tapped Elvis on his shoulder, pointing at his vibrating phone on the ground.
Elvis bent down and caught a glance on the caller. "Okay, I need to go and meet my girl; she's outside. I don't need to answer the call. I'm coming," He walked out of the hall, leaving his phone behind for his friend to watch over his phone.
He spent up to 10 minutes outside, and when he came back, he quickly reached for his phone to see how much it had charged. He thanked his friend for watching over his phone.
Around 12:00 noon, they picked up their phones to go to the next lecture. Just as they stepped out of the hall, Elvis switched on his data and got a gmail notification of 0.2 BTC transferred from his account. He stood on the spot, reading the message again and again to make sure the debit wasn't from his Binance wallet. When Festus noticed that Elvis was not behind him, he turned to see Elvis frozen in place, staring at his phone with his face glued to it just like the way albinos look at phones in bright light.
"What's that? We need to hurry up because the seats on the window sides will get occupied," Festus tried to continue walking away.
"Bro, wait, come and see this. Someone just transferred 0.2 BTC from my Binance account," Elvis walked to him and showed him the phone containing the transaction history.
"Transferred your crypto without your consent? How is that possible? Don't you have a password on your phone?" Festus grabbed the phone to check. "Wait, it happened not long ago. How is this possible? Does anyone have your login details?"
Elvis, trying to contain his burning body, stammered, "It's only my... my... girl that has my details. In fact, I have her password and login details just as she has mine, but... but..."
"But what? Your girlfriend just stole your money, and I'm sure she's going to deny it if you ask her. Come on, call her now," Festus handed the phone back to Elvis.
With sweat soaking his face, he grabbed the phone with trembling hands.
"Call her!" Festus urged again.
"I doubt if she's the one that did this act. Are you sure no one took my phone when I left?"
"Mtcheeew!" Upon hearing that, Festus hissed out of frustration at Elvis's response and walked away.
Elvis ran towards him and begged him to stop, dragging him on the shoulder.
"You pissed me off. You're indirectly accusing me of stealing your money. Gosh! I can't even think of it. Do I know the password to your phone? Do I know your login details? Just leave me!" Festus, still boiling with anger, shrugged off his hand and walked away.
Elvis stood there under the sun, watching his friend who was supposed to help him hunt the thief walk away. He picked up the phone again, checked the transaction history, and at that moment, he wished crypto transactions worked like local banks that display the name of the receiver on the phone. He thought of many steps to take, and all his thoughts landed on the solution that his friend, Festus, suggested, despite angrily leaving him, which was to call his girlfriend. But he was afraid because wrongly accusing his girlfriend would result in him losing the girl who he fought so hard to get. Their relationship has been one sided with Elvis showing all the affection while the girl keep taking things for granted
He finally summoned the courage to call his girlfriend.
"Hello, Anita, did you log in to my wallet when... wh... when you came to meet me at that hall?"
"Yes, I did, and I transferred your 0.2 BTC to pay for the hair I once told you about, which you didn't show concern for. You can go ahead and call it stealing; I don't care. I will give you back whenever I have the money to replace it."
"What do you mean, how could...?" Elvis got interrupted as the phone beeped and was the from the girl, she abruptly ended the call. His sight became blurry under the sun he was standing, he looked around, and everywhere appeared blank to him, his heart beating so hard. His all-time savings had gone in a flash. He knew there was no hope of Anita returning the money. He had just suffered another ordeal at the hands of his girlfriend.
His instinct pushed him to go and fight to get his money back, but a bigger thought reminded him that he might lose his girlfriend.
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