“For now, our one and only task is to keep things stable until the military and paramilitary mobilizes and deploys. Until then,” the chief of the department laid his clipboard down on the stand and looked up, giving the crowd of gathered policemen of all ranks a sweeping look. “Until then, I will have to impose twelve-hour shifts on everyone.”

No one in the room protested.

Being a policeman was a duty that came with all sorts of government benefits and a sense of a mission… But in times of challenge, putting in overtime wasn’t something they could simply opt out of.

“Those with even badge numbers are going to stay, everyone else…” The chief lowered his head and closed his eyes, taking an uncharacteristically long moment to gather his thoughts. “I know what you might feel like doing before your night shift begins. I know that some of you are eager to stay, to gather information, to enter those rifts on your own…”

The chief shook his head, allowing the grief born from the causalities reported thus far to reveal on his face for but a fleeting moment.

“Don’t make this mistake. It’s not on us to solve this situation. Our duty is to make sure the citizens of our beautiful city won’t fall victim to the chaos. And now, to all those with uneven badge numbers, you are dismissed.”

Tina breathed a sneaky sigh of relief before taking a quick glance at her department-issued standard clock.

‘I’ve got nine hours till my shift starts…’ Tina quickly counted before rising up from her seat and turning to leave. ‘At least I didn’t take all that long here. It’s only been an hour…’

Tina quickly moved through the wide corridors of the building, trying her best to move as fast as she could without appearing too rushed.

The last thing anyone in the city needed was a young cop acting as if she was panicked right when everyone else was holding on to their sanity by the skin of their teeth.

‘Only a damned hour…’

Tina wasted an entire half a minute to pick up her simple, long jacket from the changing room before throwing it directly over her uniform, caring not for how hot she would be with two sets of clothes on right in the middle of a late spring’s heat wave.

‘It’s only been an hour,’ she thought, jumping down two stairs with each step before hurrying down the street, ‘so there should be no way he would vanish again, right?’

Freed from her duty for the next nine hours, she dutifully obeyed the chief’s order and ignored the messy situation all around her.

The things in the city were… better, but they were by no means good.

Thanks to the valiant efforts of all her on-duty colleagues, the main streets were now back under control. And no matter how far down the main street she went, there always were at least two different cop shops in sight, their presence alone serving as a deterrent big enough to stop the petty criminals from taking advantage of the chaos.

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Strangely enough, for anyone who didn’t participate in the police meeting Tina just left, while there were hardly any cars in the smaller streets cutting away from the main one, the very moment she entered the proximity of the main residential district, the whole area turned out to be swarming with policemen.

‘I wonder if those portals were more likely to appear wherever there are more people…’ the young woman thought, recalling the details of the early and makeshift investigation.

It was information the police learned from a bunch of different reports...

Reports that came mostly from cops that couldn’t be contacted anymore.

There was still a chance some of them were simply locked inside those portals where radios simply didn’t work... But there were already several cases where survivors of the portals reported the death of the colleagues they challenged the portals with.

Before fifteen minutes could pass since Tina left the department, she arrived at the outskirts of the main residential district, only to hurry along its edge towards its older if not outright ancient part. And as high-rise apartment buildings gave way to the old-style, pre-cast concrete slab-based apartments, she soon realized that what was merely implied during the briefing had to be correct.

During her return, Tina passed by a grand total of eleven portals, each and every last one of them protected by at least two patrol cars. But in here, where the build of the district’s population was gathered, there appeared to be a portal on every damned corner, with only a few of them having any sort of police protection.

Yet, what was the weirdest thing of all, by the time she finally reached the spot where she usually hung out with that stupid brat’s group to make sure they wouldn’t cross the line of breaking the law… The portal that she could vividly remember Leo stepping into…

It was nowhere in sight.

The courtyard where Leo first appeared and made his return known, the exact place where she hung out with Mark’s group while trying not to smack his face as he went through yet another iteration of trying to put his older brother down… Save for the few spots of already dried-out blood, there was nothing to indicate there was anything wrong with the place.

‘Wait,’ Tina suddenly stopped in her tracks, as the sight of the familiar place finally made something in her brain click. ‘Isn’t this area where Peter’s group was reported KIA?’

Stopping for but a second, Tina stared down at the spot where both the concrete and the grass of the patio were marked with dark red. A bloody spot too large to come from a random scratch or a small injury.

‘Shit…’

In theory, this was another clue. A something she should be reporting to the headquarters right away… But right now, swarming the police line with a report of a bloody spot would do far less good than it would do harm.

With that justification and the direct order of the chief not to bother and get some rest instead, Tina happily turned her eyes away from the bloody scene before rushing towards the nearby, low-rise apartment complex.

Tina’s vision started to blur as she ran up the grand total of seven flights of stairs that separated her from the third floor of the building. It was only the muscle memory she developed by making this run over and over again in the past few years that allowed her to reach the familiar door with her vision and sanity on the verge of giving in.

Yet, as hurried as she was to reach Pesterny’s residence, the very moment Tina reached out to open the door…

She stopped.

There was no invisible barrier that prevented her from touching the door, nor was there any sort of monster hiding in the darkness deeper into the corridor that made her stop.

It was nothing more but her own hesitation that prevented the young woman from pushing the door open.

‘You can do it,’ Tina thought to herself, taking a deep breath to gather up her courage.

The courage that took a massive hit by the fact that even when standing right by the doors to Leo’s home, home where his entire family should be gathered… She couldn’t hear a thing.

And so, unable to push herself to just open the doors like she would do many times in the past, Tina raised her hand a little higher before tightening her hand into a fist and giving the doors a few solid knocks.