Aaron woke up to the TV still going.
Yawned. Looked at the mark on his hand.
Still there.
He got up.
Theren made food without being asked. Rei appeared from the couch looking like he'd lost a serious argument with sleep. Dropped into a chair and stared at his plate.
The news was everywhere.
Portals confirmed open globally. Every continent. Every city reporting the same thing. Portals just sitting there. Still. Open. No monsters coming through. Just waiting and the whole world standing around them not knowing what to do.
"They're just open." Rei stared at the footage. "Just sitting there doing absolutely nothing."
Theren wrapped both hands around his coffee mug. "Second Opening did that too." Not looking up. "At first."
Nobody said anything to that.
On TV an old man somewhere in Lemurian looked at the reporter and said "last time they said that too." The reporter moved on fast.
Outside Lemurian was moving scared underneath everything.
People everywhere but wrong somehow. A man on steps with his hand pressed over his mouth watching footage of another city. Kids on a corner staring at a shimmer two streets over. A woman pulling her child by the hand even though there was nowhere specific to be.
Veteran teams moved through the streets in organized groups. Quiet. Focused. The calm of people who had done hard things enough times that hard stopped feeling new. Newer teams faster. Louder. The energy of people doing something real for the first time.
A young team passed close by heading toward a portal two streets over. One of them laughed at something another one said. High and quick. The kind of laugh that came out when you were scared and needed to hear yourself sound normal.
Rei watched them until they turned the corner.
"Those guys are our age," he said.
"Yeah," Aaron said.
Rei kept walking. Eyes forward. "I watched you get pulled into that portal at the ceremony. I was standing right there." His voice was steady but something underneath it wasn't. "I watched you disappear and there was nothing I could do. Just stood there for hours not knowing if you were alive."
Aaron looked at him.
"I don't want to just watch anymore," Rei said. Not angry. Just honest. "I don't want to be the person behind the barrier filming it on their phone."
"You were there when it happened," Aaron said. "You didn't run. That means something."
Rei was quiet for a moment.
"Okay," he said. Very quietly.
CRACK.
A portal two streets over shifted and settled. A kid nearby grabbed her mother's sleeve and made a small sound and the mother pulled her close without looking away from her phone.
Then Rei stopped.
Shop window. Live news. Northern Lemurian. A portal that looked wrong even through glass. Darker than the others. The air near it not sitting still.
Reporter talking fast. S tier confirmed. Team deployed.
Last update. Twenty minutes ago.
Nothing since.
*Twenty minutes*, Aaron thought. *Best team available. Nothing coming out.*
"That one's different," Rei said.
"Yeah."
"Different bad."
"Yeah."
Neither of them said anything after that.
They got to Rei's building and Aaron stopped outside.
"Go up," Aaron said. "I'll be there soon."
Rei turned around slow. "No." He stepped closer. Voice dropping. "Tell me where you're going. Don't say nowhere. Don't say you're checking something."
"Rei."
"AARON." His voice cracked. Just once. "I watched you disappear into that portal and I stood there for hours not knowing. So don't tell me you're just checking something."
Aaron looked at him properly.
Rei looked back. Eyes doing something between fear and anger at the same time.
Aaron thought about telling him everything. The screen. The stages. The shadows. The mark. All of it.
He thought about it.
"I'll be back," Aaron said. "I promise."
"Don't die." Quiet. Completely serious. "Whatever you're about to do. Please don't die."
"I won't."
"Because if you die I will be so angry at you."
"Fair."
"At your funeral I will say nothing nice."
"Noted."
Rei went inside.
Aaron stood there and listened to the elevator going up.
*He watched me disappear*, he thought. *Stood there for hours not knowing. And he's been carrying that since.*
He thought about Theren at home on the couch. About scarred hands around a coffee mug. About twelve years of active duty and still getting up every morning and making food and never talking about what those twelve years cost.
*He'll be okay*, Aaron thought. *He has to be.*
He turned and walked north.
He felt it two streets before he saw it.
Air getting heavier with every step. Something sitting deep in his chest that wasn't fear exactly but lived right next to it.
He turned the corner.
Low ranked awakeners standing around it in a wide circle. Young. Nervous. Facing outward with their backs to the portal like standing too close to it for too long was something they'd been specifically told not to do.
Aaron understood why the second he saw it properly.
Pale white at the centre bled into eaten black. Its light didn't illuminate anything. It just made the nearby world look wrong. The edges of shadow sighed inward and the air pulled toward the hole like the portal was breathing something in and never breathing anything back out.
Hundreds of people behind the barriers. Phones out. An official near the front kept checking over his shoulder every few seconds.
No team at the entrance.
Nobody going in after them.
Twenty minutes. Nothing.
Aaron stood there and felt it looking back.
*Null*, he thought. *No team. No name on any list. Nobody expecting anything from me.*
He thought about Kang. About Soo. About Rei saying I don't want to just watch anymore.
*Not this time.*
He moved.
WHOOSH.
One second at the back of the crowd. Next second past the barrier. Past the nervous awakeners. Past the officials spinning around.
"HEY."
"STOP."
"YOU CANNOT—"
TAP TAP TAP TAP TAP.
Already gone.
Behind him the crowd erupted. Someone dropped something and it shattered on the pavement and nobody looked because everyone was looking at the figure crossing the line. Dark jacket. A mark on the neck catching the cold white light for one half second before the speed blurred everything.
Already on every phone. Already everywhere.
*Who is that. Who IS that person.*
Aaron didn't hear any of it.
The portal right there. The pull sitting in his chest refusing to let go.
*Whatever is in there. I'm finding them.*
He stepped through.
CLINK.
Inside hit him immediately.
Something older than anything he'd been in before. Something that felt like it had been here before portals were even a concept.
Monster bodies everywhere. Fresh. The team had come through here fighting hard. Scorch marks on the walls. Impact craters in the floor. Deep gouges in the stone going in one direction.
Then the signs stopped.
No gradual ending. No last stand. One moment full of fighting and the very next moment nothing. Like something had ended everything at once and simply kept moving.
Aaron stood in the dark and looked at where the fighting stopped.
His screen flickered.
Started reading.
Aaron read what it said and stood completely still for one full second.
*Okay*, he thought quietly.
*Okay then.*
TAP. TAP. TAP.
His boots on the floor. The only sound in the whole place.
He kept walking.
KABOOM.