Following a fellow detective felt wrong. Among detective's there was an unwritten rule: to trust each other and never to squeal on each other. However, Rosya felt it was necessary to break that rule. Gustav had been acting strange since that day he disappeared at the warehouse.
Gustav was one of the first detectives she worked with after being becoming a detective herself. So, she had been paying close attention to him since day one.
However, that day she decided to follow him, Gustav had been acting secretive. He was definitely hiding something. Keeping her distance, she discerned that he was up to something.
Rosya tailed him to various places, including a supermarket chain store, where he bought clothes that were a few sizes to small for him. It was kinda exciting to see him act so secretive. But at the same time, she felt a pang of jealousy. Who were those clothes for? Did it have anything to do with the case he was working on? Maybe those clothes were for the girl that ME he works with. Mila was her name. Were they in that type of relationship? Gustav didn't seem to be the type to go for a much younger woman.
Getting distracted for a second about the type of woman Gustav would date. She almost lost track of him. However, when Gustav got off a cab downtown, Rosya completely lost track of him. Like the streets had swallowed him up.
She walked up and down the streets, looking for him. But she kept running into dead-ends and getting disoriented. After a while, the streets all started to look the same. Something strange was going on. But Rosya couldn't quite put her finger on it. Street lights, mailboxes, trash cans all looked the same. Even the people who she encountered on the street had a strange aura about them.
Which made what Gustav was doing in this particular part of town even stranger. Who was he meeting with?
Instead of just trying to follow Gustav, Rosya might try calling him. However, the call went straight to voicemail.
"Gustav, where the hell you went to!" Rosya yelled at the top of her lungs.
But yelling won't get her anywhere. She then decided to continue searching for Gustav in those strange streets. How was it possible that something so familiar could unnerve her so much?
A loud crash caught her attention. So far, the streets had been deathly quiet, with only the distant sound of traffic from far away to remind her that she was still in the city.
Her footsteps echoed loudly and her form bathed in the fluorescent light from the streetlights. Then she noticed a peculiar scent in the air. It was the unmistakable scent of blood.
When Rosya reached her destination, she couldn't believe her eyes. A man lay faced up on the street in a large pool of blood. Reaching out for her phone to call for an ambulance, she stopped when she realized who it was.
"Gustav!" Rosya ran to his side.
"Gustav, can you hear me?" But he was unresponsive. "What happened?"
Rosya lifted his shirt and noticed a large hole in his lower abdomen. Desperately, she tried to close the wound with her own jacket.
"I gotta call for help." Her bloodied finger slid across the screen, making it harder to dial.
But after several tries, she managed to call.
"Central, Code 10!" Rosya said. "Send an ambulance at..."
She realized she had no idea where she was. Rosya looked around and saw a faint plaque with the street name and number.
"Send an ambulance at 10st Marsh avenue, lot 30." She said with bated breath. "Hurry!"
**
It was past midnight, and Rosya found herself sitting outside the operating room where they had rushed Gustav. Holding out to hope that he would make it. She was told by the paramedics that Gustav had a slow pulse and required immediate surgery. So they did what they could to stop the bleeding and close the wound.
Gazing up at the clock, Rosya noticed her hands were still bloody. But she didn't care. Her mind was at a loss. Since joining the police force, she knew that death would be close by. Coming from a family of cops, she had accepted that one day she would have to put her life on the line.
However, when she saw Gustav in that bloodied state. She realized that maybe she wasn't as prepared as she thought. What would she do if he didn't make it? No, she shook her head. Gustav was going to make it. He was the toughest cop Rosya had ever met. With that comforting thought, she gazed at the doors of the O.R. Until sleep overtook her.
**
"Miss, wake up." A voice called out.
"Hm..." Rosya replied, still half-asleep.
Bright light forced her to close her eyes.
"What time is it?" Rosya rubbed her eyes. She was so tired that her mind was barely registering that it was already morning.
Then she remembered where she was. She was at the hospital after she found Gustav lying in a pool of his own blood, at death's door. In front of her was a man with bloodied scrubs, and immediately recognize him. It was the surgeon assigned to operate on Gustav. 'Becker,' was the doctor's name.
"Gustav! How is he?"
The doctor lowered his surgical mask to reveal a man in his late 50s with piercing blue eyes and a thick, white mustache.
"His condition is stable. We transferred him to the intensive care unit." Becker explained. "However..."
"What, doctor?" Rosya asked.
"Because of the nature of his injury, there's the possibility that he won't make it through today."
"Don't mess with me, doctor!" Rosya grabbed Becker by the collar of his scrubs.
"Someone almost ripped apart his intestines. He also had several broken bones, a punctured lung." Becker released Rosya's grip on his collar. "It was a miracle that he was still alive when you found him."
Rosya released her grip and slumped her shoulders. This was indeed dire news. There was a possibility Gustav might die.
"But don't worry too much," Becker tried to comfort Rosya. "The best doctors of this city are in this hospital. If anything happens, we'll be here to patch your friend up."
Those weren't very comforting words. But with that, Becker walked away, probably to attend to another patient.
Rosya thought about checking on Gustav, but first she had to update Captain Baker on how the surgery turned out. That wasn't a conversation she was looking forward to, especially with the dire prediction Becker had given her. But still, it was her duty.
The walk to the entrance of the hospital seemed to last an eternity, for Rosya didn't feel that she was heading anywhere. It was a strange sensation, like the one she had felt the night before. However, everything was so bright. Like a dream. But the hospital looked like any other. Perhaps she was just feeling exhausted. She had read somewhere that exhaustion played tricks on the mind and the body. After delivering her report to the Captain, she would crash on the couch in the break room.
Among the sea of bright light, Rosya noticed a strange figure walking by. A man in a black suit, with slicked back hair and glasses. At first, she considered the man a hallucination. But something deep inside her compelled her to follow the man.
Every step she took felt like she was in a dream. Her steps were slow and airy, despite picking up the pace. Rosya was always a step behind the mysterious man. She ran past the orderlies, nurses, patients, and doctors. None seemed to pay attention to her or the man in the black suit.
The man in black crossed a pair of double doors and Rosya followed after without paying much attention. Something compelled her to follow. Like she wasn't in control. Someone else was.
Like snapping out of a dream, Rosya found herself in the most distant part of what she could only guess to be the I.C.U. But how did she end up here? Behind a curtain, she again saw the man in black. She followed him again. This time, she felt more in control of her body and mind. She turned the corner and behind the curtain the man had walked behind; she found Gustav.
The man led Rosya to Gustav, which shocked her. Why did the man lead her to Gustav? They plugged him into a respirator, an I.V. Drip, a heart monitor and a strange machine she didn't recognize. The machine was feeding something into Gustav. Her lack of medical knowledge prevented her from understanding its function.
"I didn't think they would go this far," a voice behind her said.
Rosya quickly turned around. Behind her was the man in the black suit. She quickly reached for her gun, but the man stopped her.
"Do you wan to save this man's life?" Ansem asked of her.