GAVIN MONTENEGRO walked the cracked sidewalk of a Quezon palengke with the calm gait of a man who knew everything around him, because, in many ways, he did. The morning was already heavy with heat, the sun peeking over rusted rooftops and tangled electric wires. Vendors were yelling prices over crates of tomatoes and kangkong still wet from the early delivery. The fish section reeked with salt and blood, ice melting into the concrete like thin rivers. Sliced bangus gleamed silver under fly-swatting rags. A child darted past Gavin, barefoot and laughing, chased by a mother holding a bayong and her temper. Beside a row of stalls, a man squatted beside his taho cart, lazily stirring the syrup as steam rose from the silken tofu.
Gavin offered no smile, but neither did he radiate coldness. He nodded once at a taho vendor who knew him by name and walked past a fried lumpia stall as the woman behind it greeted, "Good morning, Chief!" He wasn't a Chief. Technically, he was a Police Lieutenant Colonel, a rank that gave him authority over this entire station and then some. Not that it mattered to the taho lady. To them, he was simply "Chiep," and it suited him just fine.
He crossed the street, narrow and chaotic, as all national side roads were, past a tricycle terminal where the barkers were already on their fourth round of cigarettes. The scent of gasoline, sweat, and secondhand smoke clung to the morning like a damp shirt. Gavin entered the compound of the Quezon Municipal Police Station, where two barangay tanods stood by the gate, half-dozing in the shade. One straightened upon seeing him, raising a slow salute that Gavin returned with the same lazy precision.
The interior of the station buzzed with its usual, shallow tension. Thin walls painted in old government beige. Ceiling fans turned slowly, pushing warm air around like they were trying to swat a ghost. Desks were cluttered with half-drunk coffees, folders, traffic citations, and handwritten memos. An old CRT television bolted to the wall near the reception desk played a morning news program at half-volume. Gavin passed under the flickering light bulb and was greeted by his desk sergeant, a wiry man named Rasco.
"Morning, sir. We got three new complaints about noise in Barangay Imelda—"
"Send patrols if they've got nothing better to do," Gavin said without breaking stride. He walked into his office, a room marginally less sad than the rest of the building, and dumped his folder on the desk.
His morning was filled with the usual low-level chaos: reviewing reports, signing clearances, approving a local security deployment for an upcoming barangay fiesta. Between each task, there were interruptions, junior officers bringing in complaints, a barangay captain calling about illegal parking outside the church, someone reporting stolen chickens again.
"Sir, we got someone for reckless driving," a younger officer called from outside Gavin's office midmorning.
"Let traffic deal with it," he muttered.
"Already doing so, sir. Kid says some weird stuff, though. Talking about vanishing men and anitos."
That word prickled something old and familiar in Gavin's mind, but he didn't show it. He continued reading the form in front of him. It wasn't until he heard the boy's voice, thin, tired, half-joking even in its confusion, that he stopped reading entirely.
"I swear, he just—disappeared. Like poof. I know it sounds crazy. But you don't understand. He was there, we hit him, and then he wasn't. Maybe... I don't know. Maybe he was one of them. Anito? Is that what they're called?"
A burst of laughter from a nearby officer. Another muttered, "Oy, it might be a tikbalang then, kid. I mean, it's dark."
Gavin stood. Quietly. He walked past the desk, eyes barely grazing the kid. The boy was slouched on a plastic bench, arms crossed. Scuffed white sando, hair still windblown from the ride, and a scrape above one eyebrow. Gavin's eyes lingered on the scrape, not because of injury, but because he recognized the kind of panic it took to slam into something hard and still live.
He waited for the paperwork to wrap, letting the other officers grow bored with the story. Then, just as the boy stepped outside, Gavin followed. He caught up easily.
"You from the warehouse crash?" Gavin asked, voice neutral.
The boy turned. Startled. "Yeah."
"You the driver?"
"Behind the driver."
Gavin stared at him as if trying to organize the right question. "So your guy just... vanished?"
The boy frowned, confused but still playing it cool. "I'm not drunk, if that's what you're asking. We didn't imagine it. He was standing beside the road, and he just teleported. We hit him, and then... he was gone. Like, not thrown off. Gone. Like mist. Gone."
Gavin nodded, slow. "You checked the place?"
"Yes, ser. It's a wide road. Even if he was thrown off, we would've seen the body." The boy hesitated. "Why? You know something?"
"Not yet." Gavin's tone didn't invite further questions. He nodded toward the street. "Take care of your friend. That kind of crash? He's lucky."
The boy, still wary, gave a cautious thanks and left.
Gavin watched him disappear down the road before turning back toward the station. The air outside was still. It was the kind of stillness Gavin had grown familiar with. Not the stillness of peace, but the breath before something breaks. He shut the door to his office behind him. Locked it. Pulled the blinds. Then he picked up the desk phone, an old black plastic model with a rotary-dial relic feel despite the push buttons. It rang three times before the other side picked up.
"You might wanna see this," Gavin said.
No reply. But he knew they were listening. He hung up and looked out his small window. The palengke was alive again, vendors pushing carts, children yelling, motorcycles zipping by like angry wasps. All of it looked ordinary, and yet today, somewhere inside the mundane, he felt the veil grow thinner. The boy had seen something. The kind of something Gavin had been trained to notice. Something that didn't belong.
And now, the work truly began.