Kayden expected the woman across the desk to be pleasantly surprised when he passed over all the myriad correct papers he needed for his hunting license when prompted. All his information was written out properly, all his boxes checked - he’d done his research, and made sure to make the extremely complex process as quick and easy as physically possible. There was nothing worse in his eyes than being stuck in bureaucracy. Contrary to his dreams of being out in time for lunch, however, every sheaf of paper the middle aged public servant leafed through made her already prodigious frown twitch incrementally deeper.

  “...is there an issue, ma’am?” He finally asked once her expression was stormy enough to be truly worrying. He leaned over to see what was making her so clearly annoyed, managing to catch a glimpse of - hey, that was his damn birth certificate she was scrutinizing! What, was she doubting his existence? “My driver’s license expired, and it’s not like I have a car, so…”

  The woman didn’t answer him immediately, instead typing something out on her ancient looking computer and frowning even further. When she did speak, she had a voice smooth as gravel and the cadence of a grizzled chain smoker whose kids never visit.

  “Look, Mister…” she looked down at his papers and sighed. “Mister Miller. I am going to be quite frank with you. Getting a hunting license is complicated for a multitude of reasons. I know this. You clearly know this, since you filled all this out properly.”

  Kayden nodded. Being allowed to carry weapons in the street required a certain level of background checking. He thought the level of restriction was frankly absurd, given how it was stricter than before there was good reason to carry giant spears around. Even his spindly ass used to carry a knife everywhere before they changed the rules a few years ago, but he could understand the mindset that brought the policy to bear. Even if some people could crack stone with their bare fists, keeping everyone from walking around with a serial killer’s starter kit went a long way towards creating a semblance of normalcy.

  “Now,” the woman continued, “there’s two types of people that come through this desk without having to go back and restart the process. People who are reapplying - which you aren’t, since you’re not in the database here - and shady people trying to get through things as quick as possible with their forged documents.”

  The offense Kayden felt must have shown on his face, because she continued on.

  “Yes, that is absurd. Yes, it happens. Frequently. Four times out of five, their ID is forged or they’re lying on one of the boxes. So I’m going to have to run you through some checks.” Her voice hadn’t drifted from a droll monotone the entire time. She probably worked at the DMV before the rifts opened. “Is that alright?”

  It wasn’t, really, it was completely unfair, but Kayden needed that damn hunt money so he just sighed and nodded.

  “Good. Let me just call someone to help…” The woman tapped a button on the underside of her desk and asked a receiver built into the wood for a certain Ms. Pearson. The few minutes of awkward waiting gave Kayden a chance to look at his tormentor’s nametag. It read Dolores, which was just typical. She was the platonic ideal of obstinate government customer service.

  Thankfully, the younger woman who came down from the stairwell just behind the maleficent Dolores looked just as annoyed as he was. Going by her tailored suit and the clacking of her heels, she clearly had better places to be than doing a background check on some schmuck who came to get his hunter’s license in a sweatshirt and jeans - anyone actually expecting a good rank would have dressed better for the cameras.

  She didn’t even greet Dolores or Kayden before snatching the papers off the desk and asking questions rapidfire. His name, birthday, occupation, so on and so forth down every box he had filled out the night prior. She could definitely tell his truth from lies somehow, given how she just took his answers at face value, which was handy, if a little terrifying.

  She was also quite the professional - she didn’t even raise an eyebrow when he said his place of residence was ‘not applicable’. Normally, all this extra scrutiny would make Kayden nervous as all hell, but right now he was just relieved. This was probably saving at least an hour of pointless interrogating.

  There were a few hiccups, of course, mostly about the optional questions.

  “You put down your talent as ‘moderate stealth’?” The woman had taken to sitting on the desk, very pointedly not acknowledging Dolores who had started a sudoku puzzle. Her annoyance had long since smouldered into boredom. There was a lot of information Kayden had to fill out.

  “Yes’m, I did.” Kayden, likewise, had started leaning against the wall and was only half paying attention.

  “Can you elaborate on that?”

  “I could.”

  Ms. Pearson gave Kayden a look, and he wilted a little, shifting his heavy backpack awkwardly. She was probably only a little older than him, but she could glare.

  “Sorry, rude,” he murmured, before drumming up the response he had prepared beforehand. “I looked up the minimum amount I was allowed to share, and I shared the minimum amount. Moderate stealth. Mental activation. Only extends to myself. Better?”

  “Better,” she replied, grabbing a pen and jotting down a note on the paper. “You know we can’t give you more than first rank without actual details.”

  “That’s fine. I’m not looking for anything more than first rank.” It was a win-win situation, honestly. He’d heard stories of rookies getting pressured into third, even fourth rank rifts with all their new, expensive gear just because they were technically qualified. Avoiding that scam and getting to avoid talking about his talent? Two birds with one stone. “There’s a doctor’s note from last month on there, so I don’t have to take the physical exam…”

  “No, you don’t. Thank the Lord.” Ms. Pearson sighed and slapped the thick pile of documents against the table, standing and stretching her arms with a sigh. “Aunt Dolly, get this man his license, please. And stop calling me down here for this sort of stuff! Just because I can save you time-”

  “-Doesn’t mean I can try to see my grand-niece for once in my life, yes, I know!” replied Dolores with the first actual emotion in her tone Kayden had heard, that being grandmotherly righteous indignity. “I changed your diapers, girl! You should be lucky I’m not embarrassing you in front of the public by asking for a hug and a kiss.”

  They began to bicker while Kayden looked on, awkwardly waiting. In a distant way, he was surprised that Dolores was even a person, rather than perhaps a customer service golem of some sort. He wouldn’t put being made of clay past her, given her complete lack of emotion besides the boredom that was apparently just her version of hospitability.

  This narrative has been purloined without the author's approval. Report any appearances on Amazon.

  His license was printed after a few minutes - there wasn’t any photo or anything needed, thank God, so he was handed his little blue plastic rectangle a few minutes later after listening to far too much about how Penelope Pearson worked in the same building as her great aunt, but she didn’t say hi because she was a fifth-rank, and she was too important to visit her little old Aunt Dolly who was ninety-eight (How?!) and had one foot in the grave, nevermind that she was spry as a woman half her age! She had brittle bones! And another thing, that skirt was far too short, and…

  …that was the last Kayden heard before he finally speedwalked out of earshot. He was moving quickly, both to get out of that whole awkward situation and because the bus only went to his ultimate destination about twice per day and he wasn’t waiting until eight o’clock the next morning to catch it. He double checked his backpack what seemed like every two minutes as he rode along - phone, check. Fancy new ID, check. First aid kit, extra bug spray, sleeping bag, mosquito net, knife that he technically wasn’t allowed to carry around until a few minutes ago… all check. The guy sitting across from him definitely thought he was doing something illegal, which was… probably not true. Kayden couldn’t find any legal precedent for it, at least. The anxiety made the ride in the old four-wheeled rust trap both fast and slow, and despite his hypervigilance he almost missed his stop.

  He scrambled out of his seat and stepped off into a rural area that probably used to be suburban. The roads that were still maintained were wide, and a few overgrown hedges and ruined fences denoted where property lines had once been. The proper, useful rubble had long been swept away to use in other places, and a scant few houses were being built to take advantage of the now free land - Kayden even saw what looked to be a field of some kind. Some kind of squash, probably. It looked viney.

  Given the relative lack of… well, anything, he could already see his destination in the distance. A small building built like a fortress for ants, concrete and steel reinforcement jutting out of the ground in complete contrast to the overgrown surroundings. Not that it stood out by being well maintained. Rank one rifts barely needed any policing - hell, some of them were so tame the FWMS let normal Joe Schmoes do the maintenance to keep them from bursting open. It was probably a pretty cool job, though Kayden wouldn’t go within ten miles of a rift if he didn’t have a power of his own.

  The brutalist looking outpost was a good few miles off, no matter how visible it was, and so Kayden was panting and sweating buckets by the time he finally reached the front door. His bag wasn’t too heavy, thankfully, but he wasn’t the most fit person in the world and he’d been on his feet all damn day. This whole stupid idea came about last night when he was wandering around the better lit parts of town since he didn’t trust sleeping in the open quite yet, and the whole day had been feverishly researching and preparing, spending the last of his money on the supplies he’d need. He hadn’t slept since… Tuesday, probably? He woke up around eight, so that’d make it… thirty-five or so hours of uptime. It was absurd that Kayden was still able to think, truth be told. He’d never been much of a night owl.

  You would expect portals to extremely dangerous pocket dimensions to be guarded with a religious fervor, but really most rifts are perfectly safe up until they aren’t. They’re just opaque holes in the world until you leave them alone for too long, and at that point a few people at the entrance with guns aren’t gonna do much except feed whatever comes out. Security was more based off of foot traffic than anything, keeping people to their reserved times and making sure fights didn’t happen in places where property damage was an issue. Given how Kayden was probably the only person to ever come to the affectionately designated “G62482/Temperate Swamp/Carnivorous Insects” of his own volition, it didn’t surprise him that there was only one man posted at the entrance with more of a mall cop vibe than the actual professionals in and around the gates in the city.

  “ID,” the guard intoned, holding out a hand clad in a fingerless glove. Kayden handed over his shiny new hunting license, and it was scanned by a little doohickey that was on the man’s belt. “You got a timeslot reserved?”

  “No sir,” Kayden replied, his tone dry as could be. There wasn’t a single fucking person inside this gate, and they both knew it. “Is there a spot free for walk-ins on the timesheet?”

  He got a smouldering look that made it clear his sarcasm wasn’t appreciated. The guard looked over his license, brows raising slightly when he saw that Kayden’s talent was nowhere near what was recommended to tour this rift alone, but he didn’t raise a fuss about it. He either didn’t deem him too incompetent or suicidal to enter, or Kayden pissed him off enough that he didn’t care. Either way, Kayden was grateful. He got his ID back and watched as the security guard pulled open the several inch thick windowless steel door without so much as bracing himself, then hurriedly passed through the opening before the guy could think to slam it into him.

  While they were called outposts, the reality was that the small, ugly buildings were more just containment cells for the rifts. The inside was a single large room that was about as well decorated as the outside; plain concrete walls with a floor to match, fluorescent lights, a desk and a roped-lined queue that were both empty. It was maybe thirty feet in each direction and damn near completely blank, save for the glowing purple rip in reality in the center and the unmanned wooden splinter trap of a kiosk just in front of it.

  G62482 | RANK ONE

  ENVIRON: TEMPERATE SWAMPHAZARDS: DARKNESS, DIFFICULT TERRAIN, WILDLIFE

  BREACH TRIGGER: OVERPOPULATION

  Before entering, please ensure you have taken appropriate precautions and prepared thoroughly. A list of common dangers and advice specific to this rift may be found on the Fish, Wildlife and Monster Services database at http?s://fwms.gov/database/G62482, or in a pamphlet below.

  There was a QR code leading to the site, too. The new logo for the FWMS was printed below all the big, bold stuff and above all the fine print crap people would never have time to read if this place was busy enough to have the idiots that needed to see it - Kayden never particularly cared for the branding of government agencies, but it didn’t take much brainpower to deduct that the swirling portal behind the duck and fish probably wasn’t added until after the rifts opened.

  One last check that he had everything before he went inside. He grabbed a pamphlet in addition to all the crap already in his bag, even though he’d already read through all the information online. It never hurt to be careful.

  The rift was a jagged, uneven thing. It didn’t swirl with complex colors, or vibrate with malevolent energy. It just hung there, motionless, like a sheet of plastic stretched thin over a crack in the air. It was the same purple as a bruise all throughout, looking for all the world like someone had photoshopped an arbitrary shape in the real, living world.

  Curious, Kayden paced in a circle around the rift, trying to confirm a tale online he’d heard but never truly believed. As he walked around to the side, the rift’s apparent depth grew thinner and thinner - looking at it at a ninety-degree angle made it literally invisible. It had no third dimension. It wasn’t even visible from the back. It was rather frightening to look at, really; some kind of deep, lizard-brain fear, instinctually trying to make him cringe away from something that was strictly impossible. But it was possible, obviously - the rift was right there in front of him, waiting for him to stop stalling and go in.

  …maybe he’d see if the edges acted as weirdly as everyone online said? No, focus. One last check of everything he brought. Then another. Kayden sat in the empty, windowless bunker that served as the last wall between an outbreak and the helpless countryside, crouching in front of his bag and stalling for as long as he could. Every single thought of what he was about to do prickled his survival instinct. He was going into a pocket dimension filled with carnivorous bugs that would eat him alive if he wasn’t careful.

  He would. He wasn’t going to back out. He was going to get up any second now, brace himself, and step inside.

  A moment passed where Kayden didn’t think much. He only listened to his own heavy breathing.

  Then he got up, made his final preparations, and walked through.