The portals appeared five years ago, when Holy was fifteen and struggling with acne and dysphoria in the middle of high school. They hadn’t affected his life all that much, except when they appeared right in the middle of the freeway, and he hadn’t thought much of them.

That was a lie. He was a kid, and hunters were all he could think about while he was in the throes of his first puberty. He dreamed of them, idolized them, wanted to be just like them. But, years went by, and he never awakened. Just when he started to enroll in college, though, like a sign from God, he awakened at the age of seventeen.

And that was bitter disappointment, too. D-rank. Nothing special, just special enough to stand apart from the E-ranks, but not special enough to do anything about it. Ranks were set in stone, and he couldn’t change that. He still wanted to do something, though. He still wanted to be a hunter, and by the time he awakened, there was already a new advertising campaign.

Take your GoPro into the dungeons!

A new platform rose up, HunterWatch. YouTube firmly did not allow videos from raids on their platform, but HunterWatch did. It quickly started to make YouTube defunct, and people got all sorts of deals and promotions from it. It was still in the early stages, so he bought a GoPro with his graduation money gifts and started filming.

It had been terrifying at first. He knew he was senselessly chasing fame, but what else was he supposed to do? He needed to afford HRT and his eventual top surgery. He had saved up 15,000 over two years with his monetization and brand deals, and he was relatively popular as a hunt streamer. He made a fuck ton of money from it, and he was due to attend the first con in a few months. Not as a speaker or anything, but he had a pass, and he was doing pretty well. He never got requests for collabs or anything like that, but it was fine. He was doing well, and that was all that mattered.

Dungeons broke in seven days if they weren’t cleared, and he was on day three of this particular dungeon being open, so he needed to survive four more days before he could escape. Hidden dungeons locked all access until they opened, and no one would be coming to save him.

He was going to die. It had obviously gone up in rank. He didn’t have much by way of skills, but he was a unique D-rank in that he had one skill: mana sensing. And this dungeon now felt like an S-rank. There was no way he was going to survive four days, and they probably wouldn’t even be able to save his GoPro. No one was getting in, and no one was getting out.

He sat up in the field of wildflowers, the acrid scent of his own bile mixing with the heavy floral scent, and stared up at the sky. Did he want to just sink into despair like this? His greatest strength was his delusion. He had always been stubbornly delusional, and had never thought to question that delusion. So what if it was S-rank? He had an edge. He could sense creatures coming a mile away, and he could run. But, for four days? It was unlikely. Once they caught a whiff of his scent, he was as good as dead.

It was frustrating. Just before his top surgery, he was due to die. He wanted to laugh. He wanted to cry. At least they wouldn’t be able to recover his body, so there was no danger of him becoming another transmasc buried in a dress. He should have gotten married. They’d probably bury the empty casket under his deadname, damn his legal name change.

He couldn’t linger here. With a grunt, he climbed to his feet and sheathed his knives. There were no magical beasts here as of yet, but he didn’t---

It was shimmering, like a mirage on the Phoenix pavement. There was a building in the middle of the field, an old Greek temple, with massive pillars holding up the ceiling and a sculpture in the middle of it, a female goddess seated in a throne. Holy took a few steps forward and paused. What was this? He didn’t…

There was not even a trace of mana in the building, and it was wide and open. He couldn’t see any magical beasts in it, and he carefully walked towards it, knee high in the grass. There was a sense of foreboding over the dungeon, and it only grew as he approached the building. It felt like something crushing was watching him, a presence that could press him to the ground and step on him like a bug. He felt more and more insignificant in the grand scheme of things as he got closer, and the closer he got, the more the distance stretched out.

His breath started to come out in pants. It felt like there was a physical weight on his shoulders, pressing him down, weighing him into the earth, and he stumbled forward before he was forced to his knees. There was an inexorable draw to the building. He couldn’t resist it, couldn’t fight it. It felt like he needed to be there, and it was terrifying to see his limbs move of their own accord, inching through the dirt and grass and flowers. The weight continued to press down on him, and he felt panic claw up in his throat.

No.

No, he didn’t want to die like this, he realized, and he collapsed to his front, the GoPro pressing into the front of his clothes. His knives felt like they weighed a million tons sheathed at the small of his back, and he groaned and tried to push himself back up. It fought him, feeling like a tsunami’s worth of weight on his back. He felt like he was suffocating. It was like crowd crush, but it was just him and the gentle wind blowing in the breeze.

He didn’t want to die like this.

He was not going to die like this, left out for easy pickings for monsters.

With a scream, he pushed himself up, and staggered to his feet. Every step felt like lead was strapped to his shoes. He was moving through underwater, and sweat was pouring down his face. He was fighting, fighting with all his might, and with every step, the temple seemed to get closer.

It was sliding towards him, and he glared at it nastily. He couldn’t explain why he needed to be there, but whatever power was so hellbent on getting him there obviously didn’t want him there, which meant he needed to be there. He didn’t know why, or how, but he needed to be there. A scream ripped from his lips, and he took another step, his feet seeming to sink into the earth, forcing him to rip them free. Sweat was now pouring out of every orifice, and he felt tears of an unknown origin sting at his eyes.

He needed to be there, in that temple. He wasn’t going to take no for an answer. He needed to be there---

He was sinking into the earth, now up to his knees, but he continued to move on, inexorable and undefeated. He wanted to live, and he couldn’t explain it, but he knew if he reached that temple, he was going to live. He was going to live, and that was all that mattered. He breathed out, his air blowing out of his chest, and he sunk down to the tops of his knees. He ripped his foot out of the earth, and then---

The world spun around him just as his foot hit the edge of the temple, and suddenly, the temple was floating in the night sky, and he was on his knees in front of the altar. There was an altar here? He hadn’t seen that in front of him… He looked around wildly, and a female voice spoke.

“Will you be chosen?” she asked, and Holy’s head snapped up. The statue’s eyes were right on him, but maybe they were just carved that way.

“What?” he asked, not sure if his paranoia was acting up. It had never progressed to auditory hallucinations, but he always felt like something was watching him.

“Will you be chosen?” she asked again, and yeah, the statue was definitely watching him.

“Chosen implies I have a choice in it,” he said, and the statue smiled, which was disturbing and a half. He was suddenly reminded of Doctor Who and the Weeping Angels, and he kept his eyes on the statue, no matter how horrifying it was.

“There is always a choice. Will you be chosen?” she asked, her lips unmoving, and he swallowed.

“Chosen for what?” he asked, and she did not answer. “Will I die?”

“You might,” she said. “But, if you choose yes, you will have a better chance.”

He looked out into the stars, and realized he was out of range of the beasts. So, if he stayed here, he would survive, and if he didn’t, he would die. The question seemed pretty simple when it was put like that, but he found himself staring at the altar nonetheless. He didn’t like the look of the altar.

“Climb onto the altar, little lamb,” the statue said, and he studied it in silence. Little lamb felt a lot like ‘sacrificial lamb’. He didn’t like that at all, but what other chance did he have?

Slowly, he climbed onto the altar, and the statue loomed over him without moving.

“If you move from this spot, you will die,” she said, and he startled. Wait, wha---

Pain hit, breathtaking and awe inspiring, and he screamed out in agony, curling onto his side and shuddering despite himself. He couldn’t breathe, couldn’t see through it, couldn’t think, and---

What was going on?!

….

“Who was locked behind it?” the Hunter Association leader, Brett Waymon, asked, and the attendant, Edward Styles, set a thin file in front of him.

“A semi-popular hunt streamer,” he replied, and Brett flipped open the file. “D-rank, for a change. They’re normally E-ranks.”

“How many times has this happened now?” Brett asked as he rubbed his eyes.

“Seven, sir,” Edward replied. “None survived. This is the first in America.”

“Pull as many S-ranks from the East Coast to Phoenix to deal with the dungeon break,” Brett ordered. “It’ll level the entire valley otherwise. We don’t have enough S-ranks on the West Coast to deal with this. And order an evacuation.”

“We won’t be able to clear out the city in time,” Edward warned.

“But, we can get as many out as possible,” Brett said. “I want every city in the area cleared out. Glendale, Scottsdale, Peoria, Mesa, Phoenix, all of them.”

“Yes, sir,” Edward said, and Brett flipped open the file.

“Why are there two names?” Brett asked, and Edward paused.

“Well, they’re trans, sir,” he said, and Brett stared down at the file.

“And was abandoned by his team?” he asked, and Edward winced. “The media’s going to have a heyday with that.”

“Likely not, actually. He’s trans masculine, and reporting on trans masculine related violence and adjacent violence is---”

“I don’t want to discuss the statistics of murders,” Brett said in exhaustion, and Edward fell silent, pursing his lips. “Just prepare a PR statement.”

“Do you want me to appeal to the right wing or left wing?” Edward replied. “Either I can deadname him, or I can correctly name him, or I can just not name him at all to appeal to both sides.”

“Just don’t name him, her, whatever the hell is going on there,” Brett snapped, annoyed he had to spell this out. “No one’s going to care in two weeks, anyway. They’ll be more preoccupied with the dungeon break, and he hasn’t even hit half a million subscribers. He clearly lives off his Patreon.”

“Sir… shouldn’t we take a more severe stance?” Edward asked, and Brett leveled a stare on him.

“We are not a political organization. Leave that to the trust fund babies,” he said, flat, and then he turned his attention back to the boy, because he was a kid, really, and took in his features. Fluffy, brown hair with a white strip in front of it, tousled and messy on top of his head, with honey brown eyes and soft, elfin features. There was a sprinkling of freckles over his nose and cheeks, and he was stunning, clearly on testosterone, and it was a shame he was dying at twenty years old. He had a life to live, and would have lived it well if he hadn’t become a hunter. He should have been at the club, not in a dungeon.

Hunters were dying younger and younger nowadays.

It was frustrating.

“Yes, sir,” Edward said quietly, and Brett sat back in his seat and stared out at the expanse of Washington, DC. He may have to go to Phoenix to personally oversee the break. This system was getting out of control. They had a few days until it broke, and he thought about the fact that yet again, a set of parents wouldn’t get to bury their child.

It tasted like bitterness.

He didn’t like it.