The impact knocked the wind out of Reyn, which was impressive since she wasn't sure she'd been breathing in the between-space. She gasped for air, just as she did her best to avoid throwing up.

  Firm ground, she realized as the world stopped spinning around her.

  "Take a number," a bored voice said.

  Reyn looked up from the stained carpet to find herself in what could only be described as the waiting room at the end of the world. Fluorescent lights hummed with the exact frequency of a dying mosquito. The walls were beige in the way that only truly defeated places could achieve. Demons of various descriptions sat in uncomfortable chairs, reading magazines that were always somehow from three years ago.

  A succubus behind a desk that had seen better millennia pointed one perfectly manicured claw at a dispensary. Reyn pulled a ticket: 9,847,293, if she had known how to read.

  "Now serving number twelve," the speakers crackled.

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  "I need to leave," Reyn said, exhausted in a way she couldn't remember ever being before.

  "Form 237-B," the succubus replied without looking up. "Portal Travel Authorization. Green cabinet, third drawer. Fill out in triplicate."

  Reyn walked to the green cabinet and found the drawer. She stared at it for a while. "Which one is it?"

  The succubus sighed and snapped her fingers, still not looking up. A form floated up from the drawer.

  Reyn took it. Twenty-seven pages of questions including "Purpose of Visit" (falling), "Intended Destination" (not here), and "Have you or any of your ancestors ever been convicted of temporal crimes" (probably not).

  She couldn't read the words, of course, but the succubus' magic had the questions yell themselves out at her. At first she yelled the answers back, but the glares she got forced Reyn to find a pencil and tell the form to whisper each question again. She filled them with careful sketches in lieu of letters. A sword for name. A tiny portrait for identification. An artistic interpretation of falling for reason of visit.

  Three hours later, her number reached 9,847,291.

  "Oh," the succubus said, as she was finally looking at Reyn's forms. "You're in the wrong department. This is for intentional portal travel. You want Accidental Dimensional Displacement, Building Six."

  Reyn stared at the succubus, and blinked without saying anything. She felt Rage building within her, but swallowed it down.

  A portal opened beneath Reyn's chair.

  "But I haven't been called yet!" a demon wailed as she fell through.

  "Next!" the succubus called out.