The first problem with paperwork was its very existence. It loomed in front of him like a bureaucratic Hydra -every page he signed seemed to spawn three more forms demanding his attention. As Agent Michaels leafed through the latest batch of files, a wave of profound, soul-crushing moroseness washed over him. His shoulders slumped, his eyes glazing as he flicked through page after page of dull, repetitive text.

He reached for his mug, muttering under his breath about the evils of admin work. The liquid was warm and herbal, a concoction of chamomile and something else his wife swore would “cleanse his energy.” It wasn’t bad -not objectively- but it wasn’t coffee. And Michaels missed coffee like a lost lover. No matter how much he sipped this tea, it lacked the bold, soul-reviving bitterness he craved. The tea was soft, forgiving. Coffee? Coffee was honest. He wanted honest.

Still, the mug offered a reprieve from the mind-numbing bureaucracy staring back at him. He could hear his wife’s voice in his head, sweet but insistent: "It’s better for you. You want to live long enough to be a cool dad, don’t you?" He grumbled softly. Cool dads didn’t do paperwork either, he reasoned.

His attention turned back to the stack of files, reluctantly. “The problem with paperwork,” he muttered to no one in particular, “is that it’s boring, tedious, and a soul-sucking black hole of pencil-pushing misery.”

A pause. A correction. “Except for Jimmy,” he added begrudgingly, leaning back in his chair. Jimmy was the office outlier -the freak of nature who actually enjoyed paperwork. The man could vanish into the labyrinth of archived files and emerge hours later with a glimmer in his eye, holding some obscure detail that no one else had noticed.

Michaels frowned, absently stirring his tea with the handle of a cheap plastic pen. “Of course, Jimmy’s nuts,” he mused. “No sane person likes admin work.”

Still, he had to admit the guy had a knack. Take this case, for example. Michaels picked up the latest file, the edges of the paper crisp against his fingers. It wasn’t just interesting -it was downright bizarre. A young man, seemingly materializing out of thin air. Not literally, but close enough. No records beyond a certain date. No social media footprint. No history. Everything about him was fabricated, meticulously so. Birth certificates, IDs, credit history -it was all flawless. Too flawless.

“It’s always the little things,” Michaels murmured, his eyes scanning a note Jimmy had scrawled in the margins. Slight inconsistencies, tiny details no one else would have caught. Like how this guy’s listed hometown didn’t even exist anymore -not for decades, ever since the wildfire years ago. Or how his supposed employer didn’t seem to have more than a working website.

And then there was the face. That face.

Michaels tapped the photo paperclipped to the file. “You again,” he said aloud, as if the grainy black-and-white image might answer back.

It had started with the news. Michaels wasn’t a conspiracy nut, nor one of those tinfoil-hat-wearing keyboard warriors. He worked for a no-name, no-letter agency doing a job that didn’t exist on paper. But even he had to admit: the news, controlled and sanitized as it was, sometimes got it right. And over the past few weeks, every time something... weird happened -dimensional anomalies, spontaneous gates, whatever the internet was calling them- a single face kept popping up. This guy.

He leaned back in his chair, tossing the photo onto the desk. “You’ve got to be kidding me,” he sighed, shaking his head.

The internet called them dungeons. Of course, it did. Michaels couldn’t help but roll his eyes at the word. He’d had his share of tabletop games back in the day, rolling dice with friends and arguing over whether a halfling rogue could successfully seduce a dragon. But that was a long time ago. He wasn’t some nerd stuck in a fantasy dreamland anymore. He’d grown up.

That was the real problem, though, wasn’t it? Growing up. It meant leaving behind the good things. First, it was the dice, then the controllers. The PlayStation and Xbox gathered dust, replaced by tax returns and spreadsheets.

At least I still have my PS5, a wistful thought crept in before he squashed it with a sigh. Adulting was a tradeoff, he supposed. A great wife. A kid on the way. A stable job. But still... sometimes he missed the simpler days.

The world, however, wasn’t simple anymore -especially not with the dungeons appearing. The internet loved them, of course, with countless theories, memes, and livestreamed exploits. But beneath the viral fascination lurked a much graver reality. These things weren’t just interesting anomalies; they were something else. Something bigger. Something the world -by which he meant governments, corporations, and the shadowy powers pulling their strings- was absolutely not prepared for.

The story has been taken without consent; if you see it on Amazon, report the incident.

It was the kind of treasure that turned the world into a feeding frenzy. Like a gold rush that lured every jackal and thief out of the shadows, this promise of fortune and power brought both saviors and marauders, all swarming like sharks in water thick with blood and desperation.

And then there was Jack.

Jimmy had been the first to notice him, always in the periphery of those strange events. A young man with no record beyond what appeared to be an immaculate forgery. No social security, no paper trail worth a damn. Just a flawless illusion of existence. Jack didn’t just show up -he infiltrated, destabilized, and closed the dungeons before anyone else could act. And the kicker? No one had any clue how he was doing it. He wasn’t sharing. He wasn’t cooperating. Most damning of all, he wasn’t controllable.

Michaels tapped the desk with the edge of the report folder, his brow furrowed. That alone was enough to make Jack a problem, but there was something else scratching at the back of his mind. A name buried in the files -a connection that didn’t sit right. Jack’s cousin, if the word even applied. A corporate tycoon with the kind of pull that bent entire legislatures to his will. If Jack’s background was forged in fire, his cousin’s was carved in gold, polished to a sheen. They bore more than a passing resemblance, but the records insisted they were only cousins.

And yet...

“It doesn’t make sense,” Michaels muttered. The agency didn’t miss details. If you lost a tooth when you were five, they’d know when, where, how big, and probably have it cataloged in a drawer marked "Tooth Fairy Operations." The thought drew a dry chuckle from him, but it faded quickly, replaced by the gnawing itch of unsolved riddles.

This wasn’t about catching a rogue agent or some petty criminal. The stakes here were higher. He could feel it. Jack wasn’t just a disruption; he was a walking question mark, and those tended to have deadly answers. Some ripples can cause tidal waves -under the wrong conditions.

That’s what kept Michaels coming back to this job. The thrill of solving puzzles like this. The satisfaction of putting real-world villains -the kind you’d see in comic books or Bond movies- behind bars. But for every one of them he locked away, there were just as many “good guys” who slipped through the cracks. The influential ones. The ones the world needed just enough, it was forced to tolerate their darker tendencies.

He pulled the picture back toward him, the young man’s enigmatic expression staring back. There was something unnerving about it -something off. It wasn’t fear, or smugness, or even anger. It was the knowledge that he knew something no one else did. The smirk was a dead giveaway. But for that the picture was devoid of anything else remarkable about it. The man gave away nothing.

Michaels would rather play poker against the top eight champions in the world, than take a chance at guessing what Jack was thinking.

And yet, there he was. Again. Always at the heart of these “dungeons.” The witnesses called them disasters. The scientists called them anomalies. The internet called them the coolest thing since Skyrim. Whatever they were, Michaels knew one thing: this guy was no coincidence.

He ran a hand through his hair, frustration brewing like a storm. “Who the hell are you?” he whispered to the photo.

As if in answer, a soft ping from his computer snapped him back. Another report had just come through. Michaels stared at the notification, debating whether he could justify ignoring it for another five minutes. His tea was lukewarm now, the taste faintly bitter.

“Jimmy,” he muttered, rubbing his temples. “You’d better be right about this one.”

Michaels sighed, his fingers tightening around the photo of Jack as he glanced down at the faint smirk frozen in time. Who was this guy? Really? And where the hell had he come from? They’d questioned witnesses, but none had offered anything actionable. The redhead and her brother had been particularly frustrating -stonewalling the agency at every turn. One of their crew had been slightly more cooperative, but even they hadn’t delivered much.

Jack remained a mystery. An enigma. And Michaels hated unsolved puzzles almost as much as he hated-

“Damn it,” he growled, slamming his herbal tea back onto the desk. A slosh of liquid splashed onto the edges of his paperwork. “Bridget!”

No response. Instead, Jimmy’s eager head popped into the doorway. “Sir?”

“You’re not Bridget,” Michaels deadpanned. “But I need coffee. Black. Two sugars. Now.”

Jimmy hesitated, a sheepish grin playing at his lips. “Your wife, sir-”

“-isn’t here. And she doesn’t have to know,” Michaels cut in, his tone brooking no argument. “What happens in the office stays in the office, Jimmy. Got it?”

Jimmy saluted, half-joking. “Got it, sir. I’ll be right back.”

“And keep digging!” Michaels called after him. “This Jack thing -it’s a good catch. If you find anything else -anything- bring it to me first.”

“Yes, sir!” Jimmy disappeared, leaving Michaels alone with his thoughts.

Leaning back in his chair, Michaels let his eyes drift to the ceiling. He could almost taste the coffee, rich and bitter and everything this cursed tea wasn’t. For a fleeting moment, he allowed himself to relax, imagining the warmth of the mug in his hands.

Then his phone rang.

The sound jolted him upright. Not just any phone -that phone. His hand shot out, snatching it from the desk. He glanced at the closed door, making sure no one was nearby, then pressed the receiver to his ear.

“I’m here,” he said, his voice low.

There was a pause, followed by a soft click. Then came the bad news.

Michaels sighed, already reaching for his jacket. No coffee after all. There was an incident -another one of those damned dimensional disturbances. Why he’d been flagged to go was anyone’s guess, but he didn’t question orders. Not these orders.

With one last glance at the photo of Jack on his desk, Michaels tucked the phone into his pocket and stepped out into the hallway. His coffee would have to wait. Again.