So, in case you're wondering why I'm posting a bunch of chapters at once, here's why; from now on, Rifts will be posted as a full episode, and not three page chapters that are spread across five frickin months and keep you waiting to read more. Yes, I'm a little bit annoyed at myself, but that's not important; what is important is that this will let you read more at once and will stop the "read and wait" cycle (a.k.a. Read the chapter in five minutes and then wait forever just to see what happens next.). Oh, and the new thumbnail, which I personally love in comparison to the old one, was made in the always useful Adobe Illustrator!!!

Now, with that out of the way, here's the next installment (I guess that's the word for it) of Rifts!

---
Chapter 2
“Are you guys okay?” a rough voice said from the darkness of the elevator.

“I just survived an elevator crashing in dead space, no pun intended. What do you think?” Kenyon replied.

“Do you know where we are, even?” Collette’s voice interrupted.

“Not yet; can’t see for shit,” Burnie retorted before a small *flick* echoed through the dark room as a flashlight turned on. The room revealed itself to be some sort of compressed subway station. A track ran through the middle with platforms on either side of it, which then curved after entering a tunnel.

“This would be the maintenance deck,” The husky noted, “everything that keeps the ship running is down here.”

“Are the lights normally off?” Kenyon pointed out to the Cargirn.

“Their almost always kept on, so this is worrying.”

“What about that, thing, with the voice?” Collette mentioned.

“The radio?” Burnie replied, taking his out.

“Yes, that.”

Burnie turned the radio on. “Hello? Hey, anyone there?” No reply. “Guys, if you’re trying to be funny, this is definitely not the time; the elevator shaft fell and we’re down in the Maintenance Deck.” Still no reply. He swore as he turned the radio off. “We can’t get a single signal out from here; we’re not just literally in the dark anymore.”

The sound of metal landing echoed through the metal cave. All three of them almost instantaneously looked where the sound had emanated from. Half in fear, and half in curiosity, they very cautiously walked towards the source of sound. The sound of footsteps metal quietly bounced through the room. Burnie slowly slipped out a pistol and held it in his paws, ready to fire if necessary.

A screeching sound came from around the corner that reminded Kenyon of the skags from Borderlands. “No,” the Vargirn said.


When the source of the noise came around the corner, it showed itself to be anything but. A bipedal creature with tan-ish skin and a mouth that split into four sections as it screamed. Burnie quickly aimed and shot repetitively at it. After three shots it finally went limp.

“We need to find out what’s going on in there,” Burnie noted.

“I don’t know; we should find a way out of here, first,” Collette protested.

Pointing behind him, the brown husky convinced her to stay with him. “Unless you have any other ideas on getting out of here,” he added.

“What about the vents?” Kenyon asked.

“What do you think?” Burnie retorted. Another came from the tunnel. Three more shots came from Burnie’s pistol. “Now can we go before any more come?”

“I’m ready whenever you are,” Collette said, pulling a knife out of her pocket.

“Whoa; since when did you have that?” Kenyon exclaimed.

“I was born on this frickin’ ship; I’m not exactly okay about standing around while those, things, infest what’s makes my damn home work.”

“Lead the way, sir,” Kenyon said.

---

“What are you?” Collette asked Kenyon, all three of them walking down the dark tunnel. Barely any light was coming into there, making it hard for even the wolf and dog to see.

“You’ve never seen an Anthrop in your life?” Burnie interrupted, surprised.

“She’s not, from around here. It’s a long story,” Kenyon told him.

“Anthrop?” Collette inquired.

“We’re Anthrop; we pretty much come from animals, at least that’s what the humans from our, world, believe.”

“Most of us don’t really give a fuck about where we come from,” Burnie added.

“What does that mean?” Collette asked.

“Are you from the dark ages or something?” Burnie yelled.

“Actually,” Kenyon attempted to say before Burnie interjected.

“Right when I thought my life couldn’t get more confusing.”

“You were saying, Kenyon?”

“In the middle ages, around the time where you were from, we were revealed to the public. Later, about a hundred years or so, we were nearly wiped out to extinction.”

“Why?”

“Werewolves. The humans thought that the Anthrop were to blame, which even I don’t know if that’s true or not.”

“Anyways, in May 2009, the Anthrop were re-revealed to the public. Many people call that “The Outcoming,” Kenyon and Burnie said at the same time.

“There it is,” the husky said, seeing what Kenyon thought could only be another station. As they walked up to the station, another elevator was visible.

“Well isn’t that just awesome; another elevator,” Kenyon sarcastically rejoiced.

“Look, I know that you’re probably really confused about what’s happening,” Burnie stopped them, “so if you don’t want to go down there, I can try to find a way back up to the main deck.”

“No; we owe you for saving us,” Collette refused.

Kenyon agreed.

“Well, come on then,” the Cargirn invited them. Let’s not keep the bastards waiting.
---
A *ding* was emitted from the elevator as it stopped its slow descent into the heart of the ship. Burnie came out first, aiming his pistol in case anything was waiting for a quick kill. Luckily, nothing was there. He lowered the gun and motioned for Kenyon and Collette. Kenyon walked in and saw a dead cheetah with another pistol. He picked it up with his claws and investigated the blood-painted weapon.

“Oh shit,” Burnie stopped as he knelt down. “Zach; he’s the one that kept Persephone moving. If he’s dead, then we’ve got one hell of a problem.”

“This isn’t just his blood on here,” Kenyon noted, seeing some oddly green colored blood stains on the pistol. “He was fighting them off.”
An all too familiar screeching came from the hallway to the left of them all. Collette slowly walked forward.

“Collette,” Kenyon warned her, “don’t go over there.”

She stopped, took out the shimmering steel dagger with a beautiful flowing design, pulled her arm back and, as her arm swung forwards, she flicked her wrist. The knife flew across the short distance between her and the creature. The blade pierced the creature’s neck, dark green blood running down the hilt of the dagger. It turned, more blood flying out of its neck, and screeched at the human as Burnie shot multiple times at the moving thing.

“Kenyon, take the gun; Zach won’t be needing it anymore,” Burnie told the wolf as he took the knife out of the creature’s neck, shook off the blood, and handed it to Collette.
Kenyon checked the clip to see how many bullets he had left. Seven. He checked Zach’s body for more bullets, and found two extra clips that he slid into his pockets.

“What the hell happened here?” Kenyon thought as he walked in between Burnie and Collette into the now bloodstained hallway.


Chapter 3
“How long does this go on?” Collette rhetorically asked as she, Burnie, and Kenyon walked down a dark hallway lit only by the husky’s flashlight.

“The lift should be close by,” Burnie replied, turning a corner. Three shots rang out. When Collette and Kenyon came around, a different creature lie dead. This one had wings.

“That’s not a good sign,” Kenyon commented.

“No shit, Sherlock,” Burnie said.

“What is that?” Collette inquired, pointing forwards at the hologram of a keyboard and screen.

“A terminal!” the dog exclaimed, running over to it. After a few seconds of typing, a video popped up.
A brown cat and German Sheppard, whose faces were only visible due to the terminal’s light, were seemingly hacking into the computer. A screeching scared both of them.
The brown cat uttered in her fear, “What the hell was that?”

“I don’t know,” the dog answered. The lift lowered behind the two. When they looked, one of the winged beings flew towards the dog. It caught him, and, after he yelled at the top of his lungs, “Sarah; RUN!” he was ripped in half.

Crimson red covered the screen, making it impossible to see. The recording stopped. The words “End of Recording” blinked lifelessly at the three.

The sound of metal ducts bending caught all of their attention. A grate fell with a *clang!* as the human, husky, and wolf turned around. A figure landed from the ceiling; a cat. She aimed at them with a rifle before realizing they were people.

“Oh, thank God; I haven’t seen people for days!” she proclaimed, lowering her gun.

“This has been going on for days?” Burnie questioned.

“How do you measure days in space?” Kenyon asked curiously.

“Every twenty-four hours; just like on Earth,” the cat told him. “And it’s been going on for far longer than just a few days; that’s why I’m here.”

“And you are?” Burnie queried.

“Sarah Kali. And I would assume you’re Burnard Flint, which would mean that I owe you an apology for boarding your ship without your permission.”

“What?” Kenyon and Collette said ludicrously at once.

Burnie turned his head towards Kenyon. “I inherited it from my Dragga [father] when he passed away,” the husky explained. “He was the captain of the ship, so it only seemed appropriate to pass it on to me.” He looked at Sarah and asked what she was doing on the ship.

“NASTRAND sent me over to investigate some odd energy bursts coming from the Persephone,” she enlightened.

“Aw, shit; now NASTRAND?” Burnie cussed.

“NASTRAND?” Kenyon asked.

“They poke at anomalies and see what they can make out of them,” the dog replied.

“We try to understand why said anomalies happen,” the cat fired back, advancing closer to Burnie.

“That’s a bunch of bull and you know it,” Burnie flamed, also moving closer. Their muzzles almost touched each other.

Kenyon inserted his body in between the two and pushed them away from each other. “I don’t know if you’ve noticed, but this ship is infested with aliens that can rip a person in half; and we’re fighting about politics.”

Suddenly, everything went white, and something hit Kenyon. Something with feathers. Then everything went dark. For the three Anthrop, their eyes adjusted quickly, but for Collette...

“Kenyon, I can’t see anything!” She pleaded for help.

“What the HELL was THAT!?!?!” the cat screamed as the wolf went over to help Collette.

“That, Sarah, was the anomaly you picked up,” Kenyon interpreted. Then something clicked in his mind. “How long have you been picking up the bursts of energy?”

“I’m not allowed to tell you,” Sarah answered.

“Like it’ll fucking matter, Sikla (omega; in this context, wimp)!” the husky scolded.

“Listen,” Kenyon explained, looking at her, “if we can figure out what’s going on here, then we can stop these aliens from spawning here, and taking over his ship.” Kenyon added, “And I know you still have some feelings for him.”

“Whoa, how the hell?” Burnie investigated.

“She was more calm about talking to you,” the Vargirn explained his interpretations, “while you were yelling your damn head off. She broke up with you, which would explain why you’re so pissed about seeing her, but she thought it was for the better good if you weren’t together. Personally, I’m taking Sarah’s side on this one.”
Everyone looked at him incredulously.

A random pigeon flew onto Kenyon’s shoulder. The wolf looked at said bird. Another second went by of silent stares before Kenyon finally asked, “How did you manage to find me?”

“I didn’t mean to; I was just bored of that island,” the bird answered.

“I have got to be high or something,” Burnie announced. “There’s no way I ran into a woman from the middle ages, my ex mate, a wolf Anthrop that can read people like books, and a talking pigeon.”

“Why does everyone say that word?” the bird inquired.

“Welcome to my world,” Kenyon answered, both to the bird and to Burnie.

The magnetic lift, which felt dangerous to Kenyon due to its tipping on almost every step, slid upwards to where all five would be safe again.

“How long have the energy spikes been showing up?” Burnie asked Sarah. The other three looked at her with questioning faces.

“A month, now.” She replied.

The elevator announced their arrival at the crew deck with an audible *ding!*

“We need to move,” Burnie stated before telling them directions to the engineering workshop.
---
“Rifts have been popping up all throughout time and space, both metaphorically, and literally,” a brown badger wearing some casual clothes explained to Kenyon, Collette, and Sarah as they toured the large room filled with ear shearing grinding, sparks, and a garage esque atmosphere. The bird, however, was, once again waiting outside of the workshop.

“We’ve seen them enough times that we could figure out how exactly they work,” the mustelid continued. “A Rift is a rip that connects two realities together, allowing anything to travel through. We believe that the reason Rifts pop up is because something doesn’t belong.”

“I think these people know more than the government does,” Sarah whispered towards Kenyon.

“How do we close them?” Collette asked the badger, who turned around to answer, his rather snazzy glasses needing a small adjustment.

“We put the “something” where it does belong.”

“But it’s not that simple, right?” Kenyon poked.

“Sadly yes. But we have a simple solution,” the badger informed before waving them to follow.

“Reality Bombs!” The badger introduced a small device with four spokes and a large yellow button in the middle.

“That’s the same thing the queen had,” Kenyon yelled in his head.

“This little sucker will cause whatever it’s attached to to disappear from everything; no memory loss, no repercussions, at least time-and-space wise, and it also opens a Rift that will transport you to another spot in time and space.”

“Everything it attaches to?” Kenyon noted. “Wouldn’t that-”

“That’s the best part; it can tell if something originated from that reality or not; if it didn’t, then it’ll work. If it does belong there, then nothing will happen.”

An echoing PA system came on, with Burnie’s voice travelling through it. “Hello, this is your captain speaking. We are about to travel, so hold on to something.” The husky looked away from the microphone to cough, a large bright sphere showing some sort of space map in the background, along with two people at holographic computers. “Also, we do have a member of NASTRAND on board, and I would like to keep a good impression, so treat her with respect, lest we get pulled over again; don’t want that again, do we?” Everyone laughed.

“If you see anything odd, please let someone know immediately; we have just been on top of a Rift for about a month now, so don’t pass of anything as just a coincidence. We will be moving in three, two, one...”
*WOOSH!!!*



Chapter 4.
“Now, we just need to clean it all up,” Burnie told no one in particular. He stood up from the chair, which basked in the light of the holographic map of the galaxy, and walked over to an elevator that lead him down onto the main floor of the bridge. The lights flickered. “What the hell was that?”

“I don’t know, captain,” a bear yelled out.

The hologram disappeared.

“All of the drives shut down; we’re drifting!” the same bear shouted.

The husky cussed. “Why’d they shut off?”

“I don’t know!” he yelled out again.

“Come with me, Benji,” the captain ordered the bear.
---
Everything went dark.

“Collette?” Kenyon searched quietly.

“I’m right here,” she answered.

“Hemming?” Kenyon searched again.

A flash of light came on, coincidentally a flashlight that lived up to its name. They both yelped in pain and startelement.

“Oh, sorry; hard to see when you only see white, eh?”

The light slid down onto the ground. “Just,” Kenyon begged, “don’t ever put that in my face again.”
---
The room was littered with weapons; seriously. Rifles on the ground, shotguns on the wall, they were everywhere. Burnie tossed a rifle towards Kenyon.

“We only have a limited amount of time before we run out of air; Persephone’s a big ship, so we should have enough air to get through, but we can’t move any of the air to another part of the ship, so keep your breathing steady,” Burnie explained. “Five damn years I’ve had this ship and only one person has died. I’m planning on keeping that number at one.”
Kenyon pulled the bolt. “What do these shoot?”

“Plasma,” the bear answered. “There’s no recoil, but ammo’s hard to come by.”

They traveled to the engine room. Not much talking happened, nor any shooting, but when they got there...

“OH SHIT!” Burnie called out, shells flying out the side of his shotgun as he pumped like crazy.

The orange tinted room was covered with skags. Multiple cords hung from a large rope-like attachment to the engine, which was huge; a large pillar of metal and gears made Kenyon rethink everything he ever thought about engines. A catwalk surrounded the engine, giving just enough room for them to walk around.

“There’s the cord!” Benji loudly informed over the shots. Kenyon broke from his blank stare and fired. The rifle’s odd burst-fire mechanism took him by surprise all of the shots missed. “Come on, work!” He fired again, missing as he fired a third time, still without luck. Everything got He dropped the rifle kicked a skag off the platform.

“GOT IT!!” Benji exclaimed.

Collette screamed.

Benji fell off the catwalk.

Kenyon reached out to grab Benji’s paw. All he got was his paw slashed as the bear fell, followed by a skag.

Everything went black.
---
“He fell into the generator for the engine,” the husky said over a phone. “Our engine wasn’t working, and he fixed the problem. Yes, we will be docking on Miranda soon.”
Kenyon stood on the deck of the ship, looking out into space. “Doctor,” Kenyon said. The badger walked up behind the wolf and joined in looking into nothing.

“You wanted to see me?” Hemming inquired.
“Collette was only 18 years old. She could’ve seen so much more.”

“Well,” the badger opinionated, “she got to see her own world from a place she thought was Heaven. If she loved it here, I can only imagine she’s having one hell of a time there, no pun intended.”

“And what about the Rifts?”

“You can just sit here and watch everything fall apart, or,” Hemming held up a Rift device, “you can carry on.”

Kenyon took the device and walked out of the bridge.

“Kenyon!” a female called. Sarah jogged to catch up to Kenyon.

“If you want to follow me, don’t. I’m not a Doctor,” he told her.

“But you’ve seen things that no one else here will.”

“It wasn’t my choice, and I’m not getting anyone else killed because of something I can’t CONTROL!”

A short silence followed. Kenyon left the bridge and walked to the elevator.
*ding!* The doors slid open to reveal the lobby in front of the elevator. Right where this whole crap happened. Kenyon sat down on one of the benches and leaned his head onto his paws. Something rested on his shoulder. “Not now, Eagle.”


“I think you are the eagle,” the pigeon replied, “you didn’t even look up to see what was on your shoulder, yet you knew it was me.”

In a monotone voice, the wolf added, “I don’t see many other birds on this ship, let alone that would stand on my shoulder.”

“Do you plan on leaving?” Eagle asked.

“Reality depends on it. Not like I’m being pressured into it or anything.”

*ding!* “Kenyon!” a man caught the wolf’s attention. Kenyon lifted his head up. It was Hemming.

“I made this device that might let us talk across Rifts!” He handed the Vargirn a cell phone.

“In case it doesn’t work, thank you,” Kenyon hugged the badger (not in a weird way). “Tell everyone else the same,” he asked of the doctor. “I’m not going to give a monologue ‘cause that’s just gonna make leaving worse.”

“Good luck, Kenny,” Burnie’s voice echoed over the PDA system.

“Damn, this is cheesy,” Kenyon noted.

The husky added, “Also, remember to jump this time.”

Kenyon pushed the button down on the device and saw some blood on the ground fly and fade away, just like the queen did. Before he could say anything, a Rift opened in all its loud, white, blinding glory. Kenyon jumped into the hole. Just before the Rift closed, Sarah, out of seemingly nowhere, hopped through.


HEY YOU!! Yeah, YOU! Do you have an awesome idea for the next or following episode(s)? Post a comment or send me a note! Your world could be the home of the next Rift!