Hundreds of people stood in line before the border checkpoint.
The lights were dim, and the only sound was the intermittent, agonizing screech of the iron gates swinging open.
Handcarts laden with meager belongings, mothers carrying children on their backs, and old men bearing the scars of bullet wounds—they all looked in a single direction.
Toward the Federation.
The crowd was a desperate slurry of races: Sarkaz, Draco, Ursus, Kuranta, and nameless wanderers from distant lands.
Some trembled with hope, some with terror, and others with nothing but sheer, bone-deep exhaustion.
A middle-aged man muttered in a trembling voice, "They say... they say they will take us in here."
The woman beside him replied in a low, hollow tone, "Being taken in doesn't guarantee happiness."
In her hand, she clutched a single, tattered banknote. It was the last of her wealth, hidden at the risk of her life when she fled the Ursus Empire. Now, it was a worthless scrap of paper from a fallen economy, yet she couldn't bring herself to let it go.
A child's wail erupted from the end of the line.
The soldiers glanced back briefly but said nothing. To them, this was a mundane tableau of misery.
Above the iron gates, a sign bore red lettering, half-peeled away by the biting tundra winds.
[FEDERATION CHECKPOINT]
The procession moved with agonizing slowness. At the identification desk, names were recorded, bags were ransacked, and ink was pressed onto the backs of hands.
An administrative apparatchik, his face etched with bureaucratic fatigue, spoke up.
"Occupation?"
"I was a teacher."
"Origin?"
"...Ursus."
"Any underlying conditions?"
"...Oripathy."
At that answer, a heavy silence descended upon the immediate vicinity. However, the apparatchik merely nodded without flinching.
"You are now a citizen of the Federation. You will stay in a temporary housing facility until official orders regarding your permanent residence arrive. Your citizenship papers will be issued shortly. Here is your temporary residency permit."
A heavy red stamp slammed onto the permit with a definitive thud.
In that moment, the woman burst into tears. Though her nationality and status had changed in the blink of an eye, that smear of red ink felt like the first proof that she was actually alive.
The line moved again.
To one side, a former mercenary with a missing leg leaned on a crutch, supporting a bruised comrade. "See that? Those are electric lights. We didn't have lights like those back in my village."
"And you trust this place because of some lights?"
"If I don't trust this place, where else is there to go?"
A sharp gust of wind howled through the checkpoint. The cries of infants, the dry coughs of the elderly, and the rhythmic thud of soldiers' boots mingled into a discordant symphony. Everyone spoke, but no one smiled.
The massive iron gates of the newly built border city groaned open, spilling light into the darkness.
Someone whispered beneath their breath, "...Is this truly it? The 'Land of Revolution'?"
There was no answer. Only the faint, tinny voice of a distant radio broadcast carried over the wind.
"Today, the People's Commissariat of Planning officially announced that the population has surpassed thirty-eight million. The doors of the Federation remain open to all. Despite burgeoning domestic security concerns, the Immigration Bureau maintains that there are no plans to restrict entry, asserting that counter-intelligence remains the sole jurisdiction of the Militsiya and the OGPU."