I was pretty sure no one saw that it was me who sent Class President tumbling. That was good, because I had no intention of leaving the whole group behind, and sticking with them would prove difficult if I gained a reputation for sacrificing other people. Safety in numbers was critical to humanity''s ongoing success, and it was the reason modern civilization could weather the storm of Anathema incursions without being totally dependent on Star Guardians. Having those Guardians was a big help, though—and speaking of which, any fucking moment would be appreciated, jackass. For the first time since the age of ten, I was scared.


    The shed I''d woken up in was in some kind of deciduous forest, and the humid air hinted at a temperate coastal location. I knew this not because I was some kind of geography or tree expert, but from the bare minimum of—fuck, is it deductive reason or inductive reasoning? What''s even the difference? Point is, I happened to know at least one fancy tree word. It wasn''t a pine forest. It also wasn''t any kind of jungle. That was good, because as far as running for you life between a bunch of trees went, this was the least bad option. Or maybe I''ve just watched too many slasher films and Vietnam documentaries.


    Gah! Focus!


    There was another shed not very far ahead, and that''s where I ran. I didn''t look back, but I could tell that at least some of the others were following not too far behind. From the sound of it, at least one sounded like they were catching up, which really wasn''t surprising. While I wasn''t totally out of shape, I wasn''t a paragon of athleticism, either, and having short little legs didn''t do me any favors. So, as confident as I could reasonably be that my rear was covered for the moment, I focused on making sure I wasn''t running head first into certain death.


    I stopped and turned around when I finally reached the shed. I didn''t go in immediately, because one, that was how you got killed first when the second monster made its dramatic appearance, and second, I remembered Rambo saying something like ''more supplies.'' I was pretty sure the others had already looted this place. Kind of tempted to see if there''s a dead body in there, though. I''d seen fewer of those than you might think, and I was super curious.


    So, leaning against the shed wall and catching my breath, I took stock of how the situation had developed. Three people in total were about to reach me, and they weren''t quite who I expected. Jeff, of all people, was the one in the lead, and Mrs. Budgetcuts was trailing a few seconds behind him. The last of the three, Rambo 2, was in the process of overtaking both of them. Sure, Class President was absent, which was reasonable—but where the fuck was the original Rambo? And Jeff was the first to take off after me? Seriously?


    I admit to a bit of annoyance as what remained of the group closed in. Survival of the fittest was a principle that only applied as a statistical average. The original Rambo had always been the most promising muscle of the group, so I considered losing him this early to be kind of bad. But as the group of three regrouped around me, I realized that I might have been mistaken. Rambo wasn''t dead—and neither was Class president. The latter was also running towards us, though she was still way behind.


    The fact that she was still alive and coming towards us concerned me. However, she only held a sliver of my current attention. The rest of it remained focused on our one and only legally distinct Rambo.


    The heroic idiot must have tried to help Class President instead of ditching her like the rest of us. But, instead of trying to pick her up and outrun the Anathema while carrying her, he did what was possibly the only thing that was both braver and stupider. Cementing his role as the true main character here, he stood his ground in an effort to buy time for the rest of us—by fighting the damn thing.


    And he was winning.


    With an gardening hatchet in his main hand and a fucking trowel in the other, the six feet of manly muscle traded blows with a catlike, bony reptilian at least twice his size. The pale, rough skin stretching taught as a drum over way too many bones marked the four legged beast as one of the weaker kinds of Anathema, fittingly known to by most people as a skinner. The name was a reference to both the thin, tight, and not quite human skin stretched over its hollow frame, but also to the excess of razor sharp, bony protrusions. It was also probably only a Tier 1, since it hadn''t already obliterated us with some esoteric ability.


    Still, it should have been more than a match for a regular human, even one armed with a standard firearm. But Rambo didn''t even have that. All he had was a shitty hatchet and a cheap trowel. Yet the man wasn''t just holding the monster off. He was wounding it.


    It only took a few more seconds for Class President to catch up, and in that time, Rambo scored a deep gash across the Anathema''s flank when it tried to circle around him. The creature didn''t bleed, though, which fit with what I knew about skinners. Namely, that they didn''t have any kind of blood. At this point, it was tempting to just stand around like an idiot and watch the origin story of the next Star Guardian. But I had zero doubt a single skinner was the only thing we were up against. We hadn''t seen any of the Anathema cultists yet—and I also needed to deal with Class President.


    I did my best not to react when she caught up to us. I didn''t ignore her, because that would make me seem guilty if she were suspicious, but uncertain, that I''d kicked her to the ground to use as temporary bait. The other girl, in turn, didn''t have any obvious reaction to me, either, and she didn''t start flinging accusations. She just caught her breath, looked around, and then stared back at the ongoing fight between the main character and his very first Anathema.


    He''s totally going to become a Guardian for this. That, or another Anathema. I really hope it''s the first one.


    If you encounter this tale on Amazon, note that it''s taken without the author''s consent. Report it.


    A lot of information about Anathema and the formation of incursions was kept away from the public, and the same went for Guardians—and doubly so for true Star Guardians. Even though my own father was one, I didn''t really know anything more than most. The man barely even interacted with me, and when he did, it wasn''t like he was going to divulge any cosmic secrets that not even governments knew, just because I asked. And yes, I''d asked.


    But pretty much everyone knew the same set of basics.


    Incursions formed when you gathered a whole bunch of Anathema in one place. When the saturation of Anathema in an area grew high enough, breaches in reality would start forming that would let in more of the interdimensional monsters. The more potent the individual Anathema were, and the more of them there were, the bigger and stronger the breaches would become. It was part of a feedback cycle, causing incursions to grow bigger and deadlier if left unchecked.


    But that was only one half of the cycle. You also had to account for the human factor.


    While the more powerful nations around the world were quick to adapt to the Anathema threat when the first incursions began at the turn of the 1990s, the whole planet would have fared a lot worse had it not been for the emergence of Guardians shortly after. While exceptionally dangerous, Tier 1 and even Tier 2 Anathema were within the capabilities of well-equipped professional soldiers at the time. Several tiers higher, and the threat grew tremendously. However, it wasn''t enough to become insurmountable, because there was an equally tremendous gap between a few soldiers and the might of a full, late cold war army, air force, or navy.


    By that point, the human death toll from the Anathema would still have been immense, even discounting all the collateral damage. But the highest tiers Anathema weren''t content to stop there. Those were the reasons why, within the first month of 1991, London went from being a populated capital to a radioactive crater. Had the first Star Guardians not entered the fight, a lot more cities would have followed suit. Thankfully, they did. The great cold war arsenals stayed in reserve, and France remained the only other nation to strike with nuclear weapons after the United States had decades earlier.


    Reality-eating monsters weren''t the only newcomers to our reality, and a tiny fraction of humans bonded with so-called Star Cores. The superhuman—supernatural—abilities they developed as a result turned the tide against the Anathema incursions hard enough to avert a looming nuclear cataclysm. Even today, after decades of rapid-paced R&D, a single true Star Guardian was worth hundreds of millions in cutting-edge military tech, and that was at a minimum.


    But that was only true Star Guardians, those who bonded with the elusive Star Cores. Normal Guardians were dramatically less potent and had become far more abundant. They were the lesser brethren of Star Guardians. While the origin and true nature of the Star Cores was an information black hole, the general public knew a lot more about how people became ordinary Guardians. It happened during incursions, when the same kind of energy produced by the Star Cores leaked through the breach and gravitated to a particular person. The abilities it produced, while impressive, were a far cry from those displayed by true Star Guardians, and in fact, wasn''t the main source of a Guardian''s power. That came later, when the new Guardian began the continual process of refining, cultivating, and augmenting it.


    And all this brings us back to our trowel-wielding action hero. He couldn''t become a normal Guardian, as we''d already established we weren''t in any incursion. But who knew how new star cores chose people? Not me, that''s for sure, so it might be possible. I did know that regular Guardians were often people who went out of their way to protect others during incursions, or at the very least, did an unusually good job at surviving.


    Unfortunately, it was the other possibility that was the most likely. Incursions were what allowed ever growing numbers of Anathema to invade our reality, but they weren''t the only source. If they were, then the combined might of the world powers and Star Guardians would have wiped away the entire problem within just the first few years. The reason they didn''t was because there was a second way for Anathema to manifest in our reality—humans.


    Under extreme conditions, ordinary people could become... invaded. They didn''t so much turn into Anathema as allow the nascent monster to take root like a tumor. Then, it would grow, and grow, and grow, until it consumed everything that was once a person as fuel, leaving nothing but a senseless need for violence and unceasing hunger. That alone wasn''t nearly enough to cause an incursion, but it was a start. Exposure to Anathema increased the susceptibility of others in turn—and so the cycle once again continued.


    Objectively speaking, this was the much more likely option for our dear Rambo. I wonder if that''s what the plan is—if there are more people nearby, maybe someone is trying to make an artificial incursion?


    I said it was a bad idea to just stand around like idiots and watch him, but that''s pretty much what the rest of us did. I, of course, made sure to keep checking our surroundings. I also peeked through a hole in the wall of the shed, confirming my suspicion that it had been looted for anything of worth. There was also a dead body. What was left of it, I should say. I wonder if this was Brian? It was hard to determine anything from the mangled strips of tissue that remained. I wrinkled my nose. Fucking gross.


    Shaking my head, I pulled my face away and leaned back against the wall, returning to scanning our surroundings for any more danger. It was getting a bit nervous, waiting for something to happen. I doubted there was just one Anathema in this whole place, wherever it was. And I also couldn''t forget that we were all kidnapped by someone and brought here. The last thing I remember, it was near midnight, and I''d just gotten my order at a late night cafe. I don''t remember any other customers... did the fucking barista spike my drink?


    Being on guard as I was, and leaning against the shed, I was the first to feel something in the structure—shift. Frowning, I looked up, at the edge of the roof. I didn''t hear anything, but as I watched, the edge of the corrugated sheet metal flexed just slightly—and when I strained my hearing, I did hear a slight creaking. Something was up there. And I''m pretty sure it''s not Santa Claus.


    I considered saying something—but before I could decide on whether to speak up or watch things play out, the creature on the roof made my decision for me. Slipping over the edge, a second skinner dropped down in front of me—landing directly on top of Mrs. Budgetcuts. There was a crunch, and someone screamed.


    Despite it all, I was surprised to find that I''d started to grin.


    That''s definitely Mrs. Budgetcuts down... let''s see how many end up making it through round two.