Everyone scattered.


    We all ran in different directions, this time. Well, we weren''t all together in one group. I didn''t bother with tracking where each person went, since they weren''t different enough for it to be important. As for myself, I ran straight past the second skinner while it was still going to town on Mrs. Budgetcuts. It was a deliberate choice—I intended to run right back in the direction we''d come from the moment I realized something was on the roof. There were only two people I considered individually important here, and one of them was Rambo.


    The other was me.


    But seriously, why would anyone run off alone into Anathema infested trees instead of immediately trying to regroup with the one guy who was in the process of killing one with literal gardening tools? I could not think of a single good argument in favor of doing that. They must be panicking. Rather than laugh at them, I chose to take it as a reminder that it was easy to make poor decisions when things were happening too quickly. It was also true that I was relying on Rambo to actually pull through.


    I sure hope you didn''t massively fumble things while I was distracted, dude. Because if you did... Well, I would quickly become very sad.


    As I came closer to the starting location—my starting location—I was relieved to see the hero was just now finishing up. The hideous and vile cat-dragon runt had fallen to the champion''s blade, which he''d buried deep into the Anathema''s sinuous neck. It looked like it had taken a lot more than a single blow, though. Was he just hacking at it like a log? It sure looked like it. But regardless, the hero stood triumphant, and his shield was unbroken. Trowel, whatever. Close enough. I was pretty sure there were real historical shields that were also pretty small, used for, like, blocking. Is that what a buckler is? I should have paid more attention in games. And every shield is used for blocking, that''s literally the point, genius.


    The man looked exhausted. He was a true powerhouse, that was indisputable by this point. But even the craziest, most improbable people had their limits. The fact that he was even standing was remarkable, so it was really no surprise that he looked ready to keel over—but he didn''t. There was still a little bit of the current scene left before he''d get some relative down-time. Then we''d patch up his wounds as best we could, strategize a little, and maybe find a walkie-talkie so he could drop a couple badass lines over channel 9.


    He''d already cemented his role as the main character. Now, it was my turn to cement myself as the heroic love interest. At least until I can get my ass out of here.


    Chest heaving, he dropped the stupid trowel. After staggering a few steps back, he finally looked up, just in time to meet my own gaze. I was pretty sure my eyes were already as wide as they could get, so I skipped ahead and rushed forward. "Here, let me help you." I knew fuckall about first aid, but I was still prepared to start ripping my shirt up and sensually tying strips of it around him. "Are you hurt?"


    His breath was pretty shaky, and by this point he''d accumulated the rest of the dirt, sweat, and miscellaneous filth that he was missing just a few minutes earlier. He leaned against me for balance—more like on top of me, with our stupid height difference—and started to say something. But we were interrupted by a nearby explosion.


    And holy shit, explosions were fucking loud! I knew that, of course, but experiencing it was a different thing entirely. Much like gunshots, movies were misleading. In both cases, the live experience was less impressive sounding, shorter, and mostly just way too fucking loud! In the case of explosives, it was because of something that a lot of people didn''t seem to understand—that bombs weren''t weapons of fire, but weapons of earth and air. Well, sort of. There were, of course, whole classes of partial exceptions, but in general, heat was the most comparatively minor component, and only at very close range.


    Point is, ''explosion damage'' was primarily fluid shock forces—the air—and fragmentation from all the solid shit it kicked up. I digress. Point is, that blast is gonna be loud.


    The more relevant topic right now was where the fuck did that come from? I was pretty sure the blast came from the direction of the other shed, the one with the pieces of Brian and Mrs. Budgetcuts. I was also pretty sure it wasn''t our mysterious kidnappers, because why would they do that? Granted, I didn''t know why they were doing any of this, so it was still a decent possibility. The best case was that the Civil Guard had shown up, or it could just be some random guardians.


    It didn''t look like either, though. It had definitely been right by the shed, since the whole structure had partially collapsed. There was also no sign of the other skinner, which was worrying. I hoped the explosion got rid of it, but I wasn''t going to count on it. In fact, the only other thing I could see was Class President, now running towards us again. I squashed down my sudden irritation. Her joining up with us was logically a good development, as it was more numbers again. Despite that, I was annoyed because it threatened my role as the star love interest. That role could now fall to her, and if that happened, it would make me into the unsympathetic bitch who gets killed. Damn it!


    She slowed down once she reached us, and I immediately noticed a few notable differences. Originally, her midnight black hair had been styled neat but loose, but at some point she''d tied it up in a goofy cross between a bun and a ponytail. She''d also ditched her weird sweater-jacket thing, leaving her in just a sports bra, revealing actual abs. The fuck? Was my nickname for her completely wrong? I was starting to think that it was. She was also clutching a small plastic carton of something. I think I remembered seeing that earlier, but I didn''t pay attention to it. I couldn''t easily read the label, but based on the vibe of the visible branding, it was some kind of, what—fertilizer? I wasn''t sure.


    "Hey."


    "Uh, hey." I was the one who responded, since Rambo was too busy leaning on top of me. It was getting old quickly. Why does he have to be so damn heavy? And sweaty. Ew. I never wanted to actually touch him for a prolonged amount of time. I wanted to get my points for thirty seconds of playing nurse and then move on. I never liked touching people, and this guy was going to need the mother of all showers. "We heard that explosion... Did you see what happened?"


    She didn''t answer me immediately, instead taking her time to look around carefully. Smart. We were still standing in the middle of it, after all, and rather literally at that. Satisfied, she turned back to us and held up her plastic carton. Stump remover, I realized, and it only took a second for the pieces to click. I was studying materials engineering, not chemistry, but I was also supposed to be the daughter of David Huntingfield. It would be kind of weird if I didn''t know basic trivia about IEDs—so I knew the active ingredient in that stuff was a powerful oxidizer.


    Obviously, you couldn''t just go straight from ''box of yard chemicals'' to ''actual bomb.'' The only reason it was possible was through exploiting the skinner''s unique biology—or whatever you could say passed for it.


    Skinner''s had this weird tendency to suck things up through their skin, kind of like a frog. The difference was that it didn''t even have to be liquid, and it happened way too fast. The most common image in the cultural eye was a blood-soaked skinner slowly soaking up the blood like a demented sponge. Where did it go? No idea, since skinner''s literally didn''t have blood. It just soaked straight into that creepy, almost human skin.


    This was a very good thing, because it gave them a unique vulnerability. Any kind of corrosive chemical, for instance, would affect them way faster than you''d expect, and there were all kinds of ways anti-Anathema weapons exploited this. It seems Class President—I still might need a different name—was also aware of this, and took a gamble by trying to turn the thing into a living bomb. I guess it worked.


    Of course, there was still a missing component. How did she ignite it? The answer was basically the same. Skinner''s didn''t just absorb extra chemicals, they also absorbed things like radiation and heat. Not enough to instantly freeze their surroundings, but enough to be significant. An absolute menace to the ordinary, squishy little human, they became a hilarious punching bag for all kinds of wacky shit weapons manufacturers came up with. And it seemed that included dusting the thing in saltpeter, converting its alien flesh into a fuel oxidizer mixture that went kaboom when it reached the super hot inner core


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    And yep, that was the exact explanation she gave. I almost whistled. I''m definitely going to have to remember this one and bring it up to David. Could make for a cool PR stunt video. I could already picture it. A scene basically like this one, like a clip from a movie. The love interest cornered, the hero standing between her and an inevitable flaying... a hopeless last stand, until boom! The badass, lesbian-coded female sidekick blows them all up with household chemicals! Hell yeah!


    Wait.


    My brain glitched out for a moment. My subconscious had just hit upon something—an insight! Without knowing it, I''d saved my own place in the narrative. Of course I was still the love interest! Class President wasn''t Class President at all—she was the gay best friend. It''s all coming together now—except for the part where my useless, good for nothing, literal Star Guardian dad shows up and solves everything. Fuck!


    While I was lost in my thoughts, it seemed we''d all started walking. I wasn''t sure where we were going, just that Rambo and Sidekick had seemingly decided on some kind of plan. That was fine by me. They''d both proven themselves competent in this situation, and I was super glad I hadn''t run off like Jeff or Rambo 2. I wonder what''s going on with those guys. Which one is gonna die first? I bet it''s gonna be Rambo 2, actually. Cutaways of Jeff surviving alone for way too long is definitely the comic relief in this instance.


    We seemed to be slogging our way up a hill. That made sense. It might give us a good vantage point to figure out what else was around us. It was hard to imagine it was nothing but a couple sheds in trees without even a fence or anything. Alternatively, we might not be able to see anything. It wasn''t a very big hill. Along the way, we started hearing more sounds, which were a mix of things crashing, moving through the leaves, people shouting, and alarming monster sounds.Yup, there are definitely more people. And Anathema. Great.


    No one said anything. What were we supposed to do about it? Cry? We just kept walking. Either something would attack us or it wouldn''t. I was placing my bets on the former—and soon.


    I was right.


    It had been a few minutes since we made it to the top of the hill. It wasn''t a great viewpoint, but we did see a metal fence in the distance, and we unanimously decided to head in that direction. If you were kidnapped and put in some kind of Anathema zoo enclosure, then the other side of the fence was probably the side where the ultra-violent monsters weren''t. It was an easy decision, even after I pointed out that we were likely to encounter more calculated resistance. If I were the one sticking people in the Anathema enclosure—for entertainment, for illegal experiments, for some kind of cult, it didn''t really matter—I would want to make sure nobody made it out. That meant taking measures to take out anyone who looked like they were about to succeed.


    We went for the fence anyway, because I had no interest in trying to dissuade them. It was a warning.


    The sounds of people fighting and dying seemed to grow quieter as we descended the other side of the hill and got closer to the perimeter. That made a certain amount of sense, because I would also have put the people all closer to the center if I were running something like this. It was also quite fortunate, because we never ended up encountering another Anathema. Just walking straight to the edge uncontested felt like cheating. Not that I''m complaining.


    And then we were at the fence. It was a nasty looking thing, cluttered with barbed wire and definitely electrified. The latter wasn''t going to be a problem, though, but something to be wary of. This was because, upon stepping closer, I realized that the non-barbed wires all had little red or black tapes on them. They weren''t at all obvious, only having a single faded, tiny piece of plastic every twenty feet or so. Just pick a color, be very careful to only ever touch your chosen color, don''t touch both the fence and the ground, and you were good. Probably. I think.


    I was quick to point it out to the other two, and Sidekick seemed to agree. She also agreed that we could be dead wrong, but it was a worthwhile risk. Seeing that we both came to the same conclusion, Rambo decided to trust us, and, of course, volunteered himself to test it. And I am absolutely not going to complain. Be my fucking guest.


    Good news, he didn''t get fried, so we started climbing over as well. Really, it made things way easier than if there hadn''t been the electric wires. We would have had to deal with the sharp wires, and that would have been a nightmare. I wasn''t going to be one of those people who underestimated just how effective that kind of thing could be. As it were, it was just thirty seconds to a minute of doing everything to avoid brushing the wrong set of wires. Nerve-wracking, but one by one, we made it to the top. Despite the fence being fairly high, all three of us decided we''d rather take the fall.


    "Oh, fucking hell." Said fall was worse than I expected. I didn''t think I broke anything, which was good, but it hadn''t been remotely safe. Sidekick was groaning as well, and even Rambo looked a bit pained. One by one, we made it to our feet, stretched, and wordlessly began to run. We weren''t in the clear yet, and I wouldn''t even let my guard down when we reached some kind of civilization. All in all, it still felt a bit too easy—which is why I wasn''t surprised to only make it a few yards before things went sideways.


    What surprised me was that it was Sidekick lunging and knocking me to the ground.


    The fuck? I barely had time to wonder what her deal was before my skull cracked against hard dirt and all the air whooshed out of my lungs. But I got my answer when I heard the crack of a gunshot and saw sidekick herself go tumbling to the forest floor. Oh shit was all I managed to think. I had no idea where that came from, but it was obvious Sidekick had seen our attacker—and instead of ducking to cover, she''d gone and pushed me out of harm''s way. How thoughtful of her.


    Unfortunately, that left me to cower behind the trunk of a way-not-fucking-thick-enough tree. I don''t know what happened to Rambo, but I heard a few more gunshots. I couldn''t tell if there was only one attacker or multiple, but either way, I was starting to feel exceptionally screwed. I started feeling my own heartbeat. Or something like it. Something deep in my chest, right where my stomach met my sternum, something was thrashing. I almost never felt true fear, and right now, I felt terror.


    Is this what it feels like to have a panic attack? I didn''t know. I didn''t know how to describe what I was feeling. It''s like something inside of me is... breaking.


    I realized I was looking up at the sky. When did I fall on my back? As I stared upwards, the blue sky rapidly darkened, growing deep purple, then almost true black. I wondered if I was dying. Was this the effect of my brain losing oxygen? I couldn''t tell. And as the seconds ticked by, the darkness continued to widen—until it tore open, and from inside of it, there was light. I would have laughed if I could. I could never take the whole ''departing into the light'' thing seriously, but here I was, literally seeing it.


    Except the light wasn''t taking me upwards. In fact, it was the opposite. It was the light that was rocketing down. A brilliant, golden singularity, it streaked down from a truly impossible distance, looking almost as if tossed by some cosmic, celestial hand. I watched on in awe as I bore witness to something I never thought I would witness—something never even recorded—a falling star. But not any ordinary meteor—a star core.


    And it wasn''t heading for me.


    The singularity of light and power struck the girl bleeding out not a dozen feet beside me. The impact was enough to kick up wind and leaves, and the light grew almost blinding. This time, I really did laugh. There was a small thought floating through my head, a distant voice saying something like shame it''s not happening to me. But I didn''t pay much attention to it. I was enraptured by witnessing the birth of a genuine Star Guardian.


    The light began to dim, and with it, the literal hole in the sky began to close—but not instantly. Turning away from the light and looking across that impossible, finite but incomprehensibly vast distance, I felt as if I could see something far, far bigger than me that had reached out. And now, it was retracting its hand. The world was returning to normal, my senses were returning, and I could feel that same thrashing in my chest again. It had grown tremendously, as if reacting to and resonating with the incredible event unfolding just in front of me.


    The last thing was not a vision but a voice. Impossibly deep, below the range of human hearing but somehow audible all the same, it spoke. Not to me, but I was there to hear it all the same.


    Choose wisely.


    And that was all. Two words, and it would retreat back across that incredible distance—until it stopped. The world paused, and, for the first time, the attention of that thing turned to me. I could feel the weight of a vast, alien consideration—and the thing rampaging deep inside of me began to fracture. And then, for the second time, it spoke.


    ...Anathema?


    It was a single word, spoken with a great deal of uncertainty, but it carried a force that caused everything I was made to almost crumble. Then, with a return to its former confidence, the incredibly deep voice spoke.


    I will be watching you.


    Hatchling.


    The presence retreated, the hole in the sky finished closing, and every bit of reality snapped back together in painfully sharp focus. There was shouting, there might have been more gunshots, and some kind of strange buzzing filled the air beside me—but I couldn''t pay any attention to that. That thing inside of me had stopped thrashing. But that wasn''t because it was done—it was because it had finally, at long last, broken free.


    An overwhelming power exploded through me, bringing with it strength, and power, and, strangest of all, a deep, horrible, unending hunger.