Our school backs up to a city, and that city backs up to a number of dark, suspicious alleys, the kind you could reasonably get shanked behind. Megan stands with her arms on her hips, looking into a still darker abyss at the end of the alley with the brightest smile I've ever seen on her face. Rain falls around us, rapidly accelerating, but I'm too numb with adrenaline to feel it.

"Sorry that took me so long," I say, steadying my breath. "I came over from the school. My brother wanted me to come to the activities fair. You missed nothing."

"The activities fair," echoes Megan. Her smile falls with the downpour. "Of course, that was today. You know, Adam, you have a knack for making me feel terrible about myself."

"Well, you shouldn't. Anthem wanted you to do this. I just happened to have free time," I say, putting a hand on her shoulder. Her t-shirt is soft, but the warmth underneath is what really gets me. It's like holding the sun.

She brushes me off with a needlessly sad backwards look, and it dawns on me that this could be construed as creepy. I draw my hand back. "Sorry. I was just nervous." I hesitate, already instinctively reaching back for the stone, which fills me with a surge of drier, more violent heat. "Audio and visual hallucinations, weird rocks, paranoia towards loved ones... we're not crazy, are we?"

"Crazy? You're definitely crazy if you think we're crazy," Megan says. She gestures towards the pit of darkness set out before us. "We're just lucky. Now, while I'd love to continue our little alley discourse, I think we have an adventure to seize. Let's go!" I was kind of hoping she'd grab my hand and drag me through, but she runs ahead on her own, and with a quick, excited twirl, plunges backwards into the void. The nothingness swallows her, leaving me alone in the alley, staring at the silvering hole.

"You're not going to talk to me, are you?" I ask the voice Megan has been claiming to hear. "Anthem."

Behind me, a car wails. The sounds of the city become a dull mush of sensation, and all that remains clear is the darkness before me. I take a quick step back and throw myself into the portal from a running start. Someone grabs hold of my hand and pulls me the rest of the way through, leaving me sprawled across a warm floor, feeling stiff. By instinct, I stuff my hand in my pockets to find the stone, which I suppose I could throw at someone in an emergency situation, but it's not there. I don't have any pockets, either. As I run my hand up my clothes, I find I'm in knight's armor, my face has a spined mask plastered to it that covers my eyes, and where my backpack was is the scabbard of a massive broadsword.

I also happen to have a pounding headache. "Reminder to self: never put any body parts through mysterious portals ever again," I tell myself, my eyes slowly adjusting to the light. The floor and walls are a disconcerting, translucent magenta, like a thick, fleshy membrane. There are even visible vein patterns on it, though instead of the muted blue of human veins, they run everywhere from a dulled-out white to pitch black.

Not far from me is another person, who is on their knees, keeled over so I can't see her face. She-- based on the apparel alone-- wears a dress of several blue hues, dyed purple by the ambient light. It has at least ten flowing layers, all of which are undulating like waves on the open sea. There's a similar spired mask on her face, just like mine. "Who are you?" she asks in a familiar, lonely voice. It sounds like the echo sea caves make when you yell into them.

"It's Adam," I say. "Adam Rosenbloom?"

The girl blinks. "Of course you are. It's Megan. I guess it's hard to recognize anyone in costume, isn't it?"

"No kidding," I say. "You panicking?"

"Yes," she admits.

"Same here," I say. We exchange a quick look. "Nice dress?"

"Nice armor," she replies. "Can you move in it?"

I demonstrate by walking to meet her. It's definitely metal, but it doesn't have as much resistance as I expected. The plates seem to shift seamlessly as I move, and they're not even remotely heavy. "Apparently. I've got a broadsword, too, but I don't know if the outfit comes with fencing lessons."

"I took fencing lessons," Megan says. "Pass it over."

"This is my sword," I tell her, holding the strap.

"Can you use it?" she asks.

"Probably as well as you can do anything if you've only practiced with an epee," I tell her.

"How do you know what an epee is if you've never taken fencing lessons?" she asks with a frustrated thrust of her arms.

"That's none of your business," I say, but she's already up on tiptoes, removing the sword strap from around my shoulder. She hits me in the head with it, then she hits me with the crown, which for some reason hurts as much as flesh would (this thing might as well have been surgically implanted against my face), and then she gets it off and withdraws the sword. With a clumsy swing, she manages to get into a fighting position. "Fine. You keep the sword."

Megan puts it back in the scabbard. She swings the sword strap over her, which rests awkwardly against the dress, and then pauses, looking down the corridor with that same misty, intense look as when her expression dropped earlier. "We should go. Do you mind holding my hand?"

"That's..." I pause. It's not a no. I could have my hand in her hand right now and I'm hesitating for no reason. I place my gloved hand against hers, and her thumb curls up to reach mine, pulling us taut. For the record, I've held hands with girls before (believe it or not), but something about the whole experience makes this seem more right. I consider this, like the hallucinations, to be symptomatic of something. "Okay, then."

Megan jerks me forwards, then rolls her eyes down the hallway, as if to explain: Don't question. Walk. Out loud, she explains, "It's nothing personal, but there's this old cliche in horror films where you'll be walking with someone down a dark hallway, and then whoops! They're gone. If some huge adventure's really about to happen to us, I just want to make sure I'm not the guy who dies first. That would really, really suck."

"I think you'll be fine if you're that genre savvy," I tell her.

We walk through the darkness together. The air is drier than it should be, especially given the organic texture of the walls, but I'm not asking for it to be moist in here, because that would be truly uncomfortable and disconcerting. I feel Megan's hand fidget against mine.

"I'm kind of glad I am," she says, picking up the conversation. "Genre savvy, I mean. Ever since I was little, I've thought about what I might do-- and look, it's happening! Isn't it... isn't it incredible, that somehow, we were the ones who ended up finding something?"

"It didn't," I say, stricken by conviction. "Whatever's out there, it found us."

As if on command, there's a clicking, crackling noise in the darkness, and Megan and I jolt downwards to avoid a small blast of fire, perfectly spherical, which streaks past us like a comet and disappears into the dark. Megan's hands clamor for the sword, but by the time she's managed just to get it off her back (I have no idea what this dress is made of, since it looks like tissue paper, but it's a miracle it hasn't torn) it has to be too late. A dark figure rushes down the hall at us, and I jump out in front of her just to be tackled to the ground. I fall towards Megan, and a wall of water rushes up against me, pushing both myself and the stranger forwards and into each other. I end up on top of him, my armor soaked, and a dark-haired kid with a horned mask and a black uniform snarls up at me.

"Get off," he says, pushing me out of the way. His fingers make a metallic clicking against my armor. Like Megan's was, his voice is familiar, and as I lapse into something like a sitting position, gasping, he moves a finger topped by a golden metal claw in Megan's direction. "You. Did you just do that? With the water?"

"Yes," Megan says from behind me, rising to her feet. Her dress moves in torrents around her, and when she lifts her hand, the water rises from the ground with it, droplets suspending themselves in the open air. "Yes, I did that! I can-- I can do it again!" There's a quick burst of rain as she drops them all. "Maybe not right now?"

I stumble back onto my feet and pick up my sword's scabbard, pointing it in the stranger's direction. "Who are you?"

He clicks his fingers, and fire sparks from them. Holding them towards us like he's preparing to fire, he warns, "Not interested in being killed by the interplanetary forces of evil, thanks. You have no idea who you're messing with. I'm--"

"We're high schoolers. Are you... from our school?" asks Megan, tentatively.

The stranger's expression twitches from malice to confusion, and the fire at his fingers flicker out. "My name's Evan."

I suddenly remember where I've seen him before.

"Drake!" yells Megan, tackling him with a hug. "It's Megan!"

"Briggs!" Evan yells back, pushing her off. "What are you doing here? Last time I checked, you weren't an alien, you were just astronomically obnoxious."

"Last time I checked, you weren't wearing a black spandex uniform," I say, noting the tense, uncomfortable look he's giving me. "I know you. I saw you at gym. It's Adam?"

"Ah, the man who stares at me in gym class," Evan says. "I remember you. Has anyone told you that your brother's kind of awkward?"

"Like you're so much better," laughs Megan. "I'll have you know Will Rosenbloom is a good kid, and honestly, probably the superior Rosenbloom to bring into this kind of ordeal, but I didn't get to choose."

"Thanks, Megan," I say, readjusting my sword to hide the crippling emotional blow I've just been dealt. "I take it you two know each other?"

Evan shrugs. "I guess. Megan went to Scarborough middle school with me. I had to deal with her annoying friends--"

"We dealt with him," Megan cuts in.

"--and now we've fallen right into one of your stories, Megan, so all your delusional fantasies seem to have worked out. Nice outfit, by the way, both of you. Neither of those are even remotely functional." Evan smirks. "At least Megan got superpowers. Adam, whatever your deal is, I hope you realize you're going to be useless if we actually end up in a combat situation."

"I didn't ask for this," I protest. "And the sword is my superpower."

"Right," Evan squints. "Do we know where we're going?"

"Sort of. I can sense her out there."
"Her? You mean the aliens?"

It's definitely a magical situation. I'm an expert," Megan says.

"No, no. The outfits and powers are part of some massive simulation by aliens. Magic isn't a thing," Evan says.

"Aliens are double not a thing," Megan says. "This is pretty conclusive evidence for magic."

"'Double not a thing' isn't something people say, and if it's not aliens, it's creatures from extradimensional space. Magic is just a bunch of fake shit people made up thousands of years ago because they didn't understand natural occurrences."

"You're wrong," Megan says, grabbing my hand. "Come on. Let's go."

Evan grabs my other hand. It's hot, like a live coal, but instead of being painful as the claws and intense temperature would imply, it's actually cozy. Unfortunately, by now we've moved from a comforting gesture into a game of tug-of-war between two people I barely know. "You know who the tiebreaker is," Evan says. Both of them look to me expectantly.

I roll my eyes. "This is stupid. Megan, where are we going?"

"Forwards," she says.

We concede. The sword clanks against my armor, but if anything were to happen, I guarantee that either of them could react before I could so much as blink. Between the cold on my right side and the heat on my left, I don't feel like I'm standing in between two ninth graders, never mind scared children who have been thrown into an alien landscape. I'm standing between two forces of nature. They move like they've been waiting for this to kick in their whole lives.

"Hello?" calls someone from down the corridor.

"There we go," says Megan. "I'm guessing they're not the 'aliens', either."

By now both of them are dragging me along. There's a girl a few inches taller than me in dark athletic gear (almost like an Olympic swimsuit) at the end of the hall, her arms folded tightly against her chest, and a shorter child whose identity is entirely hidden behind a cloak. The two of them look about as lost as I do.

"Hey! I'm Megan! I'd explain more, but we don't know that much more than you do. What's your name?" Megan yells as we approach.

The taller girl squints back. "Is this some kind of test?"

"Of course she doesn't trust us," Evan says, turning to face the two of us with an exaggerated, scornful tilt of his eyes. Turning back to her, he said, "We could say the same thing about you, we're just choosing not to, because that's stupid."

"The first thing you did to us when you met us was try to kill us," I say.

Evan waves me down. "If I wanted to kill you, you would be dead. So, mystery girls, can we get a name? If Megan thinks you need to give yours up, you probably do. She's the one who's in contact with whatever's causing this, so--"

"Serena," the taller girl blurts out.

"Huh," I say. The blonde hair is familiar and the voice, too, is the foremost in a few of my classes. I can almost pick out several times I've been annoyed with it when it sounded over my peers, giving an answer the teacher hadn't even asked the question to yet. "I think I know you, too."

"I still don't," says the girl next to her.

"I definitely recognize her," Evan leers.

"That's funny, because I don't know you or your blonde friend," she says. "Look, on the left, 'Megan'? Do we know what's going on?"

Megan shivers. I can feel the shock of it up my own arm. "I can definitely feel something."

The hall around us seems to shimmer and shake. Megan and Evan turn, unlocking hands with me, and fire and water rise, unsteadily. I put myself into an athletic stance, though I look more like I'm going to open a piñata than charge into battle. From the darkness of the corridor, a small, blinding light appears, like a star travelling towards us, and it materializes first into the clicking of hooves and then, at last, white fur billows out around it. A golden collar tightens around a newly formed neck, horns arise from a head, and from the head extending from a ferretlike body, startlingly gold eyes like two small suns meet mine, fixing me with intent. Needle-sharp teeth arise from an open mouth. "Do not be afraid," she says, in a high hum. I feel that like the others, I could place her if she gave us a name. "It took long enough to find you."

"What do you want?" Serena snaps, though she's still behind us-- smart. She doesn't have a weapon or superpowers.

"You're the alien?" asks Evan.

The few, now harmless-looking droplets around Megan fizzle out. Megan kneels so she's close to her level, and extends a hand. "Hello. Are you what brought us here?"

"I'm not a cat." Her fur spikes up. "Though I am the cause of your presence here. My name is Anthem, and 'alien' is not incorrect, but nor is it sufficient. In your language, I would consider myself a cherub. I can see the questions already rising to your lips; allow me to respond without the indignity of your interruptions. You are in the Veins. It is a place of shadow and passage, flexible in a way your waking world is not. At this point you will have begun to see its branches in your world, and you will have received the stones."

"Yes--" Megan begins.

"That wasn't a question. The Diosite stone is currently in your attire, which is similar in composition to the material of the Veins. It will attune to what you believe to be appropriate, despite this, it should be functional to the best of my ability." The cherub pauses. "Evan, Serena. You are thinking about the 'catch'. I am not merely offering you power. I am offering you responsibility. A crystal of the mineral which empowers your forms has also fallen into the hands of a human adult. Humans, unsupervised, are often capricious in whim, and without the guiding influence of a cherub such as myself, they will use the powers the stone grants them to put the world as you know it in great danger. You likely have a few months as they begin to devise how to use it, but the longer we delay, the longer it will warp their heart. To defeat them is an undertaking the likes of which you have only dreamed of before, but it is also gravely difficult. I am seeking your assistance."

"Could you ask someone more qualified?" I ask.

Anthem looks me dead in the eye. "Do you look unqualified right now?"

"No, we just are unqualified," Serena agrees.

"I have never picked wrong before," Anthem says. "I can not stop you from leaving, but if you do, I can promise you no assistance if the group after you is to fail. The Diosite does not attune with anyone. There is something about you that attracted you to it, as it came to you. You are the five most suitable candidates I have."

A silence falls over the group. I look to the rest of them, trying to gauge a reaction, and see everything from a tense confusion on Serena's face to an almost weepy excitement on Megan's, who has her hands pressed gently to her mouth. The girl in the cloak gives me a quick nod, and Evan's mask furls slightly as his eyebrows crease with concentration.

"We should take this to a vote," I announce. "Do you all want to do this?"

Megan, Evan, and the girl's hand all rise.

Will would have put up his hand up faster than any of them.

"I can't tell anyone, can I?" I ask Anthem.

She shakes her head.

He would be so much better at this.

He would have been. It seems cruel to take away that last vague, immutable quality of heroism away from him, that it would have been him, yet my hand is up.

Serena, looking somewhat defeated, says, "I know there's only going to be so much I can do." Her hand peeks up. "There's no way to dissent that wouldn't make me seem stupid, cruel, or petty."

"No," Evan agrees. "There isn't. It's a freakin' superhero origin story, Serena! Just get your shit together and do what any normal person would do."

Serena raises her hand a little higher. "You have a very skewed opinion of normal people."

Evan opens his mouth to snark back, but Anthem cuts him off with twice the presence someone three feet tall should have. "You are needed in your respective homes. I will be in communication with Megan and Harper. You will all experience less portals, though in time their control will not be out of your reach. I trust you are ready to return?"

"Yes," I say.

I am unceremoniously dropped into darkness and then against the alley floor. My backpack is heavier than my armor was, but it's there, and the damp coldness of the fall rain and the alley's greasy bottom settle back over me. The sun is still fading out in the sky, placing us around dinnertime, and Megan is there, her mask receded back into glasses, looking at me as if I were all of the things that just happened. She runs her fingers across her forehead and through her hair, burying her face in her hands. "That happened."

"It sure did," I say, with a nervous laugh.

"And it's late," she says, already reluctantly moving towards the street. The wind still ruffles her hair like a friend. "We should go."

"I guess." I don't want her to, because the moment's going to go with her. Whatever bravery I had, that lack of fear or panic, the way both of them looked at me like I might know what was going on, that all leaves. "But I'll see you again. Tomorrow?"

Her face breaks out into a smile. "Of course. We're going to save the world."

(A/N: And that would be the end of the 'Deja Preview', bringing us up to where the first demo chapter was when I posted it on Wattpad ages ago. Updates for this story will continue Tuesday, although I have no clue how many people will work through this massive block (13k words!) by then! If you enjoyed the story, make sure to leave likes and comments. Your support lets me so what I'm doing well so I can keep doing it and what I'm doing wrong so I can fix it. Most of all, it's my only payment for doing this! 

I crave validation!

See you when we're ready to save the world,

Chrona)