"Clang!"
The heavy, mechanical rattle of the pull-cord echoed against the metal walls of the maintenance shed. With a violent cough of blue smoke, the old internal combustion engine kicked to life, its rhythmic thrumming vibrating through the soles of my boots.
I flipped a series of heavy toggle switches, and a split second later, the entire baseball diamond was bathed in an artificial noon. The massive, towering spotlights on their rusted stanchions flickered once and then roared with light, carving a sanctuary of blinding white out of the encroaching supernatural darkness.
"Wow! I never would have guessed there was a backup system like this here!" one of the students shouted, shielding his eyes from the sudden glare. The others stood in awe, their faces transformed from ghostly silhouettes back into terrified teenagers.
Even Isabella turned to me, her sharp eyes narrowed in a look of profound curiosity. I could feel her analysing me, wondering how a stranger—a "foreigner" with a strange accent—could navigate the hidden infrastructure of a New York park with such surgical precision.
"Back in my home, every public playground and athletic field is equipped with independent generators for emergencies," I lied, the words coming easily. "It's standard safety protocol."
"But how come this works when everything else is dead?" another youth asked, his voice trembling as he gripped his useless smartphone. "My phone won't even turn on, but this engine started right up?"
"This is old technology," I explained, gesturing to the vibrating machine. "It's a purely mechanical ignition system with a simple carburettor. No microchips, no integrated circuits, no advanced sensors. Anything with a silicon chip was fried the second the sky changed. If it doesn't have a computer in it, it still works."
"Brilliant," Isabella admitted, her voice carrying a rare note of genuine respect. "I never took you for a strategist, Hye."
"Like whom did you take me for?" I asked, struggling to suppress a surge of pride. In my own time, I was a non-entity, a face in the crowd that the High Classes looked through as if I were made of glass. To be praised by someone like her—a woman who possessed the raw aura of a future queen—was a sensation more intoxicating than any drug.
"Someone who puts his mind before his fear," she replied simply.
I offered a tight smile and walked out of the shed. Despite the success of the lights, the danger hadn't diminished; if anything, we had just signalled our location to every predator within five miles.
Howl!
Roar!
Suddenly, the silence of the city was shattered. From the darkened woods of the park and the deep concrete canyons of the surrounding streets, a chorus of nightmare sounds erupted. These weren't the sounds of nature. They were discordant, metallic, and heavy. They're here, I muttered to myself. The "Heat-Seekers" had completed their descent.
I scanned the faces of the group. Most were paralysed, their skin turning ashen as the sounds grew closer. I quickly realised that out of the dozen or so people who had followed us, only three showed any sign of a functional survival instinct.
The rest were already dead in all the ways that mattered; they just hadn't stopped breathing yet. I narrowed my focus to Isabella and two others who hadn't buckled under the auditory assault.
"Everyone, get into the centre of the field!" I commanded, leading them toward the pitcher's mound, the most illuminated spot in the park.
"What was that sound?" one boy whimpered, his eyes darting toward the shadows just beyond the reach of the spotlights. "It sounded like wolves... but bigger."
"Wolves howl," a girl added, her body shaking so violently she could barely stand. "But that... that was a roar. Like a lion, but deeper. Oh god, what is happening to the world?"
I sighed inwardly. I wanted to save them all—I truly did. They had shown a spark of intelligence by not following the Traitor into the subway. But I knew the statistics of the first hour.
"This will have to do," I said, kicking open a storage bin near the dugout. I reached in and pulled out a heavy, professional-grade aluminium baseball bat. I felt the weight, the balance, and the cold bite of the metal. "Come on! Grab what you can! Anything that can break a bone or pierce a hide!"
I didn't wait for the three I had singled out to choose for themselves. I snatched three more aluminium bats and tossed them directly to Isabella and the two athletic-looking males. I knew there were only a few metal ones; the others would have to settle for wooden bats that would likely shatter on the first impact with a monster's carapace.
"You have a plan, don't you?" one of the athletic youths asked, his eyes searching mine. "You're acting like you've done this before. You knew about the lights, you knew about the weapons... what do you know that we don't?"
I could feel the rising tide of suspicion. It was a dangerous moment. If they began to doubt me now, the cohesion of the group would vanish.
"I heard the howls of predators, and I acted on common sense," I said, my voice turning ice-cold. "If you're unhappy with my leadership, the gate is right there. You're free to walk into the dark and see if the 'wolves' are friendly. I didn't invite you here, and I don't owe you an explanation."
I had to hammer the hierarchy home now. If they spent the next thirty minutes questioning every order, we would all be slaughtered. I needed them focused on the darkness, not on my backstory.
"Thanks," Isabella said firmly, gripping her bat and taking a combat stance that looked instinctively correct.
The two other youths—who looked like college-level athletes, lean and Proportionate without the useless bulk of bodybuilders—nodded and stepped up beside us. They gripped their weapons with appreciative eyes, recognising the advantage of metal over wood.
We stood there in the centre of that blinding white circle, four humans with metal clubs, waiting for the first nightmare to step into the light.
"Thanks," the first of the two athletes said, his voice steady despite the chaos. "My name is John. It's a pleasure to meet you, even under these circumstances."
"Yes, thank you, sir, for the gear," the second one added. He was slightly more soft-spoken and polite than John, though no less physically capable. "I'm Allen. Do you think we can actually close this field off? If we can find a way to seal the perimeter, maybe we can stop those wolves from getting in here at all."
"I'm Hye," I replied. I softened my earlier harsh tone just a fraction; I needed these two to feel like partners, not just subordinates. I looked around the expanse of the baseball diamond, considering Allen's suggestion.
The field was wide, open, and dangerously exposed. Before I could provide a tactical assessment, however, a scoff came from one of the other students in the back.
"Pft, are you guys actually buying into this?" a youth said, dismissively waving his wooden bat as if he were warming up for a standard game. "I've lived in this city my whole life. I've never heard of wolves roaming around New York. It's probably just some prank or a freak accident at the zoo."
"Then what are those things screaming out there?" a girl asked, her voice trembling with a mixture of terror and frustration. "If those aren't wolves... then what are they?"
A heavy, suffocating silence fell over the group. I was the only one who knew the truth, and the truth was far worse than any stray wolf. These weren't canines from Earth. They were Void-Hyenas.
Wolves were too cunning, too patient to lead the charge; they would wait in the shadows until the prey was exhausted. But the Hyenas were different. They were brutal, impatient, and enormous—monsters that reached nearly four meters in length and stood as tall as a man at the shoulder.
They possessed the mass of a small elephant but the terrifying mobility of a predator. Their nature was purely bloodthirsty, and in our current un-levelled state, a single one of them was a literal nightmare.
"Let's barricade the entrance as best we can," I commanded, snapping them back to the present. "Move the equipment bins, the maintenance carts—anything heavy. And I want someone high up to act as a lookout."
I pointed toward one of the four towering spotlight stanchions. A narrow metallic ladder ran up its side, intended for maintenance crews to reach the bulbs.
"I can do that!" a lanky youth volunteered immediately. I watched him scramble toward the ladder. He was acting on a smart, albeit selfish, instinct. Being twenty meters in the air would grant him total immunity against any ground-based threat. Another potential survivor, I noted. At least he has the sense to seek the high ground.
I watched as the rest of the group began dragging heavy rollers and metal bins toward the main gate and patching the gaps in the perimeter. The field was surrounded by a high chain-link fence topped with a thick, rope-like netting—a "backstop" designed to catch foul balls, not monsters. To these students, it looked like a wall. To the monsters, it was as flimsy as a spiderweb.
I didn't have the heart to tell them that even those who fortified themselves behind steel apartment doors during the first hour usually ended up as tinned meat. A single swipe from a Void-Hyena's claw could shear through reinforced plate like it was parchment. My real plan didn't rely on the fence; it relied on the light.
These creatures were emerging from a world of perpetual twilight. Their eyes were hyper-sensitised to the dark, and the blinding radiance of the industrial spotlights would act as a physical barrier, searing their retinas and disorienting their senses. If they were desperate enough to leap into the light, I would make sure they didn't live to regret it.
However, the cost would be high. I looked around at the terrified, shaking youths. They had zero combat experience and even less resolve. I hesitated for a moment, debating whether to explain exactly where the Hyenas' weaknesses were.
In the end, I decided to stay silent. If I knew too much too soon, I would become an object of fear rather than a leader. It was better to wait until the first monster breached the perimeter. I would strike the killing blow, and then I would "discover" the weakness in the heat of the moment. Humans loved to believe in luck and instinct; it was much more comforting than the truth of a calculated massacre.