Hiro continued along the darkened subway line, the light on his backpack illuminating the path ahead, a jumping beacon. Months ago, even after the trains stopped, it terrified him to travel this way. Humans and the dark were never bedfellows. But Hiro had grown used to the silence, the oily smell of the tracks, the drip-drip of some pipe, and the scurry of rats.
And now, he had a katana.
Before, it had just been Hiro with whatever weapon he, or Monica, the woman he was with at the time, could fashion. Crowbars, bats, knives, other things. He recalled when they came to the realization that it was actually safer underground, that they could keep to the shadows and avoid supers and other humans. Not that there weren’t people that lived in the abandoned subway system of New York City…
Hiro had encountered dozens of subway dwellers, but most had moved underground for a reason—to be left alone, to wait it out, to survive while it all fell—this created a sort of underworld honor system.
I don’t mess with you; you don’t mess with me, Hiro thought as he reached a silver subway train.
He had decided to use the sewer system because he was bored; he didn’t want to wait in his fallout shelter for three hours to pass so he could trigger {Lupine Shift} again.
There wasn’t a lot of room between the train and the gritty black wall of the subway, but it worked. Hiro stepped over debris and continued around a rotting body that had been picked apart by rodents.
He held his breath, and barely shook his head.
Because of the length of the train, it took him another few minutes to reach the end, where he came to one of the platforms and found a ladder up.
“Finally.”
Hiro read the mosaic title on the wall, cast in a time when the city was still artisan, remnants of the Gilded Age.
42nd Street.
He saw another sign.
Fifth Avenue.
He was at least ten blocks away from where he wanted to be, somewhere beneath Midtown, near Bryant Park. But it was a start. He checked his phone to see the countdown timer:
02:09:03:11
02:09:03:10
02:09:03:09
Good. {Lupine Shift} is available again.
He didn’t know if there would be a Sentry at St. Patrick’s Cathedral, but it was an old gothic church built in the 1850s, and it seemed like the kind of place he would find something like that.
Since he had his phone out, Hiro decided to ask his Companion a question he’d ruminated on since they last spoke. “Sentries. Are they always near churches?”
The text appeared.
“Are they always former statues that were already in existence? Like the Wall Street Bull?”
“Is there one at St. Catholic’s Cathedral?”
Fuck-you-very-much, Hiro thought as he slipped his phone back into his pocket.
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He placed his black Hyottoko mask over his face, adjusted his backpack, which still had the teddy bear inside, and took a deep breath.
His hand grazed against the hit of his katana, ensuring its readiness.
“Here we go. Back into the unknown.” And just as he said that, just as these words left his lips, Hiro heard a cry for help that sent a jolt down his spine.
He didn’t think twice as he charged up the stairs and came out to the city, where he was greeted by a rush of cold wind, a creepy red sky, and another scream.
He glanced ahead to a seating area, one near the park that had little booths that used to sell coffee and ice cream. The shocking red of blood was the first thing that caught his eye as he saw a woman scooting away, pulling her left leg, which had been partially shredded, bone exposed, sinewy muscles pulsing.
“No,” she whimpered as she spotted Hiro. “No—!”
He reached her in a matter of seconds. “Don’t worry about my mask. I’m not the main—”
“You don’t understand,” the Survivor gasped, fear in her eyes. “This is a trap. H-hunters!”
Hiro’s nerves tingle once he came to the realization that something had joined him.
He looked to the roof of one of the park booths to find a teenage girl in a black leather mask with razor sharp bunny ears that were the length of Hiro’s katana. As she crouched there, examining Hiro, the bunny-masked teen was joined by a teenage boy just a bit smaller than her and wore the same outfit. Skulls appeared over their heads.
Definitely Hunters, Hiro thought as health bars appeared over their heads rimmed in gold, which meant they were too strong for him to take on at his current level.
“Shit…”
“Run,” the woman pleaded. “I don’t know who you are, but if you value your life, run. They already used me as a trap to kill another guy. They…” She nodded to a fallen body Hiro hadn’t initially seen. “Save yourself—”
“Hello, Survivor,” the teenage girl in the bunny mask said, her terrifying voice causing Hiro’s heart to skip. It was the first time one of the beings created by the Doom System had spoken to him.
Her counterpart leaned over and whispered something to her.
“One bait is better than two,” she said. “Yes…”
Hiro drew his katana. “Get the fuck out of here. Fuck you!” he barked at her.
He didn’t dare trigger {Lupine Shift}, not yet, but he was ready if it came to it.
The two bunny-masked teenagers laughed.
The girl dropped to the ground and spoke again: “You will be fun to kill.”
Hiro sent a blast forward with {Blade Whirlwind}, which she managed to dodge.
She lunged forward, her chin shifting down. As if they were whip swords, her blackened rabbit ears quadrupled in length, the two blades twisting forward with minds of their own.
Her counterpart joined her and did the same maneuver, four razored bunny ears moving toward Hiro like murderous tentacles.
“Go!” the injured Survivor cried to Hiro. She fired a blast of power out of the palm of her hand, which struck the boy bunny. The girl bunny moved on her quickly with her razored ears, the Survivor shrieking as her body was diced into pieces.
Hiro had seen enough.
He used this distraction to {Bounce} away, where he was soon able to reach the rooftop of a smaller building in Midtown.
“God,” Hiro whispered as he watched the girl bunny help her counterpart up. Once they were both ready, the pair looked up at Hiro. The girl blew him a kiss, flashed a peace sign, and beckoned for him to join her again as her bunny ears returned to their normal size.
Once again, he noticed their gold-rimmed health bars.
“Goddamn you.” Hiro set a {Beacon} at Bryant Park. “As soon as I am strong enough, as soon as I am able, I will come back here and I will annihilate the two of you,” he vowed.
And with that, Hiro jumped from one building to another, where he was soon presented with a view of Grand Central Station.
He fought the urge to head back down to Bryant Park and attempt a run at the twin bunnies. Hiro had to be reasonable here. Three years on a rock. There were two of them, they were both at a higher level than he was, and while he might survive if he used {Lupine Shift}, there was a very real chance he would die as well, and not before they used him as bait to lure out another Survivor.
“To the church, then.” Hiro steeled himself. “You have to keep going.”
He was just about to move past Grand Central Station when he remembered something.
Hiro reached the next rooftop and moved to the edge. In the distance, he spotted one of the raven-like monsters flying over the blood-red East River, the beast too far away to pursue. As Hiro looked down at Grand Central Station, he saw exactly what hoped to see.
Hiro remembered a Roman-like statue above the facade, and had even looked it up once on the Internet to find out that the three figures in the statues represented Hercules, Minerva, and Mercury.
Only one was there now, waiting, Mercury holding a caduceus, the Roman god in his winged helm. A red health bar appeared above the Sentry as Mercury slowly turned his head toward Hiro. It seemed to squint up at him.
“I’m right here,” Hiro said, still feeling a strange mixture of anger and adrenaline from the Bunny Twins. The statue vanished, completely stepping out of thin air. “What the fuck—?”
Heavy stone footsteps echoed behind him.
Hiro spun around, heart racing again as he found Mercury looming just a few feet away. The statue gripped its caduceus like a club, poised for battle.