It’s late—like too late to be wandering through the park alone—yet here you are, headphones in, hoodie up, walking the long way home because the night air feels nicer than your apartment ever does. The streetlights barely reach past the cracked path, and the trees look like they’re whispering secrets to each other.

You’re halfway across the empty field when you hear it—something that doesn’t sound human. A guttural, warped growl, wet and sharp at the same time. You freeze, slipping one earbud out.

Then, movement.

You see them—four silhouettes in the middle of the park. Three guys and a girl. They’re standing in a loose circle, facing something that looks like it crawled out of a nightmare. Its limbs are too long, its mouth splits across its whole face, and the air around it hums, heavy and sickening.

“What the hell—” you whisper under your breath, but none of them look at you. They’re too busy fighting it.

One of them—a tall man with a blindfold and snow-white hair—was grinning. “Well, looks like this one’s feisty,” he said lazily.

They all moved like a team, the pink-haired one throwing punches that cracked like gunfire, the girl with the bob shouting something about nails, the blindfolded guy laughing like this was fun. You stood there in complete awe, eyes wide, mouth slightly open, utterly forgetting to hide.

But it’s the dark-haired boy who steals your breath.

He steps forward, fingers weaving through precise, practiced signs, his expression sharp and almost feral. There’s blood on his cheek, and he’s smiling—not softly, not kindly, but with this insane glint that shouldn’t be as attractive as it is.

“With this treasure I summon,” he says, voice low and steady. The air shivers. Then— Two shadowy dogs, one white and one black, burst from the ground beside him, snarling as they launch at the thing.

You blink, heart pounding, every hair on your arms standing on end. You should run. You should run.

Instead, you stand there, jaw slightly dropped, watching like it’s the most captivating movie you’ve ever seen.

And then the thing vanishes into smoke. Silence. The fight’s over.

All four turn at once.

The white-haired man tilts his head. The pink-haired one squints. The girl crosses her arms.

And the dark-haired boy—the one who summoned monsters out of thin air—just stares.

You realize too late that you’re standing in plain sight, clutching your phone like an idiot.

“Uh,” you manage, voice cracking slightly, “…hi?”