The wind howled softly as Liam flew across the night sky, cutting through the air like a shadow.
Below him stretched the towering wall stretching endlessly across the horizon. The floodlights along its crest shone like a second dawn, piercing just the edge of the darkness that swallowed the wasteland beyond.
After twenty minutes of flight, he slowed his descent. His feet touched down lightly on the top of the wall.
From up here, he could see the silent city behind him, bathed in the glow of safety and the sprawling abyss ahead, where monsters roamed freely under a pale moon.
He walked to the edge and looked down. In the distance, the floodlights revealed the human perimeter made up of a military outpost and Hunter encampment pressed against the inner wall.
Armored vehicles lined the trenches. Soldiers and Hunters moved like ants along defensive barricades, watchful, weary, and small against the enormity of the night.
