I was there, lying in my bed, the soft pillow cushions caressing my cheek bones as I was slowly drifting away to sleep. Finally, I thought, done with my shift, it's the weekend, and I'll probably hop on with the boys and have a couple of drinks. My fantasies, though, would soon be broken by a loud beeping noise on my phone. The beeping sprung me out of bed. It's 3AM for God's sake, what does my boss want? I thought to myself. I usually get these types of alerts when a bug in the software has been found, and I have to fix it ASAP. But, interestingly, I rather quickly discovered that it wasn't my boss who sent that alert.
"WARNING: DO NOT LOOK AT THE MOON. WE REPEAT, DO NOT LOOK AT THE MOON. CLOSE YOUR BLINDS AND STAY INSIDE YOUR HOME."
To say I was creeped out a little bit is an understatement. Not only was this the weirdest alert
message I had ever gotten, my phone was also blowing up with notifications and missed calls from
people that I didn't even know. I quickly went over to shut down every blind in my house, out of my
own safety, but strangely... I didn't see any moon out in the sky.
As I went to my bed, the adrenaline rush was too much, I couldn't sleep. Out of curiosity, I checked
what the messages were.
"Go outside. Look at the moon. It's beautiful."
"Ignore the message, look at the moon."
"You won't regret it. Look at the moon."
Getting repeated over, and over, and over, and over again. At this point I could feel my heart
beating in my throat. Paralyzed out of fear, I put a blanket over my head as I tried messaging
people I know.
Scrolling through the text messages, I thankfully saw one that wasn't possessed by this moon.
"Have you gotten the notification, too? I'm getting worried, this sounds serious."
But, there was no avail. As I responded, I immediately got "Never mind. Look at the moon. You
should look at the moon."
Calling my friends was no use, too. Every time they picked up I could hear them whisper
"Get out of the blanket. Look at the moon. Don't be scared, look at the moon."
At this point I stopped trying to contact people, and just accepted my faith. It was almost 4:30
in the morning, and the sheer fear constantly building in me made me anything but tired.
Weirdly, though, as the time passed, there was still no light. It was getting darker.
What the fuck is happening? Is someone playing with me? What in the world is going on? This must
be a weird dream, I thought. But that can't be the case, dreams don't last this long, this must be
real. I felt like I was going insane under that blanket. No noise, no light, just darkness and my
thoughts, that kept getting more and more deranged.
At this point it had been almost 6 in the morning, and I could bear it no longer. I still
couldn't sleep and I began scratching my wrists, in an attempt to bleed out to death.
The notifications had stopped, and somehow despite it being morning, there was nothing but sheer
darkness that engulfed my room. It... must... be safe... right? Right? Surely, the moon is gone?
I couldn't be there any more. I jumped out of my blanket and ran towards the window, uncovering my
blinds. It was still night time. There was still no moon. What felt like a crazed rush of
insanity, I ran outside. I felt disgusted being in my own home. I didn't even know if this was
real or not anymore. I ran outside, I ran, ran into the darkness, trying to see someone, anyone,
but there were none. I was the lone man, the lone survivor that mindlessly ran through the dark
streets. Then, I saw them, I saw them. I saw them. I really did see them. With my eyes. Someone.
I was getting really hungry...
I saw that the police officer was writing every word I said.
"And anything else? What happened after you saw the family?"
"I was getting really hungry..." I couldn't continue. I was just really hungry, I had to do it.
The officer continued writing, this time his expression went from passive to disgusted terror.
Can't he just understand that I was hungry? Under those blankets I hadn't eaten anything, can't he
just understand that?
"You know, officer, maybe you should look at the moon next time, maybe you should save yourself from
the mistake I made, I should've looked at the moon like everyone else did. I know this wouldn't have
happened otherwise." I kept repeating to the officer as he got me out of the interrogation room.