A Rude Awakening

  ‘The moon looks beautiful tonight…’ I heard Danny murmur softly. I groaned and rubbed my eyes. It was 1:30am and I had just been woken up by Danny calling my phone. My room was dark, but not as dark as it should’ve been. Pale moonlight streamed through the curtains, illuminating motes of dust as they drifted through the air.

  ‘What did you say?’ I asked groggily.

  ‘The Moon, Tom, it looks so beautiful tonight, you should see it. Open your windows.’ Great. Danny was high, drunk or both. I sat up and sighed, readying myself for the fragmented and confusing conversation I had ahead of me.

  ‘Yeah yeah the moons real pretty tonight, now what’s wrong? Do you need anything?’ I questioned.

  ‘Just go outside and you’ll see what I mean’ Danny responded dreamily.

  ‘I’ll be fucked if I’m going outside in my boxers to get a look at what I’m pretty sure is a crescent moon, now say something relevant or I’m hanging up and going to bed’. Silence. And then he hung up. ‘Christ’ I thought, I’d have to ask him what he was taking tomorrow. Realising that I was pretty awake by now, I sighed and put all thoughts of sleep behind me. I got up and wrapped myself in a bathrobe, put on some comfortable slippers. Might as well pass some time. It was Saturday and I had nothing on. I’d sleep more during the day. My phone buzzed in my pocket, Danny again? He had kind of ruined my night so I wasn’t really in the mood for his shit. Ignoring him, I made my way to the kitchen to see if there was anything to eat. I opened the fridge and found it painfully barren. Another message. I pulled out my phone. Jennifer? I hadn’t talked to her in a year, she dumped me when I got fired, what the hell was she doing texting me? The message simply read ‘look’, with a photo. It was incredibly grainy, with off colour splotches and dead pixels, it was difficult to make out but there it was, a full moon. A cold feeling spread in my stomach, the photo made me feel queasy deep down. Something weird was happening alright, Danny might message me during the night but Jennifer wouldn’t touch my number during any hour of the day, and they’re both talking nonsense about the moon? I looked up the moon phase, and apparently it was supposed to be a crescent moon, but the photo Jennifer sent me had been of a full moon, and there sure was a lot of moonlight coming through the curtains. My phone vibrated again, more messages from people I hadn’t talked to in years, repeating the same ominous command. Look outside. The moon looks beautiful tonight.

  This story originates from Royal Road. Ensure the author gets the support they deserve by reading it there.

  It was 6:00am. The moon was still suspended in the sky, as far as I knew. I hadn’t dared to open the window to check, but my house was still grey with moonlight. I had put my phone on silent, I would check it later for any sane messages. Feeling restless, I went around the house ensuring all windows were covered and locked, then I gathered whatever in my house I thought would be useful. Most of my food would spoil quickly, so I started to eat the fresh stuff that would go to waste in a few days. At least my fridge still worked for now. I opened my phone to check the news, it was chaos. What few news station that were reporting all parroted the same message. It was over, but we had a good run didn’t we? The reporter on 5 news started weeping as cacophonous banging sounds echoed around her, and she screamed as a group of moon crazed lunatics dragged he out and forced her to behold their maddening icon. I put the phone on silent again. An old thought tickled the back of my mind, and I called it to the surface. My neighbour Dean was something of a prepper. I had always thought he was closer to a conspiracy theorist, but his house was almost always on lock down, If anyone I knew had a chance of surviving this, it would be him. The only problem is that I’d have to go outside. I sat on the floor for an hour, scratching at my forearms and trying to think. I had enough food for a few days at most, and the power would go out around the time I ran left. Water wasn’t an issue, I had filled up every container and pot I had while the plumbing still worked. So what should I do? I was interrupted from my thoughts by a knock on the door. I nearly fell over in shock, and my heart started pounding, I saw what happened to the reporter on the news, what if it was someone who had seen the moon? Putting as little weight on my slippers as possible, I crept towards the door. Taking a deep breath, I peered through the keyhole. The person on the other side was no one I knew. It had barely been a day since this ordeal started, but the stranger looked worn out and decrepit. Their long and unkempt hair was messy, and reached down to his shoulders. His fingernails were cracked and crusted with blood and dirt, and his face was completely blank. He stood like a robot waiting for instructions, lifeless and still. his eye eyes were milky white, with black streaks swimming and fading in and out in a fashion that reminded me of the chemical reactions I had seen at school. ‘Is anyone there? Please, I need help.’ The man spoke. As his lips moved, the rest of his face didn’t, yet his voice was full of fear and worry. He knocked twice more on the door and waited. After some time he turned around and left, and I was given a small view of the street. People walked up and down, lifeless and grey, each unmindful of the cold which had covered the world. I slowly walked back to my living room. In the relative dark, my eyes kept playing tricks on me, I’d see things moving every time I turned my head, and I scrunched up my eyes in fear and frustration. I wanted to place my back against a corner and stare outwards, that nothing might creep up and surprise me. Racked with paranoia, I made my choice. I couldn’t do this alone, it would only be a matter of time before the affected people found me. I’d need to find help.