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Sisyphean Attempts at Self-Improvement #1100552 added October 31, 2025 at 3:20pm
Restrictions: None
The New Moon
David's mother had dementia, so he didn't pay attention to her warnings at first.
"The moon, David. Watch the moon."
She'd grab his wrist when he visited the memory care facility, her grip surprisingly strong for someone so frail.
"It's okay, Mom."
"You don't understand. Our family... the moon knows us."
The doctors said it was common; patients fixating on random fears. But she only talked about the moon. Every visit, the same warning. Even when she couldn't remember his name, she remembered the moon.
Then she died on the night of the new moon. Precisely at the moment of lunar darkness.
Going through her things, David found the journals. Decades of them, hidden in a false bottom drawer. Every entry tracked the moon phases. But more disturbing were the other records: newspaper clippings, obituaries, birth announcements. All dated.
His grandfather: died on the night of the new moon, 1987.
His great-aunt: died on the night of the new moon, 1962.
His great-grandfather: died on the night of the new moon, 1934.
Every death in his maternal line. All on the night of the new moon.
David checked his phone. The next new moon was in six days.
He laughed. Coincidence. Had to be.
But he started watching the moon.
It was waning now, a crescent barely visible in the morning sky. Each night it grew thinner. And each night, David felt... different. Lighter. Like something was loosening inside him.
Three nights before the new moon, he heard his mother's voice.
"Beware the moon, David."
He was alone in his apartment. The voice came from everywhere and nowhere.
Two nights before, he saw her in reflections. Not directly; only in windows, mirrors, standing behind him. When he turned, nothing.
One night before, she was in his dreams.
"The moon takes us back," she explained, younger now, healthy. "Every generation, it calls one home. I tried to break the pattern. Stayed in the facility, surrounded by people, machines, anything to anchor me. But when the moon goes dark, we go with it."
"That's insane."
"Check your birth certificate, David."
He woke and did. Born during a lunar eclipse. The hospital records showed he'd been declared dead for three minutes before suddenly reviving.
"The moon gave you back," his mother's voice whispered. "Now it wants to collect."
The final night, David surrounded himself with lights. Every lamp on, candles, flashlights. He sat in his brightest room, watching the clock approach midnight; the moment of the new moon.
11:58. The lights flickered.
11:59. The shadows grew despite the brightness.
Midnight.
The lights didn't go out. They simply stopped mattering. Darkness came from inside him, pouring out like blood from a wound. He felt himself unraveling, dissolving, being pulled somewhere else.
"Beware the moon, David," his mother said, and now she was there, young and solid. "I tried to warn you. We don't die. We just go back to the dark."
Behind her stood his grandfather, his great-aunt, all of them, waiting in the moonless void.
"Until the next one is born during an eclipse," his mother explained. "Then we send them back, and wait for their return."
David's last thought, as he joined them in the darkness, was that his sister was pregnant.
Due next month.
During the lunar eclipse.
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547 words
PROMPT: “Beware the moon, David.” — from An American Werewolf in London (1981)
Written for ""13" (2025 Ed) - CLOSED"  |
© Copyright 2025 Jeff (UN: jeff at Writing.Com). All rights reserved.
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