The stillness of the night was broken only by the soft hum of the air conditioning and the occasional distant cry of a child. Serena lay in bed, half asleep, her phone glowing with an alert that made no sense.
“SECURITY: WE WOULD LIKE TO INFORM YOU TO NOT LOOK AT THE MOON TONIGHT, 10TH JUNE. STAY INDOORS UNTIL 6 AM. POLICE DEPARTMENT.”
It was 3 a.m. and her phone buzzed with a flood of messages. She stared at the screen in confusion. The eerie quiet of the hour stretched in every direction, amplifying every sound in her apartment.
Her friends seemed as confused as she was. One wrote, “Can’t wait to see the photos you’ll take of the moon!” while another stranger, in a less personal tone, said, “You awake? Don’t miss the moon tonight, it’s never been more beautiful.”
It didn’t make sense. Why would the police tell people to stay inside because of the moon? What was happening outside? She glanced at her window. The night was strangely bright. A warmth filled the room, and the glow leaking through the curtains was too intense for 3 a.m. It felt more like the late afternoon, but there was no sun—just a glow that didn’t belong.
Wishing Michael were there with her, his presence always grounding in moments like this, she shot him a quick message. He was away on business, and the space beside her in the bed felt unnervingly empty.
“Are you getting the messages?” she typed quickly.
His response was almost immediate. “Yeah, woke me up. I don’t see anything strange here though. It’s really cloudy so I can’t see the moon.”
“But isn’t it too bright outside, like it’s 4 p.m.?” she typed back, a nervous edge creeping into her thoughts.
“No, Serena. It’s 3 a.m. It’s pitch dark outside. What’s going on there?”
“I’ll find out. Call you in the morning, okay? Love you.”
Her chest tightened, and the silence in her apartment seemed to stretch endlessly. She needed some noise, some comfort, so she turned on the TV, its soft static filling the room. It was just a strange night, she reassured herself. Nothing more. It would be over soon enough.
Carefully, avoiding the possibility of glimpsing the moon, she stepped toward the balcony. With a quick motion, she opened the sliding door slightly and peeked out. The streets below were dead silent, nothing out of the ordinary.
But before she could return to bed, one final message blinked on her phone.
“So, did you look? Maybe stepping outside will give you some peace of mind. Send me a photo when you can. Can’t wait to see you this weekend,” he wrote.
She hesitated for a moment. Maybe he was right. Maybe there was an explanation for all this—the warnings, the odd messages, the warm light. There was only one way to find out.
Quickly, she grabbed her camera from her desk, setting it up on a tripod. The night air was crisp, and the few neighbors she saw outside seemed equally transfixed by the phenomenon. An elderly man and a child were pointing up at the sky in the building across from hers.
When she looked, her breath caught in her throat. The moon—if it was even still the moon—was impossibly large. A bright, fiery orange, like a second sun suspended above the city. Serena had never seen anything like it. The details of its craters were clear, as though she could reach out and touch them.
It was unnerving, but at the same time, she didn’t feel afraid. There was something oddly comforting about it. A presence, like the moon had been reborn for this one night, illuminating the world in a way it never had before.
She snapped a few photos, moving the tripod to capture the surreal sight from different angles. She could already picture Michael’s reaction when he saw the moon spilling over two apartment buildings, like a fireball hanging just above them.
Satisfied with the shots, she returned inside. The fear that had gripped her earlier seemed to fade with each click of the camera’s shutter. She was no longer afraid of the silence. It was no longer cold or threatening—it had become a soothing companion as she prepared to return to bed.
For the first time in years, Serena felt calm. She set the camera down next to its bag, took one last look at the moon through the curtains, and climbed back into bed. She closed her eyes and let the quiet of the night lull her into sleep.
The knock at the door came just after 7 a.m., pulling Serena out of a dream. The morning light outside was soft and normal, a far cry from the eerie glow that had bathed the city just hours before. The usual sounds of the neighborhood—footsteps overhead, the faint hum of traffic—seemed distant now.
She rushed to the door, throwing on a robe. But when she opened it, two men stood there, their black clothes stark against the bright daylight. Their silence was suffocating.
Before she could react, one of them grabbed her wrist. The other placed a dark hood over her head, cutting off her scream before it could escape.
By the time Michael arrived, the apartment was strangely still. The door was unlocked, the bed unmade, and Serena’s things were scattered as if she had just left for work. But she was gone.
Sitting down on the couch, his heart sinking, Michael checked his phone again. The last message she had sent him played over in his mind: “I’ll find out. Call you in the morning, okay? Love you.”
But there was no answer, no explanation, just an empty apartment and a camera bag left behind on the couch.
The camera wasn’t there. It hadn’t been there when he checked. But Michael didn’t know that yet.
