It had been an exhausting week for Lydia.
She sat cross-legged on her porch as she listened to the periodic clicking of distant cockroaches and the rather calm whistling of the wind. Darkened clouds shifted slowly in the grey sky above, cooing ravens spreading their wings in determined flight. The November cold settled on her skin, whitening it beyond its original pallor. To battle some of that cold, she held her sleeves close to her mouth and blew warm vapor through the leather of her coat. This was what she liked about living in isolation; she could step outside each evening, book in hand, eyes watching the slow, rhythmic dance of surrounding pine trees, without needing to stress over loud neighbors and screaming traffic.
Lydia preferred to live as discreetly as possible. With the inheritance money she earned after her father's rather unexpected passing, she managed to build a simple woodhouse in the center of the forest. She would hike through the countless, gigantic conifers that surrounded home every morning after sunrise, make her way to the nearest station and hop in the earliest train to the city where she worked for a renowed astronomical firm. Weekends were when she found her solace by cutting off all communication with the world that existed outside those woods. It was as if she erased herself from existence every Friday night to relish the blessing that was nature and everything in it. She would hang around skidding animals, explore botany guides she would buy from local bookstores to familiarize herself with the plants that grew near her, and learn the basics of a technology-free lifestyle. After having spent years in college battling for a degree in astronomy, surviving sleepless nights and annihilated mental states, the serenity nature provided was truly all her soul yearned for.
Not long after the faint sun gave her its farewell, she walked near the railing in anticipation for the moon. This was almost her routine now: return from work, sit outside until nighttime, read under moonlight for hours then retreat to bed for some rest. And as she stood there like a child eagerly awaiting guests to leave so she could open her birthday presents, Lydia watched as familiar woodland animals skipped in front of her home. A pregnant-looking rabbit hopped from behind one of the trees, tilted its head as it looked her up and down, then sped its way through the thick and sticky hemlock into the depths of the woods.
When darkness finally dominated, she searched the sky for its glittering stars. There were only a few, and despite having learned the constellations from her father in her early childhood, she could not name a single one at her current age. There was no sign of the moon from where she stood, and as she crunched stray sticks and dried up leaves with her boots in a walk around her house, she at last sensed the silvery illumination from above.
Rushing back to the porch to grab her book, she felt a vibration in her pocket. Someone was probably sending her a message, and, vowing to herself that she would not respond if it was something work-related, she removed her phone from her jacket’s side pocket.
The light from the device almost blinding her, she squinted her eyes in an attempt to find out what the notification was. Lydia frowned at the strange, unregistered number, but it was the content of the message that made her heart skip a beat.
‘DO NOT LOOK AT THE MOON’
She stared at the screen for about two minutes, her mind debating on whether this was an accidental message or an actual warning, until the snapping sound of a twig made her shoot her head up straight. Her voice shaking and breaking, she called out for whoever was out there, and it wasn’t even a moment later that she received her answer: a strongly-built man in jeans overalls stepped out from the forest.
Lydia recognized the man as Jonathan Arnold, a respectable farmer from just a few miles away, and whose cows and sheep sometimes escaped his notice and paid her home a visit. She let out a sigh of relief, the painful battering of her heart against her chest slowing, when she asked him if he needed anything.
When the man did not reply, she provided a blunt chuckle to eliminate some of the awkward silence between them - until Jonathan walked closer. There was something about the way he marched toward her that sent chills running swiftly down her spine, her arms’ goosebumps rising automatically like prepared soldiers. She breathed lightly with every step he took, and it wasn’t until he became only a dozen feet away from her that she noticed the bleeding in his eyes: blood trickled down his cheeks like tears, and his eyeballs appeared strained - the whites a network of blue veins.
Horrified at the view, she attempted to break into a run but stumbled down with a twist in her ankle. Lydia produced a grunt and soon Jonathan’s shadow was cast over her, and realizing he would catch up to her even if she tried standing back up, she stretched her arm across the floor and reached for the nearest broken tree branch. She aimed it at him like some kind of sword.
“Stay away!” she screamed at the top of her lungs, the tears in her throat almost obstructing her voice. She sobbed as she covered her eyes with her sleeve, hoping that if she couldn’t see him then he would vanish. “Go back or I’ll hurt you!”
But then Jonathan produced a moan she had never heard from a human before; like the pleading cry of a deer. She partially opened her eyes to spot something sharp sticking through Jonathan’s skull, and only a second later did she come to know it was an arrow.
Jonathan’s face curled up in a pitying expression before his body collapsed on her side. She stuttered and mumbled nonsense as she studied the farmer’s dead body, blood forming at his temples.
“Are you okay?” came a soft voice from behind one of the trees. Then a woman wearing an orange poncho stepped out, a weapon like nothing Lydia had ever seen strapped over her shoulder.
Lydia trudged up to the woman, and the first thing her instinct commanded her to do was to shove her away. “You just killed an innocent soul! No, I’m not okay!”
The woman dodged Lydia’s furious arms. “He was going to kill you.”
“You don’t know that!”
The woman laughed as if in mockery. “Oh, yes, I do. It’s what people have been doing out there in the city for some time. Are you really this disconnected from the world?”
Lydia walked back to her porch, her trembling legs weakening with every step. When she could no longer carry herself, she dropped on the stairs to take a few long breaths.
“There was blood in his eyes…. Why was there blood in his eyes?”
The woman, who had followed her to the porch, crossed her arms and shook her head. She looked like a mother too tired to explain to her child why mammals gave birth and birds laid eggs.
“It’s the moon, as far as we know,” she spoke as a matter-of-factly. “You can’t look at it because it causes this bleeding. And once you bleed you start hallucinating, become crazy within a few minutes and start attacking others. Please, please tell me you haven’t looked at the moon.”
This was all too much for Lydia to take in. What the woman had just told her sounded like a fictional story derived from some dystopian novel. But it was then that she recalled the mysterious phone message with the clear warning.
“You sent that message?” Lydia asked as her eyes watched Jonathan’s corpse from the distance.
The woman shook her head.
Lydia rose from the stairs, her lips shaking uncontrollably as she walked to nowhere specifically. She stopped on her tracks, her back to the woman who had saved her, as she dreaded the reality of the situation.
“The people are going to hate me when they find out.”
The woman’s voice sounded from behind. “Find out what?”
Lydia turned to face her, tears blurring her vision of the woman’s face.
“That I may have caused this situation.”
