The lunar dust, finer than talcum powder, clung to Neil’s boots, each step a ghostly puff in the thin, unforgiving light of the Earth. He was alone, a mandated solitude for this particular survey. NASA called it “precautionary isolation.” Neil called it creepy. His comm crackled with static, the voice of Houston a distant, tinny god.
“Neil, readings are… unusual. Proceed with caution.”
Unusual was putting it mildly. The geological scanner had pinged a massive anomaly deep within the Sea of Tranquility’s Hadley Rille, a blip that defied every known lunar formation. It was too regular, too structured. Like something… built.
He’d set up his portable drill rig near the cave mouth, a jagged maw that seemed to swallow the meager light of his headlamp. The air, or lack thereof, was bitingly cold, a dry, bone-chilling cold that seeped into his bones despite the layers of his suit. He felt a prickle of unease, a primal fear that had nothing to do with the vacuum or the radiation. This was something else.
Something ancient.
The drill bit into the lunar rock with a screech that echoed unnaturally loud in the silence. Dust plumed, a miniature lunar blizzard. As he worked, Neil couldn’t shake the feeling of being watched. He’d glance back, half-expecting to see something – what, he didn’t know – but there was only the desolate landscape, the Earth a distant blue marble hanging in the black void.Finally, the drill broke through. The sound was different, a hollow thud that resonated deep within the cave. He attached a camera probe to the cable and fed it into the hole. The monitor on his portable console flickered to life.
What he saw made his breath catch in his throat.
The cave was enormous, far larger than the scanner had indicated. And it wasn't natural. The walls were smooth, almost polished, like they’d been carved. The probe’s light danced across strange symbols etched into the rock, angular and alien, unlike anything he’d ever seen. They seemed to writhe and shift in the dim light, playing tricks on his eyes.
Then, he saw it.
In the center of the cavern, bathed in the probe’s weak beam, was a figure. It was humanoid, roughly the size of a man, but that was where the resemblance ended. Its skin was a dark, obsidian-like material that seemed to absorb the light. It was seated, or perhaps fused, to a strange, crystalline throne. Its head was elongated, with no discernible features save for two large, black eyes that seemed to stare directly at the camera, at him. Even through the grainy image on the monitor, Neil felt a wave of pure, primal terror wash over him. Those eyes… they were cold, ancient, and filled with an intelligence that dwarfed his own.
He fumbled for the controls, trying to pull the probe back, but it was too late. The figure moved. It was a slow, deliberate movement, almost regal. One long, spindly hand, tipped with claws that looked like polished bone, reached out towards the camera. The image on the monitor dissolved into static.
Neil ripped the cable from the console, his heart hammering against his ribs. He knew, with a certainty that chilled him to the core, that he had awakened something that should have remained undisturbed.He scrambled back to the drill rig, his movements clumsy and panicked. He had to get out of there. Now.
As he was packing up the equipment, he heard a sound. It was faint, almost imperceptible, but it was there. A low, resonant hum that seemed to vibrate through the lunar regolith and into his bones. It was coming from the cave.
He didn't look back.
He jumped into the lunar rover and fired up the engine, the roar echoing across the desolate landscape. He sped away from the cave, the rover’s wheels churning up the lunar dust. He glanced in his rearview mirror.
In the distance, he saw it.
The figure was standing at the cave mouth, silhouetted against the black sky. It was impossibly tall, its form distorted and elongated in the dim light. It raised its hand, the same hand that had reached for the camera probe. Neil felt a searing pain in his head, a jolt of pure psychic energy that nearly made him lose control of the rover. He swerved, narrowly avoiding a massive crater.
He didn't look back again.
He drove, faster than he’d ever driven before, the rover bouncing across the lunar surface. The humming grew louder, more insistent, filling his helmet with its ominous drone. He knew it was following him.He reached the lunar module, his sanctuary, his escape. He jettisoned the rover and scrambled inside, sealing the hatch behind him. He didn't breathe until the module was lifting off, leaving the moon behind.
Back on Earth, Neil was a changed man. He tried to tell them what he had seen, but they dismissed it as lunar madness, the psychological effects of isolation and the harsh environment. They confined him to a debriefing room, pumped him full of sedatives, and told him it was all a hallucination.
But Neil knew the truth. He had seen the forbidden figure in the cave, the ancient being that had slumbered for millennia beneath the lunar surface. And he knew, with a bone-deep certainty, that it wasn't finished with him.
He started having nightmares. Vivid, terrifying dreams of the figure, its black eyes burning into his soul. He would wake up screaming, drenched in sweat, the humming still echoing in his ears. He saw the symbols from the cave etched into his bedroom walls, swirling and shifting in the darkness.
He became a recluse, a hermit, haunted by his lunar encounter. He lost his job, his friends, his family. He was labeled a lunatic, a paranoid conspiracy theorist. They said he was crazy.
Maybe he was.
But sometimes, when the moon is full and high in the sky, Neil would look up at it and see the figure standing there, on the edge of the Sea of Tranquility, its hand outstretched, waiting. And he would know, with a chilling certainty, that the nightmare had only just begun. The figure was patient. It had waited eons. It could wait a little longer. It was coming.
