Letters to the Moon

In a world where the stars had vanished and the sky was nothing but a curtain of static black, people stopped looking up. The moon was the last celestial body left, flickering faintly above the poisoned skyline like a dying ember in a burnt-out fireplace. No one believed it could still hear us. No one but me—and her. This is not just a love story. It's a dystopian romance story wrapped in fading memories, forbidden hope, and the fragile weight of handwritten letters sent to a place no one could reach.

The year was 2189. Earth had long been fractured by the Great Collapse—a catastrophic blend of war, climate failure, and digital overreach. Cities no longer expanded; they contracted, folding into walled “Preserves,” where order was controlled by emotionless algorithms and conversation was limited to government-scripted exchanges. Books were banned. Affection was monitored. Anything that reminded people of the world before—before the silence, before the skies went still—was erased.

But I remembered. Or rather, I refused to forget. I remembered my grandfather’s stories about stars and moonlight picnics. I remembered how he used to say that the moon kept secrets for those who dared whisper to it. So when I found the hidden room in the ruins of the Old Library District, and the forgotten typewriter inside, I began to write letters. Not to the government. Not to another citizen. To the moon.

At first, the letters were just my way of surviving. I’d type them out slowly, sometimes over hours, describing dreams I wasn’t allowed to share and feelings I wasn’t allowed to feel. They were my rebellion in ink—words not stored in servers or tracked by the Mainframe. I sealed them in small glass capsules and launched them at night using a rusted mechanical slingshot, sending them through the gaps in the Dome’s fencing. It was foolish, poetic, and probably meaningless. But it gave me peace.

Then one day, I got a reply.

It was early morning when I found the capsule on the window ledge of my tiny room, right where I’d placed my last letter. At first, I thought it had bounced back. But when I opened it, the paper was different. Handwritten. In violet ink.

“I see you, dreamer. Keep writing. –L”

I read the note again and again. I checked the code stamps—there were none. I checked the surveillance patterns in my block—no interruptions. Someone had found my letters. And they were answering.

That’s how it began. The secret correspondence between me and “L.” Each note was delivered in the same way, tucked neatly into the capsules I used. We wrote of forbidden things: music, rain, heartbreak, longing. Our letters were soaked in emotion, something that had all but vanished from the mechanical routines of our everyday lives. I didn’t know who L was. Boy or girl. Young or old. Citizen or rebel. But I knew one thing—they understood me.

Weeks passed. Then months. I started to time my letters to her responses. I began to look up at the moon not just with longing, but with love. Somewhere in the dark, someone was writing to me, hearing me, possibly loving me back. We shared dreams of escaping the Preserve, of finding a place where stars still existed, where touch wasn’t a crime and kisses weren’t punishable by exile. It was a fantasy. But it kept me alive.

And then, she revealed herself.

“I’m in the Sky Tower. Technician sector. They watch me, but I watch them better. Meet me beneath the archive ruins on the last crescent moon.”

I read the letter a dozen times before it sank in. She worked in the very system that caged us all. And yet, she had chosen to step out of its shadow to meet me. That night, I didn’t sleep. I packed what little I had—water tabs, a solar blade, and the entire collection of her letters tied together with wire. Then I went.

The ruins were silent, bathed in eerie blue light from the fractured moon above. She was already there—hooded, standing near the broken archway, holding one of my glass capsules in her hand. When she turned, I saw her face for the first time. Pale, defiant, beautiful. Not in a polished, digital way, but raw and human. Her eyes locked onto mine, and I knew. L wasn’t just a pen pal. She was my mirror.

“I wanted to know if love could exist in a place like this,” she said quietly. “Then your letters came.”

We didn’t speak much after that. Words suddenly felt too heavy, too slow. We just held each other, breathing in the strange, unfamiliar feeling of presence. Of touch. Of being real.

But love, in a world like ours, is dangerous.

We were discovered two nights later.

The Patrols stormed the ruins. I was captured, but L vanished into the underground tunnels. The authorities called me a subversive. They interrogated me, but I said nothing. They thought I was writing anti-system propaganda. They never guessed it was love. That’s how rare it had become.

I was sent to the Outer Zone—a penal labor colony where everything is gray and nothing ever grows. They broke my hands so I couldn’t write. But I still dream. And sometimes, I whisper her name to the wind, hoping the moon still hears.

Then last week, a capsule appeared in my sleeping quarters. Hidden in the food tray. Inside was a note.

“I found the stars. I’m bringing them to you. –L”

So I wait. Not just for freedom. Not just for the end of the regime. But for her.

For L.

For love.

For the moon.