"The Day the Moon Forgot to Rise"

The Day the Moon Forgot to Rise
When darkness came early… and never left.


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It began with whispers — not in the air, but in the silences. You know the kind: between one heartbeat and the next, when the world pauses for no reason at all.

On the last normal night, the town of Merrow Hill lay quiet. People cooked dinner, turned on their porch lights, let the dogs out. The sky was clear. The air smelled like rain that hadn't come yet. Everyone expected the moon to rise, same as always. No one expected the sky to stay black after the sun dipped beneath the horizon — not clouded, not stormy — just black. Like the stars had packed up and gone. Like the moon had called in sick and no one filled its shift.

At first, we waited. Checked the time. Checked the weather. Some said it was an eclipse. Others joked about aliens. One neighbor said it was a “government blackout test,” whatever that meant.

By 9:00 PM, all the power had gone out. Streetlights blinked and died. Phones lost signal. Even battery-powered clocks stopped ticking, their hands frozen in useless quiet. That’s when people began to worry. Not panic — not yet. But worry crept in like a draft beneath a door. Something wasn’t right.

By midnight, children were crying. Dogs refused to go outside. And that’s when people noticed the quiet — the kind that screams at your ears. No crickets. No cars. Not even the wind. Just silence so deep it felt like drowning.

We couldn’t see the stars either. Just the blackness, pressing harder against the windows than any storm ever had. Like it wanted in.

I opened the back door to let in some air, and that’s when I realized it wasn’t just the sky that had gone dark.

It was everything.

I couldn’t see my own hand in front of my face. I waved it wildly, right in front of my eyes — nothing. I stepped out barefoot onto the porch, but I didn’t feel the boards beneath me.

I didn’t feel anything.

It was like stepping into a dream someone else was having — no up, no down, no weight, no wind. I screamed for my brother, who had been sitting on the couch only minutes ago. No reply.

When I turned to go back inside, the door was gone. The porch, the house, the yard — all gone. Or maybe I was.

Panic hit then, cold and sharp. I fell forward and landed flat on something too smooth to be wood, too warm to be stone. I reached out blindly, trying to find a wall or railing — anything familiar — but I touched only space. Space and whispers.

They weren’t loud. They weren’t even words, at first. Just... murmurs. Like wind through reeds, or breath through cracked lips. I thought I heard my name.

That was when I realized I wasn’t alone.

I wasn’t hearing whispers — I was being whispered to.

Hundreds of voices, overlapping, like insects inside my head. Some spoke in languages I didn’t recognize. Others repeated things I had thought and forgotten. Some told stories — stories about the moon, about why it never came that night.

They said it saw something.
They said it ran.
They said it would never come back.


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When I woke up, it was still dark.

It’s been dark for… I don’t know how long now. Days? Weeks? The clocks never started again. The sun never rose. We light fires, we burn anything that will hold a flame, but the light never lasts. It flickers out faster every time, like the dark is learning how to eat it.

We’ve gone down to the lake. We thought maybe the moon would find us there — catch its reflection and remember where it belonged. But the water just sits like oil, still and thick, swallowing every torch and lantern we offer it.

People are disappearing.

Sometimes we hear their voices for a while afterward, echoing from the dark. Calling for help. Or calling us into it.

If you find this… and there's still light where you are… don't wait for the moon.

It’s not coming back.