The moon; an eerie white ghost. A giant rock in the vast void of darkness. People say there used to be times when it was looked upon fondly; that it was an object of great romance. These people, these religious fanatics, worship the moon. 'Entwined are the hearts that dance under a moon's shower.' Penned a person, thousands of years ago. The religious are blind to reality, blind to what is going on, blind enough to let everyone around them get hurt. Mythology… Thankfully they are but a tiny smudge, in our population.
A minimum of five of those fanatics fill up the streets each day, streets where it was difficult for two people to walk next to each other. Today I thought it would be the same, squeezing through five people to reach my home, but today there were ten. It would not be a great feat if I wasn't on floor number 1667 which is approximately five tousand meters off the surface. And… to make it worse, they thought a transparent walkway would be a good idea. I can't shake the feeling of dread that haunts me every time I use the streets. The only good choice they made was with the roof of the streets. Instead of four meters of reinforced glass, it was solid metal.
It was a good choice considering most of the population was even afraid to look up. The dread, the pain, the rage and the feeling of lingering but certain doom, prevented by an opaque wall of titanium, titanium that was five meters thick. People did not want, not even a smidge of a reminder of what was going on above. Even though all knew, pretending like they did not; gave a temporary truce to find peace with themselves.
'We are afraid about what we do not know,' told a person who forgot how important he was to me. It is better to be afraid, he should have been afraid. I remember hiking up Everest, the last mountain left. I remember that it being due to demolition that week. I remember hating him for taking me to see the moon. "Just a two-hundred-meter difference from the city skyline is all that is needed to…" I remember him lifting my chin up. That was the first time I saw the moon. "They are in dire need." He wasn't a religious person, but for some reason, which evaded me, he believed that the moon could be better. He believed that we all do not have to hate on the moon. I hate that, for that moment I too thought the moon was beautiful.
A week later, the Stowaway expedition failed. The spacecraft was struck down. Flames, raining from above the murky night sky. I remember tears drenching my eyes. For my worst fears came to be. I was left alone. I was left to live alone because he chose not to be afraid. His choice came with a grave price. A price that I am still paying. This is my reason. My reason for hating the moon. Everyone here has got their own reasons. Their own reasons to hate or fear the moon.
It has been sixteen years since my brother died, fifteen of them, I spent hating them and hating him… hating him for leaving me, hating him for not being afraid. This hate shaped me like it shaped everyone else in the world.
I reach home, one of the three by three spaces, stacked next to each other in a long corridor. A camera in the supposed wall, scans my iris. A tiny cube pops out of the supposedly seamless wall. I put my right index on it. A needle pierces into my hand. The cube pops back into the seamless wall. A while later the seamless was now moves towards me, stops and slides to the right. The past year felt like a warm hug. The reason this place became a home was behind these doors.
The door opens to reveal a tiny room, just enough to hold a bed and bathroom. There he was… my smile, sitting atop the bed. He seemed to be on an ongoing counsel. I could tell because of the green hue of the rim of his glasses and obviously because he was talking out loud too. I also noticed the green hue was almost close to turning black. He probably only has a few minutes of the session left.
I take a few steps and get on the bed. I am on my knees, in front of him but just out of range of the face-mapping cameras on his glasses. He was in his work attire, so I guess the heater was turned off. I slowly and seductively get out of my one-piece work clothes. First, I slide them slowly off my shoulders. With the heater off, the living quarters could only insulate so much. I shivered, but I stopped to continue my seductive act.
I pushed my thick woolly attire, further down. He was not ignoring me, but he cannot make any weird expressions or stop the session. Stopping the session or taking breaks means he doesn't get the full pay. This is fun. He was struggling to control the tiny muscles on his face. It was not like he could not move; he could've turned on the heat if he wanted to, but he chose not to. He loved every move I was making.
I removed my attire and was there in front of him, on my knees. He knows the only way he could stop me shivering was if he joined me. Even though he didn't flinch or twitch the smallest of a muscle in a way he did not want to, I could feel the heat behind his eyes.
The moment his rim went black. He tried not to waste even a second in removing his clothes. But eventually the piece of fabric on his feet was quite troublesome. I giggled. He knew I was cold. He knew what he had to do.
___
His head was atop my bosom. He finally decided to turn up the heat.
"You know, you could've done that way earlier," I sneer.
"I could've but, I was working late after I said I wouldn't." He looks at me, "So consider this my apology."
"Apology accepted, but I don't think this method would work maybe a few more times." I warn, gently.
"Noted, mam…" He gets his head off my bosom and rests his head beside me. "What got you in such a mood today?"
"I finally did it" I smile, with all my heart's content, "Tomorrow marks the fall of the Selenics."
"I, Luna Hecate am finishing what my brother started. Starting tomorrow, we finally will have enough to feed the starving mouths of our people, our species."
He laughed, with glee, with unparalleled enthusiasm. "Is it true? Is it possible? How?"
"All thanks to them destroying multiple poisoned consignments. We got to know, what kills us also kills them," I explain.
"Can't we simply hit them with a nuke?" Before I answer his stupid question, "Oh right, Aster. They… can hit us with an asteroid if they wanted to."
Aster, that's where we live, the only city on earth with populous aggregative architecture. It is six thousand feet high and six thousand feet underground. This city was built on an asteroid crater. An asteroid, the Selenics hurdled at us. This city stands as a reminder of the first attack and as a reminder of our fight. The last memory I had of my brother is safe because of this city. An eccentric bought off the Everest and its supporting mountain range and moved it outside the crater. Now, it is a sport only the surface level eccentrics can afford.
"We found an ancient virus they cannot detect; it precedes them by a thousand years." I answer.
"You are going to make me jobless you know that?" He sneers.
"Don't worry Mr. Areligionist, we'll find you another job."
"You know I worked really hard to get a PhD in my field, right?"
"Who am I going to give therapy to, if you kill their gods?"
"I really don't understand why those fanatics, choose to believe… THAT"
He wears his glasses and gestures with his hand in a specific way. The ceiling of our room turns into a screen. It showed a logo, a blue circle curved red line that split into two and a few white spots. "N…A…S…A? NASA?" I pause, "Is that how it is pronounced."
"Yes," he nods.
"This is holy to them. They believe this place has all the answers, where the gods are from."
"I still can't believe they calls the Selenics, gods?" I puff out of my nose.
"The believe, that the Selenics helped us once. This and a lot of other mythological documents tell that they helped humans build flying contraptions."
"Flying contraptions like the ones they use to get their food consignments monthly?" He nods.
"Far simpler ones but ones that would fly us around and out of this world too. They believe that they once got us to the moon."
"The moon? Their home turf?" He nods, a little annoyed, probably by their stupidity.
He shifts gestures and a picture pops up. A man in pale white clothing. The clothing looked heavy and too complicated for humans to have built it, especially at that time. Then the picture changed and this time, the helmet was closed, and the supposed was on a grey surface with next to a machine that is way too complex for their era. The logo of NASA was on each of the heavy clothes and the machine too.
"Ok enough of this crap, I'm bored." I tried to mask my anger towards the religious.
"Some believe it's us up there." He continues.
I burst out laughing, "Ok enough of this shit, lemme wash." I get out of the bed and wash myself thoroughly.
The next day the consignment reached the Selenics. Now we just had to wait. For the first month the consignments went up as usual. Their demand for the supplies kept reducing. A year later, they would send supply ships once or twice a month. This was proof that their numbers are dwindling. We won.
Three years later, I was presented with an award, an award for saving the entire human race. I was afraid, and this is why I won brother. My partner and I were allowed a day of stay at the surface level, for my service to mankind. The surface had large halls. They were growing their own food, unlike us above. Their food tasted a little different every time.
I requested access to the Everest. Being the most important person on earth has its merits I suppose. I climbed up the Everest alone, my partner was afraid to. I sat there on the ice above the murky clouds.
I looked up to the moon. "I won. I am not afraid of you anymore." I take a deep breath. "Brother, I wish I could share this moment with you. I won, and one way or another it is because of you. This is to you."
I wanted to see what I've accomplished. I wanted to see the rotten bodies of the planet invaders. I use my glasses' telescopic capabilities at the moon. I see a big metallic dome like structures, all over the surface of the moon. The rugged and grey surface, the craters. It was quite dull. Then a particular sight gripped me. Creatures in pale white suits, helmets on. The same white clothing my partner showed me. Four of them were carrying something rectangular.
They were moving for a while, and they stopped. The top of the rectangular box was lifted by the four creatures in the suits, all synchronously. Inside the box was a semi rotten creature, humanoid in shape. Shivers were running down my spine. They placed another of that heavy pale white clothing into the box. On top of the box was written NASA.