Waking Up on the Moon
-Szulu-
There I was. On the moon.
First came the panic. My eyes widened and I opened my mouth to take a breath, then my brain caught up to my actions and I closed my mouth trying futilely to hold on to the last bit of precious air I had.
Eventually though, the primal urge to breathe overcame my knowledge of the airless surroundings and I opened my mouth to take a deep breath.
’So this is how I go huh, alone in space, how did I even get here In the first place…’
It was then that I realized I was still thinking, and was, in fact, not dead.
After getting over the initial surprise at there being air on the moon, I came to another conclusion.
This was either a dream, or it wasn’t my moon at all, because my organs wouldn’t be doing so hot in the vacuum of space if it were.
I wanted to believe it was a dream, but the earlier pain told me that, that scenario was rather unlikely.
I sat down to think, the area I arrived in wasn’t to cold and I still needed to get over the shock of this whole situation.
Two Hours Later
It had been two hours, I wasn’t dreaming, I was defiantly on the moon, or as the may case be, a moon. I had thought about many things in the two hours I had been here. One thing I realized was that this moon was much to small to be Earth’s moon, I could see its curvature, though that was not to say it was minuscule it would still probably take me days to circle the whole thing. Also this moon was extremely close to the planet it was orbiting, a planet which, while lush with life, and what appeared to be water, was not Earth.
I was getting cold from sitting still for so long, and as much as I didn’t want to leave the place of my arrival, I was becoming to uncomfortable not to.
So I pilled a bunch of stray rocks together as a marker, picked a direction and set out, intending to return after my little jaunt to get my blood flowing.
It was about twenty minutes into my walk that I came across something completely unexpected, which lifted a great weight from my shoulders. I had originally come to the conclusion that I would be dying of hunger up here and had been trying to come to terms with my fate. However seeing a castle here on this moon, a castle, which SOMEONE, had to have made, it gave me hope for my survival. So long as this wasn’t some kind of ruin of a lost civilization, even if it wasn’t human, a sentient being had to live here.
I approached the building cautiously, making sure I was completely visible and trying my best to be non threatening, the last thing I needed was to be perceived as a threat.
When I reached the doors I realized just how large they were, at twice my height they made quite the impression. I didn’t know what to do, nothing had come to meet me, and I heard no noise from inside, then again with a building so large, it was entirely possible that no one was in the area of the castle closest to the doors.
Okay maybe that was stretching things a bit. It was more likely that this place was abandoned.
“On the slim chance that anyone is actually here, pardon the intrusion” I said as a pushed the doors open.
I had expected the inside to be just as grand as the outside, and I wasn’t disappointed. There were all manner of tapestries lining the walls in blue and black, candles lit the halls and the roof was far above my head, spears, and swords were on display along the walls, the symbol of the moon a common theme on everything in the building.
It was noticeably warmer inside, and looked well maintained, which was surprising and raised my spirits, maintenance means people to maintain it. Though there was something about the place that seemed lifeless, sad even.
I waved it off as a trick of the mind, but couldn’t shake the pervasive feeling of dread. I opted to remain on guard just in case, I was after all trespassing here.
I explored for a bit keeping the front door in sight, I was worried about getting lost, more so about losing my escape route. While exploring I came to the conclusion that, what ever lived here was smaller then humans were, because the tables were lower, and I would have to crouch down to sit at them comfortably.
Not to long into my search for life, I heard something. It was a sobbing noise, followed immediately by screaming as if someone was in great pain. The screaming persisted and I realized it wasn’t going to stop. I was about to look for the source of the noise, when I stopped abruptly having realized something.
“OH NO! I’ve read this fanfic before you never go towards the screaming!” I said aloud, speaking to myself. I wanted to listen to my own advice really I did, but… “This is the closest thing to a lead I have here. And if I die then thats just ending my life quicker then starving will.”
With those words I firmed my resolve and made my way towards the noise, though not without grabbing a nearby spear from a wall display, in the event that whatever was screaming wanted to kill me.
The noise came from a rather large set of doors, at this proximity I could practically feel my own bones vibrating with the screaming, my ears went numb, and I felt a warm liquid seeping down the side of my neck, probably my damaged eardrums.
I stubbled a bit, the loss of bits of my eardrums throwing me off balance, despite that I staggered forward, grasping the handles to the double doors, throwing them open in what I imagine to be a rather dramatic fashion.
What I saw inside… well it’s hard to describe really. I had imagined a vaguely humanoid creature, writhing on the ground in pain, possibly impaled or dissolving. Something of that nature, similar to what I had seen on television, what I got, well… It certainly looked like it belonged on TV. There on the ground, writhing in pain, was a… Purple? Blue? Umm…. Horse? Pony?
To say I was confused would be a understatement.
“What the flying fuck?” Could horses, ponies, ugh… Whatever that was, could they even scream, for that matter did they even come in Prisma-color? Any other day the answer would have been, ‘outside of fantasy, no absolutely not.’ Today however I had woken up on the moon, not even our moon, then I had not instantly died in the vacuum of space and to top it off I had found a castle on the moon, and against all odds it was inhabited. So screaming space, equines was, at this point totally acceptable, hell at this point I wouldn’t be surprised if it could talk and shit rainbows.
I was snapped out of my thoughts when, the creatures screaming quited, fractionally, its eyes going wide as it looked at me.
I took a step back in caution.
“No!” it screamed in fear.
Now it was my turn for shock. ‘Damn well I guess I kinda asked for it with the talking, and in english no less.’ I gathered my wits, preparing to offer my help, I had nothing to lose at this point, and the thing seemed sentient.
Little did I know how much this simple act of kindness would comeback to bite me in the ass.
I stepped forward, both hands up to show I meant no harm, it was starting to whimper again, and I could hear the guttural noise in its throat as it tried to hold its screams back, “Hey, I heard you screaming I only want to help,” I said soothingly trying to earn its trust, I hadn’t noticed before but it seemed to be surrounded in some kind of black mist, almost as if being constricted.
“No!” it yelled again, though this time it seemed to be trying to tell me something more, its eyes closed as it fought through pain to speak to me, “I don’t know what you are but,” it paused here to groan,”you need to get out of here its not safe!”
‘Huh it sounds female.” I thought distractedly, right before I was hit with something in the back, pushing me towards the creature. My last memory was of it’s horror filled eyes, followed shortly by maniacal laughter, before everything faded to black.