Praise thee!
In the silence of the room, water could be heard dripping and splashing against the cobbled ground in a slow, methodical rhythm. A fire flickered nearby from a torch on the wall, occasionally crackling, making one or two cringe. Multiple shadowed figures stood in a circle, their faces shrouded by shadows and their bodies covered by long, black cloaks. A few coughed as the time passed painfully slowly, but their conviction kept them from leaving.
Suddenly, the old wooden door to the room opened with a loud creak, causing multiple to flinch and shudder. Footsteps echoed through the small room as another cloaked figure walked in, carrying with them an intimidating aura. A few of the members started to sweat as this figure stopped in the center of the room, in the middle of the circle of members.
They suddenly held their arms out, their cloak billowing as a smile appeared on their face. “Cultists! Here me now!”
The cloaked people in the room stood up tall and straight as he spoke.
“I have figured out how to summon Our Lord!”
Immediately, the cultists in the room started whispering to each other. Is it true? Is there a way? Will we finally see Her?
“How?” One bravely speaks up. The leader chuckles slightly.
“I am glad you asked.” He reaches into his cloak and pulls out a thick brown book, outlined by gold and silver. A few cult members gasped in admiration at the admittedly pretty book. “For years, I’ve searched for the book that details how to summon Our Lord, and now I have finally found it! The Ancient Texts of Nostrae Lunae Principem!”
The cult members started to whisper again, more excited with their words now. I can’t believe it! It’s finally happening! We shall finally see her!
“How do we do it?” A different cult member asks.
“I’m sure you’ve seen it when you entered.” At those words, every cult member took a step back, revealing the white chalk circle that they’d been standing on. “There is a reason why I have summoned you all on this specific day in the dead of night.”
He kneels, slams the book down in the center of the circle, and opens it. “In the dead of night during the 4th lunar cycle of the year, during the fullest of moons on the clearest of nights, we can open a rift to summon our lunar majesty! Members!” He addresses. The cultists stand up straight again. “All kneel and pray!”
Immediately, they all fall to one knee, close their eyes, and mumble out prayers. The leader looks down at the book and flips it to the last page. There sat an arcane circle, intricately drawn. At the center sat the sigil of the moon. He smiled widely and he began to chant.
“O regina potens lunaris, cuius pennae stellarum tam clare coruscant.” The chalk circle began to glow a dim purple, humming slightly as branches of arcane magic began to materialize. “O regina potens lunaris, cuius crines galaxiae undae tam splendide sunt.” The cult members dared not stop praying as the newly formed arcane circle continued to grow and glow brighter. A few started praying faster and with more reverence. “Ad te vocamus, ad nos ut videas, veni ad nos et nostrum gaudium nobis pande!”
In the center of the circle, where the leader once stood, a cloud of blue and purple energy began to form, crackling with bright white arcane lightning as it grew in size. The cult members could not resist looking up toward the accumulation of magic, staring at it with wide, fearful eyes. Though, some looked with awe and admiration. The leader smiled wider as the magic cloud grew.
“Ah, my Lord! You have come at last…” He held his arms out, but he didn’t approach. Entering the magic circle could have unforeseen consequences.
In the cloud of magic, a figure began to form, one whose shape remained unclear yet its emotion was shown as clear as day. Utmost joy. From the figure within the magic cloud, a bright white smile appeared, creeping out the cult members and even the leader himself. The cloud of magic continued to grow, the figure inside the cloud growing ever more prominent by the second. The cultists could almost figure out just what their lord was. But before anything…
With a flash and loud bang, the cloud of magic condensed into a bright purple and blue swirling ball, brightly and loudly churning in the center of the arcane circle. The cultists shielded their eyes from the unexpected brightness. With a sudden swift movement, the orb burst through the stone ceiling of the room, sending debris flying all over the cultists. Dust billowed out from the destroyed ceiling, but the leader stood and looked up through the hole.
Through the night sky, a line of purple trailed high, streaking through the night with as much radiance as a falling star. However, its destination was not the ground. With a sudden bright impact, it fell onto the moon.
A hushed, harsh, and intelligible whisper rang out through the lands as a marking formed across the lunar surface. Dark splotches formed all over the right side of the moon, eventually stopping and revealing the pattern left behind. A horse’s head, no… a unicorn’s head, dark and mysterious up in the sky.
The cultists and their leader looked up at the moon with its new marking, feeling two things. Accomplishment…
…and pure, unbridled terror.
The longer they stared at the moon, the more their fear rose. It was like a never-ending backward slide. Eventually, even the leader had to look away as he couldn’t handle it anymore. Clutching his chest and attempting to control his breathing, he looked toward his fellow cultists, beads of sweat rolling down his face.
“Now, my friends, we… have finally done it.” His face contorted with a crazy smile as he looked upon the cultists. “She has finally arrived, our Lord forevermore!”
The cultists looked at the leader, heavily split on their opinions now, but soon enough, all of them stood up tall and looked back at the moon, fear forgotten.
“Praise thee!” They all chanted.
“Praise thee!” The leader chanted with more conviction than the rest. Soon enough, the world will know. Their sole, solemn leader…
Two teenagers were walking back home from the gas station, both of them carrying bags in their hands. One was full of junk food and the other was full of soda. One prattled to other people on the phone, furiously arguing with whomever while the other was looking at the sky, admiring the beautiful constellations and whatnot. But, he then paused and squinted his eyes. The teenager arguing on the phone stopped and looked back at him.
“What?” He mumbled, taking the phone off his ear. “See an alien or sum?”
“No, nothing like that…” The other said quietly, pointing at the moon. “It’s just… doesn’t the moon look a little… off?”
“Off? Heh, what do you mean?” He looked up into the sky at the moon, squinting his eyes a bit. Then, his eyes widened. “Woah, what the hell? It definitely didn’t look like that just an hour ago.”
“No, no it didn’t.” The other teenager then pulled out his phone and snapped a picture of the moon, posting it onto the internet. Then, he shivered. “Man, looking at the moon is giving me the creeps.”
“Yeah, I know… it’s strange.” Since he wasn’t talking to them anymore, he just hung up the phone and put it in his pocket. “But, anyway, remember that one time…”
Overnight, that particular picture blew up, gaining hundreds of comments and thousands of likes and reposts in just hours. Numerous people didn’t believe it at first, but simply going outside revealed this strange unicorn’s head emblazoned upon the lunar surface. Globally, everyone felt the same thing from the moon. Fear, terror, and such, not unlike the feeling of waking up from a particularly bad nightmare. People began speculating, conspiracies were born, but the most popular theory was that there was an alien, or entity inhabiting the moon. Many people wanted to prove it wrong or just didn’t want to believe it in general, but really, what else could explain this?
Scientists even began working with people who were thought to be crazy, building and making more machines and technology that could possibly uncover the mystery of the mare on the moon, but nothing seemed to work. It was almost like the moon was invisible to all sensors now.
Unwilling to give up, scientists continue, researching and spending billions of dollars to uncover the reason for this sudden change of the moon. Why was it spreading terror throughout the world? What was the cause? How could they stop it?
With no other name for the possible entity, they decided to name it by the abilities it carried. Causing fear in a nightmare-like fashion when you looked directly at the moon. And thus…
Nightmare Moon was born.