Writing Exercise #2 - DO NOT LOOK AT THE MOON
[WP] It's 3AM. An official phone alert wakes you up. It says, "DO NOT LOOK AT THE MOON." You have hundreds of notifications. Hundreds of random numbers are sending "It's a beautiful night tonight. Look outside."
The phone alarm blared at full volume, jarring Michael out of a deep sleep. He opens his telephone to a large alert window that reads, "DO NOT LOOK AT THE MOON." He sees his own puzzled expression reflected on it. The phone buzzed maddeningly as it is flooded by text messages by numbers he's never seen before. He begins to think of how so many people could have gotten his number. He turned on the light and got out of bed.
Michael was, by all means, an introvert. He tended to leave his abode as infrequently as he could afford. Work and basic needs like groceries and hygiene were of the few things to drag him from his habitat. He had friends whom he saw semi-regularly (at least, to him it seemed that way. His friends would have consider their meetings closer to seasonal). Michael could count them on two hands. Could he have shared his phone number online? Was it from all the free trials of subscriptions that he used? Had someone hacked him?
The phone vibrated for minutes. He felt ambushed by continued stream of notifications once it fell the to the ground from his desk. He broke from thought and reached for it, still buzzing. He hadn't even read the messages; He was too concerned with figuring out what this could possibly be.
Michael pressed a button and the device comes to life. He still saw the alert about the moon. He couldn’t dismiss it, either. Odd. The phone continued showing notifications. Michael couldn’t shake the bad feeling that rushed over him. He searched for news online. The internet, his main source of information about the world outside of his bedroom, yielded no helpful results. It was supposedly a normal morning. Another round of notification alerts appeared before the phone settled down for a few minutes, somehow leaving him Michael more unsettled.
"258 New Messages" was next on his home screen. 258 spam messages or advertisements sent to him in the middle of the night was the best case scenario in his mind. He opened his messages and nearly dropped the phone in shock. He lost his breathe. His face paled, to a shade some might consider undiscovered. Unread messages from different unlabeled contacts took up most of his screen. Everyone read the same: "It's a beautiful night tonight. Look outside."
Michael staggered from the shock and sat down to collect himself. He didn't understand. Worriedly, he checked the concealment of his own windows. He returned to his desk, leaving his phone aside, and searched about the moon with his computer. He saw pages of images and new stories about the moon, but nothing about not looking at it. The only helpful information he found was a blog post discussing lunar phases, myth, and legends. The blogger, whose other posts included conspiracy theories that ranged from "believable" to "this reads like bad fanfiction", cited the full moon tonight as their inspiration for the article. Michael, mentally grasping for straws, continued to read in hopes of finding some rational explanation about the moon that night. Of course, seeking reasonable explanations on a website discussing the high likelihood of reptiles running the world may not have been the most reliable source.
One part in particular caught Michael's eyes: "There are unexplainable increases in emergency room visits, accidents, crime rates, and spiritual practices around the time of the full moon. The latin word "Luna" is the root for the word "Lunatic", driven by a belief that abnormal behavior was most common during the full moon. Could this be when the world is most open to supernatural phenomena? Studies have shown no statistic background but there is a lot of data on the topic. Maybe this one will be special." He looked down from his computer screen back to his phone as it buzzed with new life. More unknown numbers. More messages. The panic hit him like he had just learned he was burning. He physically recoiled and jumped from his chair.
Michael began trying to rationalize the situation, "Maybe it's a big prank. There's nothing online about it! I should text my friends about it! No, that's dumb. Who would respond at 3 AM? They're all asleep, I'm sure. I should talk to the neighbors. I'll get dressed and talk to the neighbors."
Michael's apartment building is one of those that seems bigger on the inside. From the outside it looked like a modest, single story, three bedroom home. Surprisingly, there are 12 studio apartments. It was mostly surrounded by taller buildings but he could always see the sky from his window if he stood close. He always felt that some natural light would be better than none.
He was familiar enough with his proximate neighbors, if only because they expectedly saw each other when departing or returning. He didn’t even know their names. Well, he didn’t remember them. He had heard them on several occasions but managed to get by all the same. Michael dressed with clothes he wore that day, since they were the closest to him and he believed nobody would care about that kind of stuff at 3 AM. Just before opening the door, he remembered a window in the hall to the right.
"It doesn't have a shade or curtain, but I don't want to risk looking at the moon by accident. It doesn't hurt to be too careful, right?"
He exited his bedroom with a flattened cardboard box he'd used to move in several months earlier. It was large enough to cover a portion of the wall and the hall window and reached to his right to place it. The difficult part of his plan was placing it while looking away. He backpedaled towards the window with his head turned until he felt the makeshift barrier contact the wall. He leaned it on the wall and went back to retrieve a suitcase large enough to hold it in place. Michael turned back towards his across-the-hall neighbor and knocks on the door. As he knocked, he realized the door had been left open. He knocked again and took a step inside.
"It's me, Michael...I’m sorry to bother you at this hour. Are you getting any of these weird phone alerts?"
The silence worsened his anxiety and paranoia. He stepped forward to look around, careful of his angle towards any open spaces and potential windows. The room was empty. There were no signs of disturbance, yet no one was there. The open window was the only detail to catch his eye. Thankfully, he was safe from direct view of the moon. He left the apartment and returned to the hallway. Michael looked left to see his barricade and felt some reassurance under the pressure. He stepped towards his next door neighbor's door. Once again, he knocked and the door crept open. Michael cautiously moved inside and briefly surveyed the area. Aside from the contents of the room, the details were the same: no signs of disturbance, no tenant, and an open window. He closed the door and decided to check the rest of the apartments. Every room on his floor was empty. Every tenant was missing. Every door was unlocked. Everyone’s windows were open. Michael took great care to avoided any views outside neighbors' windows and made sure to close every door behind him.
He couldn’t suppress himself anymore. Michael yelled at the top of his lungs, hoping to dispel some of the fear consuming him. He checked his phone again. New alerts were all the same: A warnings about the moon and ceaseless texts about the beautiful night. He walked back down the hallway to his bedroom and loudly slammed the door behind him. He tried to lock the door but can't seem to stop his hands from shaking. After struggling for some time, Michael sat back down at his desk. He decided to call everyone he knows. He knew there was something terribly wrong and needed to hear a familiar voice. Michael opened his contacts list and hurriedly called each person.
"This number is not accepting calls at this time. Please try again later", a pre-recorded message repeats several times before he hung up the phone. He tried again with the next name on his list to no avail. Another attempt, another failure. Michael worked through his entire social circle of friends, family, and co-workers before collapsing to the floor, physically and mentally exhausted. He spoke loudly to himself, perhaps in an attempt to give himself some kind of company,
“What the hell is going on? Where is everyone? This must be real. Is this real life? Am I really awake? Am I alive or dead?”
A moment passed before something clicked, or perhaps snapped, in his mind. There were so many unknown variables. What was going on? Could someone else have managed to avoid the night sky, by accident or intentionally? Were there any other people experiencing the same dread? What was the government doing? Was there still a government? Was anyone in contact with anyone? Will anything change when the sun comes out?
Michael resolved himself, in only for the moment. He decided to return to his studio to check television, radio, and the internet to see any notice about this grave and present emergency. He planned to take a sleeping pill and set several alarms to wake him up for daytime, so that he could go outside and find someone else, anyone else.
His phone buzzed while his computer notified him of new emails. He tripped on the pile of unfinished books that had accumulated near his bed. His hand moved swiftly to move the mouse and see what his inbox had to offer. At this point, he felt anything would be a comfort. He had been proven wrong. 100 new emails from new senders that all read, “It’s a beautiful night tonight. Look outside.”
He firmly shut the door behind him and locked it, as though there was any sign of activity in his entire building. He roused his computer from its sleep and refreshed his news feed on Google, Facebook, and other media outlets. Nothing was different. Nothing had changed since he had looked. This was the digital age, he thought. If something this big was going on, someone would have posted something. There was no evidence of any new developments in the world. The only solace he found was on the television and radio, which he felt was a bit ironic but almost certainly wasn't.
A message displayed on his television screen through the local emergency broadcast system and the radio played a text-to-speech of the same notice: “DO NOT LOOK AT THE MOON.” He turned off his television, computer, and radio. He found his sleeping pills, dropping some to the floor because of a steady tremble through his hands and body. He took one, drank some water, and closed his eyes. He fell asleep, but he couldn't tellhow long it took. He just knew it felt like a lifetime.
Michael's alarms went off in metered intervals. 9:00 AM, 9:05 AM, 9:10 AM, and so forth. He swung his legs to the side of his bed and stood up too quickly, falling back down as the blood had rushed to his head. Sleep had helped to clear his head. He thought it was probably a dream. Things would go back as they used to be because he was just having a bad dream. Seeking brief comfort, he opened his computer and turned on his TV and radio. The contents were the same as before he had forced himself to bed. It was like the world had stopped. No news - no celebrity gossip, sports analysis, political stirrings, weather, Reddit, Facebook.
Michael briefly felt confident in thinking that maybe nothing at all happened in the world today. He could barely grasp his immediate surrounding circumstances, let alone an world events. He turned to his curtained window before he was overcome with a sense that something was terribly, terribly wrong. He rushed to his light switch and turned off his ceiling lamp to confirm his suspicions. He was right. There was no natural light. Where was the sun? He turned his light back on just so he could feel some kind of radiant warmth on his skin.
The only certainty in Michael's mind was that he was still alive. He must still be alive. He pinched himself to see, because he learned from someone that feeling a pinch meant you were not dreaming. He began searching for food, then decided that tending to basic needs would help him to better process the situation. His eyes shot to the small pantry in his kitchen and he approached. Grief and hunger worsened the realization that he had nothing edible in his whole apartment. Could he borrow some food from neighbors? Would they even care? Would they ever even notice? Would they ever be back? Guilt and determination collided in his mind before he walked into each of his neighbors’ apartments.
After some time scavenging the building, he assembled the haul on his countertop: a collection of three half-eaten bags of tortilla chips, eight ounces of two-day old guacamole, five cans of soup, four packages of instant ramen, two eggs, and a frozen pizza. Conservatively, he felt this would last him just under a week. Michael took a shower to wash the dirt, sweat, and stress from him. He planned to eat two meals a day and continue until the sun came up. Once the sun came up, he would try to find help.
His daily to-do list on the refrigerator nagged him. He always needed structure. It helped organize his thoughts and kept him focused. He designed a daily routine for himself until the situation changed. He used one hand to write and one to shovel guacamole and chips into his mouth. The schedule read, “Wake up. Check for sun. Eat. Check internet, TV, etc. Read. Shower. Eat. Go to bed.” He felt more in control in this moment, proudly shoveling the last bit of guacamole into his mouth. He grabbed the closest book-in-progress to him, of which there were many, and read for as long as he could. He plugged his phone in once he began dozing off, checked his alarms, took a couple of sleeping pills, and fell into the covers of his bed.
Michael woke up the next day with a stronger sense of purpose and control of his situation. He looked to his list. He knew the first step of his day. He approached his window and saw`the same as yesterday. He sighed and walked to retrieve the frozen pizza but a lack of appetite changed his mind. Nothing new on the internet. No new messages. He picked up a different book nearby him and began reading until his sight blurred. He marked the page, dropped the book, and walked to his shower. Michael solemnly walked to his bed and took more pills than usual. He stared at his window before drifting off.
His alarms rang. He woke up. He saw a familiar lack of light outside. He turned on his oven for a moment and inserted the frozen pizza. No changes online. Michael removed the pizza and ate it like an oversized taco. He tried to read but kept losing his place on the same few pages. He left the book on the ground to take a shower. He ate what was left of his pizza and a bowl of instant ramen. He took some pills. He thought to himself, because he felt talking out loud made no difference to him at this point,
“Am I dead? Is this Hell? Is anyone else out there?”
This cycle repeated for five or six more days. Michael couldn't really tell because the food lasted longer than expected, as stressful situations often ruin appetites and his concept of time wavered as he increased his dose of sleeping medication. On what he felt was the sixth day, something new happened.
He woke up and saw the sun was still not yet out. He accepted this a new reality, as though the sun had never existed. He said softly to himself,
“It's always been night time. It's always dark. The moon is always there. I would assume so, but I haven't even looked outside in maybe a week. Is there anything left? I wish I could talk to someone I know. Hell, anyone.”
The phone buzzed to life for the first time in days. It woke again, then slept. And once more. Michael furiously tapped the locked screen to see three messages from names he recognized. He was eager to see if they were alright, or holed up, or if they had any idea what was happening. In the moment he saw his three unread replies, he felt his heart drop into his stomach like a ten ton weight and it knocked him to the ground.
Michael, stunned, saw more messages arrive from his friends, family, and more. Old classmates, ex-girlfriends, coworkers. Within moments, he saw a new message from every contact in his phone. His heart raced. His breath was unsteady. He couldn't think straight. The room spun and felt increasingly small as Michael felt the world he knew had left him behind. He dropped his phone as though his muscles went limp, and promptly fell in a similar fashion. Michael became overwhelmed with questions, the same he'd been asking himself all this time. Was he awake? Was he asleep? Was this real? Is this Hell? Why did he have to be alone? He didn’t want to be alone anymore.
He felt a mental snap similar to the first day of this event and it instantly drew him to three conclusions, among all other possibilities he’d considered. He was either dreaming, stuck in some sort of time loop, or everyone else had looked at the moon and he was the only human left on the planet. Michael believed at this point that nothing he had tried would work and that he needed to take a radically different approach. That was the only way he would know, he thought.
As his decision solidified in his mind, he sat down at his desk and woke up his computer to open a blank text document. He felt, at least, that if he wrote what he could remember from however long this had been happening, that he’d be able to leave something behind if someone found it. He couldn’t stand being alone anymore. He didn’t care about food, water, or hygiene. He just didn’t want to be alone.
He began writing as much as he could from the very beginning up until the last day, or night as it was. He couldn’t tell time anymore, and he knew the sun would not come up, so he didn’t keep track of how long he sat there. Eventually, he got to where he last was. He felt he had done his best. He saved the document, unlocked his computer, and set the display to stay on indefinitely. He felt nothing else left to try. He had to know. He had to see if the night was indeed beautiful.
