Humans are weird: The story of the living moons
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Extract from the journal of Jovana Khan, space explorer and archivist, regarding human mythologies
“It is safe to say that in all of my travels across the stars I have encountered many tales and legends that defy imagination.
The sentient stones of the Gen’hana, the leviathans of the crystal seas of Tagosha, the howling mines of the Darvin Deep; yet all pale in comparison to a legend I have recently discovered amongst the most recently discovered space faring people called “humans”.
They spoke of a tale both long ago and yet somehow far in the future when they faced down the greatest foe their species had ever found while traveling the stars. Creatures of such malevolence and rage that not even the mightiest of their war machines could stem the tide of their slaughter. That in the end their entire species was nearly wiped out by these beings as they took the flesh from both the living and dead and molded them into twisted monsters the likes of which have not been seen since.
These monsters were known as the “Brethren Moons”.
Stories of these beings origins differed between each telling, but each description of their final form was the same. A hollowed moon covered in living flesh gliding through the stars like some undersea creature. Plains of pulsating red muscle visible from space and tentacles so massive they could shatter starships with a single swing.
They reproduced by creating advanced signal transmitters of some kind and seeding them throughout the galaxy. When they landed on a planet they would lay dormant, for centuries at a time, until the dominant species reached a certain technological level. At such a point the transmitters begin emitting a signal that would either begin driving individuals mad with hallucinated visions or begin controlling them and urging them to create more of these beacons, or “Markers” as they were called, to further spread the control amongst the populace.
At first I did not believe such madness they spouted. I thought I was the victim of one of the human pranks they are so fond of playing on non-human species. They even agreed with me that just hearing it would be hard to believe, and that is when they produced photos and videos for me to witness. They told me that these were ancient archived material that was circulated through the current human populace as a warning of what to look for should they ever encounter one of these enemies’ in the future.
What I saw was……horror, beyond any words I know to give form.
I watched from a security camera as a human who was enthralled by these Brethren Moons begin twisting and contorting violently. Bone breaking through the skin and flesh melting away and reforming as if it was made of putty all the while listening to the human screaming out in pain.
When the transformation was finished all that was left of what had once been a normal human was a ghoul of nightmarish proportions; and if that was not enough they came in different sizes and shapes.
Some were as tall and wide as a spaceship doorway with arms so thick they could shatter steel like it was paper. Others were decapitated heads running on spider like legs leaping between walls like a Tanganian Monkey. Then there were the grotesque creations that appeared to have been formed by several or several dozen bodies fusing together to manifest worms that could swallow you whole with jaws as big as an engine core.
The humans I spoke with told of how their efforts to fight the monsters were thwarted by members of their own species who had come to worship the creatures as holy beings sent to save their souls. A dogmatic and corrupted faith sprung up that worshiped these moons and their ghoulish creations as the next step of humanity’s evolution.
They spoke of epic battles waged in the stars and on the surfaces of every human colony as the monsters were relentless in their conquest. Nothing seemed capable of stopping their rampage until the unlikeliest of heroes stepped forward; a human who was always in the wrong place at the right time.
A human named Isaac Clark.
First discovering the minions of the Brethren Moons on a derelict spaceship, Isaac would fight his way through waves of horrific monsters and dastardly cultists and stop the nefarious machinations of the moons not once, nor twice, but three times with nothing at his disposal save the weapons he crafted.
Humans speak frequently of Isaac and his accomplishments during those dark times. They state without a sliver of disbelief on how he dropped portion of a planet that had recently been mined on to one of these Brethren Moons and shattered it single handedly all the while fending off the devious hallucinations of the special abominations as they warped his mind. The Moons feared him so much that they would bombard him mentally with projections of his wife that told him over and over to kill himself, forcing him to battle these devils not only in the real world but within his very mind as well.
The conclusion of these necromorphic nightmares legends is shrouded in mystery, as is the fate of the human savior Isaac Clark. Every human I have spoken to tells of how eventually the Brethren Moons finally laid siege to the human homeworld just as Isaac arrived to warn them of the impending attack. Some say that he rallied the human survivors in a desperate last stand against the moons and emerged bloodied but victorious, while others tell of how the corrupting influence of the moons finally shattered the mental state of Isaac and he joined their ranks to see the ending of his species. Seeing as how humanity still remains, I have been more inclined to believe the prior rather than the former.
In any case, it is a testament to humanity’s endurance and perseverance to have survived such an ordeal of galactic magnitude.”
