“Good luck out there! I truly pray for your safe return.” It was a text message sent by my father after we were launched into the empty dark void of space itself. Currently we are approximately 380,300 km’s away from earth. It was basically a 3 day trip due to the fact that our current Spacecraft “Moon Ex” was travelling around 210,000 miles per hour leading us towards the moon.
We are a team of experienced astronauts with years of study and physical training for our bodies to withstand the pressure and speed of the spacecraft that no human was able to withstand in the history. We are a team of 6 people with a mission to setup a moon base to observe and study any new anomalies we could find on the moon and save the data on our log files which we must bring back to earth at SPACE X headquarters. Looking at the moon it seems very beautiful yet somehow so eerie when parts of it was covered in complete darkness.
“Hey! were about to land. ready up we have a long moon day to go am I right?” Emily said.
“Was that suppose to be funny? You really need to work on your comedian act” I said with a deep monotone of my voice. Emily was a neuro-scientist with 3 PHDs in engineering, phycology and Computer Science. She also studied at SPACE X headquarters alongside others myself. She’s the type to try to cheer up others in any awkward or fearful situations but desperately failed to do so. I guess that’s what she’s good at after all. As for the other astronauts, I can say I’m not quite familiar with them. They are more introverted than I am, but they are pretty straightforward and usually get the job done. Emily is pretty much that one person in a social group of introverts that stands out and without her, this team won’t bode well together.
However, it was only a few seconds at the corner of my eye, i noticed something in space as we were landing. A dark rectangular shape appeared floating endlessly in space yet so close to the moon. I though it was my imagination since i am a little anxious arriving on the moon for the first time. Our spaceship made a rough entry into the moon. It was a rough landing but it wasn’t too bad at all. We prepped up our suits and equipment before heading out into the unknown alienated surface of the moon. I would not be surprised if we somehow discovered intelligent alien life on moon since there were many conspiracies and theories surrounding the moon. But today we will find out. After seeing that our spaceship did land successfully, the daunting silence was emanating around us as we open the shuttle door to go outside.
Upon opening, we can feel the emptiness of space around us like there was no air or pressure at all. Emily quickly jumped into excitement as she slowly descends unto the moon. We all followed afterwards.
“isn’t this amazing? Us on the moon finally!” Emily cheered. I could already imagine the smile on her face under that helmet. I mean, i see it pretty much everyday her cheerful side that brings everyone on a good mindset like everything was going to be okay. The other astronauts were already on there way to set up the moon base and Emily and I had to follow along. Although the eerie silence that emanates on the moon somehow gives me a bad feeling that somehow we aren’t alone here. But I did not want to make any assumptions to freak everyone out without any evidence. However you cannot deny that it is a possibly.
It took us awhile to set everything up, grabbing equipment back and forth despite that there is not so many. The movement on the moon had made us significantly slow but I did not mind as I see Earth from 300,000 km away. It truly was a beautiful sight. However I had to look around and confirm what I saw earlier, that black rectangular shape object, I could not exactly make out if its just a foreign stone or an unidentified from another country or somewhere else. I did not see it anywhere and quickly I was relieved that it must be my imagination.
We spent approximately 2 days to build the moon base, it wasn’t anything complicated since it was a deployable type of technology, but it requires the right placements which was kind of tricky to identify flat surfaces on the moon. When our moon base was almost completed, our team leader did not want to waste any time and has tasked me and Emily to scout the surrounding areas. We were given a radar technology made by SPACE X to identify unknown objects or potential living beings that are on the surface of the earth. The radar technology was connected to the signal of our own satellite to make this possible. However we were told that the signal may be a little weak or moderate.
Me and Emily were making the necessary preparations including the radar, an emergency aid kit, a flashlight, and our basic communication installed into our suits. I could see Emily messing around our equipment almost checking for something that she has lost recently. I asked her what she was doing.
“I seem to be missing my photogenic camera, I could’ve sworn I placed it on top of the bench over there in the corner but its gone.” Emily said in a more worrying manner.
“Don’t worry we can share mine, besides the other guys probably took it and you know they aren’t the type to say anything much” I said reassuring her.
“Thanks! I knew i could count on you!” she said in a cheerful manner as she always was.
The team leader suggested us the recommended route which was pretty much up to 3kms walk and around the base which is a little too far by foot. But I did not question anything and simply just did what I was told to do. Me and Emily went our way to explore the moon in hopes that we would find something even though its quite common to come back empty handed it was a little disappointing in my opinion for a $210 million dollar project to have nothing in return at all.
Beep! Beep! Beep!
That was the sound that came from my radar which had identified something on the moon surface. Throughout our excitement we wondered if we made a life changing discovery but it remains unknown until we got closer.
“Omg! We found something!” Emily said.
“Yes we did, but we don’t know what it is exactly since its just a red dot on the screen” I said.
The red dot was located at east point of the radar. We then immediately reported to our team leader of our recent findings.
“Phoenix 4, we found an anomaly in the radar, permission to investigate further. over” I reported.
“Permission to investigate accepted. over”.
Fortunately though the red dot on the radar was not too far away, at least 1.7km’s away from us. Emily was just talking about how we would become famous for this recent finding, whatever it was I did hope it could open some truth to the conspiracies that were held up over the years for the lack of evidence. Or perhaps the absolute truth about everything.
After what seemed like an eternity we finally arrived to the location. Upon arriving, we discovered what seemed like an abandoned Moon Base. Me and Emily investigated further but something was not right. Usually, moon bases needed to be undeployed before leaving for earth. Perhaps it might have come from another country. But now I don’t even know, its actually quite mysterious at this point. Emily wondered around silently in the Moon Base, despite it being empty she remained cautious. Everything in the moon base was destroyed including all the equipment
Upon investigating the communications room. We discovered that the suits of the astronauts were also left behind laying flat like an empty hollowed shell, there was no one in it. We investigated the country flag of the suits but weirdly enough I could not make out what country it is. In fact it is a country flag that I never have seen before. Emily looked at it and said the same thing even with her knowledge of all the flags in the world, she also could not identify it.
“This is weird, its not like any of the flags I have ever seen” Emily said in a confused tone.
“Perhaps it would be a flag of a secret organisation?” I said with assumption that I could be correct.
“However something definitely happened here, and we don’t know what.” Emily said.
After looking around the up and downs of the communications room. I discovered a video disc labelled as “LOG #14”. This was the only video disc I could find that is not shattered into pieces. I immediately reported everything here to our team leader.
“Phoenix 4, we found an abandoned moon base at the East from our base 1.7kms away, we also found astronaut suits that are empty and a video disc. Over”.
“A Moon Base? Are you able to identify the nationality? Over.”
“Not that I know of, could not identify. Over.”
“Come back to base immediately, waste no time. Over.”
“Got it. Over.”
I told Emily that we needed to get back to the base as soon as possible. But she stared at me with a long pause almost as if she realised what was going on. I asked her if she was okay. She immediately responded. “Oh right, sorry I spaced out. Let’s go!”
We immediately went back to our Moon base and gave the video disc to the Team Leader. We all assumed it was a log detailing what was happening. The team leader then gathered all the 5 astronauts including me and Emily. The video disc was placed inside the video player and when it played, it showed only black and white static with an unknown language spoken. However listening to it, the voices in the disc seemed very distressed and scared… The video disc only lasted for 4 mins but could not make out what it actually said.
However, one of our team members started to shout the following words out that freaked us out.
“Holy shit guys!”
We all stared at him as if he understood what was going on in the video. The team leader demanded what he knew about the video, but he insisted with fear in is voice that we need to Get The Fuck Out Immediately, It’s Not Safe here anymore.
“What do you mean?” The team leader demanded some form of answer.
“Guys We Have To Leave, No Time To Fucking Explain!”
The members were distorted in confusion, but whatever was in that tape and the guy telling us to get out and leave this moon tells me a lot there was something out there to hurt us or even kill us. But overall it was a mystery under all this panic and fear. It also seems that the guy somehow understood the language from the video disc. The team leader then looked into his eyes trying to calm down and hoping to get a proper answer. But to all of our surprise, he simply rushed his way back to the spaceship seemingly trying to hide from something.
Everyone else was left in a state of confusion with fear as they are all wondering what the fuck was going on. Me and Emily explained to the rest of the crew about our findings at the abandoned moon base nearby. After a brief explanation, they all simply went quite and the guy inside the spaceship said “Holy shit are you guys still out there?!?! we have to leave now!”.
The guy i knew who I was hiding in the spaceship, wasn’t usually the type of guy to act this way. He was always logical and calm in most times. But seeing him like this for the first time made me wonder what was in the video disc that truly scared him off. The team leader urged the guy to come out but he simply won’t budge.
That was when I saw something from a far distance. A small dark humanoid figure is crawling towards us at a faster paste. I though it was just an hallucination from my meds but when I tried to rub my eyes, it was still there coming closer and closer. I told everyone of what i was seeing.
“Everyone! Look! What The Fuck Is That??” I said in a state of fear.
Everyone was looking where I was pointing to confirm if I was hallucinating or not. However the team leader then immediately shouted. “EVERYONE GET IN THE SHIP NOW!”. It was a holy shit moment for everyone, realising what I saw was real I quickly rushed back to the ship with everyone else, leaving all our expensive equipment behind, but that didn’t worry us over our own lives. As we all tried to slowly move our way to the ship, I looked back and the figure just moved faster and faster trying to get us. I then realised that Emily was still standing there at the Moon Base.
“EMILY!!! WHAT ARE YOU DOING?!? WE GOTTA RUN!” I screamed hoping for her to snap out of whatever state she was in. But she remain stagnant. I do not know how to feel realising that she will lose her life, i quickly began to have flashbacks of everything we did together on our earlier days as trainee astronauts. Tears run down my face when I saw her being torn apart by the dark figure at unnatural speeds. It then continued to chase after us.
All 5 of us got into the ship and started to initiate the power up procedure of the ship to try to launch asap away from this forsaken moon. My heart throbs faster when I saw the figure coming even closer and closer.
“And Launch!” The team leader said forcing the ship to initiate us towards space in hopes that whatever that thing is, if its even human to not come after us any longer. From the window I see that the figure was pushed back by the force of the ship. Everyone else was in a state of relief yet still shocked to the bone of the experience. It was all very quiet and no one was able to say a single word throughout the entire trip back to earth.
I simply went to the corner, crying till my tears could no longer flow through my face. Seeing that figure breaking Emily apart had instead torn my soul away. I already missed her. I don’t know why she became like that, un-responding to to the situation at hand and because of it. She lost her life.
The ship will approximately take at least a month to return back to earth due to it running low on fuel and will have to rely on the gravitational force within this empty space of the void. Which is why I am writing all this now on my Log Files for everyone to read and hear the truth of what happened at the Moon Mission.
“Emily, i wish you were here right now. Next to me with your cheerful smile like you always do.”