It happened once every 90 days, and we were taught growing up that there was one simple rule we had to follow in our little town.
On that night, never look at the Moon.
We are pretty isolated from the outside world, and given that the normality of it all was drilled into us as children we never really came to question much of the intricacies of the event. The concept was easier for us to understand when we were young and imaginative too. On the night that the Moon watches over us, we have to stay inside with the windows and curtains closed - preferably in the room furthest away from any doors - and we must stay that way until the clock reads 6 AM.
It was usually an eventless night, and I slept through it most of the time, but some weird things took place too. As a kid, there would always be a house that supposedly left town the morning after. I was 8 and it was the morning after The Watching when my parents did their usual rounds to check up on our neighbours. We all took care of each other so each little section of the town had its designated people to do the rounds in the aftermath. They came home an hour or so into my Sunday morning cartoons to tell me that the Greens, our next-door neighbours, had moved and I wouldn’t be able to go over to their house anymore. I was confused because they’d lived next to us for as long as I’d been alive and they weren’t the type to just up and move overnight, but my young mind was easily distracted by the TV and I forgot about it not long after. From that night onwards, a family supposedly moved each time we were watched. As the years went on, I grew increasingly suspicious of entire households disappearing overnight, but there wasn’t much I could do about it and I hoped we wouldn’t be next - because apart from the odd tradition we had I very much enjoyed life in our town.
It was a few hours before the first Watching of my newly adult life when my parents sat me down and told me the truth. The families who left town never really left at all. The homes left empty were those of people who had looked at the Moon. Every time the Moon watched over us, the town had to choose someone to watch back. To protect everyone else. The closed curtains and the locked doors never really helped any of us, the illusion of logical safety was an easier pill to swallow than the truth. The people who checked up on their neighbours were sent to clean up - because keeping the illusion intact was far less horrifying than what would have happened if people knew the price paid to keep us safe.
Whether the houses concerned were occupied by young families or widowed retirees, the scene left behind was always the same. A single length of rope hanging from the ceiling at the centremost point of the house. No blood, no struggles. Just the bodies. Nobody knew how exactly it happened, just that by dawn they were dead. Supposedly some had left notes but my parents had never found any and the notes were never confirmed to be more than rumours so not much was known about the circumstances.
They could see the horror in my eyes at this point because my mother reassuringly put her arm around me whilst my father told me it would all be OK. I asked them why they were telling me this.
Why now?
“Because we’re next, son”.
What they had said didn’t fully sink in before I started to run. Everything in my body was screaming at me to run. As far away from that house as I could, and so I did. I didn’t care that sunset was mere minutes away, the Moon’s glare awaiting mine.
I ran as far as the dwindling daylight afforded me before coming across a decrepit shotgun shack in an unfamiliar part of town. But not before I felt it behind me.
It was as if something was breathing down my neck, beckoning me to turn around. To look. I tried to resist, knowing what would happen to me if I gave in to the temptation, but my efforts were ultimately futile. I had to look.
I cannot truly describe what I saw. Something incomprehensibly unnatural. Something human eyes were never meant to see. I understand why those chosen before me didn’t forgo their responsibility, because our home needs to be protected from the terrible fate that would befall us if the burden of this temptation spread.
My eyes were fixed on the Moon as I walked home, knowing what awaited me. I finally allowed my gaze to drop when I stepped foot through the front door and almost instinctively towards the living room at the centre of the house.
They had both looked, as I had and as our duty had been, and swung lightly in their suspended states with the howling wind from the open door pushing them against each other.
Tears made their way down my face as I noticed the third rope they had left behind. I know what I have to do, but I needed to leave something behind first. Something that can’t be hidden or destroyed.
Perhaps the notes left behind by the others chosen will be found someday. Perhaps the plight of our little town will be known. Perhaps help can be found. Until that day, I can only pray those chosen after us do not ignore their duty.
The sanity of thousands depends on our sacrifice.