Chapter 3

I yanked the black fabric aside. It was pitch black outside, save for a handful of streetlights. Yet, the white light that had landed on her face earlier was cold and glaring.

I lowered my head to inspect her hands. Her fingers were scraped raw, and the crevices under her fingernails were filled with black fabric fibers.

"Does it hurt?"

Lucia looked at me blankly. "Why am I here, Mommy?"

"Do you not remember?"

She shook her head.

I pointed at the hole in the black fabric. "You scraped this through."

Lucia looked at her own hands before tearing up. "I didn't."

"Earlier, you told me you wanted to see the moon spirit."

Lucia stiffened for a moment before tilting her head up. "In that case, did I see her?" There was an unmistakable note of anticipation in her voice.

My chest tightened. "No."

The bedroom door suddenly swung open. Landon stood barefoot in the hallway with a small knife in his hand.

The moment he saw the hole in the black fabric, all the color drained from his face. He charged over and yanked Lucia away from the window. "Who allowed you to touch it?"

Lucia yelped.

I shoved him away. "You're hurting her!"

Landon ignored me and crouched down, holding Lucia's gaze. "What did you see?"

"I didn't see anything."

"Think again!"

Lucia was frightened to tears; she buried herself in my arms.

I shoved him. "That's enough! She was just sleepwalking!"

Landon stared at her for several seconds without uttering a word. He picked up the knife, found a new piece of black fabric, and covered the hole and layered it over and over.

Before I could press him further, he had already scooped Lucia up and laid her down on our bed. Lucia didn't fall back asleep until dawn.

The following day, as expected, she didn't remember a thing.

I tended to the wound on her fingertips. The moment the alcohol swab touched her skin, she jerked her hand back. "This must be Daddy's fault!" she said petulantly, shooting daggers at Landon.

Landon didn't explain himself. He sat across from us at the dining table, though he didn't touch the oatmeal in front of him.

Lucia forgot about the pain in no time. Nibbling on her spoon, she peppered him with questions. "Daddy, what color is the moon spirit's dress?"

"I don't know."

"Does she wear flowers in her hair?"

"I don't know."

"In that case… Is she super pretty?"

Landon's hand froze in midair.

Lucia tilted her head to look at him. "Didn't you tell me the moon spirit was super pretty, and that anyone who saw her would fall in love with her?"

Landon abruptly seized her hand. His chair toppled backward with a loud crash.

"I never said that." He looked at me and repeated himself. "I swear I never said that, Sylvia!"

That afternoon, Landon took his medication and turned in early.

While I was cleaning up the dining table, I accidentally knocked Lucia's drawing onto the floor. The moment I picked it up, the blood in my veins ran cold.

The drawing showed a family of three sitting around the dining table, but there were four sets of cutlery on the table. The fourth chair was empty. Beside the back of the chair, three crooked words were scrawled—the moon spirit.

I sat in the living room for what felt like forever, holding the drawing. Landon was fast asleep in the bedroom. Yet, every so often, he would cry out, "Stay away from me!"

…

The following day, after dropping Lucia off, I went straight to work. I didn't tell anyone about the strange things happening at home.

If Landon were confirmed to be mentally unstable, he'd be sent back to the investigation center immediately. I couldn't afford to take that risk until I figured out what was going on.

I was a deep space mission risk assessment engineer, and I had previously been responsible for analyzing some of the ground data. My clearance allowed me to access the return records of previous missions to the far side of the moon.

Under the guise of reviewing Landon's psychological state, I logged into the internal database. I entered "far side of the moon", "fear of circular objects", and " covering windows".

The system took almost half a minute to load. Then, 11 encrypted files appeared on the screen.

The earliest file dated back 20 years. The 11 astronauts varied in age and mission assignment, yet their symptoms after returning to Earth were eerily consistent—insomnia, emotional outbursts, refusal to come into contact with round objects, and a fear of light at night.

Several psychological evaluation reports also contained the same term—the moon spirit. The doctors believed it was a hallucination induced by long-term confinement. The diagnoses in all 11 reports were virtually identical.

I kept scrolling, and the follow-up reports on their families sent a chill down my spine. Not long after these 11 astronauts returned to Earth, all of their wives disappeared.

There were no signs of a break-in. The locks were intact, and nothing was missing.

In every case, the husbands were at home when it happened. Yet when questioned during the investigation, they either claimed they were asleep or insisted they couldn't remember a thing.

The cases occurred at different times and locations, so no one had ever linked them together. I rearranged the dates of the astronauts' returns and their wives' disappearances.

When the results came out, I stared at the screen for what felt like forever. All 11 wives had vanished on the 15th day after their husbands' return.

I suddenly recalled what Landon had asked me when he got out of the car. "What day is it?"

Then, he said, " I only have to wait for 14 days."

He hadn't asked casually. He knew what would happen on the 15th day.

I forced my hands to stop shaking and continued to check the attachments.

The supplementary record of the first astronaut mentioned that after his wife disappeared, investigators found a knife in the bedroom. He was gripping it so tightly that no one could pry it from his hand. There was no trace of his wife's blood on the blade; only his own.

I cross-referenced the rest of the files and realized knives were present in all 11 cases. The incidents had been classified separately as self-harm tendencies, mental instability, or hazardous item control issues. No one had ever connected these details.

I recalled how Landon had stood in the hallway that night. He'd been holding a knife, too.

I kept digging, only to discover that the original records for all 11 cases had been deleted. At the end of one file, a single note remained. "Original footage not filed. Retained by Caleb Miller, Return Medical Observation Team."

Caleb Miller. I knew him.

Two decades ago, he'd been responsible for the psychological evaluations of the first group of astronauts to return from the far side of the moon. Five years ago, he'd suddenly applied for retirement. He hadn't participated in another aerospace program since then.