Alagad_Krissy

In a forgotten town surrounded by forests no one dares to enter, there is a grove that appears only under the new moon. The children who wander there are said to vanish. But the truth is stranger than any old story, because some of them return. Not as children, not as ghosts, but as animals with human eyes and missing memories.

No one sees them. No one hears them. Except for one girl who was never supposed to survive.

Every new moon, the boundary weakens. Every cycle, another truth surfaces. She is drawn to them. And they to her. Together, they must uncover why the town keeps forgetting its dead.

What waits for them at the end of the twelfth moon?

Children of the Moonless Nights

The light faded slow and pale, not sudden like a storm or quick like a sunset. It eased away from the tops of the trees until only a faint bluish gray remained. Mara watched it go without saying anything.

Ren leaned against a stone, arms crossed, eyes half-closed.

Eventually, he said, "You don't talk much either."

He adjusted his weight. "I mean, you do talk. Just not about anything normal."

The tree in front of them creaked as the wind picked up.

Mara felt the charm shift again. Not heat this time. A small pressure. Like someone tapping her shoulder, trying to point something out.

She looked back at the tree. The worn carvings caught the last bit of light, just enough to notice a pattern.

Not just lines. Not random marks. Letters.

He stood and stepped closer. "Is that…?"

Mara moved ahead of him and brushed the bark with her fingers. Lichen peeled back. The letters weren't English. Not anything common either. But they weren't unfamiliar.

She'd seen them once, drawn in chalk under her aunt's kitchen table. She hadn't asked then. She remembered knowing not to.

Now she traced one with her nail. The lines weren't just carved. They were branded deep, like burned in with iron.

She read them aloud. Not translating, not fully understanding, just saying what her mouth already knew how to shape.

The tree didn't react. Neither did the charm.

He flinched like he'd been slapped.

She turned to him slowly. "You heard it?"

"I didn't just hear it." His voice was low. "I knew it. I don't know how. But that word—"

Ren didn't finish the thought. He looked away, jaw clenched, like the rest of the sentence had gotten caught in his throat.

Mara turned back to the tree. "They're not names."

"These words. They're not names. Not really."

She touched the last letter with her thumb. "Bindings."

He stared at her. "You're guessing."

"No," she said. "I'm remembering."

Not from the trees this time. From below.

The ground beneath them released a faint, dry breath. Soil cracked along the edge of the stone path leading out of the clearing. It wasn't dramatic. No sudden hole. No obvious trap. Just a line of earth that didn't want to hold still anymore.

The charm wasn't warm now. It was pulsing. Quiet. Even.

Like it wanted her to listen carefully.

She crouched and placed a hand over the cracked soil.

Even with the damp in the air, the ground here had lost something. Not water. Something older. Something that should have stayed.

"Okay," he said, voice low. "If these are bindings… what happens if one breaks?"

She stood slowly. "We shouldn't stay here."

Ren looked around. "And go where?"

She didn't have an answer for that either. But her feet were already moving.

They didn't talk again for a while. The forest let them pass. No strange turns. No tricks of the path.

This part of the woods wasn't quiet. It was listening.

CMooN (14): The Thing About Names