lunar tutelage

Lunar tutelage
by Kristoff N. Chester

The last time I saw the full moon, was the final day of my life. I had always searched for the strange and macabre. So when a email came to me from an individual claiming to be an acolyte of a local sect I reluctantly felt a ping of interest.

Much as I wanted to investigate the email my trepidation of a random person from the internet was too great. I assumed that after deleting the email the matter would be done with, but again and again I received emails from the person. Each letter seemed more urging. Slowly, perhaps unreasonably I became fearful of this person.

The coming days found me growing paranoid. I pondered if this unknown person could trace me to my location. I did not so much fear this person for their ties to a secretive sect or cult, which in spite of their begging me to join they had said very little. Rather the fear came from the sheer fact that this person seemed to know me, and I knew him not.

I remember a few days before the full moon, while I was out at my normal coffee shop haunt. I was confronted by a man, young but pale with slicked back dark hair. He introduced himself as the writer of the emails and apologized for the cloak and dagger attitude he had presented at first. He told me that the sect had perused me so intensely because there was only a small window in which I could possibly join their order.

I scuffed at this of course, though the occult and other such topics had always peeked my interest I had no intent of joining a cult. I dismissed the man and left quickly, returning to the safety of my home. Sitting alone in my house I tried to focus my mind on anything other then the man and his invite, but no matter the book I read or the words I tried to write myself. Nothing held my attention, it was like grasping smoke.

That night my slumber was resided over by enigmatic forms in blackness. I saw alignments of dots and smears of colors drifting through the darkness like clouds. I woke from the colorful dream tangled in my bed sheets has if I had been struggling and tossing and turning heavily. I wondered around my house, unable to sleep. Not because I was not tired, but because part of me was afraid of the strange seemingly random dream.

The next morning I found another letter from the cultist on my door. I read it and it explained a ritual that was going to take place under the full moon. It claimed I could come has a viewer and would not be pressed to join. For a moment I felt a strange sense of relief. Not being pressured to partake in their fanatics was a welcome thought, and to watch the activity of a small sect could at least prove worth a night's entertainment.

I drove to the place the letter spoke of, a open clearing in the back woods. The letter explained the location itself was not all together holy but rather it would accommodate the space needed for the ritual. This reasoning perplexed me, and for a moment I was slightly afraid of what they believed would happen that would demand such open ground.

I found them clad in black robes with silver cords wrapped around their waists. Standing in a ring formation around a large urn. The urn itself seemed to be a crude object unspeakable old, and forged of a metal. Bronze perhaps for the light which reflected and gleamed off it was faded and a odd brownish color. As I stepped closer I could see markings on the urn, and felt a chill. Upon the urn where formations of dots that brought back the unnerving dream I had before. Looking at them then I realized they were constellations.

I stood and watched, with out a word as the cultists began to chant and mutter. Slowly a smoke rose up from the urn, rising higher and higher up to the sky. I followed the smoke with my eyes. This was when I became aware of a larger presence. My jaw hung open as I tried to focus on it. I am still unsure of its actual proportions. I couldn't tell if the thing was far off in the distance or if it was so massive that it took up all of the horizon itself.

The cultists bowed their heads and I, was compelled to do the same. Has I looked down at the ground, feeling the massive presence more and more I clinched my eyes shut tight. Slowly I felt a strange sensation one if higher elevation. I trembled as I felt the presence even stronger now as if its breath, like a great gale was upon me. Suddenly a bombardment of noise rang in my ears.

Like the sound of shattering glass or wood being crushed. I screamed and felt a wetness on my face, too sticky and slow to be tears. I knew at once blood was oozing from my eyes and ears. Even though I was screaming at the top of my lungs the sound still drowned it out. It didn't stop, more and more of the ear crushing sounds. I noticed a sort of rhythm to it all like words but... not words perhaps of a tongue or dialect I was never meant to hear. I threw my eyes open and even with the presence so close I saw nothing coherent. Just empty vase night sky with drifting colorful clouds and bots in strange formations. Finally my lungs gave out, no longer able to scream I fainted into empty black sleep.

When I woke again I was in a large room. A sort of chapel and on the walls were paintings and banners from seemingly many different cultures. Greek kings with cloaks of shadow and stars. Great pharaohs with crowns on which rested moons. Warriors clad in armor of blackness. I sat in wonder of the night before and the room with it's paintings of night adorned figures. I laughed at how clear it was.
Its name had changed through time but it had always been present ever watching we pitiable moronic creatures. I couldn't draw to mind a culture whom had not, at some point revered the night in some aspect. Ratri, No'tt, Itzpapalotl, Kuaket. Nyx. It had been there from the start whispering crushing revelations to the chosen few.

I knew my life had ended I could never go back to my day to day ways. It... the night had spoken to me and I was unable to tell what it had said. The cultists would know, maybe. I had to learn more I resolved to remain a part of their order and fully embrace the tutelage of the night