That night, the moon didn't rise.
It was supposed to be a harvest moon, full and burning orange.
Instead, the sky above Velmont Hollow stayed empty. A wound of stars without a center. The kind of darkness that feels intentional.
And all around town, things began to shift.
The clocks stopped ticking.
Dogs barked without end.
Babies wouldn't cry—only stared at the ceiling as if something above them was watching.
And the strings came down.
Not all at once.
Not with spectacle.
Just a quiet descent.
Threads the color of dried blood began to fall from the sky—from trees, from chimneys, from the air itself.
They hung like spider silk.
And they moved.
Even without wind.
They writhed. Coiled. Tensed. Like muscles waiting to clench.
No one in town talked about it.
But no one left their homes either.
They knew.
And me? I walked through the empty streets.
Because I had to see it.
Because it was calling me.
Because somewhere, under the surface of this unraveling world, I still thought I could fix it.
---
I returned to the field.
The puppet stage stood taller now.
It had grown.
Now three tiers high.
Dozens more faceless dolls lined its arch.
But they weren't faceless anymore.
Each one now bore a mouth.
A too-wide grin carved into every wooden head.
Some smiled with joy.
Others in agony.
At the top of the stage, under a blood-red lantern, stood Mr. Grin.
Still wearing that same suit.
Still with that too-human face stretched into the shape of a lie.
His eyes met mine.
> "The moon has been borrowed," he said softly. "Because light ruins the show."
Then he pointed.
And I saw the strings.
Not falling now.
Pulling.
Across the field, into windows, beneath doors.
And wherever they landed, something moved.
People.
Not puppets.
People being lifted.
Controlled.
One by one.
Townsfolk floated from their homes like marionettes.
Feet dragging.
Eyes empty.
Smiles slowly forming.
And the sky above them rippled like a curtain.
> "The Hollow remembers," whispered Mr. Grin. "And so shall they."
I tried to move.
But my body jerked.
Not by my command.
Something pulled my arm.
A string had attached to my wrist.
Thin.
Red.
Burning.
> "You still wear the memory," Grin said, stepping closer. "You never gave it back."
> "I don't remember the deal," I choked out.
> "Then let us remind you."
He clapped.
The puppets screamed.
Hundreds of them.
The stage lit with fire.
Each scream turned into a word.
A name.
Mine.
Jonah. Jonah. Jonah.
The strings wrapped tighter.
Around my legs.
My mouth.
My eyes.
And I was lifted.
Suspended above the stage.
And below me, the crowd gathered.
Not just the living.
The forgotten.
Children who had vanished.
Parents who had "moved away."
Every face I had ever known and lost.
All turned to wood.
All grinning.
And together, they whispered:
> "Pull the moon back, Jonah. Or we'll take your sun."
And with that, the sky cracked.
A thread split the clouds.
And behind them, hanging like a noose:
Was the moon.
Now carved.
Into a puppet's face.
Its smile too wide for the sky.
And its eyes—green glass.
Just like mine.