October 28

After hiding my mother's body in the freezer, I looked up to see a blood-red moon hanging in the night sky.


This sentence sounds like the opening of some pulp horror novel, doesn't it? But I swear, every word I'm writing is true. The old chest freezer in the basement is still humming away, its dull bass frequency like the only heartbeat left in this house. I just closed its heavy lid, and that "thud" felt more final than any tombstone being lowered into place.

I didn't cry. I just felt cold—a bone-deep chill seeping through me, as frigid as the basement's concrete floor. I didn't even bother cleaning up blood because there wasn't any. Mom was simply lying on her bed, skin with that pale, waxy quality of milk left out too long, eyes closed as if merely asleep. A very deep, very sound sleep. She wasn't breathing, and her body had begun to stiffen—that was all I knew for certain. But I didn't call 911, didn't contact the police, didn't even scream. Some strange, calm instinct took over, like a pre-programmed routine activating. I knew exactly what needed to be done.

I picked her up. She was lighter than I'd imagined, as if something unseen had already drained the moisture and weight from her body. I struggled to carry her down the narrow stairs, her limbs knocking against walls and railings at unnatural angles, making hollow, wooden thuds. I had to curl her up like an oversized infant to fit her into the freezer—the one Dad bought when he was still alive to store his hunting trophies. Now it served a new purpose.


After closing the lid, I stood there for what felt like forever, listening to the compressor restart. Hum—hum—hum. Rhythmic and steady, like the soundtrack to some ancient ritual. I turned and walked upstairs, each step feeling like I was walking on clouds. The living room was dark. I didn't bother with lights, just went straight to the couch and collapsed into it. My body was exhausted, but my mind was unnaturally alert—a churning pool of murky water with countless thoughts swirling beneath the surface.

Then I saw it.


Through the massive floor-to-ceiling window, a moon unlike any I'd ever seen hung in the night sky. It was enormous, its edges blurred, as if it had drifted so close to Earth you could almost reach out and touch it. But what truly stole my breath was its color. Not the silvery white of a normal moon, not the warm amber of harvest season, but a deep, dark crimson like coagulated blood. Its light spilled into the room, washing the carpet, furniture, and my skin in a sickly red glow. The entire world seemed dipped in a massive vat of blood.

As I stared transfixed at the Blood Moon, my phone suddenly buzzed in my pocket. The vibration cut through the dead silence like a knife, making me jump. I robotically pulled out my phone and unlocked the screen.

A message from "Unknown Number."

Five words, each separated by periods. Deliberate. Emphatic.

"Do. Not. Look. Directly. At. It."

October 29

I didn't sleep a wink all night.

That text burned into my brain like a hot iron. I immediately called the number back, but only got a robotic female voice telling me it was disconnected. A prank? Too coincidental, too damn cruel. Who would mess with someone who just lost their mother like this? Wait—in everyone else's eyes, I haven't "lost" my mother yet. To the world, I'm just a regular kid living with his mom. Nobody knows what's in that basement freezer.

The realization hit me like a bucket of ice water. Fear wrapped around my heart like strangling vines. What did the sender know? What had they seen?

I leapt from the couch, rushed to the windows, and yanked all the curtains shut. The heavy velvet blocked out that sickening crimson glow, but I didn't feel safer. Instead, the house became an airtight coffin, trapping me with my secrets and that damn humming freezer.

I forced myself to think rationally, like a detective. Mom had heart problems—she'd been to the ER for palpitations several times. Maybe this was just a sudden heart attack with no warning signs. That made sense. And the text? Probably just spam or a virus with freakishly bad timing. As for the Blood Moon… maybe some rare astronomical phenomenon? Pollution or volcanic ash in the atmosphere? I tried searching online, but my signal was garbage. Pages took forever to load before timing out completely.

I gave up. Curled back on the couch, I wrapped myself in a blanket like it could shield me from everything. But I couldn't block out the sounds from below.

The humming of the freezer.

In the dead of night, that sound seemed impossibly loud. And different somehow. No longer the steady mechanical drone, but something with subtle fluctuations—almost like breathing. Then I heard it.

A faint scratching sound.

Like fingernails—or something harder—gently testing the inner wall of the freezer.

Click…

The sound was brief, gone in an instant. Every hair on my body stood on end, my blood turning to ice. I held my breath, muscles tensed, straining to hear. One second. Ten seconds. A minute… Nothing. Just that goddamn humming, almost mocking me now.

"Just a hallucination," I whispered to myself. "Stress. Exhaustion. You need food and rest. You haven't eaten all day."

But my legs were lead weights. I couldn't move an inch. Couldn't face the kitchen, much less that basement door—which now looked like the entrance to hell itself.

To distract myself—to do something, anything—I grabbed this journal. I decided to document everything. Maybe writing down this insanity would make it more real. Or less real. Hell if I know.

I tried to remember Mom—to write down some good memories to fight back against this fear. But all I could see was how she'd been these past few months. Growing quieter, her gaze distant, looking through me rather than at me. Her beloved cooking shows and rom-coms replaced by astronomy documentaries. Her bookshelf filling with volumes I couldn't understand: "Studies on Ancient Sumerian Mythology," "Celtic Moon Worship," "Celestial Bodies, Cycles and Rebirth Rituals."

I remember last month, getting up to pee in the middle of the night and spotting her in the backyard. She was wearing this white nightgown, arranging river stones in weird patterns under the moonlight. I thought she was sleepwalking and called out softly. When she turned, her face was blank, her eyes terrifyingly empty. She just stared at me and said: "Soon, Alex. It's almost time."

"Almost time for what?" I'd asked.

She never answered. Just turned back to her stones.

Looking back, the moon that night wasn't blood-red, but it was unnaturally bright. Her silhouette stretched long in the moonlight—ancient and otherworldly. I'd shivered, chalking it up to midlife crisis or stress. Like an idiot, I ignored all the warning signs.

And now I'm trapped in this house with her cold body while that blood-red moon hangs outside.

The freezer keeps humming. And in that sound, I swear there's something like… anticipation.