Two boys, One moon, a shared awakening.
Lior
The cold came all at once.
One second, Lior was dreaming of fireflies dancing in a field. The next, his breath fogged the air, and his sheets felt like they'd been soaked in ice water. He sat up, shivering, heart pounding in his chest.
The moonlight filtered through the window in thick beams, almost too bright, casting strange patterns on the walls. The shadows looked wrong, too sharp, too alive.
He swung his legs over the edge of the bed and padded across the creaky wooden floor, drawn to the window like a tide pulling him in. The village was silent below. No lights, no motion. Just the glow of the full moon, impossibly large and luminous. The Percious Moon, that's what the townsfolk had called it earlier that day.
"A rare thing," the baker had said to Miriam. "Only rises once every generation. Said to reveal hidden truths."
Lior didn't know what that meant.
But something deep inside him did.
He reached out to touch the window.
The instant his fingertips met the glass, a spiderweb of frost burst outward with a crackling hiss, racing across the pane like lightning. Lior yanked his hand back but the frost stayed, forming a perfect pattern: a crescent moon split down the middle.
He stared at it, wide-eyed.
Then the burn started.
A strange, searing heat curled around his wrist. He looked down and saw it a faint, silver mark glowing beneath his skin. Not drawn. Not tattooed. Branded. It pulsed once, then faded, leaving only a faint shimmer behind.
He stumbled back, clutching his wrist.
The door creaked open behind him.
Lior?" Miriam's voice was sleepy, concerned. "Are you alright?"
He turned quickly, hiding his arm. "Y-yeah. Just… couldn't sleep."
She eyed him. "You're pale."
"I'm fine."He didnt want to worry his adopted mum.
A pause. Then she nodded, stepping back.
"Alright. Come downstairs if you need anything."
When the door closed, Lior looked back at the frost-covered window.
The crescent moon split in two stared back at him.
Somewhere, far away, something was changing.
Kael
The belt cracked before it landed.
Kael didn't flinch.
He had learned long ago that flinching made it worse. Mr. Matthew's face was red and twisted with rage, spittle flying from his mouth as he screamed something about disobedience, backtalk, and being a worthless freak.
Kael didn't hear the words anymore. Just the rhythm of the belt. The sour breath. The tension in his chest that never seemed to go away.
But tonight felt… different.
His bones ached. His vision blurred at the edges. His ears rang with a low, metallic hum.
The moonlight poured through the cracked kitchen window like liquid silver, hitting the tiles where Kael stood and something inside him snapped.
The belt came down one last time
but never landed.
It stopped mid-air.
Everything froze.
The air turned thick, charged, vibrating with invisible energy. The lights flickered. The shadows along the wall twitched then stretched, crawling like fingers across the room.
Mr. Matthew gasped and dropped the belt. "What the hell?"
Kael stood slowly, blood dripping from his lip and then he felt the soaring burn on his arm a tatoo imprinted on his skin.
He raised one hand.
The shadows responded.
They slithered across the floor, wrapped around furniture, and coiled up the legs of the man who had hurt him for years.
Mr. Matthew screamed as the table beside him exploded into splinters. The windows shattered outward. Cabinets flew open. The refrigerator slammed against the wall.
Kael didn't touch anything.
He just breathed.
The shadows obeyed.
And then just as quickly as it had started it stopped.
Mr. Matthison cowered in the corner, eyes wide with terror. "W-what are you…?"
Kael turned and walked away.
He didn't answer.
He didn't need to.
Later That Night
Two boys stood beneath the same sky.
Lior sat by his window, his silver-marked wrist pressed to his chest, staring up at the moon that no longer felt like just a moon. It felt like a mirror.
Kael stood outside the broken house, shirt torn, blood on his face, the wind tugging at his hair. He looked up, too.
They couldn't see each other.
They didn't know each other.
But they felt it.
A crack in the world.
A pull in their hearts.
A silent voice whispering the same truth into both their bones:
You are not alone.