The countdown echoed through the intercom.
"Ten… nine… eight…"
Arin closed his eyes.
Inside his helmet, the sound of his own breath was loud, trembling.
All the faces he'd lost flashed before him — his mother's smile, his small house that always smelled of smoke and rain, the nights when he sat on the rooftop staring at the silver moon.
"Seven… six…"
He whispered softly, "Mom… I made it."
The rocket engines roared.
The ship trembled, and for the first time in his life, the boy who had once been mocked for dreaming too big was breaking free from the pull of gravity itself.
He didn't cry.
He didn't shout.
He simply looked out of the window — watching the blue Earth shrinking beneath him, glowing like a fragile marble.
For Arin, it wasn't just a planet.
It was his home, his promise, his past.
Fifteen Years Earlier
Rain leaked through the cracked ceiling.
A small boy sat beside an old television, watching a rocket launch in black and white.
His mother lay in bed, coughing softly.
"Mom," the boy whispered, "one day I'll go there… to the moon."
His mother smiled weakly.
"Then promise me, Arin," she said, her voice trembling.
"When you reach the moon… you'll come back. Promise you'll return."
He nodded without hesitation.
He didn't yet understand how heavy that promise would become.
Present – Lunar Surface
The metallic floor of the moon base hummed beneath his boots.
Arin's visor reflected the endless gray landscape, a dead ocean of dust and silence.
His team floated nearby — Lira, the medic; Kai, the engineer; and Professor Ren, the mission commander.
"Mission Luna-13, complete," the voice from their console said.
"Samples secured. Preparing for extraction."
Lira's scanner beeped suddenly.
"Wait… I'm detecting something strange."
Professor Ren frowned. "What kind of reading?"
She turned the display toward them — faint, rhythmic pulses.
"Organic activity," she whispered.
Ren shook his head. "That's impossible. There's no life on the moon."
They followed the signal and found a small piece of rock buried beneath the surface — faintly glowing, almost breathing.
They sealed it carefully in a containment box.
None of them spoke again for a long time.
Return to Earth
Inside the shuttle, silence filled the cabin.
As they entered Earth's atmosphere, the planet below glowed faintly — no city lights, no air traffic, no signal.
Only darkness.
"Feels… wrong," Kai murmured.
Arin frowned. "Where's the control signal? Mission Command, do you copy?"
Static. No reply.
The Earth looked asleep.
Too still. Too quiet.
Landing Site – Day 1
Their capsule touched down near the coast.
Arin was the first to step out.
The air smelled strange — metallic, burnt, and rotten.
"Check radiation," Professor Ren ordered.
Lira scanned the ground. "Levels normal… but…" she hesitated.
"What is that smell?"
A figure stumbled through the mist.
A man — or something that used to be one.
His skin was pale, his eyes empty, his movements jerky like a broken machine.
"Sir!" Kai shouted. "Someone's alive!"
Before they could move, the man screamed — a sharp, inhuman sound — and rushed at them with impossible speed.
Lira fired her shock gun, the body fell twitching on the ground.
Silence again.
Only the wind moved.
Professor Ren knelt beside the body.
The veins were black. The skin — decayed.
He looked at Arin, his face pale behind the visor.
This isn't human anymore," he said quietly.
Arin's hand trembled.
He looked up at the sky — at the same moon he had once dreamed of reaching.
Now it stared back like a curse.
He whispered,
We went to the moon to escape our limits…
But Earth has already escaped humanity.