The night the sky cracked, no one noticed.
The town of Liora was quiet as always — streetlights flickering, windows glowing warm gold, people pretending their lives were perfectly stitched together. But high above them, the moon trembled.
And then it broke.
Not loudly. Not dramatically.
It fractured like glass under too much pressure.
Only one person looked up at the right moment.
Elara Veyne.
She stood barefoot in her backyard, the cold grass brushing her ankles, her silver eyes fixed on the thin glowing crack spreading across the moon's surface.
Then something fell.
It drifted down like a snowflake made of light and landed softly in the forest beyond her house.
Elara didn't hesitate.
She ran.
The forest was darker than usual, as if the trees were holding their breath. She pushed through branches until she saw it — a small shard of glowing silver resting against a tree root.
It pulsed.
When she touched it, the world tilted.
A whisper filled her ears.
"I didn't mean to leave."
"I was scared."
"I loved her."
Elara gasped and dropped the fragment.
The voices stopped.
Her heart didn't.
This wasn't the first time.
For years now, pieces of the moon had been falling. And every piece carried something broken inside it — memories, grief, apologies, things people never allowed themselves to feel.
Elara collected them.
She kept them in glass jars under her bed.
She didn't know why she was the only one who could see them.
She only knew that if she didn't gather them, the cracks in the sky would grow.
She first noticed the boy three nights later.
He stood at the edge of the forest, watching her.
He looked about her age — tall, dark-haired, with eyes too calm for someone living in a breaking world.
"You're not afraid?" he asked.
Elara froze.
"Of what?"
"The sky falling."
She studied him carefully.
The moonlight touched his feet.
There was no shadow.
Not even a faint one.
Her breath caught.
"You're missing something," she whispered.
He gave a small, almost amused smile. "Am I?"
"Yes."
But she didn't explain.
Because she already knew.
He wasn't missing something.
He had given it away.
His name was Cael.
He appeared every night after that.
They didn't talk much at first. They just walked through the forest while fragments drifted down between them like silent confessions.
One evening, a larger shard fell — brighter than the others.
Elara reached it first.
When she touched it, the whisper wasn't soft.
It was a scream.
A boy crying. Begging.
"Take it away. Please. I don't want to feel this anymore."
The voice was familiar.
Too familiar.
Elara turned slowly.
Cael was staring at her, pale.
"You heard that too, didn't you?" she asked.
He shook his head.
But his hands were trembling.
And for the first time, Elara saw it — not with her eyes, but with her strange, aching heart.
Years ago, when Cael lost his mother, he stood under this very moon and begged the sky to take away his grief.
And something ancient had answered.
The Moon Spirit.
It didn't erase his pain.
It stored it.
Inside the moon.
But pain cannot be imprisoned forever.
It expands.
It cracks.
It demands to be felt.
And Cael's grief was only the beginning.
Every person who swallowed their sorrow, who smiled through heartbreak, who pretended to be fine — their emotions drifted upward, feeding the fracture.
The moon wasn't breaking because it was weak.
It was breaking because humans refused to break.
The cracks spread faster after that.
People in town began acting strangely.
A woman laughed at her husband's funeral.
A child stared blankly after falling and didn't cry.
A couple screamed at each other without knowing why.
Emotions were slipping.
The balance was failing.
And each night, Elara felt weaker.
Because the fragment inside her chest — the one that had entered her when she was ten — was glowing hotter.
Burning.
As if reminding her of something she had forgotten.
The Moon Spirit came to her in a dream.
It had no face. Only light and shadow twisting together.
"You have been my collector," it said softly.
"You carry what they cannot."
Elara's voice shook. "How do I stop this?"
"There is only one way."
The fragments must return.
Not to the moon.
To humanity.
Every hidden grief. Every buried tear. Every denied love.
Released at once.
"But what happens to me?" she asked.
The Spirit was quiet for a long time.
"You will become ordinary. And you will forget the boy whose sorrow began this."
The final night felt too calm.
The cracks covered half the sky.
Stars flickered like dying sparks.
Elara climbed the highest cliff outside Liora, carrying the jars in her arms.
Cael followed her.
"Tell me what's happening," he demanded, his voice breaking.
She looked at him — really looked at him — at the emptiness in his eyes, at the missing shadow that should have been there.
"You asked the sky to take your pain," she said gently. "It listened."
His face went white.
"I would never—"
"You did."
The wind howled around them.
The moon split wider.
Elara opened the first jar.
Silver light burst into the air.
Then the second.
Then all of them.
Thousands of glowing fragments rose like a reversed snowfall, shooting into the sky before exploding outward in a wave of light.
Across the world, people collapsed to their knees.
Crying.
Screaming.
Laughing.
Confessing.
Feeling.
Cael fell too.
For the first time since his mother died, the grief hit him fully.
It knocked the air from his lungs.
He sobbed.
And as he did—
A shadow stitched itself back to his feet.
Morning came softly.
The moon was whole again.
Smooth.
Unbroken.
Elara stood at the edge of the cliff, quiet.
Cael approached her slowly.
She turned to him with gentle confusion.
"Do I know you?" she asked.
His chest tightened.
He could tell her everything.
He could beg her to remember.
But this time, he chose something different.
He chose to feel.
"Yes," he said quietly. "You saved me."
She smiled politely — the kind of smile you give a stranger.
And walked past him.
But as sunlight touched her face, a faint shimmer flickered beneath her skin.
Because some magic does not disappear.
It waits.
And high above, the moon glowed — not cold and distant anymore.
But warm.
As if it had finally learned how to feel.
✨ The End… or maybe just the beginning.