The Green Blood Moon

“Let me go!” shouted the man.

“Don’t worry, we’re just trying to help you. We have been looking for you for the past thirty-two years.” Suddenly it all went black.

It was around midnight in Manhattan, and the lights were shining bright and glimmering on the wet pavement as traffic finally started to die down for the evening. Jack Harding was walking in and out of shops and restaurants that looked interesting. He walked out of a fancy sneaker store, and a group of people in black clothing held a cloth with toxic poison in his mouth, making him fall asleep, and carried him out into an alleyway to overview his body.

“It’s true. His eyes are green,” said a low, husky voice.

“All of us have red eyes,” said the voice of a young woman.

“Who knows who the DNA could have mixed with? But we all have red eyes. I knew I was right- he wasn’t a member of the Blood Moons,” smugly quipped a gruff male. “See why you should listen to me?”

“What? Where am I?” said Jack sleepily. He blearily opened his eyes and looked at the people in black turtlenecks and masks that reminded him of The Phantom of the Opera, wondering what was happening.

“You are with your people-”

“No, you’re not. We failed. Father Haruto will be so mad at us when we don’t bring him back- again.”

“Like I was saying, Jack, you are with your people. We have been waiting to find you for our entire lives. Now that we found you, our next mission is to bring you back. Thankfully, it isn’t too far. We just need you to take another dose of this medicine,” the husky voice said, about to put the cloth back over his mouth.

“No! I want to know who you are and what you are doing to me. I will not let you take me unless I know your intentions,” he yelled in their faces, causing shock in the group.

“He doesn’t remember us. That’s too bad,” sadly whined the female. “Connor, can you mix up some Odyseyxin, you know, the remembering medicine?”

“I don’t need any medicine, and I don’t need you to tell me who I am. Let me go, and I won’t call the police, you kidnappers!” said Jack, growing furious.

“Garner has the recipe, Rosie. He won’t give it to me because I stole his candy canes,” said Connor.

“Never steal me candy canes,” Garner almost yelled. 

“Anyways,” Rosie said, rolling her eyes. She had hot pink hair and a stick-thin body. “Father Haruto thinks you are a member of the Blood Moons, a secret society. We control the economy and help the government by catching people who have done bad things and are a threat to society. So basically, we aren’t bad people, but only certain people are allowed to be in our society. Members of the Blood Moons are members as soon as they are born, and they all have red eyes. Even though you have green eyes, we think you could be a member of society.”

Jack seemed to trust her over the men, so he believed them, but he still had so many questions. “If I am part of it, why don’t I have red eyes? Who is Father Haruto, and why does he think I could be a member?”

“We will explain it all later, but first we need to take you to the office. Come with us and we will give you some answers,” said Connor, motioning for him to follow them.

The office was on the top floor of one of the tallest skyscrapers in Manhattan. The walls were black with a big red moon painted on one of the walls. Black cubicles separated the workers, who all had the same red eyes and the same outfits, and the same masks. They all worked at black desks with computers that seemed to have neon green binary code covering the screens and wrote in some secret code in spiral-bound composition notebooks. The group pulled Jack into a big room separated from the rest of the office. The walls were black and there was one big glass wall overlooking the city. An old Japanese man with an angry look on his face eyed him suspiciously as if he had just witnessed him stealing candy from a child. 

“So he does have green eyes,” said Father Haruto in a deep voice. “How intriguing. Jack, come here. I want to take a good look at you.”

Jack sat down at a black leather swivel chair and started slowly spinning around until he noticed Father Haruto was giving him ‘the look,’ remembering that this was a prestigious society that only certain people were allowed to be in.

Father Haruto closed his eyes and rubbed his hands on his forehead. He murmured as he concentrated on his thoughts over anything else in the room. “Yes, yes… Jack, I do believe that you are a Blood Moon. But how do you have those eyes? All members reproduce with members. Unless… No. It can’t be possible. That was centuries ago.”

“What was centuries ago?” Jack asked curiously. Everyone knew more about the agency’s history than he, but this was just something he had to know because it seemed to have something to do with him. When he asked, everybody in the room fell quiet. 

“Six hundred years ago,” Rosie shyly said, “A man named Lucas P. James was the most advanced member of our precious Blood Moons in history. But at first, nobody believed him because of his eyes- the same grassy green shade you have. The regulars have even heard this story, so we had them coming in left and right pretending to be part of the Moons. Eventually, we accidentally let someone in who destroyed all of our hard work, so we couldn’t ever trust anyone without our red eyes again.”

“But you, when Connor tracked you down, we went through all of your files- we have tons of data on every regular- and our department of genealogy came to the conclusion that you indeed were one of us,” said Father Haruto, relieved to finally know the truth. Even his impeccable mind couldn’t solve this case alone. But now that they knew, Jack could be another addition to the team and help the country.

Almost fifty years later, Jack still works for the Blood Moons and has been the most helpful member there has been. Thanks to him, the stock market has been higher than ever, and led the criminal justice team to catch several people such as Jeffrey Dahmer, Charles Manson, and Ted Kaczynski. He replaced Father Haruto after he passed as the leader, and he will go down in Blood Moon history.