Sacrifice For Lady Moon

“Let go of me!”

I struggled against their arms, but it was no use. These guards were probably used to the struggling of people like me, chosen to be sacrificed to Lady Moon. But there was no way anyone would see me like this. If there was one thing the Church of the Moon excelled at, it was hiding their secrets.

The guards forcefully led me down the corridor, but I had no idea how closer we were to my impending doom. The whole building had nearly identical white walls that seemed to stretch for an eternity. Even if I had a chance to escape, I’m not sure if I could have found the exits. My only chance out would have been jumping out of the window, and from this height, it would have been the same as just letting them sacrifice me. 

Through the widows, I saw the Lady Moon in her entirety. There were no clouds out tonight, just her looking directly at me, her next meal. There was some debate about whether this was Lady Moon’s true body, or simply just a small fraction of it. In the past, it was believed that what we saw was simply one of the eyes of Lady Moon, and the night sky was her face. People speculated that Lady Moon’s other eye was far away and always looking at one of her other children. 

None of that mattered. To me religion was a worthless lie used to control people, but this lie was now getting me killed. All because of my mother’s actions. 

I exerted more effort into breaking away from the guards when I finally saw the door at the end of the corridor. I yanked as hard as I could, but my arms were firmly in the guards’ grips and my legs were sore from my attempts at dragging us to a halt. The guards meanwhile showed no sign of strain. When we reached the door, I didn’t bother fighting when they led me into my prison and locked me in.

Moments later, a priest stood by the other side of my door and waved to me through the widow. She wore white robes that would have let her blend in the walls if it weren’t for her dark skin. She looked at me with compassion, but I could tell from her eyes that she thought this was the best for me. I ignored her, desperate for any sort of resistance, no matter how small or petty. The priest didn’t seem to notice my anger and pressed a button to speak to me through the speakers.

“Hello, Sheen, I’m your priest. I’ll be keeping you company before you leave us today.”

I glared at her, but didn’t respond. 

She nodded like she had expected this and continued. “If you don’t mind, I’ll start. ‘In the beginning there was only Lady Moon and Lord Sun. They were alone and they were lonely. Lord Sun suggested that they should have a child, and she agreed. Soon their daughter Earth was born. Lady Moon loved her daughter dearly and gave her gifts: humanity. Lord Sun was jealous of his own daughter, so one day-’”

“Don’t bother,” I interrupted. “I don’t believe in any of that stuff.”

The priest didn’t change her expression, which only enraged me further. Angrier, I said, “You know what I think of your religion? It’s a scam! There is no way that rock in the sky is a goddess, there is no way that the planet we live on is that rock’s daughter, and there is no way that fiery ball of light in the sky is my real father!”

“So how do you think your mother got pregnant with you, if it wasn’t her husband or Lord Sun that impregnated her?”

“Isn’t it obvious? She cheated on her husband and blamed the affair on this ‘Lord Sun.’”

“Sheen, think about it. Does your mother seem like the type to cheat?”

“Does anyone?” I said bitterly. “She may not have seemed like the type, but she clearly was. Otherwise she wouldn’t have been pregnant with me.”

“From what I heard, she didn’t want to be pregnant.”

“Yeah? Well who would want to get knocked up by the guy they’re having an affair with?”

“Sheen.” The priest said my name again, but this time more forcefully. For the first time I noticed the pain and fear in her expression, things that she had been trying to hide from me before. This abrupt change got me to give her my full attention.

“Your mother,” she said, “did your father or anyone who knew her tell you how she was before she had you? Or have you seen pictures of her before her pregnancy?”

I thought about what little I knew about my mother with surprising difficulty. I didn’t realize until then how much I had tried to repress her from my mind. But with the priest’s words, I remembered a photo album I would flip through occasionally. A photo album filled with pictures of my mom.

Looking at that album was the only time I felt like I knew my real mother, instead of the depressed woman who stayed inside and cried too often. In it I saw pictures of a baby, happy and ready for a bright future. Then I saw her as a child my age, and the bright smile that would stay the same even as she grew. The photos grew less frequent as she became a teenager and a young adult, but then this hiatus was made up for with numerous pictures of her and her future husband. When I saw photos of their dates, wedding, and vacations, I wondered what changed about them that led to my mother cheating on him, forever keeping them apart even when they were together. There were no pictures of her pregnancy in that album.

“So,” the priest said, nodding, “you understand.”

I wanted to argue with her, that this didn’t prove anything, but I couldn’t find the energy to fight.

“I was like you too,” the priest said. “Convinced that I was being fed lies. Then I met Lord Sun.”

My eyes widened. “You?” I asked incredulously.

“Yes. Lord Sun chooses who he pleases. Even if I was a priest back then, I doubt that would have stopped him.”

I felt sick in my stomach. Not because of her story and not even because of my fate. I felt sick thinking about the world and how insane everything was. With as much gentleness I could muster, I said, “I’m sorry about what happened to you, but don’t you think that your pregnancy was-”

“No,” the priest replied with a certainty that unnerved me. “Trust me, I asked myself the same thing for years, but no.”

I was speechless. It was hard enough to understand a naive belief, but how could I respond to a belief that was so horrible and unsettling? Who would even want to believe this? But before I could vocalize these thoughts, she continued.

“I saw Lord Sun in my dreams, and I can attest that what we see in the sky is not his true form,” she said intensely. “It is only one of his eyes. The other one is galaxies away, Sheen, so far that humanity will never be able to reach it, no matter how far we progress. Lord Sun will blink and erase us from existence before we have the chance.”

I shook when I heard her describe her dreams. It was believed by many that Lord Sun would one day grow tired of humanity and end the universe, but this was the first time I had heard about a blink. Suddenly the idea that what we saw in the sky was the gods’ eyes filled me with dread rather than amusement. 

“His face is always changing. Sometimes blue, purple, red, yellow, but I couldn’t tell you what anything else looked like. I didn’t dare to look below me and see his body, and his smile.” She snapped out of her trance. “I’m sorry, I’ve said too much.”

She took one last glance and repeated how sorry she was. She walked away and left me alone.

I sat in my prison for what felt like ages, and then felt the entire room shake. Feeling the room lurch upwards and seeing the white corridor in front of the window descend, I knew the rocket had finally taken off. I closed my eyes and waited to become another sacrifice for Lady Moon.