Moon.

| Moon | four

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"She's out."

"Start the procedure."

"Send someone to clean up that mess."

"Make sure you do it right."

"We can't mess this up."

"... the... moon."

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Beep. Beep. Beep.

Where am I?

Voices

Are

Ringing

In

My ears.

What happened?

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"Miss, wake up." What? Who's saying that? What happened, and where am I?

"Excuse me, Miss Maisy. Your procedure went well."

I snap up into a sitting position, opening my eyes. The harsh white light of the room shocks me, blinding me for a moment. "Ah!" I close my eyes again, putting my hands over them. A person rubs my back comfortingly.

"Easy there, Miss." I open my eyes again, this time slowly, to look at the person standing next to me.

I cock my head to the side. "And you are?" I ask. I haven't met this girl yet.

She offers a small smile. "Megan. I'm the nurse who's going to take care of you. I work for Doctor Morgan."

"Okay."

"Do you need anything? I can get you some food if you like." She adjusts her grip on the clipboard she's holding.

I look around the room absentmindedly. "No. I'm good, thanks." I mutter.

I'm guessing she gets the message that I want to be left alone, because she starts to prepare to leave. "Well, if you need anything, there's. A call button near your bed. Just press it when you need something. I'll be coming to check on you everyday, and occasionally, Doctor Morgan will too. Again, just call me if you need anything." She smiles again at me, heading for the door.

I don't look up. "Wait." I whisper.

She turns. "Yes?" 

I look at her. "Am I... am I full?" I say, my voice small.

She gives me a small nod. "As of right now. We are not sure. We're gonna have to check within the next four to six weeks to confirm. But we usually do not fail in our procedures, so I would say that you are. Congratulations."
I take a deep breath in, not believing. I bring my hand to my stomach instinctively. "Thank you." I mutter as she leaves. I look down at my still flat stomach. I'm officially a moonmother now. There's no going back. I'm going to have a moon.

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The past few weeks have just been me and my makeshift paintings, Megan's checkups, the occasional checkup from Doctor Morgan, and my bed. It's been two weeks, so I'm assuming that they will come to make sure that I'm doing alright for the moonchild, just in case. I run my makeshift brush over the paper, leaving dark streaks of purple on the page.

A knock sounds on the door. I put the brush in a cup of water and brush my hands off on my maker gown-similar to those they give to patients in the hospital. I get up from my bed, going over to open the door. "Hello?" I say as the door swings open.

Megan stands there, grinning. "I brought something for you!" She exclaims, holding a small box and run-walking over to the bed. She sets my things aside and sits down. I laugh at her, shaking my head. Megan and I have somewhat become friends over the span of these past few weeks.

"What is it?" I ask, joining her on the bed.

She looks at me, her hazel eyes sparkling like they do when she's excited about something.
"It's a game!"

I give her a look. "A game? Like those games we played as moonchildren?"

She lets out a light laugh. "No... more of like, a game on a board." She replies.

I tilt my head to the side. "Oh?" How is that supposed to work? "How?"

She opens the bow carefully, pulling out a board, cards, and what seems like small pieces of plastic. "I'll show you." She says, setting the thing up. "So basically, the card tells you where to go and what to do, these pieces over here-" she explains, pointing to the small pieces of plastic at one corner of the board. "-and then the board is a pathway that you have to get across, except it's not as easy as it sounds because there are challenges on the way there and you're racing against whoever you're playing with."

"Racing?" I say, thinking about the running races I did as a moonchild. "How do you race with pieces of plastic? That's kind of..." I trail off.

"Not very smart?" She finishes for me.

I nod. "Yeah. You can only race with your feet."

She shakes her head slightly. "That's the run thing about this game. You can race with these pieces and then there are challenges along the way."

"Where'd you get this anyways?"

She shuffles the cards. "The historic museum. Apparently there was a lot of stuff they needed to get rid of."

"Mmm." I reply. I didn't know that they just gave things to citizens.

"Let's play?" She looks up expectantly at me.

I pretend to ponder for a moment before answering. "Sure."

We attempt to play for about an hour, but it ends up as a failure, because Megan had to remind me how to do things over and over again. Nevertheless, it was quite fun, and it felt nice to have something new to do.

Knock. Knock. Knock.

Megan and I look up from what we're doing. "I'll get it." Megan says, standing up.

"Ok."

She opens the door. "Oh hey, Doctor Morgan!" She swings the door open a bit wider before Doctor Morgan steps inside the room, with a clipboard as usual.

"Hello. How're you, Maisy?"

I shrug my shoulders. "I'm fine I guess. Nothing really has been happening lately, besides a few headaches."

"Hmmm." She ponders for a moment. "Okay, well, we're gonna run a few tests, you two keep doing whatever you're doing." Her gaze trails over to the board on my bed. A confused look washes over her face. "Where'd you get that?" She looks at me.

I point to Megan. "It's from her. She said she got it from the history museum." I reply
She looks suspiciously at my friend.

Megan shrinks in her chair, but I don't know why. "Y-yeah." Megan stutters.

Doctor Morgan continues to run some tests, but she doesn't say anything else after that besides a short "Goodbye ladies."

Sooner or later, Megan, too, has to leave to work. I give her my farewells as she exits, taking the box with her. With nothing else to do, I lay down my head and rest it on the pillow, drifting off into dreamland.

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