What the Night Keeps
BY: A.D.Kay
1
The bus station smells like overheated brakes and old rain. Luna steps onto the sidewalk with one bag and the kind of exhaustion that no amount of sleep will take away. NYC is brighter than she expected. Not cheerful. Not warm. Just bright in a way that feels intrusive. She checks her phone. No messages, no missed calls. Just the same lock screen from before. She turns it face down and shoves it into her pocket.
Traffic slides past her in silver streaks. Digital billboards flicker advertisements for things that promise clarity: skin care, investment portfolios, and productivity apps. She adjusts the strap of her bag and tilts her face down. The directions to her new apartment are written down on a folded piece of paper in her pocket. She doesn’t take it out because she wants to look like she belongs.
She walks three blocks the wrong way before she realizes it. When she stops, the city doesn’t stop with her. People stream past, irritation flickering across their faces. She steps aside, pressing her back to the cool brick of the building. Pulling out the piece of paper, she unfolds it. Reading the directions, she exhales and turns around. As she walks, a strange awareness settles over her. It feels like the air itself is paying attention to her. She shakes her head. Her brain must be misfiring from exhaustion.
Her apartment building is narrow, beige, and trying very hard to look renovated. The hallway smells like fresh paint over something older and damp. The landlord left the key under a mat that reads “WELCOME” in aggressive block letters.
Inside, the apartment is smaller than the listing implied. One window. One radiator. One kitchen that looks like it was trying to be more than it is. She sets her suitcase down and looks out the window. A tree wedged between sidewalk concrete and the building across the alleyway. Bent almost sideways, as if it changed its mind halfway through growing. The trunk twists before angling upward in a stubborn hook. Most of its branches are bare, though it is too early in the season for that to make sense. It looks tired. It looks like its trying to apologize for existing where it doesn’t belong. She presses her fingers to the glass.
“It grew wrong.” She murmurs
Her phone buzzes in her pocket. For a split second, her chest tightens with reflexive hope as she pulls out her phone. Just an email notification. She pulls open her messages and opens her sister’s thread. Three messages sent over the last two weeks.
We should talk
I’m sorry
I made it to the city
All marked delivered. None answered. Her sister’s silence feels louder than the traffic below.
Luna sinks onto the edge of the narrow bed. The mattress springs complain. She stares at her hands. They still remember the texture of the hospital sheets. How they felt when she adjusted them around her mother’s legs. Legs that had swollen twice their size. She had been there when her mom was first in the hospital. But everyone told her to go ahead on the trip, that her mom would be fine. She truly thought her mom would be fine. She was wrong.
The since-deleted voicemail stated they were putting her on life support. The text message said that the day after she got back, they were “pulling the plug”. Something her sister decided on her own, since Luna wasn’t there. When she arrived, the extended family had filled the waiting room. The death rattle. That is not something they show in the movies. That awful sound that will never go away.
The radiator hisses. Luna stands abruptly and moves back to the window. The crooked tree sways slightly in the wind. One thin branch knocks against the building in irregular taps. It should have been cut down by now. Yet it stands. Bent. Asymmetrical. Unfinished.
A delivery truck pulls into the alleyway. For a second, she thinks she sees something shimmer in the chest of the man who hops out, like heat above asphalt, but when she blinks, it’s gone. She rubs her eyes. Lack of sleep. That’s all.
The tree catches the late afternoon light. Not enough to make it beautiful. Just enough to outline its fractures. She watches a little longer, unable to look away. Her phone buzzes again. Unknown number. Her thumb lingers over the red phone symbol for a second before she decides to move it to the other side to answer. Static for half a second. Then a recorded voice, smooth and measured:
“Helios Neural Solutions invites you to discover a future free from unnecessary suffering. Grief is a neurological pattern. Patterns can be changed.”
She hangs up before it finishes. Outside, the wind sharpens. The crooked tree bends farther than seems safe. But it does not break. Luna exhales slowly.
“I’m not broken,” she says to the empty room.
It sounds less convincing out loud. The light outside refuses to soften. She pulls the thin curtain halfway across the window, leaving a gap. Just enough to keep the tree in view. It is proof that something can grow wrong and remain alive.
2
The coffee shop is narrow and overheated, all exposed brick and hanging plants trying hard to look alive. Having to dodge under some scaffolding that seems to be everywhere here, Luna chose this place because it is close to her apartment.
She orders something with a long name and takes the small table by the window. She opens her laptop. Stares at the blank screen, closes it. From the table next to her, a guitar hums softly. Not a performance. Just someone working through chords without commitment. She glances up.
A guy about her age sits hunched over an acoustic guitar, notebook open on the table beside him. He plays four chords, stops, scratches something out in his notebook, tries again. His forehead was creased, and his whole body seemed tense, except for one foot tapping impatiently. She looks down at her cup. He plays the progression again. This time, he sings, barely above the sound of the espresso machine.
“Didn’t know the last time was the last time.” His voice cracks slightly. He stops, swears under his breath.
“That line’s not bad,” Luna says before she can stop herself.
He looked up, startled. His eyes are tired in a familiar way.
“Yeah?” he asks
“It sounds honest.” She says
He studies her for a second, as if deciding whether she is mocking him.
“I’m Jacob,” he says.
“Luna.”
He nods towards her laptop. “Writer?”
“Supposed to be, once I am done with school.” She says, “Online classes.”
He smiles faintly.
“How long have you played the guitar?” She asks
“Most of my life, my dad taught me.”
There it is again, what she saw from the delivery driver yesterday. That flicker. Not light exactly. More like heat distortion in the air. Something subtle but concentrated, just beneath his chest, when he says ‘dad’. Her chest tightens in response, but she keeps her face unresponsive.
“He used to write songs in the kitchen,” Jacob continues. “Nothing big, just stuff about work. About my mom. About burnt toast.” He laughs softly. “He said if you can write about small things, you can survive big ones.”
The ember flickers stronger when he smiles. “What about you?” he asks. “Why are you supposed to be a writer?”
“My mom liked that I wrote,” she says. Past tense. The word hangs there. His posture shifts almost imperceptibly.
“Oh,” he says gently.
“Yeah.”
Outside, a delivery truck rumbles past. She realizes that she can see the crooked tree from here. Jacob follows her gaze.
“That tree looks like it gave up on growing up all the way.” He says.
“It didn’t give up,” she says. “It just…adapted.
“Yeah,” he says quietly. “Maybe.”
He looks down at his notebook again. “I can’t finish anything since he died,” he admits. “Every song turns into the same thing.”
“Which is?”
“Missing him.”
There’s no self-pity in it. Just exhaustion. The ember in his chest pulses once, faintly. Luna feels something shift in her own ribs, like she has her own spark.
“I didn’t take my mom’s sickness seriously; I thought she would be fine.” She says, surprising herself.
His eyes lift immediately.
“I was there right before she died,” she adds. “But it doesn’t feel like it counts.”
He nods slowly. “I was there the whole time,” he says. “And I still feel like I didn’t do enough.”
Those last words hit her right in the gut. She knows that feeling. The space between them changes. Not lighter, more precise. Above the counter, the mounted television flickers to a live broadcast. The volume is low, captions rolling beneath a pristine stage backdrop. A man in a tailored suit stands under bright lights.
“I am Apollo Legein, founder and CEO of Helios Neural Solutions. I am here to tell you that grief is not a moral obligation, the captions read. “It is a neurological pattern. And patterns can be redesigned.”
The shop quiets suddenly as someone turns up the volume and people glance up to watch. Apollo smiles, which Luna believes is supposed to show compassion. But she doesn’t buy it. But she notices that Jacob is hanging on his every word.
“You deserve clarity. You deserve peace. We are offering free trials for everyone under twenty-five.” Apollo continues, his voice very smooth. “Neural recalibration. Memory smoothing. Getting rid of every bad thing that has happened to you.”
Luna’s stomach tightens, but almost everyone in the café starts applauding. She picks up bits and pieces of their conversations. Some have gone through the procedure and highly recommend it; others know someone who has. She looks back at Jacob, and his spark in his chest flickers unevenly, like a candle in the wind.
“You ever think about it?” he asks
Luna thinks about the hospital room. The antiseptic smell. The slow tears falling from her mom’s eyes, which the nurse said was Lacrima mortis. The begging for her to wake up, at least one more time, to tell her she loved her. If she removed the pain, would her memories of her mom dull too?
“I don’t know,” she says honestly.
“I am tired of writing songs that hurt,” he admits. The spark dims slightly when he says hurt. Not gone, but softer.
“Coffee tomorrow?” he asks. “You tell me if the next line is terrible.”
She hesitates, but… “Okay,” she says
He smiles properly this time. The smile reaches his eyes, and his spark flares back. On the television, Apollo continues to speak about letting go of the past. That is when she notices that the people who claimed to have the procedure done have no spark in their chest.
3
The next afternoon, the coffee shop was louder. Midterms, someone explains to no one in particular. Laptops everywhere. Espresso machines are screaming. Jacob is already there when Luna walks in. No guitar today. Just his phone on the table, screen lit up. He looks up, and when he sees her, smiles.
“You came,” he says
“You asked.” She sits at the table with him this time, watching his hands rather than his face, as he turns the phone toward her.
Helios Neural Solutions
The interface is white, impossibly white. A thin gold sun icon rotates gently in the corner.
“I signed up for a consultation,” he says quickly. “It’s not the procedure. Just…information.”
Luna can’t think of anything to say to him. How could she, of all people, tell him not to get information on how to make his grief go away? She leans in closer. The screen reads:
WELCOME TO HELIOS
Grief is not your identity. It is a pattern. Let’s understand yours so you can let go of the past. On a scale of 1-10, how disruptive is your emotional distress?
“What did you put?” she asks.
“Eight,” he says. Then after a beat, “Nine.” He scrolls down.
Which memories feel intrusive? Select all that apply.
-Hospital Rooms -Final conversations-Regret statements -Sensory flashbacks -Sleep disturbances
His thumb hovers over hospital rooms.
“They’re not saying you forget the person,” he says. “Just the memories that make you feel bad, that hijacks your mind.”
“Hijacks your mind?” she asks quietly.
“Yeah, hijack, where I can’t breathe when I think about it.” His jaw tightens. “The part where I hear the machines.”
There. It happens again. The flicker in his chest. Stronger now because he is thinking about it. Luna sees it clearly this time. A concentrated, living ache. It pulses once, then steadies.
“What if that’s supposed to happen?” she asks
He looks at her, searching for something in her eyes. “Why would it be?”
She doesn’t know how to explain what she means. That pain feels alive. That it moves. That when he talks about his father, something in him brightens instead of dims.
“They say the brain loops trauma because it doesn’t know the threat is over,” he says, scrolling again. A video begins playing automatically. Apollo Legein appears, seated in a minimalist office flooded with unnatural light. No tie, sleeves rolled up just enough to look accessible.
“We are not designed to suffer indefinitely,” he says, voice calm, precise. “Grief once had an evolutionary purpose. But prolonged distress is a malfunction of neural patterning. And malfunctions can be corrected.”
The gold sun icon replaces Apollo in the video. Jacob continues to watch, as if he is studying something sacred.
“I just want to write again,” he says. “Every song turns into the same pitiful poor me.”
The spark in his chest flickers again, uneven this time, not dimmer but agitated. Outside the window, the crooked tree shudders in a gust of wind. One leaf breaks free and spirals downward to the sidewalk. It feels like a bad omen to her.
“Do you think,” Jacob says carefully, “that your mom would want you to feel like this forever?”
Luna shifts in her seat, and she doesn’t move her eyes from the tree.
“I don’t know,” Luna says.
The crooked tree. Her mother often sat in the backyard during late afternoons, beneath their own crooked tree that leaned toward the fence dividing their yard from the neighbors’. She would tilt her head back and say, “Storms make roots stubborn.” Luna used to roll her eyes at this. Now, she cannot recall the exact sound of her own laugh without feeling the ache that accompanies it. If she could remove the ache, would her laugh return?
Jacob taps hospital rooms, and the option turns gold. The sparks in his chest react again, but this time it recoils. Like something flinching. Luna inhales sharply.
“You okay?” he asks.
“Yes.”
“I’m just tired of missing him in ways that make me feel like I am drowning,” he says.
The spark wavers again. She looks at him, trying to read the emotion in his eyes.
“If it stops hurting,” she asks, “what happens to the part that loves him?”
“It stays,” he says immediately. “That’s what they promise.”
4
The blackout happens three nights later. Not during a storm, not during a heatwave. Luna is half asleep on her blankets, still in the clothes she wore all day. The glow of her phone was dimming beside her. She had texted her sister again.
I know you’re mad. But I was scared too.
She hasn’t pressed send. She isn’t sure she wants to. Outside, traffic thins. The crooked tree is a silhouette against the streetlight. Her phone buzzes. Jacob:
I booked it.
She sits up as her throat tightens. She types three responses, then deletes them all. The radiator hisses as the streetlights flicker once, twice. Then everything went dark. The city drops into absolute darkness. No hum of electricity, no digital glow from the billboards, and no traffic signals blinking in the distance. For one impossible second, the city forgets how to shine. Luna freezes.
The darkness is thicker than it should be. Dense, velvety. She moves towards the window on instinct. The crooked tree is no longer backlit. It stands in full silhouette against a sky that has deepened beyond normal night. Then she does what she used to always yell at people in horror movies not to do: she runs outside. She had to get to that tree; it was her only thought. As she approached the alleyway, it seemed darker than the rest of the city, if that was possible.
As she moved into the alley, her footsteps grew quieter. The air seemed to thicken, making her breath feel constricted. She almost stopped and turned back but something made her want to keep going.
Luna finally stepped out of the alley and looked up at the sky…or where the sky should be. She gasped in surprise: there were stars shining above. She hadn’t seen stars since leaving her small hometown for the city a month ago. In that moment, she realized how much she had missed those stars.
“It is breathtaking is it not?” a female voice said from behind her.
She spun around on her heels to face the alley again, but it had vanished. Instead, a gravel road lined with trees stretched before her. About six feet down the path, one of the most stunning women she had ever seen stood there. She had long black hair and wore a flowing black lace gown. Although her eye color was unclear, Luna instinctively felt they would be black. Her hair was unnaturally flowing upwards towards the sky.
“This is a dream, isn’t it?” Luna said, her voice barely squeaking out.
“No, my dear, you have stepped into my realm. In the past, I was able to cross over and walk the city that I love. That is no longer possible, so I brought you here.” She said
“Who are you?” Luna asked
“I have many names, but you can call me Nyx, goddess of the night. I created the city you sought to visit, but it is being taken from me, and I am being banished to the far corners of the earth. I need your help, Luna,” she said.
“Now I know I am dreaming, a goddess asking for my help. In case you didn’t get the memo, I always let everyone down.” Luna said
“Your grief is what brought you to my city, child of the moon, and it will be what saves the people who call New York City home, and will also save me.”
The mention of her grief brought a knot in her throat, but Luna forced it down.
“What do you want me to do?”
“There is someone in the city offering to save the grief-stricken people by shining their light through it,” Nyx said
“I have seen him, uhm, Apollo something. He said he can make our grief go away. What is so bad about that?” Luna asked
Nyx’s hair fell and wrapped around her body as the breeze around Luna intensified. Leaves and dirt spun wildly, obscuring Nyx from view. Suddenly, the storm of debris ceased as quickly as it began. The noise of leaves, dirt, and gravel hitting the road sounded like rain. Nyx had shifted within the breeze, or perhaps the breeze was caused by her movement; Luna was unsure.
Luna was staring into the eyes of a goddess, and they were black. But there was kindness in them. She knew she should probably be afraid, but she wasn’t.
“His ultimate goal is to get rid of the darkness,” Nyx said
“What is wrong with getting rid of the darkness? He says he can take our grief away. You know what I would give to make the sound of my mom’s death rattle go away. Or to stop hearing her cry when they had to hold her down to intubate her because she was scared.” Tears were streaming down Luna’s face, but she barely noticed them.
Nyx put her cold hands around Luna’s warm face; her breath smelled of roses.
“And when the hurting stops, what do you believe remains?” Nyx asks
“Love,” Luna says automatically.
Nyx eyes seemed to be piercing through to her soul. “You think they can be separated?”
Luna opens her mouth, closes it. The forest feels less solid suddenly, as if parts of it are thinning at the edges.
“Humans carry a spark, which I know you can see,” Nyx continues. “They burn brightest in grief, in memory, in longing. If enough sparks are extinguished, my sky goes dark in a different way.”
The trees tremble faintly. “Night is not the absence of light,” Nyx continues. “It is the keeper of what the light cannot hold.”
A distant cracking sound moves through the forest. A branch splinters, somewhere unseen.
“He is thinning me,” Nyx says.
“He helps people,” Luna says weekly.
“He is erasing evidence of their love. If grief disappears, so do I. And when night is gone, there will be no place for the stars.”
“Why me?”
“Because you were born on a day when night and day combined. It makes you powerful enough to see the spark of humanity.”
“Solar eclipse,” Luna says
“You do not have much time.”
Luna’s pulse quickens. “What do you want me to do?”
“Remember.”
Nyx lets Luna go, and she feels herself tipping backward. The soil vanishes, and she slams back into her apartment. Not sure if she ever really left her apartment in the first place. Lights flicker violently. The radiator coughs. Outside, the crooked tree stands in the returning artificial light. But for a brief second, before the streetlight fully stabilizes, she sees something impossible. Stars.
5
Dusk makes the city honest. Shadows return in narrow strips along the sidewalk like something cautiously reclaiming territory. Luna waits outside her building in the alleyway. The crooked tree leans above her, its bark split in thin vertical scars. Jacob rounds the corner, five minutes late, hands shoved in his jacket pocket.
“Sorry,” he says. “Train stalled.”
“It’s fine.” It wasn’t. They stand there for a moment, suspended between street noise and something heavier.
“I need to tell you something,” She says
His expression shifts, alert, cautious. “You’re not moving back home, are you?”
“No.” She exhales. “The blackout the other night.”
He nods. “Yeah. Weird glitch.”
“It, it wasn’t a glitch. It was, I mean, I was in a forest.”
“Like a dream?”
“No, there was someone there. She said her name was Nyx. She said if people erase their grief, something else disappears too.”
“Luna.”
“She said we carry something,” she pushes on. “Sparks. And if they go out…”
“Okay, stop.” He says
“What?”
“Grief does things. It makes everything feel bigger, symbolic, almost mythic.”
Luna flinches, “You think I imagined it.”
“I think,” he says carefully, “that your brain is trying to protect you from how much it hurts.”
The crooked tree creaks overhead. A brittle twig snaps and drops at their feet. Luna looks down at it.
“Have you ever felt something burning in your chest when you talk about your dad?” she asks quietly.
He freezes, “That’s just anxiety.”
“No, it’s not.” Her voice lowers. “I’ve seen it.”
“Seen what?”
If she says it out loud, it becomes either truth or madness.
“Something alive,” she says. “When you talk about your dad.”
Silence stretches thin. Then he exhales sharply.
“You don’t get to say my pain is sacred.”
“I’m not saying it is sacred,” she says quickly. “I’m saying its connected.”
“To what?” His voice cracked slightly. “To stars? To forests? Luna, I’m tired. I wake up, and it is the first thing I feel. I go to sleep, and it is the last thing I feel. And in between, every song I try to write puts me right back into that hospital room.”
He puts his hand, subconsciously to his chest. She sees the spark as bright as it has ever been. Her own chest aches with the memory of antiseptic air and the weight of her mother’s hand. If she were offered to lift that, would she be strong enough to refuse?
“I decided I am having the procedure.” Jacob declares.
All Luna can do is nod. How can she refuse him this? She can’t.
6
Luna knows before she sees him. It’s not intuition. It’s subtraction. She’s sitting in the coffee shop, waiting for him to show up. His last text was just “Hey” with no exclamation point. She looks up as the door chimes. He steps inside. The first thing she notices is that he looks rested. His shoulders aren’t hunched. The crease between his eyebrows is gone. There is no tension in his jaw.
“How do you feel?” she asks
“Good.” He shrugs
“So what did you end up writing last night?” she asks, trying to fill the awkward silence.
“Oh, I am taking a break from that. I don’t know why I was stuck on it in the first place.”
“Your dad,” she said carefully. “You used to write because of your dad.”
“My dad?”
“You told me he taught you in a garage,” she says. “About burnt toast. About small things.”
“I guess he liked music. But I’m not really…musical.”
“You’re not…” she stops herself.
She looks at him, really looks. The spark is gone, not dim, not hidden, gone.
“You don’t remember the hospital?”
“Whose?”
“Your dad’s.”
“Oh,” he says, as if reaching for something just out of view. “He passed last year, right?”
The word “right” deeply upset her. She had heard enough and knew she needed to see someone. Muttering that she had something to attend to, she stood up and hurried out the door.
7
Helios headquarters is just as she imagined. Sitting right in the middle of Central Park, glass everywhere, causing the light to reflect all around it. Luna stands outside for a long moment before going in. Pushing through the revolving doors. The lobby smells like citrus and something sterile beneath it. Apollo is not difficult to find. He stands near a wall with T.V’s displaying testimonials. Phrases like Pivotal Moments, Decisive Action, and Golden Age stand out on the wall. She approaches him.
“I wondered when you would come,” he says. His tone is warm, almost welcoming.
“You erased him,” she says
Apollo tilts his head slightly. “I corrected a pattern.”
“He doesn’t remember teaching himself guitar with his dad.”
“If that memory caused prolonged distress, then its emotional response has been neutralized.”
“He doesn’t write anymore!”
Apollo’s expression does not change. “Creative fixation rooted in grief often masquerades as identity.”
She steps closer. “You took something alive out of him.”
“I removed the malfunction,” he replies calmly. “He told you he was drowning.”
“And what is he now?”
“Now he is stable.”
“You think stability is the same as living?” she asks
Apollo folds his hands behind his back. “I think humans romanticize suffering because they are afraid of stillness.”
The lights above them flicker faintly. Apollo glances upward, irritated.
“Night has been disruptive lately,” He says quietly.
“You know,” she says.
“I am aware,” he replies. “She is obsolete and can not survive in a world that chooses clarity.” Apollo steps closer. “You believe your grief makes you profound. But what if it simply makes you small? I could remove the moment your mother died, that pain every time you hear your sister’s last words to you. You weren’t there with her, and she had to do everything on her own. You are always letting everyone down, Luna.”
The pain blooms sharply in her chest because, as much as losing her mom hurt, her sister’s words to her cut deeper. For a split second, she wants it all gone. Apollo notices her hesitation.
“Pain is not loyalty,” he says gently. “You cannot stop this; people are choosing relief.
Luna feels something rising in her ribs, resolve.
“You didn’t just remove pain,” she says. “You removed proof.”
“Proof of what, exactly?”
“That they loved, and you removed the diamond, they became because of it.”
The light flickers, longer this time. Across the lobby, all the screens glitch. Everything went black for just a moment. Apollo’s jaw tightens, and when the lights return, his smile is thinner.
“You are clinging to darkness,” he says.
No,” Luna replies. “I’m choosing to rise from the ashes.”
“This is not over,” he says.
“No,” she agrees. It isn’t.”
8
A few days later, there is another blackout, but it doesn’t take out the whole city this time. Just Luna’s block is drowned in darkness. She stayed in her apartment this time because she knew it wouldn’t matter where she went. Her apartment started to disappear, and the forest materialized around her. But it is different; there are empty spaces where trees once stood. Her crooked tree was here, not the one outside her apartment, but the one where her mom and she used to hang out under. It was whole, unbroken, and fully green.
Nyx stands beneath the tree, but she looks less somehow. Her hair still moved around her, but it kept close to her body, like it was trying to protect her.
“You confronted him,” Nyx says
“He’s not stopping,” Luna says
“He is efficient,” Nyx says. “Humans have always preferred ease.”
Luna steps closer. “You said I had to choose in the light. What do I have to choose?”
Nyx studies her carefully. “In darkness, you defend grief, moon child,” she says. “In light, you hesitate.”
Luna feels the heat rise in her face. “He offered to take my worst memories away.”
“And you wanted him to.” It is not an accusation; it is a fact.
“Yes,” Luna whispers.
Nyx nods once. “That is why he wins.”
The forest shudders faintly as leaves at the edges dissolve into ash.
“And the city?”
“Will forget how to cast a shadow.”
The words settle deep into Luna’s chest. “What does that mean?”
“It means that lessons will not be learned, humanity will stop growing, and beautiful creations will never be. Light needs the dark just like dark needs the light. It is something that Apollo doesn’t understand. Because he sees humans as destructive, but they are actually resilient in times of darkness. That reliance creates true light, true beauty, truly human.”
A tree in the distance flickers and disappears, just like that, gone, just an empty space left.
“What do I have to do?” Luna asks.
“You must make them see what they are losing.” Nyx lays her hand on the crooked tree. Everything around it is disappearing, but here it sits, still beautiful.
“How?” Luna asks
“You must refuse him while others are watching. You just need to cast a shadow on him for others to see. You don’t destroy the sun, only interrupt it.”
“If I choose to keep my grief,” Luna says quietly, “It won’t bring my mom back.”
“No.”
“It won’t make my sister love me again.”
“No.”
Luna wants to tell Nyx that she will do it, that she will save the city. But she couldn’t, not yet. Nyx starts to fade, and so does the crooked tree. The forest disappears, and she is back in her apartment.
Her phone buzzes. A notification from Helios. He is going live, and she is on the list to receive clarity. Apollo believes her hesitation means she is weak. Part of her thinks he may be right.
9
The Helios lobby is brighter than it was the last time she was here. Cameras were set up all over the lobby. There was a stage in the middle, and a chair sat on it, directly underneath a golden arch. The chair reminded her of what they used for people who received the death penalty. Wires hanging off of it, connected to a cap perched on the arm. Apollo stands near the stage as she approaches him, composed as ever.
“You decided to proceed,” he says.
“I decided to come,” she replies.
He gestures to the chair on the stage. “Take a seat.”
She takes her seat, and he follows her, placing the cap on her head. The crowd is a mix of people who still have their spark and others who no longer do. She spots Jacob sitting right in front of the crowd. No emotion on his face, no spark in his chest. Apollo stands behind her and addresses the cameras.
“Today,” he says smoothly, “we help another young person release unnecessary suffering. Now, Luna, I want you to focus on the moments that cause you pain, bring them forward.”
She closes her eyes, remembering her mom, looking pale and swollen. She remembers the last sound she made, a crackling sound that came from the back of her throat. She remembers the funeral, making sure everyone was ok, but nobody checked on her. She remembers her sister’s words that she was dead to her, and as far as she was concerned, she no longer had a sister. Tears streamed down her face, but then she felt burning in her chest. The spark.
She started remembering other memories, memories of her and her mom under the crooked tree. “Storms create roots,” she said to her. She remembers her mom telling her how amazed she was at her writing. She remembers her and her sister dancing around the living room to Taylor Swift. The sad tears gave way to happy tears, and she opened her eyes.
“I don’t want to remove my pain,” Luna says
A ripple moves through the room, but Apollo keeps smiling. She pulls the cap off her head and gasps spread throughout the room.
“You are afraid of letting go,” Apollo says.
“No, I am afraid of losing them twice.”
“Pain doesn’t honor the dead.”
“It proves they mattered. I remember my mom dying and my sister leaving me, and it hurts. But that hurt mixed with the good memories makes me beautiful, makes us all beautiful.”
“You are encouraging them to remain trapped.”
“I am encouraging them to remain human.”
Outside, the sky shifts, cloudless but dimming. The lobby lights cut out completely, showering the whole room into darkness. Through the glass walls, the sky darkens, but not by a storm, not a sunset, but by an Eclipse. Shadow pours across the city and into the building. Jacob’s posture shifts, and he leans over, grabbing at his chest. The spark, his spark, is coming back. Throughout the crowd, little lights started sparking, looking like the fireflies my sister and I used to chase in the yard. It was working. Across the city, sparks flare faintly in thousands of bodies.
Darkness settles over the city, true darkness. For one breathless moment, the city remembers shadow. Then slowly the sun reemerges and light returns, but softer, more balanced. The screens behind Apollo remain dark. Jacob straightens slowly, tears still on his face. He looks at Luna.
“I remember,” he whispers. The spark in his chest burns steadily and brightly.
“You have just postponed progress,” Apollo says coldly.
“Maybe,” she answers, “Or maybe you just underestimated human emotions.”
10
The city doesn’t cheer; there are no headlines about gods, just confusion. News reporters said it was a solar anomaly, sanding the edges of what actually happened.
Luna stands outside her apartment, underneath her crooked tree. The broken branch is still gone, with the scar where it tore away still visible. But along one of the remaining limbs, something catches the light, a small line of green. New growth, subtle, unannounced, but there.
Jacob rounds the corner, eyes red and face pale. He stops a few feet away from her. He exhales slowly, like the breath hurts.
“I remember the kitchen and the stupid toast song.” A broken laugh escapes him. “I remember holding his hand and thinking I wasn’t ready.”
His voice cracks, the spark in his chest burns steadily now, not frantic but anchored.
“I didn’t know it was gone,” he says
“I know.”
They stand in silence as cars pass and someone argues down the street. Life resumes like nothing had even happened.
“I heard Apollo has moved on to another city to cleanse it of its pain. I wouldn’t go through that procedure again.” He says.
She nods. “That’s your choice.”
He studies her carefully. “You knew.”
“Yes.”
“Why didn’t you stop me?”
“Because it was your pain.”
The sky deepens into true evening as streetlights click on one by one. Shadows form at their feet. Jacob glances towards the tree.
“That thing looks like it is barely hanging on,” he says.
“It is,” Luna replies.
He steps closer to it, brushing his fingers lightly over the bark.
“It’s still alive,” he murmurs.
“Yes, it is.”
“I think I will write tonight,” he says
Luna looks up at him, “About your father?”
He shakes his head, “I think I will start with burnt toast.”
The smallest smile touches her mouth. Above them, the first real stars began to appear. Not many, but visible. For a moment, the air shifts, colder, deeper. Luna senses her before she sees her.
Nyx stands at the far end of the block, where the streetlight fails to reach fully. She does not approach; she simply dips her head once. Then dissolves into the darkness. Jacob looks up at the sky.
“It’s amazing that the darker it is, the more stars you can see,” he says
“It is.”
The grief and the pain are still there, but it no longer overwhelms her. She pulls out her phone, scrolling to her sister’s thread.
I know it hurts, and I am sorry I wasn’t there for you like I should have been. I didn’t want to see what was in front of me. I love you, and I will always be here if you are ready.
She doesn’t hesitate when hitting the send button. Beside her, Jacob hums softly under his breath, testing a melody. The crooked tree bends in the evening wind. It does not straighten, it does not break, it holds on for the new life that is growing. So is Luna.
A.D.Kay | Author 