The Days of the Antichrist: the Moon and Star

Chapter 1

Okay, what to write? Hmm, I'll make it short.

...

I still remember that day. It was dark and cold. The clouds were gray and the wind was quite strong. I didn't see the sun, but its light still shined through the grays. It used to be the day I had always waited so that I could play on my phone, watch some YouTube videos, and then sleep in a warm bed with gloomy windows, leaving all my homework behind. I guessed it would not happen that day, obviously. It was not an ordinary day. All citizens were commanded to line up in the city center to do something that I still don't really understand till now. Like, for what? I heard some news about it but never understood why. However, I just followed the instructions anyway.

Wow, such a long line of people. They looked like a school of thousands of sardines. I had never seen such a huge crowd gathering in a small open space before. I lived in a city that was not big, but yeah, it's overpopulated. I stood in one of the hundreds of lines waiting to get closer to the checking point.

As a sixteen-year-old short boy, this was the thing I hated the most. It felt so boring to wait for such a long time. I saw all kinds of people waiting to get their turn at the checking point. Old and young, big and small, pretty and ugly. All, literally all. They showed no emotions, and all slowly walked with unenergetic steps. They looked so pale, sad, and depressed. Anyway, I tried to see what the end of this line looked like, but it almost seemed impossible. There were too many people. I was not even that tall to look at the next five people in front of me. My feet began to feel so tired standing up, so I started to do some little jumps. I sat down for a while, then stood up again. It happened for like 5 boring hours until I saw that weird boy holding a tree branch.

He was in the line beside me, and there were two people behind him. I could see his feet shaking, and his pants seemed wet. He looked so terrified and so pale. Who is this boy? Why isn't anyone acting like this boy? Was this boy sane? What is he holding again? Right, a branch.

Since then, I couldn't fix my eyes on other things, he seemed to be so spotlighted to me. Some minutes had passed, and my line eventually moved faster than his. I got closer to him and could hear his heavy breath. His heart was beating so fast, it almost sounded like a giant stepping its big feet on the earth. I was so confused and tried to figure out why he was so terrified. What would happen to him? Why was he the only one who showed that emotion? I tried to approach him, but I was kind of afraid. What if this boy was insane? He would attack me and no one would react a thing.

I moved my head around to see if anyone was acting like this boy. But, no one did. Now, I realized I was surrounded by men, like literally fat old men, with their stinky breath and acidic smell. However, only one man there who looked quite young. My eyes were quickly fixed on his appearance. I don't know, He looked smart to me that day. The good thing was, he had now moved to my left, literally beside me. I really wanted to ask him about all of this. But, was it really important though? However, my curiosity made me touch his hand anyway, wanting to get his attention. He didn't notice the touch, what a weird man. I was thinking that, probably, he also was terrified inside but didn't want to show any emotions. He seemed intelligent to me, and his eyes always moved around. What was this man thinking? He seemed so stressed out in a war inside of his brain. I decided to hold his hand and shook it quite hard, hoping that he would notice me. And yeah, his eyes stopped moving and he started to move his sight towards me.

"Who?"

"Um. Hi uncle"

"Oh, no talking, no talking"

"Why, Uncle?"

"Shhh, don't talk boy, lower your voice"

I don't understand, why in an open space we have to talk with such a small voice? Who are these people terrified of? Lining to register your identity to the government is not terrifying to me. Or maybe there is one thing I am missing here?