Ghost Stories from the Moon

Ghost Stories from the Moon
By Synaid

“And that’s when he jumped out and… GRABBED THEM!” The climax of the young Ximian’s story was met with groans and eye rolls from his assorted peers.

“Come on, Ci, that’s horrible.” One of the human children pushed a hot breath out onto the inside of her mask, “I could tell a better story than that!”

“My name’s not Ci!” The Ximian stood to his full height, bouncing a little in the low gravity of the small, airless moon they were on. “I’ve got more syllables than that! It’s Cirix!”

The little brown haired girl stuck out her tongue. The two races were still learning each other’s culture, including physical gestures and their meanings - it was only a few years after “The Time of Sorrow” after all - and Cirix wasn’t quite sure if a stuck out tongue meant she was retreating on the subject, or asking to be fed. He was vaguely certain it was an insult in either case. “Fine, Reva, what’s your story then?”

“Um, children?” The Eulutian teacher, a virtuous soul if ever there was one, adjusted her exosuit as a nervous habit and looked at the small group of children around her. “I’m sure that being crashed on this moon is scary and all but do we all think that telling scary stories is truly the best way to pass the time?”

Like children everywhere had done to their teachers for years, they ignored her.

“I know a Ximian story.” Reva stood now, all the eyes of her peers shining as brightly as the clear glass in front of their eyes as she became the spinner of stories. “Of Rylexianthiana.”

“No one has a name THAT long.” Cirix chittered - the age of a Ximian was denoted by how many syllables one’s name had, and he was still smarting from Reva’s very human use of a nickname to shorten his name from earlier.

“It’s only five syllables!” One of the other Ximians, a female, gave a glancing punch to Cirix shoulder. “Can’t you count?”

Rylexianthiana was the baddest bug the hive ever saw, he was as mean as a snake and sneaky as a cat, and respecting elders was something he had never learned, not even when his father had bitten off Rylex’s arm to teach him. No, Rylexianthiana didn’t learn any of life’s lessons, and seemed intent on making life learn his. He had a long life trying filled with anger and strife and fighting but it was at the end of his life that he finally understood.

As he entered his final cocoon, he boasted to the workers that he’d be the first to emerge again and was quite pleased with himself when he stepped out of the cocoon a mere five years after entering it. But as he stepped proudly from his cocoon the workers didn’t seem that impressed. Perplexed as he was, so sure in his own great accomplishment, he went from worker to worker, at first boastful, then angry, then furious as they ignored him. He grew so angry he took a swing at one with a fist large and powerful enough to take the worker’s head off, but he found himself swinging through clean air.

In Rylexianthiana’s anger over the worker dodging him so easily he swung again, and again, and again, never connecting. Furious he leaped forward, hands outstretched to strangle the offending worker only to pass straight through as if the worker were no more than mist. It was only when he fell through the cocoon behind the worker and stumbled through the other side he realized it was himself who was immaterial. Rushing back to his cocoon he found himself, Rylexianthiana, a decayed husk lying on the ground in front of his cracked open cocoon. Life had never taught Rylexianthiana the lessons he needed to have learned, but death finally had.

“And Rylexianthiana’s ghost still wanders the hive to this day, knocking on cocoons and asking if you’re ready to come out and join him.”

The assorted classmates all looked at her with wide eyes. Even Cirix was silently staring up at Reva and her proud grin with a little awe and more than a little fear of when it would be his turn to enter his cocoon for the final time and face Rylexianthiana’s knocking.