Bethany 
Elias Greaves awoke to silence.
Dust hung thick in the air, illuminated by the dim glow of dawn filtering through the shattered remains of the observatory. For a brief, disoriented moment, he wondered if the events of the night before had been a fevered dream.
Then he saw the telescope—or what was left of it.
The once-grand instrument was reduced to a twisted heap of metal and glass, as if something had erased it from existence. Not destroyed. Erased.
Thaddeus groaned beside him, rubbing his head. “Tell me that was just an earthquake.”
Elias said nothing.
Catherine was already up, standing at the open hatch, staring at the sky.
Her voice was hollow. “It’s back.”
Elias forced himself to his feet and looked up.
The Moon hung above them, cold and lifeless. No fractures. No shifting illusions. No impossible structures. The veil had repaired itself.
Everything had been reset.
Thaddeus exhaled in relief. “Maybe it was just—”
Catherine spun toward him. “No. Don’t you see? They fixed it.”
Elias’s hands clenched. “They let us see the truth. Just long enough to know that we could never tell anyone.”
A chill ran through him.
And then he understood. They had cracked the illusion. They had peere beyond the deception. But the deception was not just visual. It was historical.
Memories could be rewritten. Events erased.
And they were next.
Catherine turned back to the sky. “Do you feel it?” she whispered.
Elias did. A deep, insidious pull, like something, was unspooling reality around them, adjusting the narrative, making them…fade.
Thaddeus paled. “We need to get out of here.”
Elias grabbed the remnants of Herschel’s journal—the last piece of proof they had. “We need to write it down. Record it before it’s wiped away.”
They ran. Through the ruins of the observatory, down the dirt roads of Cape Town, until they reached the docks.
A ship. A chance to leave.
But something was wrong.
The people didn’t see them.
Elias grabbed a dockworker by the arm. “Sir, please, we need passage—”
The man walked right through him.
Elias stumbled back, heart pounding. Catherine gripped his sleeve. “We’re already being erased.”
Thaddeus’s breath was ragged. “No, no, we’re still here—”
He stopped. His hands were fading.
Their forms flickered, like shadows caught between worlds. The erasure was almost complete.
And then—
A voice.
You were never here.
The sky rippled.
The world went black.
Elias gasped, air rushing into his lungs. He was in his study. In New York, A fire crackled in the hearth. Bookshelves lined the walls.
A fire crackled in the hearth. Bookshelves lined the walls. The smell of old parchment and ink filled the air.
The smell of old parchment and ink filled the air. It was as if nothing had ever happened. Except… he turned sharply
It was as if nothing had ever happened.
Except…
He turned sharply. On his desk sat a newspaper.
The Sun.
August 25, 1835.
The headline read: “ASTONISHING DISCOVERIES! LIFE ON THE MOON!”
Elias’s stomach dropped.
He flipped through the pages. It was all there—the fabricated story, the bat-like creatures, the sapphire lakes.
The hoax.
The perfect deception.
No mention of the Lunaris Constructs. No mention of Herschel’s warnings. No mention of Cape Town, the underground observatory, or the truth.
He bolted to his feet.
“Catherine?” he called.
No response.
He searched the room. No signs of her. No signs of Thaddeus. No evidence they had ever existed at all.
His chest tightened. His memories were intact. But everything else—everyone else—had been erased.
No. Not erased.
Rewritten.
He looked down at his desk.
A single piece of parchment lay there. His handwriting.
A message to himself.
“You are not insane. It was real. They changed everything. And they will come for you next. Hide the truth. Bury it where they won’t look. You must not forget. You must not let them win.”
Elias’s hand trembled as he grabbed a pen.
He wrote.
He recorded everything.
Then, with a deep breath, he stood, grabbed his coat, and left his study.
The world continued as if nothing had changed. The Moon remained a cold, dead rock. The Sun newspaper thrived. The Great Moon Hoax remained one of the greatest fabrications in history.
And yet—
Somewhere, buried beneath layers of deception, the truth remained.
Waiting.
Watching.
For the next person who dared to look too closely.
This was the story of Lunaris keep Reading DipDives for more updates.
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