Saturday Afternoon

Beneath the Grey

The first generation of settlers called it Haven-1, a domed outpost carved into the southern rim of the Shackleton Crater.

It was meant to be humanity’s quiet foothold on the Moon: laboratories, greenhouses, sleeping quarters, and a small team of twenty-two scientists and engineers.

But within a month of landing, they discovered the reports had lied.

Chapter 1 — The Wrong Map

Dr. Liora Kessler studied the old geological scans projected across the dome wall. The maps from Earth depicted the subsurface in clear layers: regolith, basalt, ancient impact debris.

But the ground-penetrating radar she had just run told a different story.

There was… a void.

A massive hollow chamber far beneath the colony.

“Did anyone else know about this?” she whispered.

“These scans don’t match any pre-launch data,” said Arden Pike, the lead engineer, tapping the screen with a trembling finger. “Either they hid it… or something’s changed.”

The chamber was too perfectly shaped, too symmetrical.
Nature didn’t make straight lines.

Chapter 2 — The Descent

They decided to investigate.

Arden drilled through the regolith while Liora monitored pressure and temperature levels. Every meter down felt wrong. Too cold. Too quiet. As if the Moon itself held its breath.

Seventy meters below, the drill broke through.

A rush of thin, stale air hissed upward.

“Air means an enclosed structure,” Arden whispered. “Something sealed.”

When they lowered the camera through the opening, every person in the dome fell silent.

The chamber wasn’t rock.

It was a constructed corridor.

Smooth. Black. Metallic.

And enormous.

Chapter 3 — The Doorway

The next day, six of them descended through a reinforced tunnel.

The corridor walls were unlike any material they recognized—smooth as obsidian but warm to the touch.

Lights flickered on overhead as they stepped inside.

Automatic. Responsive. A technology far beyond human engineering.

“What is this place?” Liora breathed.

Arden swallowed hard. “A facility… but not built by us. And not listed in any lunar archive.”

They followed the hallway until it opened to a circular chamber, thirty meters wide.

At its center stood a single chair.

Or something like a chair.

Sleek. Suspended. Pointed toward a massive glass window that overlooked only more darkness.

But when Liora approached it, the chair lit up with symbols—dozens, hundreds—swirling like constellations.

“Don’t touch it,” Arden said sharply.

“It’s… reacting to me.”

“That’s exactly why you shouldn’t touch it.”

Liora took a step back, heart pounding.
This wasn’t scientific equipment.

It felt like a throne.

Chapter 4 — The Message

That night, the colony received an encrypted transmission from Earth Command.

It was short. Emotionless.

“Cease exploration. Seal the site. Await further instructions.”

Liora stared at the message with disbelief.

“They knew,” she whispered. “Earth knew something was down there.”

Arden rubbed his jaw, eyes dark. “And they sent us anyway.”

“But why wouldn’t they warn us?”

“Because we weren’t supposed to go down there,” Arden said.
“Or because they needed someone expendable to find something for them.”

The dome’s air suddenly felt heavier.
Everyone had the same thought:

They were alone.
And they had been lied to.

Chapter 5 — Awake

The next morning, alarms blared across the colony.

Power drain. Life supports fluctuations. Environmental controls are going offline one by one.

“Something’s drawing energy from the grid!” Arden shouted.

Liora froze. She knew exactly what.

The chamber.

When they rushed back into the corridor, the throne-like structure was glowing—symbols racing faster than before, pulsing with the rhythm of a heartbeat.

And someone was sitting in it.

A human silhouette.

A man.

“How—?” Arden gasped. “No one else came down here!”

The man opened his eyes.

Where pupils should have been, there were swirling neon patterns, shifting with impossible complexity.

“You found it,” he said calmly, voice echoing through the chamber. “Just as they intended.”

“What are you?” Liora choked out.

“Not what,” he corrected.

“When.”

Chapter 6 — The Truth Buried Below

He told them the secret.

Long before Earth sent its first astronauts, long before written history, the Moon had been used as a containment site.

Not a prison.
A vault.
A lock on a timeline that should have never intersected with theirs.

“I am a remnant of a future you were never meant to reach,” the man said. “Your leaders discovered fragments of me buried in old lunar scans. They sent you here hoping I would awaken.”

Liora’s skin became cold.

“A time-lock?” she whispered. “This facility… holds something from the future?”

“Yes,” he said. “And I am the failsafe.”

The chamber shook.

The black walls shifted color—fading from obsidian to a deep, cosmic blue.

“The Moon is not barren,” the man continued. “It is a safeguard. A firewall between what your species is… and what it may become.”

Arden stepped back. “Are we in danger?”

The man smiled faintly.

“You already were.”

Chapter 7 — The Decision

Systems across the colony flickered again. The man stood from the chair, symbols swirling around him.

“I can leave this place now,” he said. “But if I do, the lock brakes. Time splinters. The future—the terrible future—comes with me.”

Liora’s breath caught.
“So we’re supposed to… keep you here?”

“You aren’t supposed to do anything,” he said gently. “But you will choose. And the world above will live with that choice.”

The chamber lights dimmed.

“We can’t let a time contagion out,” Arden said. “We have to reseal the facility.”

“And trap him?” Liora whispered. “Forever?”

He looked at her.
Not angry.
Just sad.

“I have been here for eons,” he said softly. “Forever is nothing new.”

Chapter 8 — The Final Seal

Together, the colonists made the hardest decision of their lives.

They escorted the man back to the throne. He sat willingly, like a king returning to his grave.

The facility dimmed again, humming like a massive machine powering down.

“Thank you,” he whispered, as the symbols faded.
“Your time will be safer… for now.”

When the chamber finally went dark, Arden activated the explosive-seal protocol.

The tunnel collapsed.
The void became silent once more.

Epilogue — What Was Never Meant to Be Found

Months later, a message arrived from Earth Command:

“No further inquiries. Haven-1 will be abandoned. Evacuation scheduled.”

No explanation.
No apology.
Just evacuation.

Liora looked up at the crater rim, the stars glimmering beyond it.

Humanity thought it had placed a colony on the Moon.

But in truth, they had been guests in a tomb built by their descendants…
to protect them from themselves.

As she packed her research logs for evacuation, she wrote only one sentence at the top:

“Some secrets stay buried for a reason.”