#moon.exe

Not that he gave you anymore freedoms on the grounds. Just that you were to notify him immediately if you happen to spy one of his many costumed creations sprawling the floors and hanging against walls. Sleepy Moon. You’ve never heard of the name. Of course, you’re not too familiar with any of the mascots and funny animals dressed up as clowns or circle ring leaders, but you have someone you can ask.

Walking into the security office, you linger, staring out of the door through the hazardous halls of silicon faces and wide, too pleasant eyes that seemed to follow you everywhere you went. The door shut with a soft hydraulic hiss behind you.

The dusty office scent immediately flows to you, and you inhale it with the energy of having returned home. The computer boots up with a whirling whine before you have a chance to touch the power button on the monitor. The screen glows, coming to life with a quiet blitz of electricity before the pixels jump up and make up the home screen. 

You settle down, putting your bag aside with little thought as you stare directly at the little face tucked away into the corner. The Moon. The program that has been with you since day one of your job. 

His mischievous, pixelated smile takes the full curve of his half-illiminated face. One eye turns up impishly. The dialogue box pops up with a low beep. 

| About time. You’re late.

“Not late,” you hold up one finger, grinning. “Edwin stopped me to chat. Can’t be late if it’s the boss keeping me from my desk.”

The Moon climbs a little higher into view. He stands upon the bottom bar, his arms at his sides. His head tilts slightly, like you’re a puzzle piece he hasn’t figured out how to put together—not without the box picture for reference.

“He didn’t fire me, if that’s what you’re so worried about.” You lean back in your seat, hands poised above the keyboard, toying with the thought of work. It does not sound like loads of fun at the moment.

The deadpan expression sends you a clear message, and then the text box.

| I wasn’t.

“Ouch.” You feign a mortal blow to your heart and clutch your chest. “You wouldn’t miss me? And I thought we were becoming work buddies.”

Somehow, the program masters an unimpressed gaze through the computer screen. You almost wish to touch the glass just to see if you can feel the lines of his stony expression.

| He wouldn’t fire you.

You pause. How does The Moon know? Or is he just saying that, just to make you drop the stupid subject. Probably the latter. He’s teasing you again in the way he always does.

Which reminds you—

“Don’t you want to know what Edwin said to me?” You arch an eyebrow and wiggles your fingers above the keyboard, heightening the already cheesy gestures of enticement.

The Moon suddenly looks on guard. His program glitches once before he takes up the whole screen in the way that turns most of it black and outlines his muscular upper body. The top of his star-dotted pants caught your eye for a moment, and you wonder what inspired his jester-like look.

“He mentioned something about Sleepy Moon,” you go on, leaning forward. Placing your elbows on the desk, you fix him with a scrutinizing look. “You wouldn’t happen to know anything about that, would you?”

 A long, dotted line fills up the text box, before, as if in the manner of rolling one's eyes, the screen flips upon itself before several tabs pop up with files. All of them are titled in some form or the other with Sleepy Moon. One’s a blueprint, one's a detailed report of an accident occurring in Story Time Showroom, and another is a flyer advertising Sleepy Moon.

You snort before clapping a hand over your mouth.

The Moon, small and tucked into the corner, pierces you with an incredulous stare. Your laughter, however, cannot be dammed up, and the floor escapes in a fit of hysterics.

Sleepy Moon is a giant head, fitting with arms and legs in a Humpy Dumpy style of a suit. You find the cosmically tiny jester hat upon his head woefully improportionate to the rest of his body—head. Like a giant egg.

“That’s you?” you gasp between another bark of laughter. 

| Obviously not.

You have to suck in a breath. Mining wiping away a tear, you scoot in a little closer, and indeed, that is not The Moon. They must have come from the same brainchild, but the schematics are for a costume—specifically one not fitted for animatronics. Only humans. Interesting.

“So, do you know where that costume is?” You lift a finger to tap the screen once. The pixelated figure of The Moon flickers for a moment, born seemingly out of irritation, like you tapped on the glass of his home. “Edwin wanted to know. He didn’t give a lot of details, but from my understanding, it’s missing.”

The silence of the program is as helpful as he always is, which is, not much. Perhaps you shouldn’t have wounded his ego so much, but that doesn’t change that you’re terribly curious.

And you have more questions than just what costumes may or may not be left in the manor. Ever since Sun exploded on you again, you have been mulling over his words.

“Is there one like Sun?” you ask casually, lowering your hand to hide how it clenches tightly. “Were you two a pair before…?”

You don’t know how to say it. You don’t even know what happened.

All the files vanish in a snap of deleted tabs. The Moon’s crescent head engulfs the screen, and you lean back half an itch, eyes widening. His green and dark gaze seems to spear you to your chair. You can’t move an itch.

| Nosy, aren’t you?

A pause, then typed underneath is a single word:

| Brat.

You open your mouth to defend yourself, but just as quickly, a new sentence is interjected, and you catch yourself mid-syllable.

| Want secrets? Let’s unscrew the cover and dig into those wires of yours.

You shudder. An unconscious gesture of your hands hugging your arms fills the program upon your work computer with brief delight flaring across his curved lunar face.

You are not a system that can have screws removed and hands interjected to fish out all of your tangled ends and burn out parts. The Moon seems to enjoy making you squirm—when you’ve pushed his buttons enough.

Fine. If that’s how he wants to play it. Him and The Sun. You can play ball.

“Go ahead, ask me anything. I’m an open book.” You hold out your arms. “Then you can tell me about what’s going on with you and The Sun.”

His head tilts, turning the slice of his head into a smiley face. If he buys it, he doesn’t show it. Maybe he thinks you're all talk, and that has gotten you into deep trouble before with the program. But not this time. You mean it.

| Someone waiting for you at home?

You blink once. That’s it?

“No one,” you say. The tiny apartment you have is nothing to write home about. “Come on, give me hard questions.”

The Moon seems to bob for a moment, pixels going up and down before he settles.

His grin stretches.

| Boyfriend?

You roll your eyes. “You’re not taking this seriously.”

| Ah ah. Answer the question.

Forced to play, you sigh and smack your lips once. 

“No, last I checked.”

The computer seems to hum. The Moon almost does a little dance, shifting his limbs in the boxy space to a rhythm you can’t hear. 

Just as quickly, he stops. His lone eye is upon you, and you can feel the absence of the other eye, the one The Sun possesses.

| Play later. You have work to do.

“Moon,” you warn. 

His vile grin cuts through you, and you smack the desk once before his figure disappears off of the computer, dragging up your work in his wake.

“Hey, Moon,” you mumble your morning greeting before plopping yourself down in the stiff, hard seat. You groan as you roll your shoulders and crank your neck side to side in some semblance of bracing to dig through more documents today. 

Inhaling deeply, you squeeze your eyes shut and press your fingers into a steeple along your skull. 

Just get through today. Do your work, clock out, and go home. That’s all you have to do. You can manage through the pressure building behind your eyeballs and the looming throb of a headache making its way to your temple.

With your pep talk out of the way, you straighten.

The computer sits at its default page, but in the corner, the pixelated figure of The Moon stares at you. His one eye is unblinking. His pose is the same, unmoving position he often keeps, but now it feels deliberate, focused. A small sound emits from the computer, a robotic decibel that makes you think of a person humming—if the noise went through a program and back out.

You reach for the mouse. A darkness flashes on the monitor before the screen is taken up by The Moon on full display, and his text box below him.

“Moon, I gotta get to work,” you exasperate. 

Usually, The Moon’s antics would brighten a boring workload, but you find yourself with a short rope of patience today. You dig the heel of one hand into your eye socket before blinking away the stars that emerge from the pressure. Nope. The foggy mess in your head is still there.

Focusing your eyes takes a moment, but when the screen comes into view, there’s text waiting for you.

You’re sleepy…

You stare, and feel the ache of blood-shot eyes.

“I’m just peachy.” You tap on the mouse once, a sharp click echoing. “Let me get to work.”

The screen remains unmoving. The sprite seems to tilt his head slightly, and the one eye narrows incredulously.

You need a nap.

No, you can’t do this. You don’t have time to argue! If you don’t get yourself into gear, you’re going to be worthless all day long. The last thing you need is Edwin to surprise check your work and see that you have nothing to show for this shift, and then accuse you of trying to ruin him or something of the sort.

You’re not sure what kind of program The Moon is exactly, but he almost seems to balk in his green and black coding when you reach for your energy drink. You pop it open with a loud crack then proceed to drain a huge gulp down. The bubbling bites along your tongue. Your whole system shudders underneath the acidic surge entering your stomach. There, that’ll give you a few hours before you crash. 

Setting the can down, you find The Moon staring at you incredulously.

“I don’t need nap time—I’m not a child.” You quickly cover your mouth with a hand to make the tangy burp a little more polite. “Come on, Moon, move. Let me open up some files.”

The whole screen wavers before text jumps up in almost erratic typing.

Naughty, naughty!

You throw your hands up in exasperation. “I need it! Edwin would fire me on the spot if he walked in on me sleeping on the job.”

The pixelated Moon stops the erratic waves, and almost in a quiet, delicate hum of the machine, sends a new line of text.

I will wake you before he finds you.

You blink slowly at the words, wondering if it’s an insomnia-induced hallucination. Does he mean that? It’s not a trick, is it? Maybe the program would love to get you fired so he can go back to… whatever he was doing before you downloaded him onto the computer. 

You slowly shake your head.

“I’m sorry, Moon. I have to get something done today.”

The program continues to hold your work computer hostage, but his expression glitches for a moment. You wait with baited breath.

If you take a nap at noon, I will let you work.

At noon? You glance at your energy drink and back to the face seemingly peering through the glass directly at you. Maybe he is. You don’t want to ask.

A tired sigh works through your chest and shoulders. Pressing a hand to your face, you gulp down a deep breath before nodding and giving in.

“Fine. I’ll take a nap at noon.” You turn a scrutinizing look upon the monitor. “And you will wake me so I don’t sleep through the rest of my shift?”

You can trust me…

The ellipsis does not inspire confidence, but the flashing grin that The Moon gives tells you it’s another coy joke to make you squirm. He likes finding your buttons to press. More often than not, you return the favor. 

Not this time, however, as the screen finally gives way to the desktop and The Moon’s sprite hangs quietly in the corner, flashing you one more grin before disappearing entirely. 

A strange gift. He rarely leaves you be. 

Taking the opportunity for what it is, you gulp down more of the energy drink and throw yourself to the tasks at hand. The morning passes by in a blurr. You hardly give yourself a moment to register the growing pulse of pain in your head nor the blurriness of your vision while staring at the screen for hours. 

You just finish typing up another report on a round of documents—no sign of foul play—when exactly at the mark of 12:00, the computer screen is once more consumed by the pixelated version of The Moon.

Nap time.

With no strength nor caffeine left within you, there is little you can do but say, “Okay.”

You’re not quite sure how to do this. You push your chair back slightly as you gaze around the security office space. It’s seen better days. Dust collects on a small table shoved against the side wall and the floor hasn’t been vacuumed, littered with bits and crumbs, as well as various papers that should have been filed away.

You glance back to the screen. “I’ll just, uh, take that nap then.”

The face of the crescent moon watches you silently as you roll the chair back towards the door. Underneath the computer desk, there’s shadows and a dust-mote smell, but you find your jacket, and stuff it underneath your head in a makeshift pillow.

You tilt your head just enough to see the screen at a sharp angle, but enough to feel as if the program still has eyes on you.

The text box narrowly delivers a new message.

Why didn’t you sleep last night?

You look away. It sounds stupid now, when it’s daylight and you’re not half-crazed from your failed attempts to get your rest. 

“It was nothing,” you say quietly. The zipper of your jacket presses into your skull, and you shift to get it out of the way. 

When you return your gaze to the screen, you scoff.

Liar.

You try to conjure up a comeback, something that will sizzle upon delivery, but your tongue is wrapped up and your head is filled with cotton and painful throbs. 

“It’s stupid,” you rephrase. “It was just nightmares.”

You stare anywhere but at the computer. Softer still, you breathe out. Your heart is heavy in your chest.

“It’s those stupid costumes. I hate them,” you bare your teeth. “They look horrendous and they chase me in my dreams. They always find me. I try to hide, and sometimes, I’m running towards the security office and every time I try to open the door, it locks, and I’m crying and then they get me.”

You omit that you’re crying for The Moon in those nightmares.

“I woke up. I couldn’t go back to sleep.”

You sigh. 

“Stupid, right?”

The silence lays heavy. You don’t bother looking up at the monitor. You don’t want to see how he’s making fun of you for acting like a child—even worse than a child, being afraid of costumes built to entertain children. 

You curl up tightly, and let your heavy head rest. Your eyelids immediately slide closed. In the dusty air and the press of your pulse against your temple, you hear a soft, robotic droning, playing a few notes. Like a hum.