It's been two years since the forest went dark. The entire world is on edge, especially those still living in America. Locked away in a hastily constructed research facility is a woman named Sophia Underwood. She paces around the cramped room she's in, mumbling about runes and bones. Suddenly she jolts as she hears a knock on the door.

"Hello? Sophia? You still in there?" a voice calls out. Sophia is already cowering under her desk, all the stories of the monsters that steal voices has made everyone close to the forests more and more paranoid.

She tries to respond, weakly muttering "H- Hello...? Password?"

"Do we seriously have to do this every time? It's dolorosa, now come on out. I've got a surprise~!"

When Sophia opens the door, her coworker reacts in shock at her appearance. She's been up all day and all night studying the claims of raving madmen. She nearly thought she got it to work once, but she's far too tired to trust it wasn't a hallucination.

"Dear God, you look awful!"

"Yeah, I know. I've just been banging rocks together for the past... few days?"

"Well guess what? I've got these!" her coworker shouts as she shoves tickets to a travelling circus into Sophia's face.

She sighs in disappointment. "Come on, really? A travelling circus? Now? Do you think-"

"No, no, really! They even have a monster! A live one! Who came willingly! Isn't that so cool?"

Sophia recoils in shock. "A live one!? Seriously? If it's not just a regular guy in a costume, then that thing is just biding its time waiting for a group of humans to kill!"

"Ugh, Sophie! You're no fun! At least watch from a distance, I paid for these tickets y'know. Also, you should really get some rest."

Sophia walked back to her house, the whole time she was thinking about her work and the monster that the circus supposedly had. Maybe she could test her theories on it, she could even save some people if it really was plotting to kill. Before she knew it, she was fast asleep in her bed. That night, she had a nightmare. Nightmares aren't unusual for someone living so close to the forest, but this one was different. It wasn't about a monster, it was about the moon. She was laying in a grassy field, just staring up. The moon didn't move, the stars didn't shine, it was just there. It seemed like it took up the whole sky, and she couldn't move. When she woke up, she decided maybe she did need some time off. Though, she did still want to test her theories.

After grabbing a few runes from work, she made her way to the circus. Walking up to it, she was horrified. It was set up in a clearing, surrounded by forest. She didn't believe someone could be that stupid, it was like it was made to have people get eaten. Her absentminded gawking was interrupted by her coworker running up to her.

"Hey, you're alive! Decided to have some fun for the first time ever?"

"This is so unsafe. There is no adjective to adequately describe how unsafe this is."

"Oh, come on! They have fences and guards surrounding the place. It's perfectly fine."

They walked around the circus waiting for the grand event. They saw bears and lions playing like friends, electrical devices with strange purposes, and clowns styled after the jester monsters. Eventually came the time, and everyone went inside the biggest tent to marvel at the willing monster.

The ringmaster walks onto the stage as a covered cage is wheeled in. "Welcome, ladies and gentlemen! Here behind this curtain is a monster from the forest!" The crowd becomes noisy, many are excited while some don't believe it. "Yes, that's right. A monster! Straight from the forest, it even came willingly!" The ringmaster builds the suspense some more. He can barely be heard over the crowd, the excited wails and chanting would be overwhelming. "Now, now, everyone! Calm down! Sit in your seats! And behold..." He unveils the cage.

The crowd gasps in shock. Inside the cage was indeed a monster, it had to be at least 8 feet tall. Its fur was white and black, and the pattern made it seem like it was wearing clothes. It had a long and fluffy tail and a marvelous snout. It walked on two legs and its eyes seemed to move in a strange way. Sophia was stunned, it really was a monster. They caught a monster, no, it came willingly! The crowd was cheering and screaming at the caged monster, but it seemed to be acting weird. It kept looking at the ground, hunching over, and keeping its hands close to its chest. To Sophia, it looked... scared. Anxious. Nobody else seemed to notice it, but it made her feel uneasy for the entire performance. Her coworker urged her to cheer and laugh, but she couldn't help but feel bad for the monster. She knew it was just as mindless and murderous as the rest of them, and she kept telling herself that.

That night, she couldn't sleep. It felt like it was midnight for hours. She felt so bad for the monster than she forgot to even experiment on it, but she couldn't lose the chance. She put her outside clothes back on and went back to the circus, hoping it was still there. When she reached it, she paused at the gate. "This was stupid," she thought. "Surely it was just an actor." She looked up at the moon to lament her perceived stupidity, but she noticed the moon hadn't moved. It was still midnight. She was petrified. That dream she had, where the moon didn't move, where it took up the whole sky, was it a dream? Standing there, she overheard talking from the circus performers.

"Oh come on, we didn't mean it!" a voice pleaded.

"You set off your, no, OUR best ticket!" the ringmaster yelled as quietly as he could.

"It's not like it has feelings, it's just pretending y'know." another voice scoffed.

"You don't know what that thing can do! The moon isn't moving, you dimwits!" the ringmaster shouted, not even trying to hold it back.

"I can't stop the moon, and you assholes can't either. So neither can the stupid one." the second voice agonized.

The ringmaster is clearly not in the mood to be talked to, but she still needs to test those theories. She sneaks around the tents and stalls, slowly making her way towards the grand tent. The clowns are easy to evade, since they jingle when they move. It's weird how they haven't taken their costumes off so long after the day was over, but she's thankful for it anyway. When she finally enters the grand tent, she hears a loud sobbing. Creeping around to find the source, she finds the monster trapped in the cage. It's still in its cage, sitting in a corner and crying. The tears are black and have leaked out of the cage, staining the grass black and spreading out in a massive puddle.

"Uh, h- hey! Monster!" Sophia shouts.

The monster stops crying and looks up at her, its eyes light up and betray the fact it's still crying. "What do you want?" it chokes out.

"I need to, um-" she digs through her satchel for the runes. "-test these on you." She shows the runes to the monster.

Nothing happens when she shows the runes. She slowly steps through the black puddle to get closer, but it still doesn't have any effect.

"Damn, I guess they don't work..." Sophia exhausts.

"It's probably not you... it's me..." the monster cries.

"What? What do you mean?"

"I'm not like the other monsters, they won't tell me why I'm like this, they just keep saying I was made like this, but I wasn't! I just want to go home..." the monster says as it starts sobbing again.

Sophia gets closer to the monster and realizes the cage is open. "Where are you from then, monster?" she asks.

The monster stands up out of its puddle and walks outside, beckoning Sophia to come with it. Once they're outside, the monster points to the moon. "There. It keeps going away, and I can't chase fast enough. I joined the circus so I could ask more humans about it, but everyone just keeps laughing at me."

Sophia is stunned. She starts to think, "This monster, it's extraterrestrial? Could it just be lying? But I'm already so close to it, why would it keep lying?" After a few seconds of thinking, she asks it "What happened to bring you here?"

"Well... I was climbing a big hill. My sisters all did it, and they kept calling me weak because I didn't. And when I got to the top, it was like all the water on my world suddenly crashed into me. I couldn't see anything at all until it all cleared up, and then I saw I was far away from my world. I was flying in the air, but then I kept going down, and not to my world, but to the world in the sky. It was so scary that I just closed my eyes, and I thought I was going to die, but it didn't hurt when I landed. There was monsters all around me, and I didn't know anything, so I got scared again and ran away. Eventually I just assumed they were like my species but for this world, so I asked them how I could get back. None of them knew, and a lot of them didn't even speak. Eventually I found the travelling circus in the woods and they said they were goin-"

"What did you just say?!" Sophia blurted out.

"I found the travelling circus in the woods?" the alien confusedly repeated.

"No, no, that's wrong. That has to be wrong. The entire circus would've died. You must be mistaken."

"But, that's what happened?"

"How did they survive then? How did they fend off the monsters?" Sophia demanded an answer as she grabbed onto the forearms of the alien.

"The monsters didn't attack them." the alien spoke.

Sophia's jaw dropped. "There's no way!" she thought, "They found out protective runes? Before me? When?!?!?! How?!?!?!" She asked the alien "When did you fall to Earth?"

"It got really cold, then it got really hot again, and then it got really cold again, and now it's hot again. Does that help any?"

Sophia connected the pieces together. When the forests went dark, a great flood of darkness flew from the ground into the sky. This alien must've been hit by that darkness and got sent flying to Earth. That immense amount of magic in contact with its body for so long, it must've had an effect on it. Maybe it being upset is what's stopping the moon, that power being released unknowingly.

"And, and when, when did you meet the circus?" Sophia had trouble saying in her realization.

"It got dark outside ten times since then."

"Oh God." Sophia blurts out. "No, I must be mistaken." she thinks. "Let's just get out of here, alright? I'm sure I can help you more than anyone at a circus could."

Sophia takes the alien by the hand and leads it out of the grand tent, sneaking past the performers. They overhear some more conversations as they go.

"Ugh! I'm so hungry, man, we didn't get anyone today!" a voice whines.

"Calm down, the first day is never as profitable. Gotta make sure more people show up for the final act." another voice says.

"But like, no one? Not even the stupider ones?" the first voice whines again.

"No, you dumbass! The smart ones are first, because the dumb ones won't notice." a third voice scolds.

Sophia is sweating bullets at this point, "That was pretty blatant." she thinks. "The members of the travelling circus, they have to be monsters, right? What else could they be talking about? No, Sophia. That's stupid. Monsters are- wait." She realized what the alien said earlier. Some monsters could speak. Some of them have to be intelligent. Monsters aren't mindless. "It's... possible." she mouths. She starts moving from tent to tent a lot faster, she's in the middle of a circus of monsters.

"God damnit! Won't one of you go cheer our special performer up? I'm only getting hungrier here, and it's still midnight!" the ringmaster shouts.

"You've gotta be some kind of moron if you think some random monster with brain damage is controlling the moon." the second voice from the first time you eavesdropped scoffs.

"That's it! I'm sick of you!" the ringmaster shouts at the top of his lungs.

They start to hear the ripping of clothes and a strange mix between howling and gurgling. The second voice seems afraid, and lets out a short scream before being cut off with the sounds of tearing flesh. The idle chattering that drowned out the hidden footsteps ceased completely. The only sounds left are bones breaking and a monster wolfing down the skin and flesh of another. Sophia is frozen in fear, and the alien wraps its tail around her. Sophia looks up at the alien and mouths "Run on my mark." She counts down from three and they both start running. Sophia runs as fast as she can to her house and the alien follows closely behind her. They run inside Sophia's house and hide in the closet. They both hold each other close, scared the circus might've seen them and followed them.

"You're... remarkably soft..." Sophia mutters as she nervously holds the alien's upper arm.

"Well, you're very nice!" the alien says flusteredly.

"Oh, I seem to have forgotten to ask for your name. What is it?"

"I... can't seem to remember. I think it started with a 'Y,' but everyone just calls me a thing."

"Well how about..." Sophia says before getting cut off by the alien.

"Yhingy."