"Haha yeah!"

I threw my fist in the air as I jumped into the air with my skateboard. My blue helmet was strapped to my head with blonde hair peaking out. Shoulder pads clung to my arms that poked out through a gold t-shirt, with knee pads gripping the blue jeans that hugged my legs. The headphones by my ears blasted the City Escape theme from Sonic Adventure 2.

Houses, trees, and people zipped by from my point of view as I glided along the road on my skateboard. It was a bright and sunny day and the blue sky was practically singing to the green foliage on the earth below.

This summer had been great so far. It was a typical summer filled with goofing off and the annual problem of finding a good way to spend it. Most of my summer was filled with honing my skateboarding skills, learning all kinds of new tricks.

Down the road there was a teenage boy in his garage lounge, with a big tv in front of some bean bag chairs. He had short messy brown hair with bangs parted to the sides of his face. He had a light gray t-shirt on with a video game controller printed on the front of the shirt. In his hands he held a pair of Nintendo Switch joycons that were reacting to a game on the screen.

I slowed down my skateboard as I rolled into his driveway.

"Hey, Jake!" I waved with a smile.

He paused the game and glanced over.

"Hey Zoey. Did you have a good ride?"

I walked over to one of the open bean bag chairs beside him.

"Yeah, I can't get enough of riding. Everything zips by so fast, I love it!" I beamed as I took off my helmet and pads.

"Awesome. Well, do you want to race against me in Mariokart? It's always more fun with more players" He held up a pro controller that was sitting near him.

"Sure, even though you almost always beat me." My brow curled as I smiled.

I took the controller as he selected the multiplayer option on the screen. He started to select his character, as did I.

"So, did you see the moon again last night?" My smile faded as I glanced over at him.

"Yeah...the strange figure right?"

Jake looked back at the screen as he selected his vehicle.

"I got another picture of it. It's so strange we've seen it for about five years now. No one else can see it, no matter who I show the picture to." I shook my head as I frowned in thought.

He leaned his arms on his knees as we selected a course. He then turned his head to look at me, his his smile faded as well.

"Maybe we could try to find a pattern tonight? There has to be some reason why that horse shows up now and then."

"Yeah, I could use the help. There has to be some pattern with the moon cycles. I've taken a picture every night."

Every night for the past five years there had been some strange figure appearing on the face of the moon. It was the same shape that would come unpredictably, with no clues on what that symbol meant. Strangely enough, only Jake and I could see it. No matter who we showed the pictures to, nobody else saw what we saw, yet the figure was still there.

For most of the afternoon we just played his video game. To us it was just a typical summer day, but little did I know that things were going to change drastically.

Later that night, I invited Jake over to my house so we could study the pictures I had taken of the horse in the moon. He didn't have long to go, as we were next door neighbors.

"Okay, so what I've done is I put the pictures into these binders, with five of them for each of the years."

I gave a couple of the colored binders to Jake. By his face I could tell he was both amazed and perhaps a bit worried at my obsession of this.

"You're really serious about figuring this out...you took pictures every single day?"

I opened the folder from the first year and began to inspect the pictures.

"Don't you think it's a bit odd? That only we've been able to see it this long."

"Well I mean, what if it's just...well what if it...I mean, it is a bit odd, but what if it's just us seeing things that aren't really there?" He stuttered nervously.

"You mean seeing things as in we have photographic evidence?" My eyelids lowered as I raised an eyebrow to hold up one of the folders with the horse in the moon.

He just shrugged as he opened one of the binders I gave him.

"So how many pictures are in these? You took a lot of pictures..."

"Well that would be the third year, so three hundred sixty five."

"Wow..."

The two of us studied the pictures for about an hour, finally getting through most of the pictures. I leaned partially against my skateboard, pushing it back and forth with my hand.

"I might have an idea about this pattern..." Jake said while writing down a mark on a separate sheet of paper.

"Really? Already?" Excitedly I crawled over to look at his paper.

"Yeah. Look at these marks. I put a dot for each night the horse appeared, and a dash for each night it didn't. Does this look like anything to you?"

I took the piece of paper and studied the marks.

"They just look like dots and dashes to me." I shrugged.

"They're not just marks though, I think in a way it's Morse code!"

Jake got out the laptop from his backpack and searched up a code translation website.

"See, now this is what I found for the first year. If we type this in..."

Jake's fingers danced across the keyboard as he pressed down each mark. As he hit enter, big bold letters appeared below the text box.

"Greetings mare and colt. It is my greatest wish that you receive this message."

"Wait, that's the end of the first year? Keep typing in other years!" My eyes sparkled in awe.

"Alright, let me just..."

Jake entered the codes he found from the other years.

"we realize that this will most likely be a great change for you. On the sixth year of receiving this message, your quest shall begin."

"What the heck does that mean?!" I looked over at Jake with worry.

"I don't know..."

Soon, we both look up at the window to see that it was pitch black outside.

"Hey, we didn't check the moon yet!" Jake got up and ran to the window.

I grabbed my phone from my pocket and turned on the camera before I raced to the window as well.

Both of us looked up at the moon shining bright in the sky. Except, unlike the other nights where it stayed white with a figure of the horse, tonight the horse appeared again in a golden moon.

"That's...that's not like anything we've seen before!" Jake's mouth hung open.

I held up my phone and took a picture. On the screen, a golden aura began to swirl around the moon.

"That's weird...is my phone screen acting up all of a sudden?" I tapped the screen.

"Um, Zoey?"

I lowered my phone as Jake pointed up at the moon. The swirls weren't just on my screen, it was really happening!

"W-What is happening?"

Suddenly, it was as if the room was starting to rush around like a hurricane. Winds picked up from inside the room. The winds began to blow my skateboard away.

In a hurry I ran for my skateboard to secure it, along with my backpack to not worry about it's fate.

Our hair and clothes were being swayed by the wind as well.

Jake went to grab his backpack as well out of haste.

Suddenly, the golden glow from the moon shone down on us and surrounded each of us in a glow as well!

"Jake, what is happening?!" Tears began to well up in my eyes out of fear.

"How should I know?!"

The glows shone brighter and brighter as the world around began to fade away from sight.

"Jake? JAKE?!" I called out.

"Zoey...ZO-..." His voice faded out as the glow got stronger.

Now I was surrounded by the glow, nothing from my room was visible anymore.

I could feel myself getting dizzy all of a sudden. My eyelids grew heavy as they were forced shut.

"This might hurt at first..." An authoritative woman's voice spoke.

In that moment, it felt like I was suddenly poked with spears in my joints. My body began to tingle as my arms were forced to release my backpack and skateboard. I could feel my body begin to shift and change, most notably my spine felt like it was being readjusted. My arms and legs began to change as well as I began to lose feeling of my fingers and toes. My head changed too as I could feel my ears shifting to the top of my head and becoming more pointed.

I couldn't see what was happening exactly since my eyes were forced shut. The pain of the changes began to wear out my mind in this state.

A grunt escaped my mouth one last time at the pain before I fell unconscious.