The Moon Man

I fell onto my bed after a long day of work and a long gaming session in the evening, ready for a long sleep with no fear of having to wake up early. I glanced over to my bedside alarm clock, which told me the time. 1:22 AM. My eyes darted around the room from my bookshelf full of games to my fan on the ceiling, then to my bedroom window. I was too tired and too lazy to close the blinds or curtains, so I had a full view of the night sky. My house faces east, and my room is on the second story, so I had a clear view of the brilliant Harvest Moon. I stared at it for what felt like minutes as my eyes started to shut. But as I started to drift into sleep, I heard a small bump. Followed by the sound of knocking against my window.
"Now what are you doing up at my hour?"
My eyes jolted open and I crawled back, almost falling off my bed and onto my night table as I saw a lanky man with bright, Mars-orange eyes staring back at me with a wide smile.
"Good evening. Sorry to have woken you. Would you be a dear and turn on the light? It's awfully hard for us to see each other."
The man spoke calmly and politely, almost like a counsellor or therapist, creating a growing feeling of security. As I turned on the light, I noticed the time, 1:23, before I turned back to make sure I wasn't imagining anything. Before me, stuck to the outside wall like an insect, was a pale, lanky man with a mop of bright ginger hair on top of his head. His fingernails were long and sharp, his teeth pointy like a dinosaur's, and while he was lanky, he was in no way weak. His arms and legs were firm, almost like tree branches.
"Now that things are more clear, allow me to introduce myself. I am the Moon Man, a simple traveler who rises and sets with the Harvest Moon."
"What are you and how can you speak through the glass?" I asked, not knowing anything better to question him about.
"I am not human like you. Not anymore, at least. To someone like me, glass is a lot like a shield. It will stop us from coming in, but we can still talk through it."
I sat there waiting for him to explain more before asking:
"What exactly do you want?"
"An excellent question, my dear fellow. I often come out at this hour looking for a snack. Just a small one. Something any human could spare." he responded
"And what would it be?" I asked
"My stomach is rather small, so I only need to eat every so often. However, it is only able to digest one thing. A pound of human flesh..."
I was taken aback by the statement.
"A pound of flesh?"
"Yes, it's rather delicious, and any adult human could spare some such as yourself." he said in a calming, alluring voice.
I thought about it for a minute. I had been slowly getting back into shape after the school year had ended and was only a few pounds off my desired weight. What was the worst that could happen?
"Just a pound?"
"Just one singular pound of your flesh, dear boy."
"If you need it so badly, why don't you just come in and take it?"
"Why, that would be incredibly rude," he said in a very offended tone. "Would you ever enter someone's house without asking?"
"Of course not, but-"
"Rules are rules. All I need is you to open the window and then I'll be in and out in a minute."
He was rather convincing. I had been lured by the Moon Man and got up to let him in. As my hand wrapped around the latch of my window, the words, "A pound of flesh...a pound of flesh" banged around my mind until it hit me like a ton of bricks as I undid the latch.
He never said from which part of me the pound would come from...
Category:Beings
Category:Weird