The Moon Collector

On clear nights, people in the seaside town of Elvane noticed the moon dimming — just slightly, like a candle guttering in wind. They blamed clouds, smog, tricks of the eye. But then came the rumors.

Fishermen spoke of a man in a tattered coat walking along the cliffs with glass jars, catching light. He said nothing, only lifted the jars one by one toward the sky until they glowed faintly silver.

A boy followed him once. He saw the man take a jar home, open it, and release a beam that crawled across the ceiling — forming faces. The boy’s missing sister among them.

When the town confronted him, his cottage was full of hundreds of glowing jars. Some held fragments of moonlight. Others held something else — silhouettes of people, trapped mid-breath.

The night they smashed the jars, the moon vanished completely. And every person the light had touched was gone by morning.