The Blood Moon: Doom Rewritten (Part 1)

Milli was unlike most teenagers. She loved her solitude, though she wasn’t shy when it came to making friends. She was an ambivert, balancing her quiet moments with social interactions perfectly. But there was one thing about Milli no one else knew—her obsession with astral projection. For two years, she had been trying to leave her body behind and experience the freedom of traveling as a spirit. She had read countless books, watched every tutorial she could find, and practiced religiously, but every attempt ended in failure.

Still, Milli wasn’t the type to give up. The idea of astral projection gripped her like a magnet she couldn’t pull away from. There was something about it—something unexplained and otherworldly—that she found irresistible.

For her seventeenth birthday, Milli’s family decided to take a break from the chaos of city life. They booked a stay at a quiet, luxurious resort hidden deep in the woods. The resort was surrounded by towering trees and greenery that seemed endless. There were no honking cars, no glaring streetlights—just the sound of rustling leaves, chirping crickets, and the occasional hoot of an owl.

But despite its beauty, the place had an eerie atmosphere. The trees seemed darker than they should have been, their shadows longer, reaching across the ground like claws. The silence was too perfect, almost unnatural. Even Milli, who didn’t believe in ghosts or demons, felt a strange discomfort. It wasn’t fear exactly, but a deep unease, as though something unseen was watching from the darkness.

That night, as the blood moon rose high in the sky, painting the world in a crimson glow, Milli felt a pull—a calling. She couldn’t explain it, but something about the stillness of the forest and the eerie glow of the moon made her think, “This is the perfect time.”

While her family slept, Milli lied flat on the bed in her room. She steadied her breathing, closed her eyes, and began to focus. She visualized her spirit separating from her body, floating upward, free from the constraints of flesh and bone.

At first, nothing happened, just like all the other times she had tried. Frustration built inside her, but she pushed it away and focused harder. Minutes passed. Then, something shifted. Milli’s body began to feel lighter, almost weightless. Her surroundings blurred, and for a moment, she thought she was dreaming. When she opened her eyes, she saw herself lying on the bed below.

Milli had done it. She had finally succeeded in astral projection. Excitement surged through her as she floated in the air. She looked around the room, marvelling at how different everything seemed. She was no longer bound by the rules of the physical world.

But her fate had other plans!

At first, nothing seemed out of the ordinary. Milli’s days passed as usual, and if anything felt different, it was so faint that it went unnoticed. She seemed slightly more energetic, a bit more restless, but her family brushed it off as excitement from the trip or a passing mood. Her calm composure began to ripple, ever so subtly, with bursts of irritability that felt out of character, though not alarming.

As the days stretched on, these changes deepened. By the third day, Milli’s energy seemed almost boundless. She was constantly moving, unable to sit still for long. Her parents noticed she was easily frustrated—small things that wouldn’t have bothered her before now elicited a sharp tone or a glare. She appeared anxious too, her hands fidgeting, her gaze darting to corners of the room as though expecting something to appear.

By the end of the week, the shift in her personality was noticeable. Milli’s once thoughtful and patient nature was overshadowed by a growing temper. Her voice carried an edge, her movements were forceful and jittery. That quiet, reflective girl was changing into someone none of them recognized—a transformation so gradual that only in hindsight did the full extent become terrifyingly clear.

The changes were subtle at first. Milli’s once calm demeaner was replaced with irritability. She began having violent mood swings, lashing out at her parents and retreating into isolation.

Then came the drawings! Page after page of Milli's notebooks became haunting records of her mind slipping into darkness. The sketches felt alive, pulsing with an unnatural energy that made anyone who saw them shiver. One picture showed a black temple, broken and falling apart, its jagged walls covered in strange carvings that seemed to shift whenever you looked too long. It was as if the images themselves were whispering secrets that couldn’t be understood. Another drawing showed a book wreathed in violent flames, yet the fire refused to destroy it. The book seemed untouched, as though it was mocking the fire's attempt to consume it. The longer one stared at the flames, the more they felt an uncomfortable heat, even though the room was cold.

These weren’t just innocent doodles—they held something sinister; something that clawed at your thoughts and made your chest feel heavy. The pictures felt wrong, deeply wrong, like they were messages from a world no one was meant to see. They seemed to pull at whoever looked at them, dragging their mind closer to a darkness they couldn’t escape. Her family couldn’t understand where these images came from, but they couldn’t shake the feeling that they were connected to something dangerous, something watching from the shadows.

Her parents dismissed it as teenage angst at first, but as the days passed, they couldn’t ignore the growing darkness in their daughter. Milli’s once bright eyes now looked hollow, her movements jerky, her voice sometimes deeper than it should have been.

One day, as her father was flipping through her drawings, he noticed something strange. One of the sketches resembled the garden at their resort. Intrigued, he went outside to investigate. The air felt colder there, and the birds that usually filled the trees with song were silent. He noticed a patch of disturbed soil and decided to dig.

As he shovelled the dirt away, he uncovered something solid. It was a small black structure, no bigger than a dollhouse, but its design was ancient and foreboding. Inside the structure lay a stone book, glowing faintly as if it were on fire. Steam rose from it, hissing in the cool air.

The moment he uncovered the book, Milli screamed from inside the house. Her voice was guttural, inhuman, and filled with rage. Her father rushed inside and found her thrashing on the floor, her eyes glowing red. It was as though something inside her was fighting to take over.

Realizing that the book and Milli’s condition were connected, her father did the only thing he could think of. He dragged her to the garden, ignoring her screams and thrashing, and forced her hand onto the fiery book.

And then happened the unthinkable!