Luna Lane and the Symphony of the Night – Chapter 1: A strange girl

Summer drifted slowly over the quiet village of Montana, USA. Every morning, just after the sun rose behind the towering Glacier Mountain, a thin layer of mist still clung to the flowers and tangled weeds.

At the edge of the village, beside St. Mary Pond, lived a girl named Luna Lane. She woke early each day before her aunt, Mrs. Moore, and her three cousins. Standing before the mirror, Luna stared at herself in a pair of long, faded pajamas that hung loosely over her thin, fragile frame.

The villagers disliked her. Whenever Luna handed over coins at the small village shop, the storekeeper quickly wiped them clean with sanitizer as though she carried a disease. Many children in the neighborhood even pretended to cast “cleansing spells” on her with sticks and weeds.

There was a reason for their fear. Luna was an Auditor, while the villagers were ordinary people known as Intors. To them, Auditors were strange and unsettling. No matter how long Luna had lived there, the village had never truly felt like home. Ancient Auditorium, far away beyond the mountains, was where she believed she belonged.

Whenever Luna had free time, she wandered outside to listen. Birds chirped softly in the trees, water rippled across the pond, and the wind whispered through the grass. The world overflowed with sound, yet something always felt missing to her, as though silence had wrapped itself around everything like an invisible blanket only she could sense.

In the world of Auditors, sounds were alive. Luna remembered studying beside Iris while Malik tapped rhythms across the tables, laughing at his own jokes. She missed the gusts of wind that carried letters through the Grand Lobby and the echoing halls of 2A.

She had once tried to explain to her cousins that sounds possessed souls, but they only stared at her with confusion.

That afternoon, Luna walked slowly along the stone path near the pond. She listened carefully to the water flowing between the rocks, hoping it would sing to her the way it once had. But it remained silent.

The world was filled with noise, yet the silence surrounding Luna felt heavier than ever. She lifted her eyes toward the soft pink evening sky and thought once more about 2A.

• Wow… maybe …this would be a “peaceful” summer after all. But Luna couldn’t shake the feeling that something unusual was waiting for her.
• Let’s read Chapter 2 – coming soon – to find out what exciting adventures await!