Shards of the Moon

It's funny how the world works. How it's machinations can depend on such a mundane and unquestionable law as cause and effect. How obscure the actual relationships could be, to the point of mind-boggling conjunctions. Order in chaos, a complete contradiction.
In such a way, one could compare the colour yellow to a trashcan and have a plausible chain of ideas that seem to loosely link the two.
But no matter how stretched and skewed and twisted, a connection must always be present. As if the very fabric of reality would come undone at the first missed stitch.
But I digress…
I am not here to explain the many frivolities of human thought and conjecture, or ponder on the fascinating albeit flawed chemical process; in fact, I'm rarely here to speak of humans in particular.
My focuses are not so inclined to a sad little overbearing species on a doomed little planet, but rather a few key players, and their story in these cosmic happenings.
Let me start more simply, should this rambling be more confusing than informative.

It all started, as these things do, with a simple event that changed the life of the Planet Earth, quite literally, forever. It could have happened on any planet in the universe, any life form, any epoch, but this one in particular is my focus.
Earth was on it's rotation around it's star, and the moon was on it's rotation around the Earth. Two constants that no human had ever really questioned until now. Sure, they had their arguments in the past about which was which, but those were laid to rest long ago.

In the year 2025, a celestial event occurred that no one had ever expected or predicted, and that no one could possibly be prepared for. It happened so quickly, in fact, at just the right time, that no one was even aware it had happened, until the repercussions.
The New Moon wreaked the end of life as they knew it. A meteor passing through their solar system at a blinding pace, had collided with the Moon during the night. It obliterated the far side of the moon, shearing off at least a quarter instantly, and sending deep cracks through the rest of it. The side facing the world, though, remained remarkably untouched. As full as it could be.
Shards of the broken moon fell to the Earth.
Optimists still say that most of the pieces fell into the expansive oceans, shielding the main blows to the cityscapes. That much is true. They say that Earth just as easily could have been hit by that meteor and wiped out, or that the moon could have fully fallen and killed the rest that had survived, but this was only the start.
But Mankind did not come away unscathed, no.
The Eastern Seaboard of the United States and Canada were completely annihilated by the rain of fire. Much of South and Central America were cascaded by flaming rocks, the rest coated by ash by the fires started.
Africa was slammed, crushed 'neath a 2500 mile rock face and the proceeding shockwave that shattered the landscape.
Europe, Asia, and Russia and all the surrounding areas were the luckiest, suffering only minor rock showers, and the ash left behind. Japan was buried beneath a piece of the moon that rivalled the country's mass.
It sat like a stone tumour on the face of the world, the new biggest mountain on Earth.
But the near-destruction of the moon and the cascade along the superpowers was not nearly the end of the trouble.
With the moon's mass cut in half, the tides shifted and changed rapidly, feet of water rising in seconds along the southern coasts.
A tidal wave that buried Antarctica in a single night.
The moon hung lazy and whimpering in the night sky now, as the survivors tried to recuperate and assess the damage done.
It was only then that they noticed that moon no longer crept along the sky as it once had. It just hung overtop the southern reaches, absolutely still night after night.
Astrologists determined that the meteor that had struck the moon had hit it so precisely, just the right angle at just the right time, that it stopped the moon dead in it's orbit around the
Earth.
It's loss of mass was the only thing keeping it from being pulled towards Earth further, but it's own gravity still had hold on the Earth's tides.
Water levels continued to drop over the next weeks, drowning the Southern Hemisphere and drought the North. Fresh water became a scare commodity in the former United States, while what was left of South America fought to control the rampant flooding of seawater.
And it still was not the end of the problems.

Europe held it's own dark secret, buried for hundreds of years. One that no one expected would make such a drastic and dramatic appearance, one that's only existed in myth and legend until this fateful time. A beast, born of the moon and malice, making it's grandiose reappearance into the hearts and fears of men.
The infection spread sparsely, mainly attributed to the fact that most who came in contact with an infected host did not survive to maintain the legacy.
But the attacks were not so sparse. Every time the sun fell in the Middle sections of the former United States and Canada, the doors would close and lock, the windows would barricade, and people disappeared from the streets. It was the only way to keep the slaughter to a minimum.
People out after dark were rarely heard from again, save for the unhappy soul who caught their final screams as they were attacked by the beasts.
Almost none survived attacks, those who did were turned.
Despite the melancholy existence that people now considered standard during the night, during the day things progressed much the same as before. Slower, considerably, but the main necessities were still in play as always. Food coupons, water coupons, infection checks, searches, arrests. The government always knew how to contain a threatening situation, and this was no different.
But even the government and all their troops couldn't contain the monsters that now roamed the night, searched for the next meal. The dozens that could kill millions.

"...For now, hung in the sky every night since then, in the same exact spot every night with the same accursed light shining it's full face down on the country was the full, broken moon. And the beasts that were hiding in the depths of Europe found their way to this new haven of El Luna's constant gaze, so that they may roam free, forever more." The storyteller finishes to the group of youngsters gathered around a booth in the busy square, who listen with wide eyes and attentive ears to the story.