//------------------------------// // Bedford I // Story: Shooting Towards The Moon // by Gray Compass //------------------------------// Luna didn't asked me where I had been, and I was sort of glad she didn't. Sometimes I felt as if she knew more about me and my innermost feelings than I'd ever pour out. I was an introverted person — there was much inside my head I'd rather keep to myself — but she could read me like the pages of some novel, if she wanted to. "Sorry for taking this long." I said, placing my mud-stained boots aside before stepping into the living room. "There was something I needed to do before leaving." Luna eyed me with a hint of curiosity, noticing the signs of my short incursion into the thickets. "I hope you were successful in doing so." She said. It made me pause and think for a second. "Yes... I guess I was." I nodded. "It's all fixed." "Very well then." She stood up. "What are we supposed to do now?" I looked at the clock on the kitchen wall; it was already ten in the morning. I grabbed a pair of backpacks that were hanging in a corner and tossed one of them to Luna. "What's that for?" She asked. Surprisingly, her magic was already strong enough to hold objects as large as that. "We gotta pack a few things before we go — a lot of things, actually." I ran up the stairs, Luna following me like a shadow. "What sort of things?" "Clothes, blankets, medicine, food. Make sure to open the drawers, you'll be surprised with the kind of stuff that pops out in this house." I said. "I'm gonna get my computer files — or at least part of them — and check my room for anything else that might be useful. Do you think you can handle the weight of this thing?" I asked, pointing to the floating backpack. Luna made a positive sign with her head. "Alright then, but don't strain your horn, or whatever." "I won't." She rolled her eyes and moved on. I went inside my room and pushed the door with my elbow, leaving open just a small crack. I could hear the muffled clank-bangs of Luna as she scavenged the other chambers. That'd keep her busy for a while. I hushed to my computer and plugged back the power chord. Now it was a matter of luck. "Come on..." I muttered, giving the CPU some slaps on its sides. "Just one more time, please." A green light flashed. My digital prayers were answered. "Yes!" While the whole thing loaded, I grabbed a pair of pen-drives I had found on Billy's room. One I recognized as being mine — I hadn't seen it in months — the other one had 'Black Mirror' scribbled on it with a permanent marker. My desktop appeared on the screen, and I was glad to find all of my files intact, in special an untitled folder where I had been saving all sorts of information I could find about Borealis, including Dennis Faraday's video — which as I imagined — was deleted from YouTube not a day later. I wasn't going to erase my personal archives to save all of that, so I was forced to delete the contents of the Black Mirror pen drive. There was some irony in doing that, I thought. While the files were transferred, I took my time to stuck an armful of clothes into the bag, alongside with my toothbrush, soap, and anything else I could find in the medicine cabinet that wasn't either expired or broken. All the apparatus I had used to remove the bullet from Luna's leg , and also my old survival magazines. I got all of that in the bag. It was almost like preparing your backpack for a family trip. Only that time there was no way back, and I could be killed or captured by an unknown entity, and I also had a winged unicorn with me. So it was kind of different from a family trip... But not too much. My bag was almost full, but something was missing. Something that once belonged to my father, and which I had been keeping for myself since his death. I lifted my mattress and stared at it; a huge .500 S&W Magnum. The thing was almost the size of my forearm. I grabbed it with both hands and inspected it under a beam of light that escaped from the curtains. I heard the door opening, and before I could think of a place to hide that goddamn revolver, I saw Luna. The unicorn backed away when she saw the gun in my hands, her backpack falling on the floor with a muffled thump. I looked up and saw the expression in her eyes as I wrapped the revolver with a white cloth. "W-why do you still k-keep that thing?" She asked, standing at a safe distance from the doorway. "For our safety." I said, placing the wrapping in the side pocket of my bag. "I'm sorry... But we need something to defend ourselves in case-" "In case of what?" She said, her voice tinted with a mix of fear and anger. "This kills people." "Borealis kills people, Luna." I walked to the door and grabbed her backpack and the pen drives. She didn't moved. "We are prey, and they're out there looking for us. I'd carry a dozen guns in my truck if I had that many." Without saying another word, she yanked her backpack from my arms and walked down the stairs. "Hey, wait a sec. We're not done yet, I still need to get the food." I said, following her to the ground floor. "Go on, It's not like I'm stopping you. As if I could, anyway." She sat on the armchair, her face twisted in a frown. "It's cute when you do that, you know?" I said, making my way to the kitchen. "If my suffering amuses you..." She turned away from me. "Not your suffering; your face. Makes me want to boop your nose or something." I didn't hear a reply. I opened the dispenser and got a little disappointed with the sight; we had some canned food, cereal bars, corn flakes, and a few minor things here and there. Not counting the cobwebs, of course. Those weren't edible. I had found in the old storage house one of those huge flour sacks, which I was using to put the cans and stuff inside. The sack wasn't even half-full when I finished emptying the entire dispenser. 'Crap.' I sat on the couch, dropping the sack beside me; I couldn't say for sure which one looked more miserable. Luna had been quiet for a while, not turning her face away, but still avoiding contact. She didn't bothered me — my lack of funds did. I found myself counting the same twelve bucks again and again, as if expecting the dollar bills to magically duplicate themselves in my wallet. "Is there anything troubling you?" I looked up and found Luna's attention focused on me. There was a hint of concern in her voice that made me realize I hadn't been able to hide my own insecurities. "I.. It's just that- This." I sighed, dropping the wallet by my side. "This money won't do. We'll barely get to Bedford with this, and we'll need to buy food, and water, and possibly shelter." "Let me see it." She said, jumping out of her chair and stopping in front of me. "Why?" "Just show me." I protested for a second, but handed over the wallet. She retrieved the bills with her glowing magic-thing and made them float at her eyes level, Luna flipped them around and inspected every detail meticulously. "What are you trying to do?" I asked. "Ah... This may or may not work." She said. "Luna, whatever it is — no." I tried to catch my floating money, but it flew out of my grasp. "Don't try to do any kind of-" *poof* "Uh, oh..." I covered my mouth, noticing in shock the absence of my small fortune. Her magic still swirled in the air like a blue mist, but the money was gone. "I told you! I told you not to try any-" *poof* The micro-explosion was louder than the first one. I found myself instinctively covering my face until the static noise in the air finally dissipated. And together with it, a rain of paper started falling over our heads; not any kind of paper, but dozens, maybe hundreds of copies of that ten-dollar bill. "What the hell!" I stood up, loosing balance as I stepped on a small pile of duplicated dollars. "How did you do this!?" "I- I thought you needed more, so..." "You are freaking fantastic, do you know that? Jesus Christ!" I laughed. As long as no one checked the serial numbers, I'd be fine. "C'mon; help me get all of this into the flour sack. We need to get the hell outta here anyway." "Are you okay back there?" I asked, helping Luna with the seat belt. "Try to not entangle yourself with this thing, alright?" "I'll be fine here, thank you." She said, stretching her wings before lying down like a sphinx. "Good." The last time Luna had been in my car, she was a muddy, unconscious mess of fur and feathers. I thought it'd be difficult to convince her to hop back into that car, but it wasn't. Her eagerness to flee from the presence of Borealis fueled her inner strength like no other thing could do. "Now... Before we go." I closed the door, making the automatic locks click. "About that spell you mentioned a while ago. What's the name of it?" "Now you see, now you don't. It's a showpony spell." "Yeah, yeah; that one. How can we be sure that it works? I mean, it's not like I don't believe in your skills or anything — you've spawned two thousand dollars, for God's sake — but a selective invisibility spell is something else." "Oh, well, we can't be sure. At least not until some other human sees me. Or not — that's the plan. I can't become invisible for you, I ought to remain in sight of at least one pon- one person. That's how the spell works." She said. "Yeah." I sighed. "Anyway. It's a risk, but we need to move on. If they see you, they see you. I'll tell them you're like... one of those rare horse breeds, or something." "Very funny." She rolled her eyes. "You get used to it." I chuckled, starting the car. "Say goodbye to the McRavens fields." I said to myself. I had good times in that place. I had a family there, and I saw them drifting away. Then, when the good times were gone, so was I. "See ya."