After scrubbing my hands for nearly half an hour — as far as using a toothbrush to clean under my fingernails — I made my way downstairs to check the pressure cooker jiggling on the stove. Judging by its hissing, I presumed it was already about to explode.
I turned off the heat, placing the cooker under the sink faucet, the cold water turned into vapor as it splashed over the lid. Slowly, the pressure was released.
It wasn't on my plans to make dinner; instead of food, I had placed all sorts of tweezers and other potentially useful objects I could find inside. I had never cleaned a bullet wound from a living being before, and all the information I had was from an old survival magazine, where a guy who had been in Somalia explained how he treated gunshot wounds during the civil war.
The unicorn's case certainly wasn't as serious as the things I saw in the magazine, I hoped, but I wanted to make sure she wouldn't get an infection.
After a few minutes, I checked the cooker again; it was cold. There was no longer any sound of escaping steam, so I opened the lid. With a gauze, I retrieved each one of the metallic instruments, placing them on a clean cloth. That was the best sterilization service I could provide.
"Alright." I said to myself, entering the living room and placing the instruments over a coffee table, alongside with the bowls of water and a bottle of iodine I had found in the medicine cabinet. I still had some packages of gauze and bandages; leftovers from the treatment of a broken arm. "Time to fix ya."
"W-what are you going to do with these things?" She asked, pointing to the neatly arranged scalpels and scissors.
"Hopefully, we won't need those." I said, kneeling beside the couch and soaking a piece of gauze with warm water. "I need to clean the area around your wound before trying to take the bullet out."
She said nothing, merely stretching her leg and looking away from me. I approached carefully, slowly wiping the dust from her fur, she flinched at the touch, but relaxed after a few minutes.
"So... Do you have a name?" I asked, in an attempt to break the silence. She stared at me with an odd expression, as if I had asked the number of atoms in her body.
"Luna." She finally answered.
"Luna? That's an interesting name." I cleaned the fur over her crescent moon mark, revealing it again. "It fits you quite well."
She kept her gaze on every move I made, watching attentively as I replaced the now grayish gauze with a clean one, this time soaking it with iodine instead of water; that'd be way better than using booze. At least on the wound, that's it.
"What about you?" She asked. "Who are you?"
"I'm Todd McRaven."
"What does that mean?" Luna cocked her head.
"It means... I'm Todd. Just Todd. As for McRaven, I have no idea what it means, honestly. There are lots of ravens in these woods, I guess. " I shook my head at my ignorance. "It's just a name."
"You have a bizarre name." She noted plainly.
"Thanks." I chuckled at her sincerity.
"What about California?"
Now it was my turn to get confused.
"Sorry?"
"That bottle- it says California." She pointed to the vodka. "What is it?"
"Oh, I don't think I'll need to use that anymore; I've found this." I pointed to the iodine.
"No, I mean the name. What does it implies?"
"California? Ah... It's a state, on the west coast." Luna looked puzzled. I wasn't an etymologist, I barely knew the meaning of my own name. "I've never been there, but I know they make some cool stuff — movies, tech, research, this kind of thing."
"W-what?" She coughed, suddenly alarmed. "Is it near?"
"Why- no- I mean... California is like... thousands of miles away from here." The smell of iodine filled the air, her leg looked clean again as I discarded another piece of gauze. "What's the matter?"
"Northern Borealis Railroads. California, New York."
After hearing such a sentence I paused for a minute, trying to conceive what Luna could possibly mean by that combination of words. What the hell was Northern Borealis?
"Wait; you was in a train traveling across the country? How did you got-"
"I was in a box." She frowned, her eyes staring at the floor. "There were small holes on the cage; they let in only a negligible amount of light. Northern Borealis Railroads — it was written on a wall outside. California, New York... on all cages."
"Who did that to you?"
"My sister is still there." She spaced out for a moment.
"Luna... who placed you on that cage?"
"I woke up there. I was just... there. I can't remember." She sighed in frustration. "They injected something on my neck before. I was in some sort of room. A white room. I need to remember- ughh" She groaned.
For some odd reason, an excerpt of Californication crossed my mind — 'First born unicorn...' — I guess Red Hot Chili Peppers couldn't be more prophetical. Of course a unicorn could only emerge from a place like California.
"Don't strain your mind. You will remember... eventually." I hoped.
I certainly had many questions, but they could wait for a while. The things you don't know can't hurt you — most of the time... Besides, I had to finish what I had started. Treat her, treat me. Have some sleep.
We needed that.
Turning my flashlight on, I approached the wound on her leg carefully, touching the skin around it, trying to get a better look at the small entrance hole.
She wriggled at the touch. I expected to find something worse, but apparently, her muscular flank had absorbed most of the shock. Suddenly, as I pressed around, something sparkled.
"What the hell." I muttered, focusing the light beam on the exposed flesh.
"What is it?" She turned her head alarmed.
I looked closer, just to make sure I wasn't imagining things.
"That can't be possible — I have skinned dead animals before — the bullets, I've found them in absurd places. They can travel through organic tissue very easily-"
I stopped, noticing the terrified look in her face.
"I'm not a dead animal!" She exclaimed.
"You bet you aren't!" I said. "Are unicorns made of titanium fibers or something? That thing is barely an inch inside of you." I stated. Her leg was slightly swollen, and she'd probably need some sort of antibiotic; although I wasn't even sure if I had that. But those things aside, I was surprised to find the remains of a 9mm bullet so easily.
"I presume that's a good sign?" She asked.
"It's a fantastic one." I picked up a small pair of tweezers and dipped a cotton ball in the iodine flask. It came out brownish and soaked. "But this is probably going to hurt a little..." I added.
I squeezed the cotton ball, drizzling some of the liquid over the wound as I began to clean it.
"Hnggghh." Luna flinched, biting down the pillow.
"I'll b-be quick." I hurried up, holding the flashlight with my mouth so I could use both hands. I pressed a gauze over the wound and as I lifted it, the metallic surface of the bullet sparkled again. I couldn't miss that.
With precision, I clutched the piece of lead; it hadn't fragmented inside her, and I was thankful for that. I don't think I'd have the stomach to retrieve another part. I pulled it out at once, hearing a soft clink as I dropped it on the tray.
Luna whimpered something as I poured more iodine into the now empty hole. I wrapped the bandages around her leg as best I could; not too tight, but not too loose. Just like the guy from Somalia.
I was the guy from Iowa, saving a Californian unicorn.
"That's it." I said, tossing the flashlight aside and crashing on the couch by her side. "You'll survive."
Luna raised her head, inspecting my job. She had a very peculiar way of looking at things, I couldn't describe it exactly, but it was the kind of look of a kid who had just figured out what a can opener was. A hint of curiosity intermingled with uncertainty.
"Humans are strange." She said.
"Are we?" I chuckled, rubbing my forehead.
"Yes." She nodded. "Your kind can cross great lengths to achieve something, only to change all the plans when they reach the summit."
"Yeah, my plans are not very reliable as you may have noticed." I confessed.
"What I mean is that for someone who placed so much effort into trying to annihilate me, you controversially placed the same effort into saving me. That doesn't make any sense." She stated.
I nodded in silence, grabbing the bottle of California Vodka.
"Life in general- It doesn't make much sense." I shrugged. "That's why we have so many kinds of booze."