Bernard and The Void

      The Orange Grundo moseyed out from behind the desk, grabbing a stack of space books as he made his way to one of his storefront tables. Quickly scanning the titles on the books’ spines, he began arranging them into orderly piles, some towering with many copies and some with only a few. He ended up with a single copy of Stuck in Space left in his orange, four-fingered mitts. It was a very popular nonfiction book about stranded-in-space survival tactics, all coming from various true stories. Casually flipping through the pages, Bernard felt a slight pang in his chest as his eyes skimmed over the various stories and he felt as if he could somewhat relate. For, Bernard lived up in space on Kreludor, Neopia’s one-and-only moon. He loved his collection of space books to keep him company, even the book club he founded to help boost his sales, but the day-to-day had become mundane and the space-life isolating. With another habitual sigh, Bernard placed this last book down on the table next to the others and then wobbled his way to the front of his bookstore.

      Once near the front door, Bernard pressed a button on the wall access panel that slid the door open, revealing a Kacheek, Wocky, Blumaroo, and Aisha as they rushed through on their way to the book table.

      In tandem, they all placed a paw on the lone copy of Stuck in Space and looked to Bernard as they hollered out various price bids. While making a sale was a great thing, Bernard always felt that this part of the song and dance gave him a headache.

      With a creased brow, Bernard ended up choosing the Kacheek’s wager, who held the book proudly above their head with an excited hoot. The other three pets looked irritated, but started to casually browse the other books on the table instead.

      Once the initial rush had quieted down, Bernard spared a glance out of the nearest blue hexagonal window. He tried to not look out the windows too much; with nothing happening out in space, time seemed to tick by all the slower. However, this time Bernard needed to do a double-take. He even strolled closer to the window to have a better peek- even squishing his face and hands up against the glass. Something peculiar that he had never seen before laid out there, nestled within interplanetary space. It looked almost like a tear leading into what appeared to be another dimension.

      Bernard had never read about this happening before in all of his galactic readings, and quickly turned to his nearest customer to make sure he wasn’t the only one seeing this.

      “Oh yeah,” a Blue Wocky answered, a bit nonchalant in reaction compared to Bernard, “That’s been happening for a while lately. Everyone in Neopia has been calling it The Void. Pretty strange, huh?” The Blue Wocky returned to perusing the table of Booktastic Books, leaving Bernard standing in disbelief beside him.

      Bernard quickly rotated back to the window, squinting at this “Void.” The outer edges appeared to be a bright purple featuring cracks, almost with a lightning effect, that extended out into interplanetary space. Strange spheres, perhaps a dark purple or black in coloring, were slowly oozing out. This was… this was… scary.

      Shaking his head, Bernard quickly rushed back to behind his desk where he picked up his copy of The Green Grundo Invasion again. Maybe he had jinxed himself when he had been internally complaining about the mundane of his life. Really, the mundane was a positive to his life on the moon: fewer people to bother you, hardly any surprises, the silence of space being the perfect reading conditions. Bernard felt a gleam of sweat build on his brow. He came back here to get lost in his book again, but somehow he couldn’t escape the anxiety clawing in his mind. Thankfully, someone interrupted his thoughts.

      “Er, can I have Galactic Adventures II for 2100?” It was that Blue Wocky again.

      “Yes, go on, just take it.” Bernard answered, waving an orange hand at them to hurry up and just take it away. Thankfully the mention of the book name brought up Bernard’s memories of reading it. It was a very fun collection of short stories, all about fun adventures around Kreludor. Bernard remembered how he felt reading them for the first time. No book had ever made him laugh out loud, but he did recall feeling internally amused by each tale. Amused and maybe even a tinge… envious?

      Bernard looked toward the window again and made his decision. This was it: Bernard was going on an adventure. He had to act fast before he changed his mind again. He quickly went to recollect all the books he had out on the sales floor, despite the book shoppers still being present and displaying dismay.

      “We’ll restock in eight minutes or so,” Bernard instructed them as he disposed of the tomes behind his desk and then raced to his shop’s entrance, pushing the button to activate the door so he could next race down the tunnel leading to where he had parked his small spacecraft. If he took the time to think about it, Bernard would have thought he was out of his mind. So, instead, he just pushed himself further with one foot in front of the other until he was seated within his vehicle.

      Instead of switching his spacecraft to cruise, he pushed a big red button that had the symbol of a rocket on it. Just touching this button left a bit of dust on his finger. Bernard had never used this gear before.

      With only a moment of hesitation, the spacecraft suddenly shot off of Kreludor’s surface, a blazing trail of fire behind it as it zoomed faster than Bernard could even comprehend. He quickly tried to steer his vehicle in the direction of The Void.

      Once he neared the tear in space, Bernard could peer inside and only see asteroids nestled at the entrance. The closest one appeared to have a large flat area up top, so Bernard casually parked his cruiser atop of it.

      Then he started to shake. Everything was catching up to him now; what in Neopia was Bernard doing?! He slowly turned his head to the left and noticed he was not the only thing perched on this rock out in space.

      Right next to his vehicle was something else he had never seen before. It was another lifeform.. It had a golden, glowing head, was wormlike in shape, and had the rest of its body submerged into the ground. Once Bernard made eye contact with this creature, they both screamed in response. Bernard could only hear his own shriek as the worm-like creature was located outside of his soundproof spacecraft.

      Quickly, Bernard hit his thruster button again and rocketed himself back to Kreludor. Well, that was it for his adventure. He had enough. Whatever this “Void” was, Bernard decided to just leave it up to the brave citizens of Neopia to figure it out.

     The End.