As Cooper hurried down the hallways towards his room he heard footsteps following him. Turning quickly around, he investigated the sound, but there was no one behind him. Was someone following him? While swiftly returning to his room, Cooper thought he heard something else, a small cry. But unlike the first time, he did not turn around to find out what it was.
Once Cooper was inside and had securely locked his door, he hurried to his laptop. Sitting on his aero-bed and placing the laptop on his knees, he began to type. He was writing to his editor, and he told him all about the strange happenings on the moon. He told the story from back to front, recording each detail as accurately as the next. He even told him about the person or thing following him.
There was a power surge, and all the lights on the moon base flared and went out. Cooper wasn’t worried; the backup generators would kick in momentarily. Finally the lights came back on, and his computer surged back to life. Cooper was suspicious although he dismissed the thought in a second. How many times had the power surged while he was here, a length almost of two years? None. Not even when there was a serious power deficiency on earth. Then everyone on the moon had to use half of what they had normally used, and Cooper had been out of touch with his editor for two months.
He attached the story to an email, and pressed enter with a satisfied click. But as soon as it was sent, another email came back. When Cooper opened it, it read, Domain ERROR, user not found.
Domain ERROR? That could be possible… Cooper thought. With 57 writers at his command, the editor wouldn’t have changed his email. It would be like cutting off his own arm. Is someone trying to stop me from telling the story? Cooper wondered. There was a knock on the door, and the laptop tumbled off Cooper’s knees to the bed below.
Cooper slowly stood up and cautiously crossed the room to the door. As his fingers de-activated the lock code, Cooper was hesitant.
Maybe the person who had been stopping him was going to visit him after all…

After the first door was unlocked, Cooper stepped into a small antechamber. Stepping across the room, he pressed his ear to the door that led to the main hallway. He heard muffled cries, and there seemed to be something resting at the bottom of the door. Something heavy. The cries continued, but Cooper couldn’t figure out who it was. Geeze, these doors really are soundproof. It was amazing that he even heard the knocking. Cooper pressed the deactivating buttons and the door slid back to reveal…
“Chandra!” Cooper cried out as he saw his friend lying at his feet. There was blood across her blue sweater and much more lying in a pool around her broken body. Her eyes were half-closed and her breathing shallow. Cooper quickly bent down and turned Chandra on her back. Standing up, Cooper called the emergency services of the moon base, and crouched by Chandra once more.
Brushing her black hair off her sculpted face, Cooper heard himself whispering to her “It’ll be ok… They’re coming…” He surprised to find tears streaming down his face, to fall gently onto Chandra’s already soaked sweater. Just before the paramedics arrived, Cooper found a letter crunched in Chandra’s fingers.  Pulling the paper free of her grasp, Cooper quickly stuffed it in his pocket.
He was so pre-occupied; he didn’t notice a strange man standing at the corner, staring intently at him. He still didn’t notice as the man took a camera, and snapped a picture of him crouching by Chandra’s broken side, and scurried off.
Cooper only looked up when the paramedics arrived, and took Chandra away on a floating stretcher. They told him that she would be in the infirmary, and that he would have to report to the police station immediately. Cooper was still crying, and he couldn’t figure out why. She’ll be fine… She’s in good hands… he reassured himself while he walked down the long corridors.
Arriving at the police station for the second time that day, Cooper resignedly sat down in a chair and started answering questions. Some of them were really stupid like, “Where were you in between the hours of 10pm and 12am?” Cooper wanted to scream, “I WAS IN MY ROOM GODDAMMIT!” but he didn’t, for it would make the police suspicious. He nodded his head and muttered out some “uh-huhs' and ok’s before falling into a sleepy stupor. It was 2 am already, and Cooper hadn’t slept in two nights, because he had been investigating. Finally, after finishing up with the questions, Cooper trudged back to his room broken-heartedly.
As Cooper lay on his bed, with his eyes wide open, he couldn’t sleep. He got up and crossed the room to the bathroom. Staring at his reflection in the mirror, he saw someone completely different from what was inside. His hair was messy and untamed, his eyes ringed by purple circles, and his beard wasn’t shaved. Rubbing his eyes, he opened the medicine cabinet concealed behind the mirror. After searching behind some cortisone cream, he found the bottle he was looking for. He shook out two pills and swallowed them in one gulp.
Cooper walked back to his bed slowly, wondering if the pills would be enough. It said on the bottle, Extreme Stress will cancel out the Sleep-O-Max Sleeping Pills. I wonder if worrying about Chandra is extreme stress… But there was also the whole thing with the “secret” and it resting it totally on his shoulders. As Cooper’s consciousness faded into darkness, he wondered if he would ever wake up again. That’s silly, he thought, and comfortably slid into sleep.
Cooper woke to the sound of a doorbell ringing, and someone yelling at his door. He wondered who it could be, and groaned when he looked at his watch. It read 4:42am… Great… My friend almost gets killed, I get interrogated by the police, and now someone wakes me up after two hours of sleep… What a wonderful day…
Cooper sat up and opened the door, grumbling something about sleeping in. Standing at the door was the Chief of Police, Chief Fred. He said, “I’m sorry Cooper, but this is a standard operation, you have to comply.” And much to Cooper’s surprise, about fifteen police officers streamed through the door, and proceeded to ransack his apartment, searching for clues. They checked under his bed, went through his desk, tore apart his pillow, and searched through his closet. But as hard as they tried, they could find no bloody knife, or a gun with a bullet missing. Then, as quickly as they arrived, they left, leaving the room destroyed.
Cooper stared around in disbelief at his wrecked apartment. They couldn’t possibly think that I hurt Chandra, could they? I mean, she’s my friend… That reminded Cooper, and he hurried and slipped into his work clothes and shoes, before rushing out the door and down the hallway. A few minutes later, Cooper crossed the threshold into the infirmary, which was all the way across the moon complex. And there was Chandra, wrapped in sheets, and a sling on her arm. A nurse in a nice white dress and a plastic smile, told Cooper that she was sleeping, and needed to rest. Cooper sat by Chandra’s bed for several hours, marveling that she was still alive, after all, she had been slashed several times across the stomach, before the culprit had run off.
Cooper was still staring at Chandra’s beautiful face, when someone tapped on his shoulder. Cooper jumped and turned around, on guard for anything. It was a strange man dressed in some sort of futuristic battle garb. There was a bag slung over the man’s shoulder that Cooper recognized as a camera. The man said, “Do not be afraid. I do not hurt my friends. I have come to tell you all that I know.” Cooper nodded and the man stood by him and started to talk.
“I come from a place not far from here. I heard the news somewhere that you could live longer on the moon. You see, on my planet, the gravitational pull is so strong, that you would be crushed flatter than a pancake. I came here to see if the reports were true. I saw you go into that meeting, and how astonished you were when you came out. I was the one who was following you. I’m sorry, but I wanted to see what you had learned. I tried to read your email that I knew you were writing to your editor, but I’m afraid my technology short-circuited your systems. I left then when I heard someone coming, and I think it was your friend, Chandra, was it?” The man pointed to Chandra lying on the bed, and stared at Cooper, who was still digesting his story. “I’m sorry, but I do not who hurt your friend.” Cooper nodded, and looked back at Chandra, lying on the bed. Suddenly someone burst into the room. It was the police, holding back a doctor that had been in the meeting earlier.
“IM SORRY COOPER! IT WAS THE ONLY WAY!!” The man yelled, and Cooper simply stared. He was spellbound, too much had happened all at once. The police got the man under control, put him in handcuffs, and pushed him into a sitting position on the floor. Cooper suddenly came alive, and crossed the room in three steps.
“What did you do to Chandra!? What did you do to her! WHY!?” Cooper yelled, shaking the man by the shoulders.
The man shook his head sadly and said slowly, “I’m sorry but it was the only way. You knew too much, and I was afraid you would tell everyone everything. I had too. I thought that if I gave you a message, that you would lay off. That you wouldn’t tell anyone, and no one would come ruin our perfect life on the moon.”
“PERFECT LIFE! PERFECT LIFE!” Cooper yelled, shaking his head, his eyes wild. “YOU CALL GETTING SLASHED IN THE STOMACH A PERFECT LIFE! HAVING TO BE ON GUARD EVERY MINUTE OF EVERY DAY!! GIVE ME A MESSAGE! YOU NEARLY KILLED MY BEST FRIEND! NEARLY KILLED HER!! YOU CALL THAT PERFECT!” Cooper couldn’t control himself, and passed out onto the cold linoleum floor.
When Cooper awoke, he saw he was in a bed similar to Chandra’s, and she was lying awake next to him. Cooper smiled at Chandra and asked her something.
“What was in that note in your hand?” he whispered to her, and she smiled shyly. She spoke with difficulty, but managed to whisper out, “It said, ‘Cooper, I’m sorry I never got to tell you this, I love you.’”
Cooper stared at her with disbelief, “Are you serious?” he asked, and she nodded. She looked sad, but Cooper smiled at her and said, “I’m sorry I never told you this before, but I love you too.”
They smiled at each other, reached across and grabbed each other’s hands. They lay this way for several hours, smiling at each other. But unnoticed by Chandra and Cooper, a bomb was ticking away under Cooper’s bed. Suddenly it exploded, leaving the infirmary in ruins to float away in the atmosphere of the moon. This sudden explosion triggered several other bombs hidden in various parts of the moon base, incinerating all that was left. Blood was left to float away in red blobs in the atmosphere of a place where none should have tread. No one was spared, not even the rats that had managed to find their way to the moon. The ten-year-old hamsters and their children died, and so did women and children, men, black, white and Hispanic alike. In a few days time, the world would find out that no one lived on the moon anymore, they were all dead, killed by a bomber and twelve bombs. Among them were Henry Cooper, Chandra, as well as several scientists that had come upon a great discovery. The scientist who had set these bombs had died as well, only because he knew it was the only way. No one knew of the great secret that was discovered on the moon, and its ability to elongate life.
I’m sorry to say, but that was the truth… None were spared, and none knew about the great secret. The deaths are symbols that tell us that none should tread in an area they will destroy, like humans have done to the earth, and the moon was no different. We would have trashed it like we have ruined the Earth. Their deaths have told the world that they should not tread there, and none have been there since.  

The End