"É uma visão linda e encantadora contemplar o corpo da Lua."
Halley hit the ground oddly gracefully and landed on his feet, as if he'd been gently set down by forces he couldn't see.
Solano stood alone a few yards in front of him.
"You made it! At least this far!" he said. "We're throwing a party! For you! You're our guest of honor!"
"A...party?"
"Yes! Wouldn't you care to join us?"
"Uh...sure. I don't think I have a whole lot of choice, huh?" Halley said. "Where's Luno?"
"He's waiting for us!"
"Didn't know he knew how to party."
"He does! He is an excellent host! This is a ceremonial celebration of cantankerous cosmic coolness!" Solano replied. "I ran out of C words."
"I thought you guys were going to kill me. Unless this party's got, like, arsenic in the punch."
"It is not any conventional party." Solano said, and an odd expression came into his face. Cheerful, yet morbid. Halley felt nervous again. "You will understand."
"Should I be afraid?"
"If you want! If not, that is perfectly fine! In that case I admire your mental fortitude!"
Solano put a hand up and an opening appeared in front of them as if he'd made a door to somewhere out of thin air.
"Be my guest!"
Halley wiped his sweaty palms on his pants and took a deep breath, then stepped forward into the white light that faced him.
And then he was cold.
There he stood on a gray, uneven plane, with a dark sky and...
Behind him was the Earth.
Was he on the moon?
"Hello, dear."
He turned back around and saw Luno standing on the rim of the crater Halley was in, his shadow cast by the sun behind him.
Halley tried to speak, but there was no sound.
"You have come a long way." Luno said. "Be proud of yourself."
Some party.
"It takes a lot of bravery to break free from the confines of a world you've lived in your entire life!" Solano's voice added, and Halley looked over his shoulder to find him standing on the opposite edge of the crater.
"You will finally know who you are. You will know where you belong." Luno continued. "You took this leap because you had faith in us and in yourself, even if you did not know it."
Both Luno and Solano slid down the sides of the crater at the same time, kicking up moon dust in their wakes. They circled Halley when they stopped.
"Death is one of the least fickle things in existence." Luno said. "She is inevitable. She retrieves everything eventually, no matter how much everything struggles to fight her. She is patient, as she knows it will all happen in the end."
"This is your time." Solano added. "To begin anew, you must leave the old. Shed everything that troubles you and abandon it just as your world abandoned you."
As they walked, more dust clouded the space around them, falling lazily in the low gravity.
"You will no longer be you."
"But you will be someone new! And they will be you instead!"
Halley blinked and they were both gone, but the moon dust still surrounded him.
He tried to breathe, but a burning sensation filled his lungs. He couldn't cough. He tried to gasp for air, but there was none.
Panic began to set in, and Halley flailed about, losing any sense of where up or down was. He kicked more moon dust around him, and it coated his empty lungs as he choked and cried.
Then, as if they were two angels from on high, Luno and Solano both descended from the space above him, each with wings made of light. Both of them glowed just about as bright as the sun; their uniforms changed color to match. They stood on the edge of the crater, watching.
Halley reached toward them and tried to cry out for help, but space carried no sound. There was dust in his eyes and his mouth and his nose, and his tears broke away from his face and floated eerily away from him.
"Leave your old life behind."
"Step into your new one!"
It was the only thing Halley could hear except for his own heartbeat. Moon dust twirled around him like ethereal clouds. The burning in his chest never subsided. He could taste its chalky, gunpowdery harshness on his tongue. It stuck to his clothes and his skin and his hair.
Halley began to grow tired. He could see droplets of blood as they left his nose. His flailing about slowed until he could hardly move anymore. He fell backward onto the lunar ground and could only stare upward into the infinite void of space.
His vision blurred. His heartbeat slowed to a crawl. Luno and Solano stood over him, watching as he lay there fighting for his life.
But was he supposed to fight anymore? Wasn't he supposed to die?
And just like that, an odd, soothing comfort washed over him. Instead of thrashing about against the current, he was gently floating in a slow moving creek, cradled by the water around him.
This was what he wanted. This was everything he wished for. Things were finally going the way he'd always dreamed they would.
His heartbeat slowed to a stop and he was surrounded with pure silence. It was something he had never heard nor felt before, and instead of crushing and oppressive, it was peaceful. Soothing. The universe was quiet.
Luno and Solano both knelt down and gently lifted Halley to his feet, neither of them speaking a word. In front of them, another bright white door opened, and the twins let go of him.
The moon dust had settled. His lungs no longer burned. He felt completely weightless.
Slowly, he walked forward, the dust swirling around his ankles. Halley didn't look back at either of the twins as an unbreakable trust filled his mind and heart. He was going to be okay.
Now that he heard it all, Halley stepped through the door.
