“I’ll try to position it so that you can see it too… If you look at the right side of the picture, you can see it moving behind the trees at the back. If I go a little more to the left, you can even see the horns… Amazing! Wow, incredible! Look at that!”
ErikTheViking cautiously crept closer with his phone, which he was using to broadcast live to his followers.
“Well, kids, I came here thinking that I’d have a casual picnic, and do a live story about putting Mentos in my Coke… But this is way cooler! I swear it’s a real unicorn! Wait, I’ll try to get even closer to him, maybe he won’t notice me. I’m afraid I have to be silent, just watch the screen!”
At the time, the story was already being watched by fifteen thousand people, and the number was growing.
“Oh, nooo! There he runs, look! You can still see a little through the trees, his horns are shining! Oh, I’m so lame, I scared him away, I’m sorry…”.
Erik set the camera to selfie mode.
“I’m really sorry, kids… I really messed this one up! But I promise I’ll be back this time tomorrow to find the unicorn together. That is, if it really was a unicorn. Do you think it was or not? You can vote in my story! Oh, and don’t forget who’s the king! ErikTheViking is the king!”” “The next morning, every school in the city was talking about Erik’s live vlog. Was the unicorn real or not? In the poll, the voting was a close call between yes and no: all the children were waiting for the late afternoon login to see if the truth would emerge.
“Did you see ErikTheViking’s live-stream yesterday? I think it’s definitely fake! Erik somehow got a horse there and they stuck a horn on his head… I was very disappointed in him; I hate being tricked!”
“Well, I think it was real. Maybe it’s not a unicorn, but something else, but you saw how surprised Erik was, even he can’t fake all that, he’s not that good an actor! I believe him. I’m very curious about today’s live-stream!”
“No offense, but if it turns out that Erik lied, he’ll lose pretty much all his followers. And that’s not a small amount!”
“He would never risk that! That’s why I say I think it was real. You also said he was faking when he did the last challenge. And then it turned out that he really did it”.
Such conversations could be heard all over the city.” ““Oh my God!” Exclaimed ErikTheViking. The teacher snapped her head toward the sound: she could give a very nasty look if the class wasn’t quiet.
“Oh, sorry, Professor, I just saw… I just saw that…”.
“How many times have I told you not to use your phone under the bench! If you do that one more time, I’ll take it away and only give it back at the end of the lesson! Put it away right now, Erik!”
Erik shoved the phone into his bag, but his heart was racing fast. Almost fifty thousand people have subscribed to his channel since yesterday, and his inbox was flooded with messages. Not long ago, he was thinking about how to get his following up to at least ten thousand, and now, he was almost hitting sixty thousand. All it took was one unicorn. And the number kept growing, with ten to twenty people subscribing every minute.
“I can’t wait for this afternoon’s live-stream,” he whispered to his friend, “I feel like I’ll catch it on camera again today, but this time I’m going to do a closer shot”.” ““Aaron, how about us going there today?” Danny just would not drop it. “He’ll end up doing something stupid, that Erik”.
“Danny, it was a horse, a beautiful one, but still just a horse. Unicorns do not exist. The riders will pick it up. It must have run out of the stables. Besides, we don’t know exactly where Erik was yesterday. We wouldn’t even be able to find the spot”.
“You don’t know because you’re not paying attention! He started streaming on the bus, and when he got off, the stop said it was Turpin Street. And then he went past the playground at the end of Turpin Street, and then there’s the forest and the gazebo”.
“You’re right, I really didn’t notice that. After all, he is supposed to go live by six today, we can get there earlier, even by four or five,” Aaron’s eyes lit up as well, “and call PETA”.
“We had better wait until its owners come to get it. In the meantime, we could do a live-stream as well!”
“That sounds awesome! Is it really fair that he gets caught… And the horse will be back where it belongs later anyway”.” ““Turpin Street!” Announced the driver, and then braked so hard that Danny had to hold on to Aaron to keep from falling.
“What on earth is that?” the driver had forgotten that he had his finger on the intercom button. All the two boys could see was a white horse galloping down the road towards the woods and jumping over the playground fence. Their eyes were not playing tricks on them: the horse had a huge horn on its head.
“There he goes! Come on!” Danny immediately regained his senses and ran to the door of the bus. “Open the door! Quickly!”
The door opened, and the boys dashed off after the horse. As Aaron ran, he pulled the phone out of his bag with great difficulty. He only just had time to start streaming.
“We are here at Turpin Street, where the bus almost hit the unicorn. We’re chasing after him right now, you haven’t seen him yet, but he jumped over the fence here and ran off in that direction, towards the woods”.
“It seemed like he caught himself on the handrail of the swing, but then, you see, he ran on, he’s limping a bit, so he must have hurt his leg” Danny panted. The unicorn disappeared into the forest. The two boys completely forgot that they were going to call PETA.