Love Beyond the Ashes

Checking For The Signs

Moona pov: I ran down the tunnel hoping to find another sign that Iofi was here. I couldn't think of another reason as to why I saw her name down here, ignoring the calls from Kiara and Shachou. I wasn't about to let this go.

"Iofi!" I yelled, hoping someone would respond, but there was nothing.

"Don't go on ahead without me!" Pekora scolded

I knew I needed to follow Pekora to not get lost, but I wanted to see Iofi again. I couldn't stand not knowing why her name was down here.

"Moona, let's go find the others so we can head back to the surface," Kiara said. I nodded reluctantly.

I looked back and I could have sworn I saw someone moving behind Pekora. They ran into a nearby tunnel. I chose to ignore this, just acting as if I was just seeing things, so I began to walk forward until I noticed something being pinned down by a rock.

"Hair?" I said in confusion, picking up the stray strand. It looked a lot like Iofi's, but it couldn't be hers.

"What's wrong, Moona?" Shachou asked.

"Nothing, let's just keep going." I said, softly tossing the strand of hair aside.
If Iofi was truly here, then I needed a sign or something to prove that she was here. I can't trust my own judgment.

"Moona, be careful, you almost tripped!" Kiara yelled, catching me before I face-planted into the ground.

"I'm sorry!" I shouted, getting sighs from the two girls.

"It's alright, but please don't overdo it, peko!" Shachou stated

"Thank you, I won't!" I shouted as I began to run again.

"What did I just say peko!?" Shachou yelled, running after me. Kiara followed, not wanting to get lost.

As I ran, I didn't see any more signs that Iofi was here, so I began to give up and was about to let Pekora lead, but I then saw a piece of fabric that definitely belonged to Iofi.

"Shachou, Kiara I'm going to go on ahead! " I said, running down the middle tunnel.

"Kiara, stay here; I won't let Moona get lost!" Pekora yelled, running after me.

I tripped, stumbling and falling down as the ground collapsed under me, causing me to fall, but I was suddenly grabbed before I could fall into the hole.

"Moona, you need to stop going on by yourself!" Pekora yelled, pulling me up to her side. I looked further down the tunnel, seeing a familiar shilloutte

"Iofi!" I screamed, jumping over the newly made hole and running after the figure. I wasn't about to let her get away. I needed to make sure this was her and not a figment of my imagination.

"Damn it..." Pekora sighed as she began pursuing me down the tunnel.

I was out of breath as the tunnel became more and more cramped. I was going to make it to the end of the tunnel and see if there was a sign of her, but soon I was met by a wall that I couldn't pass.

"Shachou, let's go back..." I sighed in disappointment.

Pekora suddenly pinned me to the wall and connected our lips. My eyes widened in shock as she kissed me out of nowhere. I didn't even realize we were sinking into the wall.

We fell through and hit the ground, but this felt like metal. I looked around, realizing immediately that this was Iofi's spaceship.

"What the hell..." I said looking around seeing her ship was destroyed. What I didn't get was how her ship was in the realm of the gods.

"Shachou go press the green button on the control panel." I said she did as asked, pressing the button. I was shocked to see everything turned on as it should.

"So the ship isn't broken, but why is it destroyed then?" I inquired aloud.

I couldn't make sense of this, so Iofi definitely was down. I wanted to investigate more, but I knew we wouldn't gain anything from this and we knew where this was now.

"Moona, is this one of your friends' ships or something?" Pekora asked. I nodded.

"It is, but we should check this out later. Let's leave." I said Pekora burrowed a way out and we quickly made our way back to Kiara.

"Where did you two go?" Kiara asked.
"Oh, we just went to the end of the tunnel and fell into Iofi's spaceship." I explained Kiara seemed like she didn't understand what I meant, but that was okay.

"Let's go find the other three." I sighed now, letting Pekora lead the way.

We walked for a while until we came to an open area with hundreds of tunnels. There was no way we would find them in here unless all the tunnels led to the same place, which I doubted.

This definitely wasn't good. We were pretty much at a loss as to where they could have gone and we had no leads either. They didn't leave a trail behind them or anything.

"We could split up," Kiara suggested, but that would only get us so far. We'd still have to find them and then inform the others, so we don't keep searching for no reason.

This wasn't looking good. There were too many options to choose from. Kiara then offered to shoot fire into each passage way, but that could possibly kill them.

For some reason, my gut told me they went through the one on the far right, and sure enough, I noticed a crudely drawn arrow pointing there, so they clearly planned on giving us directions.

We ran down the tunnel looking all over for them. This tunnel was wide, so they could have been anywhere.

"Shachou, do you think we are getting close?" I asked.

"Maybe the marine doesn't have much stamina, so we should be peko," she explained.

"That's good, we need flare anyway." Kiara sighed.

We finally reached the exit and were met by the three other girls who looked shaken up. We went up to see what they had seen and they told us they had seen a ghost.

I approached them wanting to know what this was a about.