Fantasy Vs Reality | The Tear

34: The Hideout

A/n: Hey! So I hope you're enjoying this sudden turn of events in the book! Some even more stuff is about to go down, so I hope you enjoy! Enjoy your week, and enjoy this newest chapter! Stay fresh~

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Ra'sheen led us down the rest of the tunnel and we came to a large opening. Well, when I mean large, I mean city large. It was literally a city carved into the bedrock under the planet's surface. Huge forts were built into the walls of the cavern, towering up higher than even my night vision could see. The forts were built of different shades of gray stone, wood, and strange blue fire to light up the place. This was much different from anything I saw up on the surface.

"Welcome to the Moon Empire's last standing city Terra Quetta. It's ancient, and so is most of its technology." Ra'sheen said, bowing slightly to let us pass him. 

We stepped out of the tunnel and felt a sudden breeze hit us from the change in atmosphere. It was very quiet, and as I glanced farther down the cavern, I could see many fallen buildings, and buildings that were still falling. I could feel the ground vibrating underneath my paws.

Marcus gaped at the sight, I couldn't see what Fifi was doing because I was leaned over and probably too close to her face. 

"It's so ancient... technology from thousands of years ago..." Marcus muttered.

Ra'sheen nodded. "Indeed. Come, help me look and see if anyone has survived."

"That's morbid." Fifi whispered to me as Marcus took Fifi's place to help me along. Fifi looked exhausted, she probably wasn't used to running missions with us... and to have them fail miserably like ours just did. 

We walked farther down a stone path until we came to a small intersection of stone pathways. Signs with ancient symbols even I couldn't read glowed modestly, pulsating ever so slightly.

"Spread out, we'll meet back here in an hour." Ra'sheen said, Marcus nodded. "Thank you for helping us."

"Storm is coming with me as she is currently injured." Marcus clarified. Ra'sheen and Fifi nodded before taking off into the rubble and destroyed buildings.

As we walked a few paces, Marcus sat me down on a large slab of stone where I rubbed my leg, grimacing. Marcus sat down next to me. "Storm... I wanted to talk to you in private about something."

I opened my mouth to speak but Marcus put a finger up to my lips to quiet me. He stood up and walked around in a large circle around me. It took me a moment to realize what he was doing. He was making sure we were truly alone. I could tell because not only was he looking, his nose was twitching and his ears flicked in every direction.

He came back over to me and sat down. He spoke in a low voice. "We need to talk about earlier."

I adjusted my sitting position so I was angled more towards him. "Alright... what about it?"

"Well." Marcus began. "There's something I need to make sure of."

"What's that?" I asked slowly.

"I need to clarify that something is very...very wrong here." Marcus said, his voice almost a growl.

I swallowed. "What do you mean?"

"I couldn't possibly have been the only one to notice the black substance on the huts up there on the surface? And on the huge sun piece that almost killed us and shook the planet? Whatever took out the sun..." Marcus hesitated, he seemed to be choosing his words carefully. "Whatever did that... was the same stuff that took out the planet that... that nearly killed you... Storm."