Chapter Fourteen

They remained pretty quiet for the rest of the night dinner was also in silence, it was a bit weird for Starblaze and Karla to not be eating on their dinning without their usual banter it was too normal but they couldn't really do much about it so they decided to go to bed early and start to aunty Hazuki's home the next day. Viper and Tatsuya were a bit more tensed than Starblaze or Karla, since they found out about their aunty they've been a bit awkward both girls noticed this change but chose to not be nosy and just kept quiet about it.

Starblaze was the last one to fall asleep that night, she stayed up quite late letting her mind roam a bit, she wasn't particularly thinking about anything to be exact, she just let her mind go where ever it wanted to go she was staring at the stars for most of the time, it reminded her of the crystal stones she saw back in the principals office and also the ones Miss Belinda gave them a long time ago, well they weren't very sure of what the stones did but Starblaze could vividly remember how the stones would glow when they were at their aunties house. Starblazes attention snapped to some rustling trees, she stared at the spot for sometime before turning of the fire, a few seconds after she turned off the fire a man in black ran by, Starblaze guessed he was with the principal and sighed in relief that she had turned off the fire soon enough, she had seen him crouching behind the trees, it was dark and the trees were pretty far from the cave so he couldn't have seen them but he definitely had the idea that someone or something was there, she decided to stop her wandering mind for now and go to sleep.

….

Starblaze happened to be the first to wake up the next morning as well which was a bit unexpected for obvious reasons but it didn't matter as they had other problems that morning. Apparently someone had been around the cave while they were asleep and it wasn't the man in black, this person left a long rope like trail behind their footprints, Viper seemed a bit more suspicious about the tracks than anybody else. They ate their leftover food from the night before and started their journey to Hazuki's house which was far at the end of Opwood, that was a considerably long journey on foot, they've been there but never on foot so it took a couple of hours so this was gonna be a journey for days, Viper and Tatsuya were a bit anxious going there, they were pretty slow and walked behind the girls not saying anything or cracking any jokes which was off but as usual the girls kept quiet about it and just kept going.

They group of four had been walking for a couple of hours and as always they didn't seem to be getting tired anytime soon. The scene wasn't exactly changing as they moved along, Karla was starting to wonder if they were going in circles so she satisfied he wondering.

"Starblaze are you sure we aren't moving in circles?"

"what?" Karla faced Starblaze while walking backwards

"I mean maybe we're going the wrong way, the scene has pretty much been the same the whole way, like I'm pretty sure I've seen that stump a couple of times and that tree? Looks pretty same to the one I saw about an hour agoo" she turned abruptly just to almost fall into a ravine which was quite obvious, she was still at the edge waving around and screaming.

"was the obvious ravine also there an hour ago?" Starblaze asked with folded arms while Viper and Tatsuya snickered behind her.

"oh yeah do you remember me dangling from the edge of life like this I know right? Me neither! Now help me will you?"

Starblaze rolled her eyes before pulling her from the edge and dropping her on the floor.

"okay any idea how to cross the ravine?" Viper asked with a slight mocking tone behind her voice, it was definitely a force habit according to Starblaze

"that's not a major problem" with that she jumped and landed easily at the other side with Karla following behind her, Viper, if she had any reaction, hid it nicely behind the slightly bored, slightly annoyed, slightly mad expression she always had on her face.

"pretty impressive huh?" Tatsuya said snickering before jumping, Viper looked at him before scoffing and jumping after him.

They continued their journey through the now different forest, this party of the forest looked a bit more humid and alive, they had seen a bunny or a snake pass by a couple of times, there was even a monkey.

"should there be monkeys in this part of the world?"

"anything is possible in this part of the world Karla" Viper was the one to answer this time saving Starblaze the stress this time.

The sky wasn't getting dark as fast as it was the day before but they were getting hungry a bit faster, Karlas stomach actually growled a couple of times but they all chose to ignore it or were too busy admiring the world around them at the same time ignoring it

"ok are we gonna ignore my growing stomach forever?"

"if possible"

"it's pretty hard though"

"maybe you could make it a bit more quiet"

"hey so mean I'm really hungry and you're ignoring me"

"we aren't ignoring you, we're admiring the silence of the world without your stomachs constant call for help" Karla let out a dramatic gasp before pretending to faint but seeing that no one was stopping for her she quickly got up and ran after them.

Still hungry they reduced they're pace to try conserve they're energy. They had continued for about an hour when Starblaze suddenly started to run, looking at each other in shock they followed her, she didn't seem to be slowing down anytime soon and was going faster, she used the trees around her as a boost to move faster forcing them to follow and increase their speed she stopped at a clearing and disappeared.

"Star?" they stopped at the clearing and looked around for Starblaze

"here hurry" they looked towards her voice and spotted her going into a tunnel and weirdly followed her.

"where are we going and why did we have to run" Viper asked befoire hearing some footsteps stopping at the clearing.

"we lost them"

"you lost them? Argghh" lets go back maybe they gave us the slip"

They continued down the tunnel until they came into an opening and quickly crawled out.

"well that was close" Karla said as they sat on the ground

"yeah but where are we now?" they looked to Tatsuya who asked the question and went to stand next to him

"what do you mean"

"excuse me, you aren't from here are you?" they looked at the being floating infront of their faces staring at them with curiousity.

"well one things for sure"

"this is not Opwood".