The Moon, chapter 28: Ash

Susie slept on the couch again, and unlike last time, her slumber wasn't rudely awoken by any alarms and loud noises. Instead, the soft blue glow of the lights outside the window slowly pulled her brain from the murky depths of unconsciousness. Blur slowly faded from her still tired eyes as she rubbed it away with her fingers against her eyelids. When they opened, her eyes were treated to the pretty, almost sparkling cobalt light flooding the room. It felt calming. She rolled over to her right side and this sense of calm quickly got ripped from her body, as she was staring right into Suze's glaring eyes from the other couch. Susie felt her bones jump out of her skin as she gasped in shock, Suze blinking quickly and sitting up.

“S-Sorry! I didn't mean to watch you or anything I was kinda just looking that way a-”
“The hell, Suze?! Don't you sleep?”
“Yeah, I just... wasn't tired, is all. You were though, you were out for a good three hours or so. The storm's gone, but I figured I'd at least let you and Blooky sleep.”
Susie shook her head and rolled over onto her back once more.
“Well, since I'm up now, you can wake him up, too.”
“Alright.”

Suze hopped off of the couch, it making a small creak as her body departed from the cushions. Outside her vision, Suze's footsteps could be heard directly behind her, then closer to the kitchen.
“Blook! Wake up!”
A barely audible mechanical whirring ringed through the air.
“Hm? I'm awake...”
“Storm's gone.”
“... Oh.”
“So can we get out of the water now?”
“Yeah.”
“Cool. Susie, wanna come with?”
“Not really.”
“Alrighty. C'mon Blooky, we got stuff to do.”

With those words exchanged, the pair left the room, closing the door firmly behind them. A couple minutes later, the blast doors came down, and the mechanical rumbling began. A couple minutes more, and they receded, leaving the building high in the sky once again. In addition to this, the lights turned on as well, with no horrors around to get angry at them. Susie got off the couch begrudgingly, and walked to the window. And there, again was the cube she despised so much.
“Don't worry guys, I'll get you outta there. Somehow.” She whispered to herself, having as much hope in her words as she could muster. Susie took a deep breath and stared the cube down, and was about to turn away when she saw something incredibly strange. An oddly shaped, black figure dropped from the bottom of the box, and into the sea below, disappearing from her view as fast as it had came. She wasn't sure what to think of it at first, but then she realized that the only place it could've came from is the elevator shaft. Had someone else found the bunker? Maybe she wasn't as alone as she thought, but without an elevator, how did they get down safely? No matter, this needed investigating right away.

Susie turned around so quickly she nearly tripped on the coffee table. She only now noticed that once the lights were on, she could see that all of the candles were gone, as was the basket that held them. A minor detail, but if she would miss something minor yet rather obvious at the same time, maybe she wasn't in a position to go investigating after all. She would do so anyway, of course. She just needed to heighten her senses a little. She passed the coffee table, went through the door, and walked into the regal hallways of the residential area. She spent no time gawking at the scenery, though. Her footsteps echoed loudly through the empty halls, making her feel a strange mix of loneliness and anxiety. The walk to the elevator took no time at all, thankfully, waiting on the wall across from it's doors for Napstablook and Suze to return. When the elevator opened, Suze and Blook walked out, Suze being a bit surprised to see Susie so soon.

“Uh, hey-”
“I saw something fall from below the cube. I think someone fell down the elevator shaft that I came from.”
“... And?”
“Well, we have to go check that out, don't we?”
“I mean, we were already coming to tell you we were gonna head out for a bit. We weren't planning on taking you so soon, but I guess if you wanna we can take you.”
“What do you mean 'head out'?”
“Well we're gonna take a small boat out to the ash islands and look for anything useful that might have been left behind. Most of the islands closest to this place have been picked clean by us, so we'll have to get pretty close to the cube anyway.”
Napstablook spoke up.
“Are you sure you should be coming with us so soon, though? N-Not that I don't think you're capable or anything, but you're still healing.”
“I don't feel that bad anymore.”
“... Alright, well come in and we'll head down to the dock.”

Susie did as Napstablook suggested, and walked into the elevator, between Suze and him. Suze pressed the bottom button on the elevator, labeled “D”. The steel doors closed slowly, and the elevator began it's short lived descent. When the doors opened again, she walked out onto the red and rusted metal walkway that made up the dock, breathing in the relatively fresh air of the sea. The dock was a simple metal walkway that extended from a small platform that surrounded the elevator shaft. To the left of the walkway was a small, wooden, three person row boat, held in place by a rope that was tied to a leg of the walkway. Thankfully it would be able to accommodate everyone involved, so no one was left behind in the building. The boat was in quite a good condition considering how long these two had likely been using it.

“It's not anything spectacular, but it works for us. Climb on in the middle seat.”
Suze hopped in and moved up to the front most seat of the boat. Susie carefully climbed in and sat in the seat behind her, with Napstablook following close by and sitting at the back. Without further ado, Napstablook extended an arm behind him to just behind the boat, and just below the water's surface. Loud whirring accompanied by the sound of splashing water rung through the air as the boat began moving forward, the only waves in the sea being the ones made by the boat. The water surrounding the building was incredibly deep, but as they got further and further away, the waters got much more shallow, the ashy bed of the sea being fully visible from above the water.

The boat weaved between small islands of ash as it sailed across the water, most of them looking completely picked over and bare. But as the boat went on, the islands seemed to have accumulated more and more objects on and underneath their surface. She saw massive chunks of metal, parts of buildings, doors that stuck out of the ash and led to nowhere... and body parts. Grasping fists and hands reaching towards the sky from the ash, bones and flesh, arms and legs, marrow and skulls. She felt incredibly nauseated when the realization came that it was likely that most of the ash these islands were made of were once living beings.

Susie, looked over to Suze, and felt even more sick. She had a smile on her face.
“What... Why are you smiling?”
“Oh, I can't wait to see what we'll find out here. We almost always find cool stuff out here, it's like treasure hunting!”
...She was completely desensitized. She thought nothing of the death that surrounded her. To her, this was just another regular occurrence, and it was likely the same for Napstablook. The death, the rot, the ash. It was near inconsequential to them.

She felt her stomach lurch in vitriolic disgust.