Eruption

Prologue

Date: September 15th, 2034

Five years after the eruption.

We see a brief message appear on the screen informing us that this is a documentary about the true events surrounding the eruption of the Yellowstone supervolcano in 2029. The scene changes to an interview room, where we see a young woman, roughly 27 years of age, sitting in front of the camera with a 5 year old girl sitting in her lap.

Interviewer: Could you please tell me your name and age?

Woman: Well, I'm Jade West, and I'm 27 years old. This is my daughter Phoenix, who's five.

Interviewer: I see. What was it like the morning of the eruption?

We see Jade shift nervously in her seat, seemingly reluctant to talk about it.

Jade: It was about two weeks before Phoenix was born. Actually, it was my last day at work before I went on maternity leave. I was directing my first feature film at the time, and I was on my way to work, listening to my girlfriend's music on the radio, when I first learned that it might not be an ordinary day.

The scene shifts, and we can now see a blue-skinned humanoid woman with hot pink hair sitting where Jade was. She is wearing a lab coat over a simple violet dress.

Interviewer: So Duna, I heard that you were at Yellowstone the morning of the eruption.

Duna: Yes. I had been there for about a week, I think, monitoring some relatively minor seismic activity for the United States Geological Survey. The day I arrived, we learned that someone had fallen into the Madison River and suffered third-degree burns. Some of their skin had been dissolved as well. When I saw the body, I recognized the smell of sulfuric acid, like rotten eggs, and that was my first clue that something big was happening at Yellowstone.

Interviewer: But you didn't know how big at the time, correct?

Duna: I just thought maybe there was a minor, localized eruption that would occur. When more reports of similar incidents started coming in, from all over the park, that was when I began to think that a super eruption might be imminent.

The scene shifts again, now showing a woman with platinum blonde hair, with a few snowflakes floating around her, despite the room temperature being 70 degrees.

Interviewer: I understand that you were vacationing near Yellowstone when the eruption began.

Elsa: Yes, I was. Oh, and I apologize for the snowflakes. They tend to pop up when I'm nervous.

Interviewer: There's nothing to worry about. We're just doing a documentary about the super eruption five years ago.

Elsa: I see. Well, the day started out normal enough, I suppose. It was sunny out, as I recall, with a light breeze. There had been a few mild earthquakes during the night, but nothing to suggest what was to come, I thought.

The scene changes to the living room of a luxurious house, and we can see two people, a man and a woman. The man is wearing a well-maintained blue suit, and the woman is wearing a simple lavender dress with a black jacket over it.

Interviewer: So, you were on your honeymoon when the eruption occurred?

Mal: Yes. It was supposed to be a romantic getaway, just the two of us. We didn't expect a world-changing cataclysm to happen.

Ben: We had been planning on visiting Yellowstone National Park the day of the eruption, but we decided to stay in the hotel when we heard that the park was closed.

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So, I don't really know how the idea for this story came to me, but it should be interesting, I think. Until next time!