fire watch - episode 005 - the yellow of stone

part 27 How do we escape

They began to set off quickly.
They got to about halfway down the balcony when everything went a bit wrong. The crack that had been slowly forming under the tower for the last 5 minutes chose that exact second to ruin Tom and Oswins day by opening up. Before they realised what was happening the entire tower began shaking violently. Tom  fell down not expecting it. Oswin helped him up then looked down the side of the balcony terrified seeing the ground underneath them being eaten away "shit I think we're fucked! We've go to go down the stairs now! Come on!" they began running down feeling the tower sinking down which seemed like a bad thing to them, it was actually a good thing because it meant they wouldn't have tio run down the tairs, they just had to wait until the tower was half way down then simply jump over the railing onto the grass, however because it was that kind of day it wasn't over yet. They felt the ground collapsing around them. Tom and Oswin jumped to their feet running towards the rocks about 50 feet away feeling the ground fall away from them. Oswin and Tom were terrified seeing the further they ran the bigger the cracks in front of them got. They jumped on to the rocks just in time as the cracks split opne completely falling away. Oswin looked back at the ground no longer there "Jesus Christ that's the second time that's happened now let's hope that doesn't happen again" they looked at where the tower had been 5 minutes before Tom shook his head "yeah, Jesus Christ, first time I came here your tower got destroyed, the second time our tower gets destroyed, I didn't realise I would be setting a trend by coming here, let's hope that doesn't happen a third time before it erupts" Oswin looked worried "I was about to say we won't be here when it erupts but trust me I think we will be, horribly even if we get to go out of here with Steve we're going to see it, maybe it'll erupt before we even take off" they began talking almost running towards the site.
They ran through the trees.
Trying to avoid the areas with cracks or holes and trying to stay on large rocks hoping they were more stable than just the grass. As they ran Oswin began to notice the holes they were encounters were getting bigger and bigger, they even found a hole where a huge mountain once stood, just collapsed away to nothing. As they walked, Oswin and Tom heard someone screaming for help. Oswin turned to Tom "there's someone out there, we can't just leave them here, not now!" Tom nodded "I agree, let's get to them fast!" they ran to the sounds finding a mother and her three children all of them were girls at the ages of 10, 11 and 14. Oswin was the first to arrive saying "hi my name is Oswin and this is Tom, we're here to get you out of here... well that's the hope!" the mother looked terrified "how? There is no way out of here!" "No, we have a plane you can come with us, but we've got to leave right now! Come on!" at that moment the ground shook causing all of them to fall to their knees. The woman looked around then nodded "yeah, okay, how long do you think we have?" "Well it's not long! Maybe an hour, so we have to leave come on run" they helped them up and started running again. Tom said "okay that mountain to our right just collapsed" "yeah the waves under the surface of the volcano are kind of shooting up and down getting faster and faster until... boom" "well we better get to the site then and fast" the woman said "thank you for coming for us" "of course, there is no way we could've left you behind if you were left here then it would be the worst kind of death"
As the group ran to the site.
Oswin said "Jesus there is like gas build up in the ground, be careful where you step" "how can you tell?" "Look the ground is lifting and shrinking like it's breathing that's the gas trying to escape" "okay, that's bad, what happens if we stand on them?" "Well it's a gas build up, so I can only imagine it's like pockets of Carbon Monoxide which is horrible for Zurm like this gas is the gas that kills Zurm and that's it, it's designed for that... probably, if we stand on them, it will release the gas and we will die a horrible death" "okay we have to keep moving" they finally arrived at the fence. Oswin looked around "where the hell is the gate?" Tom shook his head "no time for gates!" "What do you mean?!" "Well when you have an axe anything can be a gate if you hit it hard enough" he walked up and started bashing the fence with the axe causing a large hole "okay, do you think you could fit through this?!" they all nodded "okay I have to hold it open so, who goes first?" the said said "could my children go first?" "Yeah, sure it doesn't matter who goes first all of us are going in, just make it fast" the children climbed through the gap, then the mother went through. Oswin said "if you're holding it open how will you get through "I will use it as a climbing frame and get over the fence, now go on we don't have much time to discuss this shit, move!" Oswin noded going through. Tom climbed over the fence "okay, now let's do this, and get the fuck out of here" they began running again through the site hoping to never see it again and hoping they had cars there, if not they were going to die.
Finally they found something.
4 red and orange jeeps. Tom cheered "yes! Now come on we need to get in them!" they put their bags in the back while the mother and her children got into the back. Oswin got in the front because she decided she wanted to drive for whatever reason, but if Oswin wanted to do it no one was going to argue with her. Oswin grabbed the keys and tried to start it, however it wouldn't start "shit, it's not starting!" she said in a panic "oh shit, not now! Come on!! What's wrong with it?" Tom looked at the dash "it says system failure!" "That means it will start with a system jump and I don't need the other one going to do that!" they tested the others but none of them would start. Tom started connecting wires, so the car would start. The woman asked "is everything okay?" sounding panicked. Oswin turned around "well define 'okay' because okay can mean a lot of things!" "Well why haven't we set off yet?" "Because the jeeps aren't doing what we want, but with the power of annoying them with wires we will make them start up!" "But then you remember the volcano!!" "Try not to think of the volcano, think of... literally anything else! I don't care what just do it" "it's kind of hard when you think about the fact we are on a volcano!" "Well no offence, but you were the one who decided it would be a great idea to come out here with your children on top of an active volcano, why didn't you go somewhere less dangerous like the beach? Well you could get big waves, but they have lesser chance of killing you, now shut up and let us do our work!" she turned away leaving the woman in shock.
While Tom was working on the car.
Oswin was watching the mountain next to him waiting and telling him what was happening giving him updates of how screwed they were because for whatever reason that was helping Tom do it faster. Suddenly she noticed the whole mountain crumble down a little with a huge burst of steam shaking everything around, they then heard a massive bang, however that wasn't the eruption that was the sound of the rocks falling down. Oswin looked at Tom “this is it, it's started! How long will it take to start the engine!?” “How will it take for the volcano to erupt!” “Well about 15 minutes!” “good this will take about 10 minutes!” “oh good we'll be dead way before then!” “pretty much, but just remember I am going as fast as a can! If we die you can blame me!” “oh I will believe me, that's a joke you're doing the best you can I'm just really, really stressed right now and I feel like no one can blame me for that one!” Oswin then started feeling the ground shaking a little then it turned from a little to a ton, they could still stand, but it was difficult to concentrate. Oswin started noticing a crack going around smaller cracks began ripping away from the larger crack heading towards them “oh shit!” “What?” asked Tom still working “um... just work you don't need to worry about what's happening now!” “no, me worrying would speed me up a lot!” “well the ground we are standing on is about to fall into Zarlum but like I said don't worry!” Oswin could see in the distance lava and steam being shot up into the air like a balloon with holes in but replace air with lava and death.