I can't turn around and shoot the vile condor. I can't slow down to take aim, and I doubt a 30-30 round would kill it. Unless I scored a direct hit to the brain or heart. That might work.

Now that I'm fleeing, I realize I'm running away from the habitat because the condor had spun the tracer and me away from a dash to the back door.

I sprint. I know I'm running in the wrong direction and that the ginormous bird can outdo my longest strides with a single flap of its wings. Behind me, razor-sharp talons slash the earth like massive pickaxes turning up the ground.

Feathered wings whoosh overhead.

As the bird soars above me, I dare to look up. Instead of swooping down to snatch me up, the creature breezes past me.

It lands in front of me, cutting me off.

I skid to a stop as the condor glares at me with haughty eyes over its sharp beak.

On the other side of the upturned tracer craft, wolves and rhino-bears howl and roar, amid screeches from the other condors. The ruckus tempts me to see if one of them has separated from the wild beasts, but I can't take my eyes off the giant bird. Instead, I drop the sample kit and point the rifle at the condor, centering its flat forehead in my sights. It cocks its head and stares at me and my little stick. Curious.

Once I pull the trigger, the bird will tear me apart or fall over dead.

I waste no more time.

Boom!

The rifle rocks my shoulder.

The vile condor's neck straightens as its head jolts backward. It stands there, feathers ruffling. Then it crashes to the ground.

Unbelievable.

With the bird dead, my thoughts shift to the habitat's rear door, but before I turn to run, a vile wolf appears beside the tracer.

I realize my odds of living another day lie within the hab, and I also know our chances of surviving a super volcano stem from predicting when it will blow. With those thoughts, I snatch up the sample kit and turn for the habitat, launching myself into a desperate sprint. The most desperate one of my life. By far.

The wolf is faster than fast. I don't know how I'll beat it to the back door. As I glance back, it kicks its speed into overdrive. That's when I realize I won't outrun it. Not a chance.

As the wolf leaps toward me, I do the only thing I can. I drop the rifle and slide. While the creature sails over me, having left the ground too soon, I unsheathe my knife and drive the blade into its underbelly. I may not can outrun it. But I can outsmart it. Surprise it.

The animal yelps—tortured from within as the knife splits it open from front to back. It continues over me and hits the ground in a bloody tumble where it tries to rise. The creature wobbles on its paws, loses its balance, and then collapses in a heap. Dead in seconds.

After returning my knife to its sheath, my gaze falls to the ground, locating the sample kit and the rifle. Now, on to the habitat, before my luck runs red like the wolf.

As I start for the rear door, the earth rattles beneath me.

Behind me, a gargantuan rhino-bear slams its front paws to the ground. A three-foot-long primary horn on the tip of its nose leads the way as it lumbers toward me. Even the foot-long minor horn sways menacingly as it draws near.

To begin with, I thought it was the rhino-bear's weight that trembled the earth, but then I realize it's the ground that's shaking. It starts as a mild tremor and then intensifies into a moderate rumble. The shaking captures the bear's attention, its dark eyes roaming over the vibrating tall grass.

The rhino-bear grumbles. Frustrated, maybe? Finally, the animal locks eyes with me and blames me for it all. It rises on its hind legs to its full height. Possibly fifteen-feet tall!

It roars, wagging its head, teeth jutting out of black gums like meat-shredding spikes. Its bellow blasts over me, sending chills down my spine as the ground quakes with reckless intensity.

The volcano waits until now to set off the greatest earthquake in months.

The rhino-bear completes its thunderous roar and slams its hefty paws down. But before it attacks, the ground falls away beneath it, sending it and me tumbling into a deep chasm. The broken crust widens, crumbling into a hole that seems to go on forever into utter darkness. I slide, roll, and cartwheel, my breath stolen as I careen to the bottom, rocks bouncing off of me, dirt flowing like water around me.

I land with a thud, close to the bear.

Stunned, I lie there, my limbs scuffed up, back aching and head throbbing. As the dust settles around a shaft of light from above, the creature stammers to its feet and turns to face me. I have nowhere to go. Eve may have to raise the children on her own.

The bear steps toward me, but the moment its giant paw touches the chasm floor, the backside collapses beneath it in a landslide. In a terrifying whoosh, the rhino-bear disappears with a flailing roar, carried away in an avalanche that ends in molten lava.

I feel the heat on my face and arms as I peer over the edge into the deep magma river. Blackened crust covers most of the surface, the top-layer cooled above a hotter core. As the lava creeps within its boundaries, the surface cracks under pressure, revealing orange slithers that bake the chasm's interior with blistering heat. Some cracks fester into wider sores that sputter liquid fire, the rising air singeing the hair on my arms.

I draw back from the super-heated air. This has to be an offshoot of the super volcano, somehow connected to the greater chamber beneath the caldera lake.

Nature's raw power leaves me in awe, especially when I glimpse the rhino-bear's horns sinking beneath the flowing lava. The creature met a swift end, but my death will be slow and suffocating if I don't get out of this pit.

First, I turn my attention to the shaft I fell through. It appears about fifty feet to the surface, but climbable based on the ascent angle. However, when I test the steep slope, the earth turns loose in my hands and my boots slide back to the bottom again. It feels pointless to try, but I have to get out of here somehow. Now.

I pause, taking in my surroundings. I stand on a wide ledge that runs along the length of the molten river, high above it. Hopefully, it won't collapse like the rhino-bear's side did.

It's then I spot my rifle far down the ravine, several feet above the lava. I need it, but the side is too steep. Also, the gun is too close to the molten river. The stock and barrel would be scorching hot if I picked it up.

It's a lost cause.

But the sample kit rests on a narrow outcropping a few feet below me. I can't just leave it there; I came all this way.

On my stomach, I reach over the upper lip of the ravine, stretching toward the kit, my fingertips coming up shy by an inch. Dirt crumbles under my weight, skittering down the vertical side. I need to slide my body out over the precipice further. Between the case latches, there's a handle that flicks up and down for carrying purposes. Just a little closer, and I'll have it. About to lose traction and teeter over the edge, I snag the handle and yank the case toward me, scooting backwards, away from danger.

Relieved, I take a deep breath, hoping to inhale more oxygen than the other gases emitted by the molten river. If I stay down here too long, I'll suffocate on carbon dioxide and sulphur dioxide.

I scamper along the ledge, ascending at a thirty-degree angle. Based on how I fell into the hole, I realize the path leads toward the habitat.

Sounds fill the chamber. Hissing fumes and slithering lava. A sharp sulphur smell makes me take shallow breaths as heat pulls sweat from my pores like water from a sponge.

I focus on staying upright, stepping over rocks and small depressions on the ledge. The hissing and slithering grows louder as I lumber along, my legs weak from the exertion of trekking up the moderate slope, my head thick and spinning from the lack of pure air. Up ahead, a rushing noise echoes in the darkness, the only light a dull glow from the charred river below. As I move forward, the surrounding area becomes brighter, enough to make out my hand in the gloom.

My foot catches a rock and I pitch forward to the ground, my chin digging into the dirt. When I nudge up to check the path ahead, I realize there's an opening. Instead of hissing gases and slithering lava, gushing water fills my ears. The light grows brighter, too.

I push to my feet and hustle up the incline to the opening.

The mouth of a hole looms as I gape at the Yellowstone River, rushing under the habitat's underbelly. From this perspective, I see the bottom of the catwalk.

Over my head, inspecting the riverbank reveals nothing to use as handholds. Trying to climb up the embankment would cause a certain fall into the churning water. I toss the idea around of jumping, considering what it will take to grab hold of the catwalk's lower rail. I estimate it's an eight-foot high leap from the floor level of the hole to the bottom of the metal walkway. Not a monumental feat, but my flight will take me out over the river, and not to mention, wet droplets hang from the lowest rail, making for a slippery situation.

While I muster the courage to jump, a strong aftershock shakes the ground beneath me, making it difficult to stand so close to the edge without pitching over. Up above, the habitat quakes. Behind me, a heatwave blasts through the tunnel, raising the temperature to sweltering levels. Each successive earthquake seems like it's waking up the volcano, stirring its wrath for a mighty eruption, the likes of which no one has ever seen.

With the furnace growing more intense behind me and the tremors vibrating beneath me, I summon the nerve to jump.

One... two... three... I leap from the hole, reaching for the bottom of the catwalk, my feet dangling in the air. My hands grip the steel grating, slick with moisture, my fingertips clinging for purchase.

I grit my teeth and lunge for the lower rail. When my hand finds a grip, I pull myself up and latch on with my other. My palm slips on beads of water—and I fall back, but I catch myself—holding on one-handed with all my strength.

Again, I snag the rail with my other hand and try to pull myself up, but I can't gain enough leverage.

My arms grow weary the longer I hang, suspended above the river. Before my muscles fail, I lurch upward, grasping for the middle rail, snagging it like a gymnast on a high-bar. When my other palm finds a hold, I thrust my body up and hook a leg over the railing. A few seconds later, I roll onto the catwalk, heaving for air, having escaped the vile creatures but still far from the danger of the volcano.

As I lie on my back, my heart sinks when I remember the state of my tracer craft, realizing I'm stranded here with no way home.