Chapter 8: Aftershock

I listened closely for a while, but heard nothing.

My breath fogged up my goggles. I glanced at Danny, shrugged.

"Nope, nothing at all. Stop trying to spook me—just get your camera ready."

I tried to sound light, but my voice came out too loud in the stillness. Jokes were my defense mechanism.

I didn’t take his words seriously. I grabbed the drill handle, turned on the power, and started working.

The drill’s buzzing echoed in the crevice.

The sound vibrated in my teeth. I focused on keeping the drill steady, blocking out everything else.

Danny came over and shouted, "Careful! If you trigger an avalanche, we’re done for!"

His shout bounced off the walls, sounding far more urgent than before.

I shook my head: "This is thousand-year-old ice. How could there be an avalanche? As long as there’s no aftershock, nothing will—"

Famous last words. Even as I spoke, a chill ran down my spine.

Before I could finish, I sensed something was wrong.

The air changed. I felt a weird vibration through my boots, different from the drill.

The ground was shaking.

At first, I thought it was the drill, but there’s no way a portable drill could cause this.

My hands went numb. Danny’s eyes widened in terror.

Danny touched the ice wall, his face turning pale.

He held his hand there for a second, then yanked it away as if burned.

He slapped the emergency stop on the drill and yelled:

"Run! You jinx! It’s really an aftershock!"

His voice cracked—no bravado now, just pure panic. I froze for a split second, mind blank.

I didn’t react at first, but then Danny kicked over the drill, grabbed my sleeve, and bolted for the rope.

The urgency snapped me out of it. I scrambled after him, feet slipping on the ice.

The shaking intensified—the whole ice sheet was trembling.

It was like being inside a washing machine on spin cycle. The world tilted, everything blurred.

Crack, crack, crack...

The sound was deafening, like gunshots echoing in a canyon.

Horizontal fissures suddenly appeared on the opposite ice wall.

I watched in horror as cracks spiderwebbed toward us, the wall bulging outward.

If that wall collapsed, we’d be crushed and buried in Antarctica forever.

My mind flashed to the news headline: “Researchers lost in Antarctic crevasse.”

The thought of dying that way made me panic. I grabbed the rope and scrambled up with all my strength.

My gloves slipped, but adrenaline powered me up, faster than I’d thought possible. Every instinct screamed to let go and run, but there was nowhere to run—just up, or nowhere.

Danny was quick, climbing up first and urging me:

"Climb faster! If you’re any slower, you’ll be stuck!"

He was so anxious he stamped his feet, wishing he could pull me up himself.

I could hear the strain in his voice, desperation fighting through the wind and noise.

Boom!

The sound was so loud I felt it in my chest. A shockwave of cold air slammed into us.

Suddenly, the opposite ice wall collapsed, thousands of tons of ice filling the crevice.

It looked like an avalanche in slow motion—unstoppable, absolute.

Luckily, at the last second, Danny grabbed my arm and yanked me up.

My boots scraped the lip of the crevice, and for a terrifying moment, I thought I’d fall. Danny’s grip was iron-strong.

I sat on the snow, still in shock, as the ground continued to shake violently.

My heart hammered in my ears. I wanted to throw up, but forced myself to focus on breathing.

The wind howled, snow flew, and a massive chasm opened, completely cutting off our route back.

I looked behind us—where the snowmobile had been, now there was just a black abyss.

The strong seismic waves seriously interfered with communications; our headsets were nothing but static.

I smacked mine against my helmet, hoping for a miracle. No luck.

We couldn’t reach the Resolute, nor did we know where the rest of the expert team was.

Danny’s eyes darted around, searching for any sign of help. Nothing but blinding white and jagged cracks.

Danny pointed at the snowmobile nearby and waved:

"Get on! Let’s go!"

His voice was hoarse, but there was no mistaking the urgency.

"What are you staring at? Hurry up and drive!"

I snapped out of it, scrambling to the snowmobile. My hands shook as I fumbled with the keys.

The wind whipped our voices away, but we exchanged a glance and understood each other.

In that instant, we didn’t need words. Survival mode, pure and simple.

The snowmobile sped across the ice, its tracks quickly erased by wind and swallowed by new crevices.

Every bounce felt like it might be our last. The landscape changed with every passing second, as if the ground itself was trying to shake us off.