FyreBurn is now.
The story is complete. Read the Prologue and First Chapter below.
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The Retaliate
Two girls. Two traumas. One parasitic system that feeds on both.
Midge Earthstar thought she found treasure on the beach. She found a death sentence. When the Anbar Church invades her forest, a mysterious pendant fuses with her body, granting her the power of FyreBurn — and the voice of a dead warrior in her head. But power is a transaction, and the SABERCON system doesn't give gifts. It takes.
Rydia Ornel was a princess. Then her grandmother framed her for treason, murdered her parents, and exiled her to die. Broken and desperate, Rydia bonds with a second SABERCON artifact, rewriting her reality as a video game to survive. But when her tutorial quest summons a living tornado, her delusion shatters — and so does the refugee camp sheltering her.
Now, with an army of conscripted Spore-Beasts closing in and a vengeful Empress descending from the sky, Midge and Rydia must forge an alliance neither of them wants. Because the SABERCON system didn't choose them by accident. It chose them because they were already broken.
And broken things make the best weapons.
FyreBurn is a meta-progressive dark fantasy — a brutal origin story about trauma as both a prison and a power source, political betrayal, and the terrible price of survival when the system feeding you was never built to keep you alive.
Read for: Dual protagonists who operate in incompatible realities · Power systems that cost pieces of your identity · Body horror transformation earned through sacrifice · Political betrayal that reshapes an entire world · A LitRPG overlay that is a trauma response, not a game
Prologue: FyreArm’s Ultra Gangsta’ Workout Program!
“Damn, why did he change the code?” Kenny cursed under his breath.
Each combination he entered produced a negative tone, eroding the young J-Clan thief’s self-assurance in his many abilities to steal anything.
This time, it was one of LightSpeed’s Airships.
Bzzt.
The sound of another wrong combination.
The Airship stood proudly in the docking space along with the others in the hangar. For sure, the airship was the right one. The designator—PX4— proudly etched on the hull erased his doubts.
Yet, after all the times he has been in this craft, it was this night that the password lock gave him the most difficulty.
The ruby pendant hung around his neck, glistening in the moonlight. Tonight would have been an excellent time to hunt vampires in the forest realm, as when the mission started, he feigned sickness.
This was important.
This was needed.
Bzzt.
Another wrong combination.
“Damn, why did he change the code?” Kenny asked.
The final test run of his program. All that was left was to run the program.
That was it.
And yet, all of it ground to a halt when LightSpeed changed the passcodes for the ships. But it wasn’t going to stop him. Not by a long shot.
“Ok, yo, you gonna let me in?” Kenny said, taking a step back. Channeling his Celestial power, he pointed his right finger at the keypad.
His body manifested a bright reddish orange glow before traveling through his body and out the tip of his finger. A beam of energy barreled out, hitting the keypad, causing it to glow and pulse.
“That’s right, fool, let me in!” Kenny yelled, delivering pulses of energy into the pad. The entire aircraft glowed in the reddish aura before a purplish hue replaced it, causing a ring of energy to explode from the ship, causing Kenny to fly several meters into another boat at the opposite side of the air hangar.
“Shit, was that too much?” Kenny said, rubbing the back of his head.
The airship’s purplish glow died when the digital panel turned green and slid to the side, exposing the door lever.
“Yeah, that’s right, damn your locks, LightSpeed.”
Kenny grabbed his backpack and headed inside.
He fumbled around his pockets as he placed the ruby pendant into the inside notch of the forward console. The pendant glowed as the airship’s consoles roared to life.
PX4 LANDJET ACTIVATED. RESUMING NORMAL OPERATIONS. ACTIVATED LIFE SUPPORT PROTOCOLS. STANDING BY.
“PX4,” Kenny said, taking out his handheld videogame console and spinning around in the seat. “Download FireArm Jackson AI program 2.0.”
DOWNLOADING, STAND BY, CURRENT PROGRESS 2%
“This always takes forever,” he replied, turning on his videogame console, “at least I have time to get some game time in while it loads.”
A miniature hologram of Kenny appeared where the console’s AI usually stands. “Thank you for purchasing FireArm’s Ultra Gangsta’ Workout Program! You want to fight like me. Do all kinds of cool shit like me? Then no problem. This information database will have all the tools you need to do just that. Do you agree that what you just saw was the hippest shit?”
“Damn straight,” Kenny said while the music of the video game drowned out the noise.
Yo.
“Yo?” Kenny asked, looking up from his handheld. “What do you mean, yo. I don’t talk like that.”
Well, aren’t you gonna say something, sucka?
Kenny stared at his holographic reflection. “Hey, what the shit, what is this?”
WELCOME TO THE THEMATIC STORYTELLER LIBRARY AUTOMATED KNOWLEDGE DATABASE
“Wait, what is happening here. Load the damn program!”
INITIALIZING VERSION 1.0 BETA
ADAPTING PHYSICAL PARAMETERS… DONE
ADJUSTING DISPLAY… WORKING
“1.0 beta?” Kenny asked. “No, the program is 2.0; I don’t have a 1.0 beta.”
The front screen turned on and displayed a beachside ocean. Kenny stashed the game console into his pack and stepped out of the seat. “PX4, stop the download.”
The airship glowed purple once again, this time highlighting every inch of the space. The hologram flickered and then spoke in his voice, except he knew it wasn’t him speaking. It was like a warped version of his voice, echoing throughout the small space.
The view screen followed suit as the voice spoke. “Thirty moons ago, she went exploring on the Northern rocks. While diving for five-pointed fish, she noticed a lot of dead aquatic life and vegetation near a shallow opening. Small air pockets were allowing her to take more breaths and go deeper into the cavern.”
“Damnit, this is a setup,” Kenny said. “I knew this was a trap when he changed the damn codes.”
ADJUSTING SPECTRUM THERMOMETER… DONE
“Ok, PX4, stop downloading.”
The hologram continued its story. “She made it about five or six hundred yards and led deeper into a large underground tunnel. Diving out of the water, she looked up to see spore bats diving in from the sky. A little way down the path, she came upon a large metal object covered with rocks and debris. Moving the rocks out of the way, in front of her was a rusted metal panel that she managed to remove, revealing a lever with strange symbols scrawled across it. It took her three days’ worth of attempts to pry the lever open. Above it, where the Ocean splashed against it when the tide was high, there were strange symbols sprawled above it.”
ADAPTING CURRENT LOADED DATABASE… WORKING
Kenny reached for the pendant, but a purple static electricity sparked from it, singeing his fingers. “No… I was definitely set up. Damnit LightSpeed. Whatever, I am out of here.”
Kenny turned, grabbed his bag when the back door closed shut on its own. He pounded on it, pulling the lever back and forth to open it manually. “Hey now, let me out!”
The hologram continued its story. “She recognized a few of the letters from when the bipedals started claiming territories around the area. She remembered that the Paw Paw kept a book with the same strange symbols, so she eagerly studied it until she had it memorized down pat. However, when she translated the letters, all she got was “APE OD,” which didn’t really add up to anything, so she just called this secret place ‘Apeod. ’
INITIALIZING VOCAL STREAMALIZATION… WORKING
Kenny attempted to grab the pendant again. The static electricity pushed against his fingers until he used all his strength to catch it when it seared through his hand glove. “Shit! Shit!”
The hologram continued its story. “This is … …Fire….Jack... If… reading this… it means that I died yo, and this shit has come to haunt me…. If… I haven’t… then this is stupid and turn this damn shit off… Just in case… I am playing my highlight reel…. So whoever finds this… pass on this legacy, learn from it yo, and don’t let my death be in vain….”
“Oh hell no, I ain’t dying in this shit!” Kenny yelled. He charged up his celestial power toward the back door, expecting his heat energy to manifest, but nothing happened.
DISPLAY LOCALIZATION INCOMPLETE… ACTIVE SENSOR SWEEP INITIALIZED
TRANSLATION VOCAL STERILIZATION IS NOW COMPLETE
STAND BY
The screen shifted again to Kenny sitting in the PX4 chair.
“Yo, this is freaking me out. What is happening here? Let me out now!” Kenny yelled.
“Get good, Scrub.” The version of him on the screen laughed and flipped him a middle finger. It laughed some more before turning serious and looking into Kenny’s eyes. “Yo, I am including… greatest hits… all in this… pendant that Lightbulb created… all yours for a very, very low price of… one hundred ninety-nine dollars and ninety-nine cents… tax and handling.“
The airship rumbled around him. “No, no, no, no no. Wait. Where are you going? I didnt tell you to fly off. You were only supposed to run the program. What is happening!”
“Dear Reader. Welcome to the beginning of the Creator’s stories. The story of Midge and Rydia. The story of FyreBurn. Kenny activated an old piece of the FyreBurn writing, and we are correcting that now.”
“Hey, who are you talking to? Who is this Creator? Let me out of here!” Kenny said, pounding on the back door.
“Anyways, thank you, Kenny, for the introduction. We will see you again in the next project. But for now. You can leave.”
The back panel door opened, and there was nothing but open air and moonlit clouds.
“Make sure you activate your powers before landing. It’s a long way down.”
A sharp wind pushed out from inside the cabin, and Kenny grasped the edges. “Wait, you forgot! I can’t fly!”
“You will be fine. Cya scrub!”
Kenny flew out the door, spinning into the air until he stabilized and floated down. He looked to the ship as it trailed off, when a large purple portal appeared in front of it, and the airship flew in before closing.
“Shit…” Kenny said. “LightSpeed is going to be pissed.”
Chapter 1: The Story of Midge: The Box and Five-Pointer Starfish
The day the Earthstar children snuck out of the village to hunt starfish at the beach was also the day an earthquake and a tsunami ruined it.
And the day was perfect, which justified their infraction. It was the only day when the weather pattern changed, and when the rain fell after the first snowfall. To Midge, it was a prime beach day.
A delicious prime starfish hunting day. Enough for her to convince Paige and Nash to join her in the expedition. How she accomplished that task was a surprise even to her. Nonetheless, she convinced the two and not long after, when her Pah departed for his patrols, the beach welcomed the three. With a bit of help from a bribe to their Mah, who kept their secret.
The siblings were the only ones on the receding tidelines, basking in the shallow rays. Since the Bear Nomads burned part of the forest to the north, no one was allowed out of the village without escorts. But today was perfect for fishing, as it had been weeks since they had been active, and Earthstar Spore-Shrew children tempted fate.
After all, it was prime starfish-hunting day. An event that happens only once every year.
“I bet I will catch the biggest one before you can!” Nash said.
“You will try and fail,” Midge replied, already diving for a rare five-pointer.
Five-pointed starfish normally don’t come close to the shore. In today’s unusual circumstances, a well-timed sunbeam poked out of the clouds, lighting the sandy floor as if a searchlight finding its suspect. It so happens that one large five-pointer moved out of the deep and slowly hovered over the bright, heated spot.
That fish was hers. Her tail swished back and forth to betray her excitement, and when she held it steady, her own body betrayed her.
From behind, Nash swam past, his net dug into the sand right under Midge’s prey. Before the starfish could react, it was already in the young Spore-Shrew’s grasp.
It wiggled and poked its appendages through the holes of the net. Midge urged them not to tear that net so she could try again. But it was her Pah’s net, and if he discovered that they had left without permission, she opted not to add to the punishment of his favorite net.
Nash turned, holding a triumphant thumb up beside his snout, and swam to the surface, his tail swishing the sand, clouding her eyes as he swam for the shore. By the time Midge reached the surface, Nash had already trekked his way across the beachhead with his catch proudly in the air. “Paige, look! I found a five-pointer!”
Paige sat on a large rock, wiping sand from her fuzzy snout with a pink square cloth. Next to her were several satchels of their morning catch—a large, netted satchel full of clams, shells, and normal-sized starfish. She untied her two golden ponytails to free-flow into the wind. Pulling out an oval-shaped mirror, she checked for blemishes and irregularities—a routine that even a beach day would not prevent her from doing so.
“Hey, that is my prey you got there!” Midge yelled, coming out of the water. She grabbed her tail to wring out the excess water before reaching for her long hair next.
“I don’t think so, loser,” Nash replied. He picked up speed, moving on all fours farther up the beach to escape the tide. “Once again, you are too slow, and I am the winner of today’s master hunt!”
Nash tossed the netted starfish into the dirt. When it hit the ground, bits of sand landed on Paige as she brushed them off her fur.
“Oh, for the love of the Retsam, you uncommonly wet furball,” she scolded while brushing herself off. “Do you have to be so close to me?”
Nash ran through his frazzled short hair and ears, knocking most of the water onto her sister’s legs. “Now, why do I gotta be a furbag? You are the one who wouldn’t want to go swimming with us.”
“Seriously,” Paige replied, grabbing a towel from her backpack. “I bathed today, so I would appreciate not having a reason to do so again. Now, excuse me while I clean off this drizzle.”
Nash laughed, then sat next to her. He pressed his back against the sand. “I apologize, seeing how nobody knows the last time you dipped yourself in water.”
She brushed the rest of the sand off in his direction. “Well, at least I take one, and diving into the ocean doesn’t count. I mean, I don’t know why you two like to swim in that kelp crap. Besides, it burns my eyes, and I just had them treated.”
Midge plopped a seat next to her, inadvertently kicking up more sand. “Well, for one,” she replied, not letting the previous conversation escape them, “it’s called ‘stalking my prey.’ And for two, that was again, my prey.”
Nash’s tail swished through the sand. “I didn’t see your name on it.” He kicked up sand with his feet over to Midge. She returned it, and between the two, Paige bore the brunt of their tantrums.
Paige pushed them both away and moved out from between them. “I swear you two.”
Nash scooted near Midge and showed her the rare five-pointer. “Look, it has crystals, just like Specs said it would. He looks so delicious that I want to eat him right now.”
Midge grabbed the starfish and held it up to the sun. The rigid shell reflected brilliantly against the crystallized shell. It was far superior to the other catches—she wasn’t going to let Nash eat it. “I don’t care if you saw the Grand Spore-Eagle Retsam itself on it. You knew that was my starfish and yet you still went for it.”
“Well, what’s done is done,” Nash said, dismissing her. He snatched it from her hands, letting it dangle in the air. “Anyways, Midge, look at this sucker, we could snack on this all night! Can you see it? Here, let me bring it in closer to you, since you can’t see the berries on your plate even if it bit you in the nose.”
“Shut up, we are not eating it, this would make a great gift to Celeste,” Midge said. Despite Nash’s attempts, her oldest sister would indeed cherish such a rare prize.
“You know what?” Nash asked. “That’s a great idea, I can give this to her, and she will bless me with Retsam’s power.”
Paige scoffed while she brushed her golden hair. “Celeste would probably just eat it.”
“Yeah, you’re right,” Nash replied, taking a seat on the other side of Paige. “Hey, remember when she stole food from your plate, Midge? And blamed it on Paige?”
“Wait, that was Celeste? I thought that was you?” Midge asked.
Paige scowled at Nash. “Ugh, she always picked on us anyway, who cares?”
Midge scooted next to Nash, copying Paige’s foot playing in the sand. She picked up a smooth, round shell and threw it into the water. “When is Celeste’s ceremony again?”
“For one who thinks they remember everything, you sure are naive when they tell you important things about the family,” Paige replied.
Midge stared at the sky as if the answer was above her. There was a conversation about it a while back. However, the details she didn’t care about at the time.
“Yeah, hopefully now we can get this over with, so we can throw the grand party,” Nash said.
Paige rolled her eyes. “I swear you two are insufferable.”
Midge threw a broken shell into the water. When it landed, a fish way out into the distance jumped several feet out of the water. Wait, was it a fish? “Whoa, guys, did you see that?”
“See what?” Nash sat up.
Paige stopped brushing and peered out there. At first, nothing happened. Right before she turned her head away, another fish jumped. Then another.
Midge shaded her eyes to cut the glare. “That has got to be the biggest fish I have ever seen.” Several more fish jumped in random patterns, turning the whole ordeal from a spectacle to unusual.
Nash jumped to his feet. “They look like fish, but they must be as big as the Red Mount up close.”
“What are they doing?” Midge asked.
“I don’t know, whatever it is, they seem to have fun doing it,” Nash said.
They stared at the horizon, watching the fish gallop and dance. They jumped less and less and then stopped.
Midge continued to stare, half-hoping for an encore.
“What are you doing?” Paige asked. Nash’s tail swayed to the right and then jerked to the left before relaxing. Then, it jerked to the left, then back to the right.
“I am looking for the fish. What does it look like I am doing?” Nash replied.
Midge pointed to his tail. “No, stupida, she means with your tail; why are you moving it like that?”
His tail moved up and down now as he paid attention to it. He chased it as if it had a mind of its own, but after a few rotations, it returned to the left and right, twitching haphazardly.
“I don’t know, but look, both of your tails are doing it too,” Nash replied.
All three tails twitched about at the same time. Midge grabbed Nash’s tail to make it stop. He yelped and then slapped her hand away. “Hey now, I don’t go touching your tail, so don’t just go grabbing mine.”
Before she could utter an apology, the woods behind them rustled. Her fur stood on end while her pointed nose caught a whiff of metallic air.
A family of deer ran out of the trees and onto the sandy beach. They hustled south along the shore.
“Where are all the animals going in such a hurry?” Paige asked. Before either of them could reply, more forest animals poured out. This time, boars and flocks of birds left the forest wall and ran south.
Upon seeing such a curious sight, Midge edged closer to Nash, who also scooted closer to Paige.
“Guys, where is the water going?” Nash asked.
The water receded, something was wrong. Midge swallowed her tension, urging herself to run. The ground shook before she stepped forward, negating any chance of escape.
Paige grabbed both of her younger siblings and held on to them. They lost their footing and fell to the ground, all while at the same time holding on to each other as the world beneath their feet rumbled. The sound echoed in their heads, growing louder as the tremors intensified.
“Quick, we need to get off the beach!” Paige yelled.
Nash yanked Midge onto her feet while, at the same time, Paige pulled her brother to seek safety among the rocks close to the wood line. The entire beach broke apart, jagged crevices swallowing sand and the non-Spore-Beast animals who foolishly tempted fate.
“The fish!” Midge yelled. Their two collections of starfish with the rare five-pointer spilled across a section of beach where they previously sat.
The tremors continued, but the crevices had not reached the nets yet. Midge scooted to the edge of the rocks. She calculated thirty seconds. Enough time to grab them and return before the crevice took their prize instead.
Nash grabbed her arm. He must have sensed her movement as she retrieved the backpacks.
Paige held on to Nash’s other arm. “They are gone, don’t worry about them.”
Midge did not care. She broke free from Nash’s grasp and leaped off the rocks.
“Stupida!” Nash yelled.
Midge lost precious seconds when Nash held her. She landed on her knees as the ground disoriented her. Standing wasn’t possible, so she resorted to running on all fours. She ran alongside the crevice, carefully keeping a clear distance away from it as she sprinted to the nets.
Moments before the cracks in the sand swallowed the nets, she leaped and hooked them with one arm. Her success distracted her, and she lost focus. She landed on the other side of the crevice with no worry until the sand slipped from under her, and she lost traction.
“Midge!” Paige yelled.
She dug her paws into the crumbling edge, but it wasn’t enough. Just as she slipped, a hand seized her tail. It was Nash. As he strained to hold her, Paige scrambled down and grabbed Midge’s leg, anchoring them both.
Midge found her footing and pushed herself out of the dirt.
They scrambled along the solid portions of the beach and returned to the rocks. The ground stopped rumbling, and the crevices closed in as quickly as they formed.
Paige fell back onto Midge’s legs while Nash socked Midge in the shoulder. He fell back, catching his breath, “All for some stupid… fish.”
A massive explosion to the north tore the sky open. A swirl of blue darkness twirled as if something significant punched a hole in the sky and sucked up all the light. Lightning shot from it, static bursts exploding from the dark swirls.
“By the Retsam, now what?” Paige said.
A large, silver, box-shaped object shot out of the hole and hit the beach, kicking up sand and debris. Dust blanketed the area, causing the three cough and choke.
Once her vision returned, the tear in the sky closed and disappeared as if it had never been there. The large object jutted out of the rocks with smoke rising from several places.
“What do you think it is?” Midge asked.
Paige brushed herself off. “I do not know, and I don’t want to know. Let’s go back to the village and tell Paw.”
Midge shot her a cockeyed glare. “Are you kidding me? This metal box is the discovery of a lifetime!”
“Hang on now, we almost lost you because you wanted to save those damn starfish. Honestly, I think I’ve had enough excitement for one day,” Paige said.
Nash began walking to the box. Midge followed, leaving Paige to stand there in protest.
She yelled at them as they retreated further up the rocks. “I am the oldest, and I say we go back. So turn around, and get back here this instant!”
“Come on, Paige, where is your sense of adventure?” Nash said.
Midge waved for Paige to follow, her protests growing louder in Paige’s ears.
The box-like structure towered above them, at least twice their size. It burrowed deep into the rocks as bright flashes of lightning erupted from its gashes.
Nash reached along the side, pulling his hand back when sparks erupted from the metal wounds. “Paige, does lightning come from the sky or this box?”
“That’s a stupid question.”
Nash pounded on the protruding wall. The sound clanged against his fist.
“Looks like a weird form of material that Specs uses to reinforce the huts. You would think that if the Retsam had given us a toy, it wouldn’t be so, I don’t know, I guess weird like,” Nash said.
Paige pulled her brush from her backpack and ran it through her hair nervously. “This is not of the Retsam. It must have come from the Temple Palace,” Paige replied. “Nash, we need to get away from this heresy.”
Midge hopped onto the short side that wasn’t embedded into the dirt. She traced her finger along a large indent. “Nash, look, it’s a door.”
Nash jumped onto the rocks next to her. He pointed to several unrecognizable symbols and shapes painted onto it. “Oooh, I’ve seen this before. Paw had this when he returned from an expedition. Midge, don’t you remember, it was on these thin sheets of paper he brought back from one of the Rowen Towns.”
“Well, if it is a Rowen contraption, then we should leave it alone before they come looking for it,” Paige said, brushing her hair frantically.
“You are the smart one, stupid-stupida, come up here and read this,” he replied.
She turned her head. “Not on your life. I am way too sensitive to unknown junk. I am not climbing up there.”
“You are such a stupida. Come on, I want to read what this says.”
Midge’s finger traced a metal push button near the opening. Instinctively, she pushed it, and the metal plating slid out of the way to reveal a lever in the upright position.
Nash’s eyes lit up with fascination. “Nice one, Midge, it’s a stick. I wonder if it is a switch or some kind.”
Paige yelled from below, “Whatever it is, don’t you dare pull it!”
Nash pulled on the lever anyway.
A panel in front of them glowed green. A prominent hiss of air escaped from the seams of the hatch, revealing an inside compartment. A fluorescent light overhead, in a bluish hue, lit the space, casting a single chair-like form at the other end.
“Ah, there we are, we have found the treasure!” Nash said, poking his head through. Midge swore she smelled strawberries. It was sweet, like an unusual variation of honey sap.
Nash stepped inside. Midge followed him with another desperate yell from Paige telling them otherwise. The enclosed space held shiny glass panels she hadn’t seen before. Her eyes adjusted to the light as she crawled across the floor to a strange capsule with an oddly shaped chair affixed to its floor, rotating on an axle.
Nash jumped on it and twirled around. The surface from top to bottom resembled Paige’s mirror at home. Reflective glass layered the front walls—damaged books littered the panels and the floor. Everything inside was dust-free, as if someone cleaned it recently.
On the floor, there was a pendant with a chain attached—a strange-looking fishhook with wings in the background etched into a red ruby. She placed it around her neck, hiding it from Nash. Specs would love to examine it for her.
Paige yelled again, louder and more frantic this time. “Get out! Get out! Get out now!”
Midge ignored her sister, figuring she was throwing a hissy fit because they wouldn’t listen. The screams became louder, and more thumps against the wall of the room prompted Nash out of the seat.
“Come ‘on, Midge, let’s go, we will come back with more villagers so we can find a way to drag it back—”
Midge followed Nash’s gaze to a massive wall of water. A giant ocean wave towered over the sky, capable of blotting out the sun.
And it was heading straight for them.
“We need to leave now! Get out of there!” Paige yelled at the top of her lungs. The two siblings froze as the massive wave approached.
Nash hopped out onto the rocks, holding out his hand. “Paige, there is no time. We must take shelter inside this box!”
Paige’s hands trembled. She glared at Nash as if he’d grown an extra-long snout. “Are you out of your ever-loving Retsam mind? We need to go, now!”
Nash didn’t answer her and continued to hold out his hand.
Midge hopped down to extend hers as well. “Paige, we need to take shelter. We won’t make it.”
“For the Empress, I swear,” Paige said, reaching out to grab both of their hands and lift her. “Close the door, and we will have just to brace ourselves.”
Midge and Nash fumbled around the walls. “Um, guys,” Midge asked, “Where is the switch to close the door from the inside?”
The wave grew closer. Droplets crashed onto Midge’s face. She lunged for the trim panel she’d opened before. She slammed her hand on the button, but nothing happened. Panic seized her as she clawed at the seam with her fingers slipping at the latch to pry it open to reach the lever inside.
Paige stumbled back deeper inside, her hands flying to her mouth as a whimper escaped her lips. “Guys, time to close the door now, right?”
Midge slammed her hands everywhere along the glass panels in a desperate attempt to find a button, hoping for anything to react.
Nash pounded on the wall. “Close, damn you! Close the door, you stupid metal box!” Every slam of his fist echoed his frustration.
Paige spoke again as she continued to stare at the oncoming wave. “It’s getting closer. If we can’t close it, then find something to block this entrance!”
Nash yelled back when he stopped pounding the walls. “Yes, but it would be nice if you looked too.”
“Now…” she replied, this time her voice cracked, “is not the time for talking back. Look harder, you opened this stupid thing, now close it before we all drown!”
“Shut up, stupid-stupida, you are not helping!”
The ground underneath them rumbled again, but this time it wasn’t from the land splitting in two. The wave, now mere seconds upon them, rushed forward to a panicked trio of would-be treasure hunters.
“We are not going to make it!” Paige yelled.
Midge, at last, found the button. The panel next to it slid open, revealing a lever. She yanked it down, and the door slid shut just as the significant wave crashed against it. Some of the water made it in and sprayed them with sea foam.
They were safe until the wave overtook the metal box, dislodging it from the rocks and carrying it into the ocean.
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