Against the Volcano Blaze

"Noah!"

"Sofia!"

"Noah!"

"Mom!" Sofia screamed, trying to claw her way out of the car. "Noah! I can't find Noah!"

As the dust around them continued to fall, Alec saw that Noah's door was open. "There he is!" He pointed his arm through the window and pointed towards Noah, who was now slowly making his way back towards the car. The fog around them allowed for the occasional glimpse of the volcano that had erupted. But it seemed to be slowly settling, not unlike their hearts.

A gust of wind sent a round of ash their way. Alec covered his face with his arms until the air cleared up again. "You kids okay? Cinderella?" He asked, turning to Nora for confirmation.

Nora nodded, but she could barely see through her tear-filled eyes. "I think so." She coughed from all the ash she inhaled. The coughing was loud enough for everyone to hear, startling Sofia and Noah back into reality.

As they sat there in silence, they heard the erratic honking of another car's horn nearby. They were able to make out a man with a gasmask on his head waving at them frantically, pointing towards what looked like an exit route behind him. Alec turned on the ignition, but found that there was no response from the engine. The battery was too low to even turn on the radio.

A sharp blow of air hit their car hard as more ash rained down upon them, quickly covering every inch of their windshields and windows with a layer of gray dust. They began coughing harder than before, filling their lungs with more ash than air.

"I can't move my legs," said Sofia from under her seatbelt restraints. "They're stuck." The seatbelt that held her down was starting to burn her skin as it dug deeper into her body from all the pressure around it. "It hurts." Tears started streaming down her face as she began pulling at it forcefully, desperate to free herself from its grasp before her skin began melting off her bones -- or worse -- before everything went black.

Noah tried to calm her down by rubbing her shoulders gently, hoping that this would soothe away some of her pain and maybe wash away some of those tears in doing so. "Don't worry," he whispered in her ear, stroking her hair tenderly as he did so. "Everything will be okay." He knew that everything would never really be okay again; not after this happened -- not after he lost his other shoe in all of this mess and not after he lost sight of his father -- but he wanted to reassure Sofia nonetheless; and himself for that matter since he couldn't see anything either and he couldn't feel his legs anymore either and wasn't sure if they were still even there or not anymore either -- but had yet to say anything about it just in case they were still there because how could you know right? How could you know when you couldn't feel them and also also where was Noah's dad? His dad would know what to do right? Or at least try would like maybe call 911 or something because seriously how long had they been here? And what if they died? And what if they got buried alive because really how long had they been here? And how long did it take for someone who got buried alive to die? Like in an hour or two hours or twenty minutes or less or more? Like how far gone are we here?! This wasn't cool! Not cool at all! So no! No life is never going to be okay again! NEVER! EVER! EVER EVER EVER EVER EVER EVER EVER EVER EVER EVER EEEVVEEEEERRRRR!!!!!!