It's a warm summer day in the middle of July. You and some of your closest friends are on vacation in Hawaii, enjoying a nice picnic under a palm tree. You look around you, enjoying the scenery. Not a cloud in the sky, birds chirping, people laughing, when your eyes notice a volcano in the distance. You notice that there is smoke rising from the top of it. Your eyes widen with fear. You try to get the attention of your friends... "H-hey guys, do you see that?" You point in the direction of the volcano, your voice trembling. Your friends ignore you, thinking it's just a joke. In the past, you were known as quite the prankster, scaring people in dark places, faking health issues, and all-in-all just messing around... Your friends just go back to talking to each other. "GUYS I'm serious, look at the volcano!" Your friends finally stop talking when they hear "volcano". The area becomes quiet, when BOOM. The earth is shaking beneath your feet. You hear people screaming, dogs barking, children crying. Another loud BOOM rings in your ears. You look at the volcano. Black smoke is coming out, there is magma pouring over the side. "RUN!!!" you yell.... "Follow me!" You start running into the forrest, there is no longer daylight. You look up above you, black smoke has covered the sky, sunlight can no longer pass through.

Follow the Stream
Follow the Trail

You run alongside the stream, hoping it will lead to your salvation. As you're sprinting, the panicked breaths of your friends start being drowned out by the sound of something behind you. Glancing back, you immediately see the source. The water of the stream has begun to boil, and a large wall of steam is following you. You lean forward and push yourself to sprint even faster, ignoring the pain forming in your side and your already aching lungs.

As you come to a large log, you hurdle over it, with Misa and Josh beside you. There's a loud thud behind you as Mike trips over it and hits the ground, and suddenly Josh stops and turns back to help him. You almost slow down as well, but Misa reacts by grabbing your shirt sleeve and pulling you along in a full sprint. The air is quickly filled with bloodcurdling screams, which disappear into the ever-present noise of the evaporating stream.

You try to keep your focus on running, the sound behind you getting constantly closer. The fog starts to drift past you, and as it makes contact with your skin, you scream out loudly. You hear nothing from Misa, although she's still firmly maintaining her grip. You look at her hand and see that her skin, like yours, is becoming grotesquely burned by the water vapor. Overwhelmed by the pain, you feel like you're going to faint, and before you realize what's happening, you close your eyes and start to fall.

You wait for the sensation of hitting the ground, but it doesn't happen. You simply keep falling. Forcing your eyes open, you see the steam moving away from you. No, after a moment you realize that it's you moving away from the steam. It seems that as you were passing out, you'd just reached the edge of a cliff where the stream ended. Where there must have been a small waterfall before, there was a lavafall forming, coming over the edge above you.

As you fall, you think of your inevitable landing, and wonder if you might survive it. There could be a large lake that the stream was emptying into, or a thick canopy to soften the descent. You start turning your head to look, but stop as you make eye contact with Misa, who is still holding onto your shirt. She looks at you with tears in her eyes, and simply shakes her head. You understand, and look back up instead, imagining that the calm blue sky is a reflection of the huge ocean waiting to catch you down below. It's the last thought you entertain as your impact with the rocky ground breaks every bone in your body.

You are dead!

“Hurry up!” you yell to your three friends. The lava’s coming down fast, and you can feel its heat radiating on your back. You look behind you and see that Mike is far behind the other two. The lava is only a few hundred feet away, and he isn’t running fast enough. You urge your other two friends forward as you run back and try to help him.

“What are you doing?! We’ve got to hurry!” you yell to him. He can see that he’s limping down the trail.

“I tripped on a tree root and twisted my ankle! I can barely run on it!” he says to you.

“Come on; give me your arm!” you tell him. He puts his arm around you and you help him run down the trail. You can feel the heat of the lava getting closer, so you start running faster, almost dragging Mike with you. He screams in pain as he’s forced to put weight down on his ankle in order to keep up with you.

“Just hang on; we’re almost out of this!” you say. You know that’s a lie. The lava’s closing in on you, and you don’t know where the trail leads. You see your two other friends about fifty feet in front of you, stopped in front of a large, wooden fence. It’s about ten feet high, made out of thick wooden pillars, and the top of each pillar has been cut into a sharp point. You catch up to your friends as they frantically look for a way around.

“What do we do?!” Josh asks. “We can’t climb up that! It’ll take way too long!”

“We don’t have a choice!” Misa says to him. “There’s no path around it, and it would take too long to get through all these trees! The lava is almost here!”

She points behind you. You turn around and see that the lava is only about a hundred, maybe a hundred fifty feet behind you. You turn back to your friends.

“What do we do?!” Josh screams.

Go Around the Fence
Climb Over the Fence

The lava is close now. You’ve decided to try to go around the fence. It would be too hard for Mike to climb up the fence; he wouldn’t be able to push off of his foot to get any leverage. You and your friends see that the trees to the left of you are slightly less dense than those to the right, so you try to make your way through there. There are thorn bushes and vines everywhere; you can feet your legs getting sliced up and your feet getting tangled within the ground beneath you. You try to take a step forward, but your foot is caught in between multiple plants. The momentum of Mike pushes you further, and you fall onto the ground. Mike falls beside you and screams in pain, clutching his ankle.

Your two friends look behind and see you and Mike on the ground. They run and help you get up. You see their eyes widen and redden from the glow of the lava. You turn around and see that it is only about fifty feet away from you. Josh helps carry Mike as you and Misa start running. You keep running through the trees, jumping over stumps and tree roots. You see that Josh and Mike are far behind, slowly running through the thick jungle; a result of Mike not being able to fully run. You continue to run forward and notice that the trees begin to clear up. Suddenly, you see nothing but the sky in front of you. You abruptly stop and notice that you are on the edge of the cliff. You peer down; the ground below is hundreds of feet below you. You and Misa look around for a path to take, and Misa spots a trail going down the side of the cliff. It’s incredibly skinny; only about three feet wide, forcing you and your friends to go down in a single-file line.

“Get Mike in the front! We’ll all follow him!” you say to Josh, knowing that Mike would need assistance to get down the cliff.

“No, I’ll just slow you down! I’ll stay in the back, close to you!” he says. “Come on; there’s no time to talk about it!”

He’s right. The lava is just behind you now. Josh and Misa run down the trail first, followed by you and Mike. The trail is covered with small pebbles and is incredibly steep. As you’re running, you step a bit too close to the edge of the cliff, and a large chunk falls off behind you. You turn to warn Mike.

“Mike, look out for the-” you begin to say, but you notice that Mike has already fallen, and is barely hanging on to the edge of the cliff.

“Shit! Mike! Hold on!” you yell to him and you run back and reach out for his hand. “Grab my hand!”

Mike states at you. He has a look of resignation.

“The lava’s too close. Just go!”

He lets go of the cliff. You dive forward to catch him, but it’s too late. You watch in horror as you see Mike disappear into the heavy smoke that has formed around you. You are paralyzed with agony; Josh and Misa see you and come back to get you.

“He’s gone, man! We’ve got to go!” Josh says. You can barely hear him. You’re still looking down at the cloudy abyss that Mike fell into. Suddenly, the ground around you glows bright red, and the heat become unbearable. You look up and see the lava pouring over the side off the cliff above you. A few drops of lava fall onto your arm. They burn through your skin immediately, causing you to scream in immense pain. You look at your arm and see the tissue sizzling. You can’t move it at all. You look to your friends and see them screaming in agony as the lava pours onto them, engulfing them in a sea of red. You listen to them scream until you can no longer see their heads. The screaming stops. You look around you. The entire cliff is covered in lava, the trees beneath you are burning, and all your friends are dead. You lift your head up and see a large wave of lava come right at you. It hits your face. The pain is indescribable. And then suddenly, it stops.

You are dead!

It's clear that none of you will be able to climb the fence on your own, so you quickly yell to your friends to help you up. You know that they're worried about themselves as well, seeing them continually glance back at the approaching lava. Hoping to ease their fears, you tell them that you'll turn around to pull them up so everyone can make it over.

Misa nods in agreement, cupping her hands in front of her to act as a foothold, and Mike and Josh do the same. You step onto their hands, and stretch your arms straight up. Working together, they manage to start lifting you higher. After a moment, they've given you enough of a boost to reach the top of the fence.

You get a firm grip and your friends give you one last push, allowing you to pull yourself up the rest of the way. You kick your legs over the fence, and look back to see the lava fast approaching. Your friends are staring up at you from the ground with desperate expressions, anxiety and terror on their faces, their shaking hands reaching towards you.

Leave Your Friends Behind
Help Your Friends Over the Fence

Your friends help lift you to the top of the fence. From there, you can see that the lava is moving downhill much faster than you originally thought. Realizing there won't be enough time to save everyone, you jump down from the wooden fence and start running.

"What are you doing?" shouts Misa.

"Sorry, guys," you reply, and begin sprinting downhill, leaving your friends to greet the approaching lava. You hear Mike and Josh angrily shouting at you, and then frantically trying to lift Misa over the fence, but they're not fast enough. Downhill, you can hear echoes of their agonizing screams bounce off the erupting volcano.

You glance back every few moments. It must not have taken long for the lava to break through the wood. The relentless flow hasn't stopped slicing a path through the trees. But you don't stop running, and soon, you reach the ocean. You hear the lumbering ferryboat blast its foghorn, mixing the black smoke of its engines with the choking ash of the volcano. Realizing you have seconds until it leaves, you make one last desperate sprint across the beach as pyroclasts slam into the sand. You shout at the ferry as you leap across the splintery dock. Its engines are already running at full speed, slowly accelerating the boat out of the harbor. With the last bit of adrenaline in your body, you leap across the water and grab on to the gunwale. Luckily, one of the crew turns around, notices you, and climbs down to your aid. He helps you over the edge and you flop down on the deck. You lay there for what seems like forever, slowly working up the breath to tell your tale.

You've survived… for now.

You lean down and grab Misa's hand, helping her up first. Mike and Josh push her feet from the bottom, making it fairly easy. As she starts taking a position to help you pull people up, you lean down again to take Mike's hand. In your peripheral vision, you can tell that the lava is actually much faster than it seemed at a distance. Josh has already noticed this, and realized that there isn't enough time for everyone to make it over. He suddenly takes off in a panicked sprint without any warning, running along the length of the fence.

Focusing on your own situation, you and Misa start pulling Mike up, who makes it easier by pressing his feet against the wall. As he manages to grab the top of the fence, you hear screams in the distance, and reflexively look to see that a stream of lava cut off Josh's escape. He's already set ablaze, and flails wildly before collapsing. Seeing the lava about to close the distance on you, you make a judgment call and grab Misa's hand as you leap off the opposite side of the fence.

She's surprised, but immediately understands and follows your lead, jumping off only a moment after you. As you run away together, you hear Mike let out a painful cry, and then silence. Both you and Misa know that the fence didn't stop the lava, and neither of you look back. However, it's not long before you feel the increasing heat against your back. It seems that the sea of lava is moving faster than you are.

As you're about to run past a tree, you yell for Misa to wait, and somewhat unexpectedly, she actually stops and turns to look at you, her eyes full of despair. Without any hesitation, you grab her by the waist and lift her off the ground. She immediately notices the branch of the tree above her, which is now within her reach, and takes hold of it. As she pulls herself up, you're overcome by the searing pain of the lava, which has finally caught up to you. Your skin starts blistering and melting off your quickly exposed bones, and your nostrils fill with the stench of burning meat. Your flesh catches fire, and the last thing you see as you gaze upwards is a blurred image of Misa climbing higher, away from the flames which are slowly crawling up the tree.

You imagine a helicopter coming to rescue her as she reaches the top, and as your lungs fill with smoke for the last time, you try to entertain the idea that you might have managed to save someone after all.

You are dead!

I followed the stream because I figured it would be the fastest way to open water.