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Chapter 32: The Island Awakens
Everyone stared at Gizmo in shock. "Mount Ashton? Th-the volcano?!" Zuma stuttered.
"Woah woah woah, we've been standing on a volcano all week and nobody's told me?" Ryder nearly shouted in alarm.
"Oops… He told us in the Bullet Express. We forgot you weren't there," Chase admitted.
Rocky was still focused on the volcano. "But you said that it was dormant!" the mixed-breed recalled.
"No," Gizmo corrected. "What I said was that the turbine channeled enough energy from the volcano to keep it dormant. Now that it's exploded and the thousands of gallons of water transferring the energy out of the volcano are gone, there's nowhere for the energy to go. It's going to explode. That quake was an LP earthquake, which is indicative of the magma moving around."
"How soon will it explode?" Ryder questioned, setting Marshall back on the ground.
"No telling, but with only about twenty-five minutes before the Island Dome disappears, there's no way it'll be before the island gets waterlogged."
Meanwhile, Rubble had been glancing around them nervously. "Guys, we might have something bigger to worry about right now…"
"What, Rubble?" Ryder prodded.
"Because there's no weather here, these buildings weren't designed to be weather-proof, which means they're a lot less sturdy," the bulldog began.
"Which means that if another earthquake hits, they could crumble at any time!" Ryder finished.
As soon as the words were out of his mouth, everyone was thrown off balance again by another earthquake.
"Another earthquake; like this one!" Zuma shouted to be heard over the noise.
Tracker's eyes grew wide. "Uh oh… I hear a creaking sound."
"Don't worry," Gizmo shouted. "The air hangar is built much more securely. It's not gonna fall."
"No- but that one is!" the potcake exclaimed, pointing to a tall nearby building.
Suddenly a grinding screech cut through the air. The sound of metal on metal had everyone covering their ears within seconds.
The next thirty seconds were hectic. Tracker whining in agony, Rubble yelping as he leapt into Ryder's arms, Skye shrieking as she covered her eyes, and all the other noises merged into a cacophony of chaos. When the thirty seconds ended, everything went still. The earthquake had finished, the pups' screams had stopped, and the collapsing building had settled to rest. Everyone was safe. But the hangar wasn't.
The collapsing building had fallen directly on the hangar.
Everyone stared in horror at the ruins. The Air Patroller lay firmly trapped in the mangled jaws of steel that used to be the hangar, consequently sealing their fate, trapped in the maw of the island. The reality slowly sank in.
"No no no no no…" Marshall started muttering as his breathing rate increased.
"It's… gone," Skye simply expressed.
"NO! It can't be!" Rubble wailed. He jumped out of Ryder's grasp, ran past Rocky's recycling truck to the wreckage, and started digging with his paws, too frenzied to even bark out his shovel.
"Rubble! Stop! What are you doing?" Ryder cried out to his construction pup, chasing after him.
Thankfully the teenager's sudden movement snapped Marshall out of his trance. "Ryder! Wait! You shouldn't be on your leg!" Marshall called out, but Ryder wasn't listening. He ran over and picked up the bulldog, carrying him away from the building.
"Let me go! Let me go!" Rubble shouted, on the verge of tears. The bulldog already had several scrapes and cuts from the wreckage.
"Sorry bud, but you're just going to injure yourself more."
"I need to get to my rig! We can use the crane to lift it up and- and…"
"It's just going to be broken again… isn't it?" Skye asked with a whimper. "We'll have to fix it completely."
"It'll take at least another week," Chase groaned, burying his face with his paws.
"A week? But we don't even have another day!" Tracker panicked.
Zuma contributed a gloomy thought, "We don't even have twenty minutes!"
"So that's it then… It's over?" Skye asked, hoping that somebody might provide an answer.
"I always knew I'd die alone on this island," Gizmo emotionlessly stated, "I just never thought it'd be like this…"
"You're not alone," comforted Everest, "Besides, we'll find a way out of this!"
"How?" Chase almost yelled. "We just lost our only way out and we only have twenty minutes!"
"There has to be a way out! We'll think of something!" Everest stubbornly shot back.
Skye then realized something, "What about our flight packs! Gizmo has copies! We can use those!"
"But Ryder doesn't have one," pointed out Zuma.
"Besides, you'll get about three miles before they all run out of power because they were all prototypes; not meant for long-range flight," Gizmo stated matter-of-factly. "You'll be lucky to make it past the cliff walls."
"Maybe Ryder has an idea," Everest suggested.
The group of pups looked over to Ryder, who was busy trying to calm down Rubble while simultaneously tending to Marshall, who was in danger of hyperventilating. Thankfully, tending to Rubble's cuts and Ryder's possible 'injuries' was helping Marshall stay calm, but Rubble clearly needed Ryder's full attention. There would be no help from him any time soon.
Everest struggled internally as she watched Ryder try to comfort the bulldog. "Why can't Ryder just tell him that he has a plan? That it'll be okay?" she asked with a catch in her voice.
Everyone stayed absolutely silent, nobody fully willing to voice the answer screaming in their heads.
"Because he knows it won't be," Rocky whispered, daring to speak.
The world stopped for the pups gathered there. It was as if hearing it uttered out loud made all their fears materialize into reality, and there was no going back. There would never be any going back. They would be here for the rest of their short lives.
Everest couldn't take it anymore. Her eyes filled with tears. "I'm sorry- I- I have to go!" the poor husky shouted as she broke into a run.
"Everest!" Skye called out. She started to follow her, but Chase held out a paw to hold her back.
"Don't," he cautioned. "You know how she hates being around others when she's like this… She needs to work it out on her own. Give her a minute."
Zuma spun to Rocky. "Dude! Why did you say that to her? You made Everest cry!" In fact, it looked like the chocolate Labrador was close to tears himself.
The recycling pup looked at his adopted brother and immediately felt sorry. They had been through so much together, and he knew better than anyone how Zuma hated being emotional. But internally Rocky was spent. He knew this would be the end. A dark cloth had enveloped the world for him, and he didn't have the energy to care anymore. "I can't help if it's the truth."
Another earthquake rumbled under their paws, echoing Rocky's mood.
Meanwhile, Tracker started to panic. "Submarines! What about submarines?"
"We don't have-" Gizmo began before he was cut off.
"Planes! Are there any planes?" Tracker questioned.
"None that weren't in that hangar," the black Lab sighed.
"Waterproof room?"
"Only if you want to starve instead of drown."
"What if we go to the top of Mount Ashton?" Tracker suggested.
Gizmo took a moment before answering. "Then we'd die one of three ways. Because it's still about ten feet below sea level, we could drown. We could also get blown up by the volcano. But most likely we'll be crushed by the water jet from the incoming rush of water when it splashes us up sky high. The one plus is we'll have a beautiful view of everything as it happens."
"I don't get it," Zuma broke in, his voice quavering. "Why is this happening to us…?"
Gizmo closed his eyes and lowered his head. "The most direct way for God to tell us He doesn't want us going through a door is by closing it. It looks like He's finally calling us home."
Skye sighed. "So what do we do?" she finally asked.
The black Lab opened his eyes as a rumble echoed from the mountainside. "We watch the end of Franklin Island."
Ohhh nooooo! The Air Patroller broke! They were so close... Oh well. Looks like they're all gonna die. Not the worst thing that could happen, honestly! Come back soon for the final chapter where they all meet their untimely demise. See ya!