Jules

  “Nooooo!!!” Jules screamed at the top of her lungs. It happened so fast, she didn’t have time to think. Her mind cleared, and she remembered the 9mm she had dropped just a few feet away. While the lion was busy ripping Mike limb from limb, she dove to where she had just gotten pummeled herself.

  She located the gun and turned to see the lion looking at her, Mike’s blood dripping from its snout and mouth. A muscle or tendon dangled from one side. These things weren’t hungry; they were insane. Hell-bent on killing.

  From a kneeling position, she aimed, unloaded the remaining 12 shots, dropped the magazine on reflex, and loaded a fresh one. Tunnel vision made it difficult for her to think and see. She just aimed at where she thought the feral beast should be and pulled the trigger 10 more times before finally stopping.

  Jules realized she was bawling as she lowered the firearm, and she tried to pull herself together again.

  The mountain lion lay there at Mike’s feet, full of bullet wounds; its golden eyes glossed over and distant.

  Jules fell to the ground in a heap. Slumping, she sobbed uncontrollably.

  “Mike? Jules?” Jason called on the radio. “Guys, I sent Jackson your way. Are you guys okay? What’s goin’ on? Guys?”

  Jules looked around for a few seconds for the radio, then realized it was still on her hip. Shaking, she picked it up, took a deep breath, and keyed the transmitter.

  “My…anim…my,” she tried to get out in between breaths, “Mike is…he’s…”

  “I’m callin’ medivac! Hang on!” Jason didn’t know what was going on, but he knew Jules, and knew something was drastically wrong. He acted quickly, calling all the key parties, supervision, and additional rangers to head to the area. Six calls later, a caravan of troops and a chopper were all on the way to Jules’s location.

  Jason wanted to go too, because Jules was one of his favorite people. She brought him candy every day, and she was the life of every ‘mandatory fun’ event. He was pretty sure she was everybody’s favorite person.

  He would be on pins and needles until he knew she was okay.

  Jules lost all track of time. She just stared at the ground, visions of the death of her friend flashing through her head intertwined with flashes of the lion attacking her. Mountain lion attacks were rare. The campers knew to watch out more for coyotes and snakes than for any feline dangers. Mountain lions usually kept to themselves and only attacked if they were starving or if they felt threatened. Jules had never heard of two attacking at the same time like this.

  Oh Mike, she thought. Why Mike?

  Jules heard a thumping sound coming from miles away and sirens. They were on their way, as Jason had promised. Good ole Jason. So dependable.

  Without warning, Jules felt a force like nothing she had ever felt before, like a giant grabbed her in its hand and squeezed. Intense pain surrounded her, but she couldn’t see anything around her, making the constriction. The force dragged her across the Earth’s surface with no mercy. Dried grass cut her, rocks bruised her, and the hard earth burned her skin in wide rashes. She had no breath to scream.

  The world went dark.

  Jason

  Crews arrived on the scene in shock at the gruesome spectacle. The helicopter landed a few hundred feet away, sending dust, grass and other debris flying in all directions. The EMT and paramedic jumped out with their gear, heading to a hopeless situation.

  “Jules? Mike?” Jason called on the radio, hoping for an update. “Caleb? Anyone?”

  “Jason, this is Caleb. You said there were two rangers on site, correct?”

  “Yeah! Jules and Mike!” Jason called back, getting frustrated. “Whaddya have?”

  “Man, it’s a mess here. We have one body. Male ranger. Deceased. Elk. Deceased. Two cougar. Also deceased. It’s a real mess.”

  “There should be a female there as well. Jules! Jules is her name. So, you said Mike is dead?”

  Caleb replied, “I…uh…I can’t tell who the male is. Tore up real bad by the cougars. Not much left to identify.”

  Jason cursed. What the hell happened? Mike died? Jules gone? What the hell?

  Jules

  Jules moaned. Her dry mouth tasted like bile. Pain radiated through her entire body.

  She looked around, confused.

  She could hear steam venting somewhere near her. The cave or underground passage smelled like rotten eggs.

  That smell…the smell means hydrogen sulfide. Hydrogen sulfide indicates volcanic activity. But the volcano shouldn’t smell like that. Not unless…

  Steam vents were active all around her. She could see heat waves. The earth vibrated ever so slightly. This was bad. Terrible. Oh god. The volcano is active. I've gotta tell someone. Fast.

  Looking for the radio, she patted her hips, finding nothing.

  She bolted up…immediately regretting the action. She hit the roof of the cave hard. Some 20 feet above her. Damn! That shouldn’t have happened!

  She would’ve fallen backward from the intense pain in her head and deep behind her eyes, but her body felt weightless.

  Am I…am I floating?

  It was then that she took a good look at herself. Her naked self. Her body had mutated and was no longer skin, muscle and bones.

  She was fire. Not on fire. No, her body was living flame.

  She watched semi-translucent flames flicker and dance across her entire body.

  “No, no, no, no, no!” she shouted. “What’s happening to me? Where's my clothes?"

  As she floated gradually back to the cave floor, steam erupted around her. Some were close enough that it should’ve burned her, but she felt nothing. Heat could no longer hurt her.

  “What's going on?” her voice echoed through the empty cavern.

  She stopped crying. Examining her naked body, she smirked at her new shapeliness, never one to indulge in self-pity for too long. “Impressive. I’m like a bodybuilder now… with boobs.” She paused for a minute, taking in her new body, accepting what fate had done to her. “Okay Jules. Pull yourself together. No clue what happened to you, but you have to get out of here…Where the hell am I?”

  Her location looked like a cave, but it was much more expansive. The earth rumbled; this time enough to make her body shake with the quake. More cracks on the surface opened, venting steam. As she looked around trying to ignore the warnings, she saw a few spots where molten lava was seeping to the surface.

  I've gotta get out of here! I…She looked around and could not see an escape. She headed for the closest wall.

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  If all else fails, follow the wall to an exit. It made sense to her.

  Jules tried to force herself forward using her new floating ability. She flailed her arms around and tried a swimming stroke while laughing at herself. No matter what she tried, she couldn’t propel herself forward.

  What good is floating if you can’t move! Do I have to walk? Come on! she thought.

  She leaned forward a bit and thought about a direction she wanted to go, and her body just…did it. Turns out, flying was much easier than walking.

  While flying, she realized she was in a fissure, and if she followed it far enough, eventually she would find an opening or a crack reaching the earth’s surface.

  “What am I gonna do for clothes when I get out? I’m gonna have to wear some kind of heat-resistant superhero costume or something like that hot guy in the movie with the four heroes. Until then, I guess I will probably have to hide.”

  After about ten minutes, she finally found a crack she could see daylight through. Hopeful…but it was still a little too narrow for her body to fit through.

  All but my boobs would fit. She laughed at her own joke. Gotta admit, this is kinda fun! I always wanted to fly. I didn’t want to turn into fire, but hey…

  A few hundred yards later, she saw more daylight and forced her body through the seam, effortlessly bursting through the surface like a volcanic eruption. Thankfully, no one was around to see her display of nude aerial acrobatics.

  She popped out in the middle of an open field, but she wasn’t sure at first where she was. She flew straight up gradually; partly to see the area from above and also to see how high she could fly.

  How long have I been flying? She thought. How high am I?

  As if in answer to her question, she saw a blurry number in the bottom left of her vision. She looked in every direction, but the blurry number followed her gaze. Squinting at the apparition, she finally saw the number clearly.

  “What the…? First, why do I see numbers? And second, am I really almost 3 miles high?” she asked skeptically, as she finally stopped climbing. “I’m high alright…”

  She hovered there midair, looking around, spinning slowly, effortlessly. I’m really flying!

  She looked down, soaking in the park’s view. From her apparent three-mile vantage point, the scenery was staggering. She took in the entire park in one spin. She stopped her spin, spotting San Antonio Mountain, followed by Redondo Peak. Turning ever so slightly, she saw the small welcome station where she reported to work every day.

  “Now what?” she said, thinking out loud. “I bet they’d get a kick outta seein’ me like this! But if I’ve changed, maybe others have too. And to think, all this started with a cougar attack on an elk.”

  She looked down into Valle Grande; the area that sunk in from the ancient volcano eruption millions of years ago. What appeared to be 100 different animals battled on the open plains. It looked like a scene out of a war movie.

  “What the hell is going on around here?”

  Some animals looked natural from her viewpoint, but there were unimaginable creatures down there as well. Creatures made of ash. Creatures made of smoke and steam. Walking flaming trees and bushes roared and attacked the wild animals around them. It was pure mayhem.

  “Has everything gone insane?” she said as she slowly descended. “Is that a triceratops? Now, I know I’m dreaming.”

  But she wasn’t. She didn’t understand what was happening, but it was happening.

  Descending faster, she took it all in. She had to decide whom she would help? The aberrations seemed to defend themselves from the animals, and earlier she remembered, two cougars and an elk attacked and… killed…killed her friend, Mike. Unprovoked.

  Deep inside herself, she felt a yearning; a pull to do something. Anything. It felt like a higher being was calling her on a mission. “What can I possibly do?” she asked.

  Jules had never been someone who dwelt on issues. She wanted to get in, get her hands dirty, and get the job done. During her years in the military, she was an aircraft mechanic, and she loved troubleshooting and solving problems. Now, the internal pressure from whatever force or entity inside her made her want to act even more. “Well, let’s see what I can do.”

  She was a natural at the flying thing. Landing gracefully in the field, she distracted two charging elk, but only for a second. They shook their massive heads, grunted, and charged her.

  She yelled, “Stop it!” but they weren’t stopping. She flew up just in time to avoid getting skewered by the massive horns of the elk as they collided. It was not the rut, so they shouldn’t be fighting. She looked into their eyes, seeing the same blank and crazed expression as the elk that had attacked her earlier.

  She noticed several creatures had words floating over them in translucent banners like comic strip word bubbles, but she had no clue what they meant.

  The creatures made of flame, ash and steam stopped fighting and seemed to hone in on her.

  “Oh god. What are they looking at? Hey little guys! Y’all are nice, right?”

  A creature made of steam approached, floating over to her.

  It didn’t attack her. The battle raged all around her, but the world seemed to stop around the two beings made of fire.

  “Hey! Can you help me, McSteamy?” she asked it hesitantly.

  Weird name. It’s almost like I named him because I totally would’ve named him that.

  It didn’t respond to her question, but it looked at her as if expecting orders.

  “Um…Okay, then. You are obviously not going to hurt me…Um…Now what to do with you.”

  As she spoke, a fire aberration approached her. The banner gave her a brief description of the creature.

  This guy didn’t attack her either.

  She looked around. The animals were attacking and destroying everything in their path. They seemed crazed. The flame creatures didn’t.

  Jules felt like the animals were the bad guys in this situation, and these fire creatures didn’t even want to be here. Regardless, she had to stop the fighting and prevent as many deaths as possible.

  “I’m a friend,” she said as comfortingly as she could. “I want to help you. Do you know what happened to you? Did you choose this form?”

  “Whoooaaahhhaaannnaa..mmmmahhha.”

  “Okay…I did NOT understand that. But it wasn’t hostile. Was it? Look. I think you mean well. Can you help me stop this mess? We need to get the animals to disperse and stop attacking each other.”

  Jules turned to watch several coyotes attacking a small fawn, killing it. This could have been natural any other time, but it seemed out of place there; way too ferocious.

  “I don’t want the animals harmed if possible. Just…I don’t know…make them stop killing each other.”

  As if they understood, the bonfire and steam took off.

  Was I their leader now?

  About fifty feet from her, two coyotes were tearing a small calf limb from limb. She couldn’t save the calf now, but she could see if she could stop the carnage and maybe save another life.

  Their eyes were unnaturally blue…and glowing. They acted as if a starving demon had possessed them. They weren’t eating, though. Just ravaging. Murdering.

  She floated closer. They spotted her and turned their attention to her in precise synchronization.

  Okay. So, text boxes over the fire creatures, but I get nothing for the coyotes?

  Both attacked as if their master had just commanded, “Get her!”

  Blood flew from their mouths as they gained speed. Jules lifted her hands, stretched them towards her opponents, and thought, Boil.

  She didn’t know why, but it felt right. She had no clue what was about to happen, but if she didn’t do something, the crazed coyotes would attack her.

  Moments before reaching her, both creatures yelped, jumping several feet into the air, as if they had stepped on a land mine.

  I guess that worked! Boil? Why boil?

  They stopped their reckless attack and slowly stalked her, trying to flank her more cautiously this time. They circled her, growling. A third coyote came out of nowhere and joined the duo. Jules raised her hand again and audibly shouted, “Boil!”

  This time as she held her hand out, she targeted one specific coyote and focused on the unknown magic she now possessed.

  The coyote fell to the ground writhing in pain. She didn’t let up. It started biting itself as if it were attacking horseflies. Jules could see its skin start to bubble and pop in various places. Blood frothed from its maw and steamed between its teeth. Then, the struggle ceased, and it stopped breathing.

  Using her moment of distraction to its advantage, one of the remaining coyotes leapt at her, but before it bit, a Mystic Bonfire charged in, slamming the coyote in the side. The two creatures rolled around, sending a waft of charred flesh and burning hair into the air. The Mystic Bonfire wrapped its arms around the neck of the coyote in a full-nelson chokehold and held it until the beast stopped struggling.

  Four McSteamies came next and surrounded the third coyote. They stretched their ‘bodies’ in a coordinated attack of pure heat and steam. Within seconds, the coyote fell dead to the ground with burns all over its body.

  “Wow!” Jules said, huffing. “That was sad, but kinda awesome.”