A plain that burns
The ground itself is on fire.
Across a black plain, rivers of lava crawl toward a summit that won’t stop erupting. There is no cool way up. You start across the parts that have hardened — for now.
The first step
Everything here warns you off.
Black sand. Cracked obsidian. The first yellow breath of sulfur hissing up through the seams. The heat reaches you before the slope does. You set your boot on stone still ticking with warmth, and climb.
The smoke
The summit vanishes in smoke.
Sulfur clouds roll down and swallow the slope. Embers drift past slow as snow. You can’t see the top, can’t see your own feet — only the glow ahead, brighter with every step, closer than it has any right to be.
The eruption
The mountain throws its heart at the sky.
The earth splits. A wall of heat, a roar you feel in your teeth, lava arcing into the dark and raining back down. Every nerve says turn around. The summit stands right there, lit red against the smoke.
The summit
At the top, the fire that fought you becomes the view.
You stand on the rim. Below, a lake of molten fire breathes and turns, and the whole sky burns with its light. The heat that nearly stopped you is everywhere now — under you, around you, yours. Nothing up here but you and the glow.
Make it yours