Chapter 9: The Black Mountain

This aftershock was at least magnitude 8.

I’d never felt anything like it, not even in earthquake drills or the minor Midwest tremors back home.

Danny gripped the handlebars, twisted the throttle to the max, eyes wide and locked on the road ahead.

His jaw was clenched tight, knuckles white against the grips. He didn’t say a word.

I clung to his clothes, terrified.

Every bone in my body screamed to bail out, but I held on tighter, trusting Danny’s instincts.

If the snowmobile fell into a crevice, even if we survived, we’d never make it out of Antarctica.

The thought flashed through my mind—a cold, hard truth I tried not to dwell on.

When an earthquake hits, you’re supposed to get to open ground.

I remembered our emergency training. But here, open ground meant nothing. There was nowhere safe—just ice, everywhere.

But this is Antarctica: miles of snow underfoot, and beneath that, ice that could crack at any moment.

We were riding on a fragile layer, the whole world shifting beneath us.

All we could do was keep moving, dodging danger, waiting for the quake to stop.

I tried counting the seconds between shakes, but lost track quickly.

The snowmobile had been racing for half an hour, but the shaking hadn’t let up—in fact, it was getting stronger.

Every so often, a new crevice yawned in front of us, forcing Danny to swerve hard. I thought my spine would snap from the jarring bumps.

Suddenly, Danny’s body tensed. He slammed the emergency brake.

The snowmobile fishtailed, throwing up a spray of powder. My helmet banged against his back.

The snowmobile skidded sideways, out of control.

I held on for dear life as we spun, snow blurring past. Time seemed to stretch out.

We and the bike slid more than thirty feet. The snowmobile hit a small crevice, and both of us were thrown off.

I landed hard, rolling a few times before coming to a stop. Danny’s shout echoed nearby.

Danny scrambled up, ignoring whether he was hurt, grabbed my collar, and pointed south:

"Mark! Look! What is that thing?!"

His voice was shaky, but urgent—something between awe and terror.

I followed his finger and was stunned.

There, on the horizon, a black shape rose where there should have been nothing but flat ice. It loomed impossibly large, like a cosmic punchline to an already impossible day.

On what had been a flat white plain, a towering, razor-sharp mountain had appeared out of nowhere.