The Ursa leapt onto me, crushing the crystal that sheltered me. I was trapped now, its claws slashing toward my face. But as it moved around the debris, I was able to squirm out from under the crystal. I leapt to my feet, retrieved my cutlass, and whipped it around. The Ursa smacked me away, launching me three meters into the air. I landed on an outcropping of rocks, dazed. As I got back to my feet, I saw the beast use its hooked claws to push itself up and off the stalagmites that skewered it. Grayish blood oozed from its two wounds, dripping onto the floor.
I dove through a crevice that was too small for the Ursa. It screeched in frustration but then crashed through the crystals. I launched myself over another fallen crystal, but the Ursa clipped my leg with its claws, sending me rolling before I regained my footing. I slipped into a crevice and watched the beast. It stood there for a moment, then seemed to determine that it couldn’t reach me and backed away. It camouflaged itself again to match the crystals and the rock wall, so I couldn’t see it. As I crawled farther back into the crevice, I took my eyes off the space where the Ursa was just for an instant. I felt my terror threatening to overtake me. I knew how dangerous that was, but I didn’t know how to stop it.
Then I heard the drip drip drip of blood falling to the floor, seemingly out of thin air. I’d found the Ursa. It revealed itself, hanging upside down at the mouth of the crevice. It reached in, but its claws missed me. I warded off its attacks with my cutlass as I shimmied deeper into the crevice. The beast spit black globules at me, and I moved to avoid them. It spit again, and a glob hit my shoulder. It seared through my suit and into my skin like acid. I screamed, stumbling backward from the force of the gunk’s impact. I slipped down a slanted slope, but the Ursa stayed with me, forcing its way past the crystals with every movement, but another globule made contact and knocked me over. Suddenly I was falling straight down through a shaft in the cave. I smashed into a rock, rebounding and falling farther, finally splashing down in a pool of underground water.
Underwater, I could only see about a meter in front of me using my lifesuit’s light. I saw another shaft of light arcing down through the water. That meant there was another way out. I swam toward it, glancing back between strokes but not seeing any sign of the Ursa. Suddenly I realized that I was surrounded by strange fish that snapped their sharp teeth at me. They started tearing at my lifesuit.
The sound of something large splashing through the water scattered the fish. Out of the darkness, the Ursa’s long claws reached for me. I swam away as fast as I could. I felt myself running out of breath, and desperately paddled toward the shaft of light.
In my frenzy to escape, I realized I’d lost track of which way was up. Blowing out what might be my last breath, I saw that the bubbles were going downward. I had somehow ended up upside down. Righting myself, I swam for the light. I emerged into a vertical shaft in the rock, gulping in air. Bracing my feet on either side of the rock shaft, I started climbing up toward the sunlight twenty meters above.
The Ursa erupted from the water, its claws snagging my legs. It couldn’t fit into the shaft, so it tried to pull me down. I screamed as its long claws dragged down my leg, but I kept going. I got high enough that the Ursa lost its grip on me, crashing back into the water below. I kept pulling myself up the shaft, screaming in anger, screaming in pain, screaming in fear. It took all my strength to reach the top, but my fury propelled me. My hands grasped the top edge of the passageway, and I pulled myself up onto the side of the volcano. The ionic cloud layer was dissipating up here, but gray ash fell everywhere from an eruption at the top. There was nowhere to go. Peering back down the shaft I had just climbed, I saw rocks collapsing and knew the Ursa was coming. I had no time left. I took out the beacon, activating it, ready to send the rescue signal.
But just then, one of the Ursa’s arms reached out of the hole and grabbed me, pulling my legs out from under me and slamming me into the ground. The beacon flew one way, the cutlass the other. Before I could react, the Ursa smacked me into another rock. I lay on my back, limp. Everything felt broken. I felt my blood seeping into the ground. I heard the Ursa scrabbling frantically to free itself from the shaft so it could finish the kill.
I reached for the cutlass that should have been on my back, but came up empty. I let my arm fall, noticing the falling gray ash making swirling patterns as it stuck to my skin, still wet from the water below. Images flashed through my head—the baboon meeting my gaze, the hog seeming to nod at me outside its hole, my sister’s loving eyes as she turned away to face the Ursa, the mama condor fighting to protect her babies, the Ursa leaping for me in the cave, the Ursa leaping at Senshi in our old apartment, the bee jousting with the spider, Senshi in my dream of her on the raft, me crawling out from under the body of the mama condor, the bee ceasing to struggle, then breaking its bonds, my dad’s voice saying, “Fear is a choice.”
And then it all clicked, and my eyes snapped open at the revelation. My breathing slowed, the fear gone as I was filled with the warmth of all I had seen and experienced. The things where no one won—my battle with the baboons, the spider and bee killing each other, the lions killing the condor chicks while the mama condor and I killed them, the Ursa blindly attacking—these came from places of anger and fear. The things that were good—my sister saving me, the mother hog helping me, the mama condor protecting me, my father’s words guiding me—these were all reminders that I was never really alone. If I was willing to accept it, there was always someone there willing to help. I wasn’t alone. I never had been. And my dad wasn’t alone either, not really. Not while I was still out here, still trying to save him.
The gray ash covered me, turning me into a different version of myself. Everything seemed to slow down. I felt completely at peace, at one with the mountain and the world around me. I heard the Ursa crash through the surface, but I was not afraid. The ash covered the monster too, keeping it from going invisible. It moved forward, but then it paused, looking lost. It moved around, searching for me, but it could no longer see me. I calmly got back to my feet and walked right past the Ursa to pick up my cutlass, and the beast didn’t react. I stood staring at the monster for a long moment. Then I tapped a combination on the cutlass, and it split into two blades. I held them on either side of myself and ran at the Ursa, so fast and smooth that I was almost floating over the black rocks. The thing heard me coming, but it was too late. I leapt onto the alien beast’s back and sank my blades into its two open wounds. The monster shrieked, writhing violently, but I held on. I tapped in another pattern, and the creature screamed as the cutlass extended into a spear and then a sickle, slicing the beast from the inside out. The Ursa staggered toward the cliff face, trying to take me over the edge with it. But I held tight until the monster fell. Then I stood atop the beast, swords at the ready, daring it to move. It did not. Lowering my arms, I gazed at the fallen Ursa with calm eyes. Snapping the cutlass back together, I jumped off of the beast and retrieved my backpack for the trek to the volcano’s peak.
At this altitude, the freeze was already in full force. I hardly noticed the cold anymore. I felt strong again, my strides rhythmic. When I reached the top of the mountain, I turned the beacon on, holding it up to the sky. A bright white beam sliced through the night sky, up into space and out in all directions. Mission accomplished.
The rescue ship came quickly. As the crew prepared for takeoff, I headed to the control room to check on my dad. He lay on a cot with two medics beside him, both of his legs in braces. “Stand me up,” he said.