Chapter 42The Volcanic Shaft

People’s bodies are just weird like that. Being healthy is all about what isn't happening. Once you’re not starving, it’s hard to even remember what it felt like. You really only get it when you’re suffering.

It’s just ridiculous to think someone who’s never gone without would understand.

For us, after days of nothing, just a few bites of bread and meat, some stale biscuits and salty beef - it totally flipped our moods. It was like sunshine after a storm.

Still, after eating, everyone got lost in their own thoughts. I was wondering what Hans - that guy from way up north - was thinking. He had this chill, fatalistic vibe, kind of like someone from the East. But I couldn't even picture what he was going through.

My own thoughts just turned into memories, all about the world I left behind. I saw it all, like it was right there: the beautiful house on Konigstrasse, my poor Gretchen, good Martha. They flashed through my mind, like ghosts of the past.

Whenever I heard those sad moans echoing around us, I thought I could hear the distant rumble of the cities above.

My uncle, always into his science, was checking out the shaft with a torch. He was looking closely at the different layers of rock, trying to figure out where we were using geology. It was a rough estimate, for sure. But a smart guy, a thinker, has to think, right?

And the Professor was a pro at keeping his cool.

I heard him, just murmuring about rocks, while I was just chilling, quiet. When I got what he was going for, what he meant, I couldn't help but get into it, even though I was totally stressed about what was going on.

"Eruptive granite," he mumbled to himself, "we're still in the really old days. But we’re going up - going up, still going up. But who knows? Who knows?"

Then he still had hope. He ran his hand along the walls of the tunnel, and a few minutes later, he’s back at it:

"This is gneiss. This is mica schist - siliceous mineral. Good stuff; this is the time of change, at least. We're close - and then, and then - "

What was the Professor getting at? Could he, like, figure out how thick the Earth's crust was above us? Did he have any way to even guess? Nope.

We were missing the manometer, and a quick guess wasn’t going to cut it.

But as we went deeper, the temperature went crazy, and I started to feel like I was drowning in hot air. I’d never felt anything like it. It was like being near a super-hot iron factory when the metal's bubbling and spilling everywhere.

Slowly, one by one, Hans, my uncle, and I took off our coats and vests. They were impossible to deal with. Even the lightest clothes felt awful and were seriously uncomfortable.

"Are we climbing into a volcano?" I yelled, when the heat got even worse.

"No way, no way," said my uncle. "Totally impossible."

"But," I said, touching the wall with my bare hand, "this wall is literally burning."

Right then, feeling like the sides of this crazy wall were scorching hot, I stuck my hands in the water to cool them off. I yanked them back, totally freaking out.

"The water's boiling!" I shouted.

My uncle, the Professor, didn't say anything except to make a gesture of pure rage and despair.

He probably figured out what was going on, but I was too freaked out to even process it. An overwhelming dread had taken over my brain and soul. I just knew something bad was about to happen, something seriously wild. An idea started to form, kinda hazy at first, then it became totally clear.

I tried to push it away at first, but it kept coming back, relentless. It was such a scary thought I barely dared to think it.

But all the while, I was noticing some weird stuff - changes in the granite, a totally bizarre phenomenon, like electricity was involved.

And that boiling water, the insane heat? I decided to check the compass, just to be sure.

The compass was totally busted!

Seriously, it was off the rails. The needle was jumping all over the place, spinning around, like it was having a seizure, then snapping back. It was wild.

I remembered what they say - the Earth’s crust is always shifting, always changing.

It's constantly changing because stuff inside is breaking down, all the moving water messes with it, and there's this crazy magnetism shaking everything up. And the weirdest part? Everyone on the surface has no clue what’s happening.

Honestly, this wouldn't have freaked me out alone. It wouldn't have given me this awful, terrifying thought.

But other things just wouldn't let me kid myself.

These huge explosions started going off, like the sky was exploding. Seriously, it sounded like hundreds of loaded wagons racing over cobblestones. Just this constant, booming thunder.

And then the compass, totally wild from all the electric stuff, just confirmed what I was already thinking. The rock was about to split, the giant granite chunks were gonna slam back together, the crack was gonna close, and everything would be filled in - crushing us poor atoms in this awful hug!

"Uncle, Uncle!" I yelled, "we’re totally done for!"

"So, what’s got you so worked up now, kiddo?" he asked, super calm. "What are you scared of?"

"Scared?!" I shouted, all fired up.

"Don't you see the walls of the shaft are moving? Don't you see the solid granite cracking? Don't you feel this insane heat? Don't you see the boiling water we're floating on? And this crazy needle? It's all pointing to a massive earthquake!"

My uncle just shook his head, totally chill.

"An earthquake," he said, all laid-back. "Yeah."

"Look, nephew," he continued, "you’re way off base."

"Don’t you see all the telltale signs - "

"An earthquake? Not even close. I’m expecting something way bigger."

"My brain is fried - what, what are you talking about?" I blurted out. "An eruption, Harry."

"An eruption," I breathed. "So, we’ve ended up in a volcanic shaft, a crater that's totally active?"

"I'm pretty sure," said the Professor, smiling. " And honestly, it’s the best thing that could happen to us."

The best thing? Had my uncle actually lost it? What did he even mean by those words - by this weird calm, this serious smile?

"Wait!" I yelled, totally stressed.

"We’re heading for an eruption? We’re stuck in a pit of lava, rocks are on fire, water’s boiling - basically, it's filled with everything eruptive? We’re about to be blasted out, thrown up, spat out from inside the earth, along with huge rocks, cinders, and scoriae, in a crazy swirl of fire?"

"And you’re saying it's a good thing?"

"Yep," replied the Professor, looking at me coolly over his glasses.

"It’s our only shot at ever getting out of the earth and back to the sunlight."

It’s impossible to even put into words the million weird, crazy thoughts that went through my head after that insane announcement. But my uncle was right - totally right.

And he's never seemed so confident, so daring, as when he looked me straight in the eye and talked about the chance of an eruption - of us being tossed back to Earth through a volcano’s crater!

We were still climbing while we talked, spending the whole night going up - basically, an ascensional motion. The scary noise got even louder; I felt like I was gonna suffocate. Seriously thought my time was up, but it's wild how your mind works, all I could think about was some silly idea.

You don't really pick your thoughts in a situation like that. They just hit you.

It was clear we were being blasted upwards by eruptive stuff. Under the raft, there was a bunch of boiling water, then a heavier layer of lava, and a pile of rocks that would scatter everywhere when they hit the top of the water.

No question, we were inside a volcano's chimney. Could anything be more terrifying?

But this wasn’t Sneffels, an old, dead volcano. We were inside a mountain of fire, totally active. I kept wondering, what mountain was it, and where on Earth we’d end up. Like it even mattered!

In the north, there was no doubt. The compass hadn't messed up once before it went totally bonkers. From the cape of Saknussemm, we’d been swept north for hundreds of leagues.

So, were we back over Iceland - would we get shot out through Hecla’s crater, or pop up through one of the other seven fire funnels on the island? Looking five hundred leagues west in my head, I could only see those little-known volcanoes on the northwest coast of America.

To the east, there was just one, around the eightieth degree of latitude, Esk on Jan Mayen, not too far from the frozen areas of Spitsbergen.

It wasn’t craters we were lacking, and tons of them were huge enough to swallow an entire army. All I wanted to know was which one we were hurtling towards so fast.

I often think about how dumb I was now - like I’d actually expect to get away!

As morning came closer, we were going up faster and faster. If the heat was getting worse instead of better as we got closer to the surface, it was just because of local stuff - totally volcanic. The way we were moving made it super clear to me.

A crazy force, like hundreds of atmospheres from vapors trapped and squeezed for ages inside the earth, was blasting us upwards with unstoppable power.

But even though we were heading towards the light, what scary stuff were we about to face?

Instant death felt like the only thing we could expect.

Soon, a faint, graveyard-like light peeked into the long, straight hallway, which got wider and wider. I could see long, dark passages on either side, like giant tunnels, with awful, nasty vapors pouring out.

Flames danced around, sparking and popping, like they were about to gobble us up. It was happening!

"Look, Uncle, look!" I yelled.

"Just see those huge sulfur flames. Totally normal during an eruption," he said.

"But what if they surround us?" I snapped.

"They won't surround us," he said calmly.

"It won't matter if they suffocate us," I cried.

"We won't be suffocated. The hallway’s getting wider and wider, and if we need to, we’ll hop off the raft and hide in a crack in the rock."

"But the water, the water that’s constantly rising?" I said, totally bummed.

"There's no water left, Harry," he said, "just this lava paste, pushing us up, along with it, to the crater's opening."

The water column was totally gone, replaced by thick, boiling stuff. The heat was insane - a thermometer would've read between one hundred and eighty-nine and one hundred and ninety degrees Fahrenheit.

Sweat poured out of every pore. We were only surviving because we were shooting up so fast.

Still, the Professor didn’t bail on the raft, and honestly, he was right to stick with it. Those rickety beams were solid - they were all we had.

Around eight AM, something new freaked us out. The upward movement just stopped. The raft went still.

"What's going on?" I asked, totally caught off guard.

"Just a pause," my uncle replied.

"Is the eruption dying down?" I asked. "I hope not."

Without saying anything, I stood up. I tried to look around. Maybe the raft was jammed against a rock, causing a brief slowdown. If so, we needed to get it moving again, fast.

But that wasn’t it. The column of cinders, scoriae, rocks, and dirt had completely stopped rising.

"Seriously, Uncle, the eruption’s over," I declared.

"Ah," my uncle said, "you think so, kid. You're wrong. Don’t sweat it; this calm won’t last. We’ll be continuing our trip to the crater’s opening in a few minutes, you'll see."

He kept checking his watch the whole time, the Professor did, and he was probably spot-on. Soon, the raft started moving again, super fast and kinda chaotic - it lasted like two minutes, give or take - then it stopped just as suddenly.

"Okay," my uncle said, checking the time, "we’ll go again in ten." "In ten minutes?"

"Yep - exactly. We’re dealing with a volcano, and it erupts on and off. We gotta move like it does."

It was totally true. Right when he said it would happen, we shot up again, really fast. You had to grab onto the beams so you wouldn't fly off. Then the lift stopped again.

I've thought about that weird thing a bunch of times since, but I still can't figure it out. Still, it seemed pretty obvious to me - we weren't in the main chimney of the volcano, but in a side tunnel. We were feeling the pushback from the big tunnel filled with hot lava.

I can't even say how many times we did that. All I remember is that each time we went up, we went faster and faster, like we'd been shot out of a giant cannon. The stops were almost suffocating, and the blasts of hot air stole our breath.

For a sec, I thought about how amazing it would be to suddenly be in the freezing arctic - thirty degrees below zero!

My mind was totally somewhere else, picturing those huge, snowy plains up north, and I was dying to roll around on the icy ground at the North Pole.

My head was totally fried, like, seriously overwhelmed by a bunch of intense feelings. I started hallucinating. I was delirious, no joke. If it hadn’t been for Hans, the guide, with his super strong arms, I would’ve bashed my head on the huge granite walls of the shaft.

Because of that, I don’t really remember what happened for hours. I’ve got this hazy, mixed-up memory of constant explosions, the giant granite shaking, and the raft spinning around like crazy. It was floating on this stream of hot lava, surrounded by falling cinders. Huge flames were all around us.

Then this crazy windstorm hit, like it came blasting out of a massive vent. It was a blast of hot, glowing air!

Finally, I saw Hans, looking like he was surrounded by this huge halo of fire. All I felt was this deep, creepy dread, you know, like what a person feels when they’re being led to a cannon's mouth, right before the shot fires and they get blown to pieces.