I dedicate this chapter to EmbraceTheFall , @mlpfnaffandomgirl267 , and mynameis_potta because they convinced me to write another chapter. :3 :P

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"Pheonix!" I heard Crystalline's distant but piercing scream. I then felt an unbreakable grasp on my arm.

"Come on, Crystal!" I said, leading the way away. It felt as if the world was flat and someone had decided to pull it out from underneath us. It was a sickening feeling.

I fled in the direction the land seemed to be heading in. As I thought that, I was scared. Who knows what will happen? Is this the end of all land creatures?

"Where are we going?" I heard her whimper.

"Away from here!"

We all ran in that direction, and when I looked back, the house had collapsed, and so had most other houses.

I started sprinting. I heard their pants from a few feet away, but I kept moving forward. Nothing was going to stop me from doing my best to lead us away and save us all, if I could.

Austin, I thought immediately as I approached a mountain that was already very tall that appeared to be growing, and fast.

I looked back and saw him stumbling. There were many cracks in the earth and Austin was right in front of one that seemed to be splitting further toward him—and fast.

"AUSTIN!" I shrieked. He looked at me.

"I'M FINE!" He yelled at me, oblivious to the dark hole behind him.

"AUSTIN, LOOK!"

He jumped in the air, startled, because I yelled so loud and he had just got closer to me. He whirled around, but he didn't see for long. His jump set him right next to the hole. He stumbled and fell into it. Crystal screamed.

"Come, Crystal! It's okay. It's all fine," I said, swallowing my own sobs.

"Austin!" she sobbed.

"Come on, Crystal... There are a few cracks behind us..."

I could tell she wanted to retort, but she noticed that there were, in fact, holes behind us.

I made sure that everyone was behind me. Dad, Mom, Crystal. We're all set. I pressed on.

We had reached the small mound that had now towered over everyone and everything. Cracks, holes, and an assortment of cuts in the Earth were swallowing people whole and mercilessly. Ringing screams and sobs were the background noise for this horror scene.

There was a lady I'd say was in her mid-thirties who was sitting, bawling, obviously over a loss, and oblivious to the slim crack behind her. It was slim compared to the others, at least.

She didn't seem to even notice it when it took her.

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What do we do? I panicked in my head. The new mountain was already taller than any mountain I had seen before when it first entered my eyesight.

"We climb it," I muttered to them.

"What!?" I heard Crystal and my mom say in unison.

I pointed to the top. "You see those people up there? They managed to climb it when it started forming, and now they're just riding it."

"How can you tell they're people?" Crystal asked.

"I just can. See them moving? I even think I see a pet or two. Scratch that," I quickly added, "I see an assortment of colors moving. I think they saved at least two of every species they could!"

"But they must have been living on the coast, sweetie," interjected my dad. "How are we going to get up there?"

"No idea," I admitted. "But I can guarantee it's better than staying down here." I gestured toward a poor old man who was now being crushed by the land's force that was making waves—well, they looked like waves. It was as if he earth was having an earthquake so forceful it could make the ground become giant waves. What happened to the world we used to know!?

"Let's go," my mom agreed, leading the way up a broken and short path of pavement. It was the safest place to begin.

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"I'm thirsty," Crystalline said, breaking the silence that had lasted since we had left. It had not gotten any easier, and, if anything, it got steeper. It was the steepest thing I'd ever climbed.

"Aren't we all," I muttered so nobody would hear.

"I'm sorry, kiddo, but we should save it for when we stop for the night," I heard my dad's voice behind, interrupted by struggling breaths that I thought were way too often to be okay. "We didn't manage too much water in the shop."

"How are we going to stop for the night?" Crystal shot back. "I believe we are climbing up a steadily moving mountain. It moves quickly at the bottom and slow up here. It will gain more ground and a hole will sneak up on us and we'll be gone so quick nobody will notice! And holes get bigger very quickly! And we could accidentally roll downhill and meet 'em earlier than when they were going to meet us!"

"Ah, sweetie," my dad said with a sly smirk, "Remember what you've always wanted for your birthday but we never had enough money?"

My eyes widened. "You did not..." I didn't believe we could have managed. I mean, how could he have? "Why didn't you tell us!?" I demanded.

He just seemed to smile wider. "You know how your old man likes surprises, and you know how he hates lying. So you found out the surprise. Well, Crystal, happy early birthday!"

It just so happened that her birthday was in two weeks.

Crystal hadn't moved an inch since he mentioned what she always wanted. I had to pull her away from an upcoming crack.

"You... How... Wouldn't everyone fight you for it?" she said in a voice so small that I almost missed what she said.

"Yep, and that's how Austin got his leg injured. You see, some lunatic threatened to kill us unless we gave him it, but Austin said he would rather fight him to the death than give it up, so the man gave him a fat and deep wound with a knife, stole our frozen hamburgers from your mother, and fled." At this point, his voice couldn't stop wavering. "What a nice guy," he added accusingly, then had to stop because his voice got too shaky.

"He.. He did that for me? But he.. He could have lived if he didn't," she said, doing the impossible—I didn't think her voice could get any smaller than it previously was. Her eyes glistened with tears.

"Trust me," said dad, approaching her with a bag in hand from his backpack. "He knew what he might have done to his life. He knew he might be more doomed than the rest of us."

Crystal said nothing. Nobody said anything for a while.

"May... May I see it?" she asked eventually. She reached for the bag.

"Certainly," he said with a smile. "It is your birthday present."

She pulled out a fresh, new hoverboard. It seemed like she mouthed a thanks, but I knew that her voice had just gotten quieter still.

See, hoverboards are pretty big and they move with the owner's will. They wouldn't help us in this situation, though, because hoverboards can't go as fast as the mountain speed and our hiking combined for long. They have been developing their speed for a while now.

This one could fit all four of us laying down, maybe—just maybe. We'd need a good miracle, because my parents would have to partially hang off even if we curled up as much as we could and our bags hung off the bottom. They might slide off into the night, into permanent night.

"Alright, the sun is setting," announced my mom. "How about a little more hiking?" She looked toward my dad. I noticed that she was silently weeping the while time.

"Sure, but we will go until we can't see holes ahead," he replied. "We don't want to walk straight into one."

"Oh, really?" I murmured. The dark times brought sarcasm. Extreme, pointless sarcasm.

The silence seemed to hang over us like a storm cloud.

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We walked on until the sun had set and the night had swallowed the mountain whole.

We tried to make room for our parents on the hoverboard, but they still had to hang off.

I heard a soft, even breath from Crystal. Bless her soul.

Then I realized how far off the hoverboard my parents actually were. They hung off so far, and I was about to say that I would volunteer to be on the edge, but I stopped as soon as I had opened my mouth.

My mom gave a meaningful glare to my dad. His features seemed to soften with comfort and purpose, and he replied with the same look. They seemed to have talked without us before, maybe on their way to the store. It wouldn't have been a long conversation, seeing I understood what they meant—only three simple—yet so noble—words: Save our kids.

I suddenly regretted every time I defied them in my early teenage years.