A Kaleidoscope of Yellow and Orange
A Kaleidoscope of Yellow and Orange
A mysterious trip to the mountains forever alters the lives of Autumn and her friends. Chosen as earth’s caretakers, will they have what it takes to save the world?
Excerpt:
“Okay, so geysers, right?” Autumn began. “Let’s search locations that have them and see if there’s been any suspicious activity.”
In a matter of seconds, the clicking keyboards silenced as they all found the same information. Yellowstone National Park was closed to visitors due to an ongoing string of seismic activity.
“This is bad,” Carmo said.
Autumn could hear his racing thoughts, but they were too tangled to make sense of. “What’s going on, Carmo? What are we up against?”
He closed his laptop and rubbed his face with trembling hands. “It’s bad,” he repeated through his fingers.
When he didn’t elaborate, Ivy ventured, “Geysers are caused by the heat from magma. Between our dream and the earthquakes, my guess is there’s going to be an eruption.”
“Not just any eruption. Yellowstone is a supervolcano.” Carmo lowered his hands to be greeted by blank stares. “If it erupts, it will bury thousands of miles in ash and the volume of volcanic gas and debris entering the atmosphere could cause a nuclear winter. It would be apocalyptic.” He stopped, unable to look at their expressions anymore.
You could hear a pin drop, but Autumn’s head exploded with reactions. “Guys! Guys!” she yelled into the quiet room. “Panic isn’t going to solve this!”
“Nothing is going to solve this!” River exclaimed. “We can’t stop a volcano from erupting!”
“We don’t know for sure what our mission is yet, but why would we be given a directive if there was nothing we could do about it?” That got their attention and the tumult in Autumn’s head quieted down. “We just have to go there and figure it out.
Author’s Note:
Usually a title comes to me at some point in the writing process when a certain line speaks to me. This story was the reverse. I thought of the title based on cover art I found, then tried to think of a story that would fit it. This backward venture came about because I needed one more story for my collection book, Prism, and needed to use yellow and orange in the title to complete the theme. I wasn't sure how that process was going to work for me going in, but I'm pleased with the results!
Also found in Prism: Stories that Span the Spectrum.
