Chapter 246: Kamchatka Wilderness, Soviet Union, 1960

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Kamchatka Wilderness

Soviet Union

1960


The Joneses... Indy and Emily, along with Shorty and Lizavet hiked carefully over the strange uneasy landscape. The volcanic ash was being held off by a wind, while the sky sky eerily undulated with a teal river directing them toward what they hoped was their destination.

Lizavet led them forward alternating her gaze between the sky and the ash sodden ground. "It's so different," she whispered, her voice almost broken. "This land... it used to be so full of good green, beautiful flowers and snow capped mountains." She swallowed. "Rivers, lakes, streams... all of them. I loved and knew each one."

"How long were you out here?" Emily asked.

"Five years. Five years alone." Lizavet glanced at Shorty.

He shuddered in the cold rubbing his arms. "Why?"

"You do not know this sacred land," Lizavet explained. "It is the one connection that the Soviet state could not steal from me. I purposely came back to this place. I studied the volcanoes at school."

Indy looked up. "You studied volcanoes?"

"Yes, Papa."

"Then... do you know when this place will...?"

Lizavet swallowed as she finished. "Destroy itself?"

"Yeah."

She knelt brushing the ground, watching grassy tundra spring up under her fingers. "Land does not destroy itself. The ash you see will become new soil and the earth will flourish. But it will be very different from what I knew." She blinked, looking up at her adopted family. "Like a child growing up, perhaps?"

"Yeah." Indy eyed his daughter, Emily. "I know that feeling. It's almost instant."

Emily turned to look at her father. "You ok, Dad?"

Indy braced his body. "Got more miles than I want to admit, Em."

"Why aren't you doing that weird hand motion, and we just... get there?" Shorty asked.

"Because I do not know where we are going," Lizavet replied, her hands still brushing the layer of ash from the tundra. "And it is not a safe and certain way to travel."

"And hiking through ash slop is...?" Shorty asked.

Lizavet's expression crumpled. "I have been trying to keep you safe. The top level of land is usually safe. With this layer of ash, and the volcano, sometimes the land will bulge and bubble. Then when it releases it will harm, or reveal chasms. I really do not wish to be here. It is safe for no one. As you see, there are no animals. They have heard the whispers from the underground and know to take their children and leave."

Her hands trembled.

"Are you all right?" Emily asked.

Lizavet lay her hands flat on the ground and pressed them against the tundra, kneeling. She shut her eyes. "Stay very still, please. Do not speak. I must listen."

They obeyed, watching Lizavet kneel in utter silence. The wind brushed through the grass, the sky pulsated strange colors, the sun hazy and half blotted out by the volcano's column of constantly erupting ash. Lizavet's hair played near her eyes as she waited for the earth to respond.

Suddenly she gasped and opened her eyes, scrambling to her feet. "They're coming!" 

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