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Norris Flotilla

Norris Flotilla had never learned to swim.

Cautiously, he squeezed through the rocky crevice of the mountain. Stumbling he fell; rolling end over end all along the narrow embankment until finally coming to rest near a pit of molten lava. His failed safety harness, now dangling below him, instantly burst into flames as he kicked it away.

The ground shook violently below him. Still, he managed to catch his breath before a cloud of poisonous volcanic gas engulfed him. Searching for a foot or a finger hold, he continued to slide downward with each quake of earth. Smoke burned his eyes as he grappled for an ever-narrowing means of escape.

A blast of molten rock blew the jutted ground below him over the fiery crest and down the burning mountainside. He clung to his diminishing mound of earth as it repeatedly gave way to bulging waves of lava.

Soon the blackened canopy of trees above him had disappeared. All at once a wall of saltwater slammed against him. His sigh of relief shortened by a final gasp for air.

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