"There! He's right!" Naomi shouted. "There's a way down!"
Perhaps it was because Jennifer reacted. Perhaps it was because Naomi repeated it loudly enough for the others to hear. Or perhaps it was because the countdown had already stripped away most of their ability to think independently.
Whatever the reason, the crowd began moving toward the path, stumbling over each other in their desperate rush.
"Don't push!" Jennifer shouted. "If you fall, you'll die before that thing even gets to us!"
Her words helped a little, but only a little.
Fear had already sunk its claws too deep.
Frost clicked his tongue and hurried after them, keeping some distance from the most panicked students.
Getting trampled by his own classmates before the monster even attacked would be such a pathetic way to die.
As they neared the path, the ground trembled, knocking a bunch of the running youngsters down.
Frost glanced upward again and immediately regretted it.
The clouds were parting around the creature now, revealing more of its grotesque body.
Its skin was not smooth like that of an ordinary octopus, but rough and uneven, covered in strange ridges that pulsed faintly like living veins beneath black stone.
Between the writhing mass of tentacles, he caught a glimpse of something opening on its underside.
An eye.
No.
Several eyes.
Dozens of pale, lidless eyes opened across the creature's body, each one turning in different directions before slowly focusing downward.
Toward them.
Frost felt his blood turn cold.
Another notification appeared.
[Safe Zone protection ending in one minute.]
"Move!" he shouted, no longer caring whether anyone listened. "Move now!"
That was when the creature moved.
One of its countless tentacles descended from the sky with horrifying slowness, almost lazily, as though the beast was merely reaching down to touch the world beneath it.
Yet even that slow movement carried a pressure that made Frost's knees nearly buckle.
The massive limb pressed against the invisible boundary above the cliff, and for the first time, everyone saw the dome.
A faint, translucent barrier flickered into existence above them, rippling where the tentacle touched it.
For a single second, hope appeared in their eyes when they realised that they were really being protected by some sort of barrier, that is, until the barrier cracked.
The sound was soft, but to Frost, it might as well have been the tolling of a funeral bell.
"Oh, fuck no..."
The tentacle pressed harder and more cracks spread.
The students at the front of the crowd screamed and rushed onto the narrow path, nearly pushing each other off the edge in their desperation.
Jennifer and Naomi tried to control the flow, shouting for everyone to slow down, but no one was listening anymore.
Jason shoved someone aside and forced his way forward.
"Move! Get out of my way!"
The student he pushed stumbled dangerously close to the edge, his arms flailing wildly, and Frost reacted before he could stop himself.
He grabbed the back of the boy's shirt and yanked him away from the drop, nearly falling with him in the process.
The boy turned with wide, terrified eyes.
"T-thanks..."
"Run first, thank me later," Frost snapped.
The boy nodded shakily and rushed onto the path.
Frost followed, but before he could take more than a few steps, a sound like shattering glass exploded above them.
The barrier broke.
For the briefest moment, the entire world seemed to hold its breath.
Then the tentacle fell.
It slammed into the centre of the cliff behind them with enough force to split the ground apart, sending chunks of stone and grass flying in every direction.
The shockwave threw Frost forward, his body hitting the path and knocking the air from his lungs.
Screams filled the air as the cliff behind them began to collapse.
Frost's fingers clawed into the grass at the edge of the narrow trail as loose rocks rained down around him, and for one horrible second, he thought he was going to slide over the edge and fall into the forest below.
Then a hand grabbed his wrist.
"Get up!" Jennifer shouted.
Frost blinked through the dust and stared at her. Her face was pale, her golden hair whipping violently in the wind, but her grip was firm.
For a moment, he did not move, not because he did not want to, but because some stupid, exhausted part of his brain had decided that now, of all times, was the perfect moment to be surprised that Jennifer Vale was actually helping him.
"Are you deaf?" she snapped. "Move!"
That brought him back from the brink of confusion.
Frost gritted his teeth and pulled himself up with her help, stumbling onto the path just as another tremor tore through the cliff behind them.
He looked back once and noticed that the safe zone was completely gone now, and the cliff was breaking apart.
And above it all, the eldritch creature slowly lowered more of its tentacles, as though testing the newly opened world beneath it.
Frost gulped, beads of sweat already rolling down his flushed face.
"Well, shit. This is not how I thought my day would be going by now."
Once he had regained his footing, he began bolting once again, just behind Jennifer.
They were still somewhat near the middle of the group, only just beginning to run down the winding pathway that descended from the cliff into the forest, and despite the need to get away from the immediate danger, a part of Frost couldn't help but wonder what would happen once they got down there.
'And then what?'
Surely everyone here wasn't foolish enough to think that the canopy of trees and dense foliage of the forest would be enough to shield them from the wrath of that monstrosity.