Cataclysm in Blue Water by Renee Louise Johnson

“Professor Vassos Stamatopoulous did not take his next step. He did not breathe. He froze, a living statue with one foot raised in midair. His sixty-eight-year-old mind exploded with disbelief. Ten seconds of eternity passed. Lowering the elevated shoe to the ground, Vassos paid scant attention to the puff of ghostly gray, which swirled upward. The ash from the ancient volcano settled back quickly. Another layer of dust covered the shoe’s scuffed and worn brown leather. “What the hell…! No, no, not possible!” He thought he heard a faint buzzing sound emanating from the same location as the unimaginable glitter of light. Gnarled from years of painstaking digging, his left cupped, rotated upward, and covered his eye. The right hand held a quivering flashlight. It shot a tunnel of light onto his footprint in the ash. His eyes glazed over and began to sting. Vassos blinked. Nine seconds snaked down his spine. He begged his heart to stop racing. “Take a breath. Think.”