Tobias had described the hours that passed as a waiting game, and one that he refused to lose. Claustrophobia, the fear of small spaces, overwhelmed me completely on the day I flew to the island for my research. The place in which he hid remains there to this day, now one cracked narrow tomb. I crawled inside to understand what it felt like to be so trapped, but I couldn’t stay. It was impossible to breathe. Crevices pocked the floor where magma streams had cooled over time. I found what remained of his left leg, mottled and beyond recognition, black and pulpy with a few glimpses of grey bone protruding through holes. I felt the large dip in the hardened shell where the shield’s cover transitioned to the flimsy blankets and was scraped by the stalagmites where the molten liquid dripped through. My fingers traced the long motto that had imprinted permanently in the rock, pressed in by his shield, “Saepe ne utile quidem est scire quid futurum sit.”

Often, it is not advantageous to know what will be.

I could barely fit in, and so I peeked and pulled out.

Unfortunately, Tobias MacClain could not pull out. He lay there, with two legs, in silence, and minded that his breathing remain steady. Even as magma sloshed from beneath him and slipped underneath his blankets. Even as the blanket became too hot to hold, but too dangerous to release. Even after lava seeped through the gap in his cover and started to paint on his face. Tobias, though he wept, though he couldn’t help but cry out, grit his teeth and tried to conserve his oxygen. He could see that the lava would slow and cool one hour from now, at the most, and he focused on that in increments.

Just another ten minutes, he’d think. Just another ten minutes.

And gradually, as the air thinned and the pain numbed to so unbearable that his senses gave up on bearing it, he felt the molten movement overhead thicken, thicken, and eventually come to a stop. His shield stuck in what had become rock. He released the last remaining scraps of his blankets and brought his trembling, swollen, black-holed fingers to tap at his watch. He winced and shuddered with the movement. His shield blinked out, and he could finally lower his shaking right arm.

His breathing shuddered in short gasps. He couldn’t sit up, his left side pinned beneath the low hardened shell of lava, now basalt. He couldn’t turn his head, one half encased in a crust. His good hand fumbled blindly to reach behind his back and undo the buckle of his bag, then struggled with the zipper. The pair of scissors fell from his chest and clattered on the floor and his fingers found them right way. Jaw tensed, he gripped the instrument and drove its point like a hammer at the crust around his face until it gave in and his cheek was freed. Air rushed through his opened mouth, but not enough oxygen was left in it. It squeaked into his lungs and rasped out. The scissors fell out of his grasp and his fingers wrapped around an oxygen mask and pulled it desperately to his face. The plastic was warped, but it functioned just well enough. He inhaled deeply. His lungs ached, burning with the same fires that surrounded him.

He could not stay in this trap. The lava on top was thin enough that it had cooled, but if he waited longer, he had no way of knowing if a new eruption would bring on another layer, if he would be buried forever, if all he’d suffered through thus far was for naught.

He picked up the scissors once again and drove them into a stalagmite. It crumbled. Another three followed, filling his vision with nothing but black dust. The flimsy basalt wall where the blankets had covered cracked.

Chink. Clink. Thud. Tobias drove the scissors at it, drew back, and thrust again over and over and over, arm scraping with each motion against the tomb. Cool air spilled inside, sending relief throughout his body until it all heated in the cramped space and the only fruit of his labor left was a small peek of daylight. He resumed the chiseling, forcing the crack to widen from a creek, to a stream, to a river, and eventually to a gaping lake, a hole wide enough for him to crawl through.

“My stamina’s running low, Director,” came a voice.

Tobias froze. Perhaps the chill in the air was colder than it should have been. As he took the time to still and open his eyes to his visions, he realized that he wasn’t alone anymore, and that his chances of surviving were only getting higher.

If he called out now, the frost hero, whichever one of the six it was this time, would find him and he could go to the Central Hospital where a healer could tend his wounds, and all would be well again. All he had to do was shout.

He lowered his scissors.

“The ground isn’t shaking anymore, but there’s still a good and heavy flow of lava on this side of the island. Are you sure he’s at the front entrance?”

Tobias waited.

“Then he’s been buried by the flow, Director.” There was a sigh. “We can only hope it didn’t draw out. I can’t keep freezing the lava, now. There’s too much of it. Unless you can send me Stalactite, The Penguin, and ideally Earthmover the Third, I’m afraid a recovery will have to wait for poor Chance, if there’s anything left of him.”

One word, and he’d be saved. One word.

But Tobias didn’t speak. His lips pursed and his brows lowered. Snowflakes drifted in through the hole into his shelter and melted softly on his boiled skin. If he called out, whichever frosty it was would take him straight back into the hands of Benjamin Jones and Poppy Tris, who he found himself strongly wishing to never see again. If Tobias ever said that it was Jones who caused the boulder to crash down atop him or that it was Jones who left him to the elements, no-one would believe him, because who was he? The closest thing to a public persona that he had was Pajama Boy, and there could be nothing more humiliating. There could be nothing less believable.

All that Tobias could see in a future with Defiance was becoming a publicity stunt for Benjamin Jones. The beloved Mr. Might would capture Hephaestus Hellfire and shake him out publicly just to say something unfair like, “This is for my little buddy, Pajama Boy, you scoundrel!”

Alas, Tobias brooded, Hephaestus Hellfire was at no fault in this case. He wasn’t the villain that did this.

“No backup?” the frosty asked. “Then, I’m done here.”

Footsteps scuffed over the rock, followed by cold gusts and whooshing sounds.

“Pilot!” she called. “Have you found anything?”

Another voice, a man’s, returned, “A pair of goggles—could be from anyone in Defiance, I think.”

“Let me have a look.” She hummed quietly for a few moments. “Vine Voodoo painted flowers on hers. These are Mr. Might’s. I know Chance, and he labels every damn thing he owns. Owned.” She sighed sadly. “That’s the way, isn’t it, for heroes? Here one day, taken the next. Spectre will be devasted to hear it.”

Tobias started, hitting his head on the basalt encasing. He bit the inside of his cheek to stop from crying out. A muffled whine escaped his lips. The man covered his mouth and reached carefully into his medical bag for the burn gel. He took out a handful and spread it generously over his scalp and face, then coated his hand. When he had more freedom to move, he would finish the rest of his self, after he could assess what was left.

“Is Spectre home, Teddy? It’s Snowpea.”

Tobias froze, then leaned his good ear closer to the opening. Hot magma still bubbled in the cracks of the land, but its levels had fallen enough that he did not fear it spilling out further unto him.

“Has Headquarters contacted you? No? Defiance? No?” Icy whooshes filled the air and another front of snowflakes drifted into his cubby. Tobias sighed at their touch, closing his eyes.

“Then, you haven’t heard about Chance… I’m sorry, hon… It was a reckless mission for Defiance to take on with only two fitting heroes. I was supposed to be a part of it, standing in for Vine Voodoo, but Mr. Might refused me. Now I’m left to clean up the casualties.” She exhaled a long, long wind of icy air. “I can’t find Chance. He’s buried somewhere, under the basalt, but I don’t have a team to help me look, and I can’t keep the lava back much longer. I’m sorry, Spectre. I’m sorry, Viola.”

Tears pricked in Tobias’s eyes as he realized that he never even had the chance to open her e-mail that morning. He hadn’t seen her in months. If he had only had the chance to read it, he would have learned that she would be returning to their team soon, excited to be his crime-fighting partner again. Just like the good old days. I bet he would have smiled at the thought. Alas, his lips turned downwards and his eyes screwed shut.

“Take as much time off as you need, hon. I’ll cover for you… Take care, Viola. I’m serious, hon, you take good care of yourself. Love you. Bye, now.”

Tobias listened to his chances step softly away. The gentle roar of a Peregrine’s Flight Services water plane rose louder, and louder, then softer, softer, softer, to silence. The hero’s nose burned on the inside as he wondered if he had made the right decision. The scissors, heated by the floor, hissed in his hand as he resumed his chiseling. Stalagmites shuddered to dust and danced away with the outward air current as the heat of the confined chamber circulated to the chill of the melting frost beyond.

When there was just enough space to slide out, Tobias grabbed his bag and shimmied, back flat against the ground, towards freedom. Mushy flesh scraped against the hot rocks, sizzling and smelling of blood. His jaw was set firmly, breath hissing through his teeth, until his right leg pulled back and he howled.

He dropped his bag behind himself, out of the tomb, and ducked back into the stale and bloodied interior. Tobias hesitantly reached his fingers towards the blackened flesh of his right leg. He pressed into his shin and his fingers sunk deep—arousing no feeling—and withdrew, coming away with a sticky red and yellow ooze. Nausea vaulted up his throat and he swiveled to wretch.

A few minutes passed of hyperventilation. He pressed his mask to his face and gasped in hiccups, lifted it to wretch, and pushed it down again, until he felt lightheaded and faint and had to stop to steady himself.

Reluctantly, he leaned forward into the cave again and pressed his fingers higher up, by his knee. He cried out and his entire body convulsed, white-hot bursts of pain shocking through his spine.

Again, he took a few minutes to recover and concentrated on his options. The chances were not in his favor. If he waited things out much longer, the last of Snowpea’s frost would melt and the lava would encase him again. There wouldn’t be another chance to escape it, and he would die there, unfulfilled.

Whimpering, he took unsteady hold of the scissors.

There was only one way to get out in time.

He drove the point into his leg and screamed.