The mountain waited above them, cold and patient and loaded with snow.
Charlie did one more sweep. Everyone in safe positions. Escape routes clear. Emergency avalanche protocols reviewed.
Everything was ready.
“Positions!” Viv called out.
The crew moved with practiced efficiency. Charlie watched the cinematographer check his equipment one last time, cameras locked down at carefully calculated angles. The snow and wind prevented them from using drones tonight. CDOT had mapped every inch of the avalanche paths. Everyone knew exactly where the snow would go.
In theory.
Charlie's tactical brain noted the wind picking up and there was snow in the air. The temperature was dropping another few degrees. The snow on the Sisters seemed to shift in the darkness, restless.
“Two minutes!” someone shouted.
Ben and the other Embersworn Knights stood and watched—they'd film reaction shots later, but for now they just needed to stay clear and enjoy the show CDOT was about to put on. Ben stood with his arms crossed, looking up at the mountain with the kind of respect you only got from years in the backcountry. Gabe, Elias, Waylon, Bear, and the other extras—all of them had gone quiet, their earlier joking gone.
They understood what they were about to witness.
Charlie positioned herself where she could see both Viv and the mountain. Her hand rested near her sidearm out of habit, even though the threat tonight was snow, not bullets.
“One minute!”
“Thirty seconds!”
The mountain went silent. Even the wind seemed to hold its breath.
Charlie counted down in her head.Twenty. Fifteen. Ten.
At five seconds, someone hit the lights on the cameras.
At zero, the world exploded.
Theboomcame first—deep, percussive, more felt than heard. Then another. Then a third. The charges going off in sequence up the Sisters.
For a heartbeat, nothing happened.
Then a white wave of snow rose and the mountain moved.
Charlie had seen avalanches on video and watched footage during the safety briefing. She’d read reports and studied statistics in preparation for tonight.
None of it prepared her for this.
The snow didn't fall. Itflowed. A wall of white twenty feet high, maybe thirty, rushing down the chutes with a sound like a freight train mixed with thunder. Boulders vanished. Everything in the path simply ceased to exist under the weight of thousands of tons of snow moving at highway speeds.
The ground shook. Charlie felt it through her boots, up her legs, into her chest.
“Jesus,” someone breathed.
The avalanche hit the runout zone and kept going, spreading out like a massive white hand across the base of the Sisters. Slower now but still moving, still grinding everything beneath it into nothing. Viv couldn’t have asked for better footage.
Charlie's brain was automatically calculating—velocity, mass, destructive force. Anyone caught in that wouldn't have a chance. The snow would hit like concrete. Bury you in seconds. Even with her beacon, even with the best search and rescue team in the world?—
She forced the thoughts away. Everyone was safe. Everyone was in position.
The avalanche finally stopped, settling into new formations across the landscape. The sound faded to a hiss, then to silence.
Absolute silence.
