“Hiking Everest would be fun, they said. Hiking Everest would be easy, they said.”

Gio muttered the words under his breath for the hundredth time as he trudged through the thick, suffocating mist. The air was thin, every breath a struggle, and the biting cold of the mountain seemed to gnaw at his bones with every step. He’d heard the promises, the cheerful assurances before embarking on this insane trek, but now he was beginning to think they were all lies.

He wasn’t just hiking Everest—he was stuck in the middle of a nightmare. The weather was grim, thick with fog, casting everything around them in an eerie, shadowy haze. Every shape that moved in the mist looked like something out of a horror story. And the sounds—the weird, eerie screeches that echoed from somewhere deep within the fog—were enough to make him second-guess his life choices.

And then there were the flying dinosaurs. Gio still wasn’t sure if they were just the product of his frostbitten mind playing tricks on him, or if they were real. But whatever they were, they didn’t seem friendly. The way the shadows shifted, the way the air seemed to crackle with a sense of danger—it was enough to keep him on edge, his hand never far from the makeshift weapon slung at his side.

At least he had his trusty orange puffer coat. The one thing that made him feel like he had some semblance of control over this insane situation. Bright, obnoxious, and warm, it was his one shred of comfort in the midst of the chaos. With that coat, surely nothing could go wrong. Right?

As if the universe was mocking him, a gust of wind howled through the mountainside, and Gio’s gaze flickered nervously toward the shadowy cliffs ahead. Whatever was lurking out there, he was pretty sure it was going to find him sooner or later.