The roaring of the storm seemed to fade into a dull, rhythmic hum as the invisible countdown began.
Inside the narrow limestone chokepoint, Chen Ying stood as unmovable as the stone beneath her boots, her posture completely freezing the rest of the single-file line behind her. She intentionally adjusted her wet glove, using the mundane action as a perfect excuse to hold the exhausted cast in place on the slippery trail.
"Miss Chen?" Director Zhao panted from a few paces back, his voice strained through the crackle of the rain-soaked megaphone. "Why are we stopping? The river basin levels are climbing! We have less than forty minutes before the lowlands are entirely submerged!"
