Situate your character in a hostile or dangerous environment.

The plane landed at McMurdo Station in Antarctica at 0445 on Tuesday, September 10th during high winds and snow. Fifteen passengers bundled in parkas and winter wear exited the plane clutching their bags to their chests as the wind threatened to carry them away. Pamela Edwards sighed with relief having finally reached Antarctica after months of preparation and five days of travelling from Boston to McMurdo Station. The permit she applied for eight months ago said environmental exploration and described taking core samples from the untouched Antarctic ice. The real reason for the trip was a secret, even to her crew of four college students from the Environmental Studies program at NYU. She lured them on this trip with a chance to bolster their resumes with actual research experience. But she didn’t plan to research anything, just snap a few prize-winning pictures of the beast and get out of there.

After spending the night in the dormitory, the team loaded up the sleds with gear and extra fuel. They headed north as the sun appeared over the flat, white horizon. The wind whipped through their parkas and snow obscured their view as they raced over the frozen land to get to camp before dark.

Antarctica was a dangerous place because of the weather. The temperature rarely rose above zero degrees Celsius during the day and plummeted to minus twenty at night even in the relatively warm month of September. Combined with strong winds, hypothermia and dehydration were likely. Unlike the arctic, there were no polar bears to fear in Antarctica. The island had no land predators. No known predators thought Pamela. Icy fingers of fear, not cold, chilled Pamela to the bone.

The team stopped after six hours of hard riding to rest. One of the students, Danny Smith, walked over and sat on the frozen ground next to Pamela behind her snow machine which blocked the wind.

“Hard to believe all this beauty will disappear if we don’t start taking care of our planet.” He shouted over the howling wind.

Pamela didn’t see the beauty in this desolate environment. She thought Danny was kind of preachy, but a nice kid. She didn’t want to get into a long discussion about the environment with him like last night over dinner at McMurdo. He gave her a whiskey fueled monologue about global warming and climate change. Pamela didn’t believe in any of that. She liked her gas-powered cars and plastic drinking cups. But she owed him after dragging him to the bottom of the earth on a ruse that placed him in more danger than he knew. “Yes,” she agreed.

Damon, the guide, shouted over the wind, “Let’s go!” He pointed to an imaginary watch on his wrist and motioned with his thumb like a hitchhiker.

The group mounted their snow machines and headed north to the site of the incident. Only Pamela knew the events reported by a Russian research team two years ago of a large, furry, white, creature that tormented their camp. Pamela carried a rifle on her sled for protection from seals, at least that’s what she reported to the permitting office. In reality, she carried the rifle for protection from large mythical creatures.

In journalism school last year, Pamela was approached by a woman whose cousin was a member of the Russian team. Olga said her cousin’s camp was attacked by a group of yetis while collecting wind data 160 kilometers, 100 miles, north of McMurdo Station. Pamela didn’t believe a word Olga said until she heard the story directly from Ivan. The terror in his eyes as he told the tale and the slashes in his tent convinced her. She started planning the next day. A story like that accompanied by pictures, and maybe even a yeti corpse, would jump start her journalism career. If she didn’t see any yetis, she would still have the experience to write about and the satisfaction of knowing she had helped some researchers study environmental changes in Antarctica.

Finally, the group arrived at the site and set up a large tent with a propane stove for heat and cooking. The crew ate rice and dried beef while sitting on their cots. The temperature inside the tent was twenty degrees Fahrenheit, outside minus twenty degrees. After an hour of chatting and getting to know each other, the group snuggled into their sleeping bags for the night. In the morning they would drill holes into the ice to collect data for environmental research. Pamela didn’t sleep. She lay on her cot with the rifle on top of her sleeping bag and both eyes open listening to the wind howl outside.

She awoke to the sound of rustling in the dark. It was Damon putting his boots on. She chided herself for falling asleep.

“What’s going on?” she asked.

“Nothing to worry about. Go back to sleep.”

“Did you hear something?”

“It’s probably nothing. I’m going to check.” He grabbed his rifle and headed to the door.

“Wait, don’t go out there,” she whispered urgently.

“I’ll be right…” He heard a growl over the wind. “Did you hear that?”

“Yes,” she said.

“Was that a growl?” Danny asked. He sat up in his sleeping bag.

“I heard it too,” Mary said.

“We all heard it,” added John turning on the light and looking around the tent.

Amy nodded.

“Turn off the light!” Pamela shouted.

John did as she instructed but asked, “Why?”

Damon said putting a reassuring hand on Pamela's shoulder, “They’re no land predators in Antarctica. There’s nothing to worry about.”

“Wait! Don’t go out there!” She grabbed his forearm. “There’s something you don’t know.” She shook her head to clear her thoughts. She was thinking clearly for the first time since she got this crazy idea. She put all these young people in danger. They didn’t know what they were getting into.

“What, Pamela” Damon asked. “What don’t we know?”

Pamela looked around the tent at the faces in the dark waiting for her to explain. Color rushed to her cheeks and she dropped her gaze to her feet. “There was a group of Russian researchers here two years ago. They ran into a large creature that attacked their camp--”

“—Oh, please,” Amy interrupted.

“This isn’t the time for campfire stories,” Damon said.

“It’s true.” She waited as the group reacted. “Come on!” and “Give me a break!”

“I spoke to one of the researchers.” She had to convince them. They were in danger. “I saw the claw marks in their tent.” They didn’t believe her.

Just then, they heard another growl, closer and louder. Mary and John jumped out of their sleeping bags and ran to the other side of the tent away from the sound. Something smacked the tent near their heads, thud, sending everyone, including Pamela, running to the safety of the middle of the tent.

“What is it?” Amy asked Pamela.

“I’m sorry. I lured you here under false pretenses and I’m so sorry.” What had she done? Only one thing to do now. “I’m going to fix this.” She said more to herself than to the group.

“Wait! What is it?” Amy repeated.

Pamela headed to the door with the rifle.

“Don’t go out there!” shouted Damon.

“Wait,” Mary said. “Maybe they’ll go away.”

“If there’s something out there, I want to see it.” John said as he unzipped one of the tent flaps. He peeked out the window. “What the hell is that?” The color drained from his face as he backed away. “I saw it, a yeti! It’s real!” he said to the group.

“Out of curiosity, Pamela,” Mary said trembling. “How did the Russians get away?”

“I’m going to scare them away with the rifle.” She pointed the rifle out the door and shot up toward the sky. The gunshot thundered over the terrain startling everyone in the tent. The creatures shrieked and ran away. The danger over for now, the group breathed a sigh of relief.

“Fire,” Pamela said to Mary. “They scared them away with fire.”

Pamela had an idea. She kicked her cot breaking it. She grabbed the long wooden side of her cot and wrapped the end of it with the canvas. She pushed the end of the torch into the fuel canister and brought it outside. Looking around for creatures and not finding any she stuck one end of the torch into the snow and lit the other end. She repeated the process with the other side of her cot.

The rest of the team followed her example. Soon flaming torches surrounded the tent lighting up the night.

“Pack up. As soon as the sun comes up, we’re out of here,” Damon said abandoning all plans of collecting ice.

“When were you planning on telling us?” Mary asked Pamela. “Were you planning on telling us?”

“No, Mary. She wasn’t.” John answered for Pamela. “She tricked us.” John paced the tent. “Do you know how much this trip cost? How long it took to get here? I took a semester off for this.” He pointed an accusing finger at Pamela.

“You’ve got some nerve, Pamela!” Amy shouted.

Pamela didn’t say anything. What could she say? She had done a horrible thing for selfish reasons. She had to make this right but she couldn’t think how.

Thank goodness the night was short. She could hear the group talking about her as they sat huddled around the stove. Pamela sat in the corner of the tent inside her sleeping bag for warmth. Damon stood guard by the tent flap with his rifle pointed to the horizon. When the sun came up, the group packed up the tent and climbed on the snow machines. With the torches extinguished, the group set off for McMurdo Station.

Pamela rode behind the other riders. She looked back and saw a creature standing where the tent was a few minutes ago. Without stopping she pulled out her camera and snapped a picture. She looked at the screen, a clear image of a large biped covered in white fur. She had gotten what she wanted after all. She would write a prize-winning story and include the picture as proof. She would make a lot of money, maybe Netflix would buy the rights to her story.

She heard a growl close behind her. The yeti ran behind her snow machine. It was catching up to her. “Help!” she yelled, but the wind swallowed her cries. She pulled out the rifle and twisted around aiming at the beast. She fell off the snow machine and rolled as the yeti swiped her with its enormous claw. She lay bleeding in the snow the rifle useless out of reach yelling for help which did not come. Her snow machine slowed to a stop 100 yards ahead of her. The rest of her team didn’t notice she was gone. The yeti bit her neck finishing the job.

Up ahead Danny admired the polar beauty around him. He looked back and didn’t see Pamela’s snow machine. He stopped and waited a few minutes but she didn’t appear. He called to the group but they didn’t hear him. He turned his machine around and headed back. After about half a mile, he found Pamela lying dead on the snow in a pool of blood. His heart raced in his chest and he sweat icicles all over his body. Off in the distance a yeti howled atop a snow drift staring down at Danny. Danny grabbed Pamela’s rifle and fired a warning shot into the air. He turned his snow machine around and sped off, but not before spotting the camera lying next to Pamela’s snow machine. He scooped it up by the strap and raced back to the others. Pamela had died trying to get a picture of her prize, and in the end, her prize killed her. Was that irony? Danny wasn’t sure. He said a silent prayer for Pamela and sped off following the other’s tracks.

Danny and the others reported the events to the US Marshalls stationed at McMurdo who recovered Pamela Edward’s body. An autopsy revealed jagged wounds consistent with a wild animal attack. Danny Smith wrote a book about the incident in Antarctica and included the picture. He sold many copies. Netflix approached him about making a documentary.