Luciana stared at it. She'd been able to smell it from ten minutes away, and, now that she was directly in front of it, the stench was stifling. Suffocating. It reminded her of an enclosed room, all stone, no ventilation. Heat, but the wet kind that embraces you wholly. Drowns you. No ventilation. 

It had been in such a place, lost in the pile of bodies of people she had once known, that she had come to realize the paradox of her existence. If a tree falls in a forest, and no one is around to hear it, does it make a sound?

Now wasn't the time for philosophical thought, though, she reminded herself, swallowing the urge to sigh. The pungency of the maroon titan in front of her would surely choke her up if she did. She stepped carefully around the flower, trying to avoid agitating the swarm of flies poised on it.

Now that she thought of it, D.O might have mentioned something about a corpse flower... It wasn't the time to think about it. As she got deeper and deeper into the forest, her wariness just kept climbing. She had never been the best tracker, but her gut had yet to fail her... too many times. 

She kept walking. Dusk deepened the foliage's color, lengthened shadows, and put her on edge with its impending passing. After taking the last step of a hill, she stopped. The pit of her stomach ached.

Something rustled, her head twitched towards it. After a moment of silence, she took a couple of cautious steps. A branch snapped, breaking, with it, her restraint. In a second, she was running. 

Steady footfalls echoed her own. Lux didn't know if what was chasing her was the wolf or not, but it didn't matter. She'd come out here to do the hunting, not to be hunted. 

Spotting a tall stone structure peeking out of the plants ahead, she made a split-second decision and headed towards it. Grabbing onto one of the thick vines that enveloped it, she was climbing. 

The action was rudimentary, step, push, grab, pull. Step, push, grab, pull. Step, push, grab, pull. Step, push, grab, pull. Step, push, grab, flinch, turn, recoil, start falling, hold on.

It was a face. The huge stone face of a statue. 

It had been unexpected, though, and, upon first glance, startling. Upon readjusting her body, Lucy realized she was being faced with a city of ruins. Even larger stone men, hands held in prayer, sat cross legged in large circles. Carved elephants guarded pointed towers with prostrated humans decorating their