The girls walked for what felt like an eternity.
Hours passed, marked not by any clock or sun but by the increasing ache in their legs and the steady rhythm of their footfalls echoing through the narrow underground cave.
The red mist never faded—it clung to their clothes, curled into their noses, and painted the jagged walls around them in a constant eerie glow.
The awful rotten smell hadn't improved either. In fact, it seemed to grow stronger the longer they stayed down there, like they were getting closer to the source of whatever ungodly stench had cursed this place.
Even Tierra, who had a surprisingly high tolerance for disgusting environments occasionally gagged and muttered things like, "Okay, I take it back, I miss the desert. The birds didn't smell half this bad."
But the most unnerving part wasn't the smell or the tight space or even the constant dripping sound from some unseen moisture above. It was the path.
