The air is cold and still, carrying the faint, sweet scent of ancient dust and dried leaves. A single, thin shaft of pale light illuminates a circle of golden flowers beneath you, their petals crushed and bent where you landed. The rest of the world is a wall of shadow.

From somewhere above, a tiny trickle of dirt and small pebbles skitters down the rock face, a final, mocking farewell from the surface.

A soft rustle. Not from the rocks, but from the flowers. A few feet away, a single golden bloom shivers. Then it trembles. And then, with a sound like tearing paper, it turns.