"Cough! Cough cough cough!" Elena curled up, hacking violently.
She greedily gulped down the air around her. It still reeked of this contaminated planet's stench, but it was way fresher than what she'd been breathing underground.
After a few seconds, the dizzy oxygen-starved feeling finally started to fade.
She struggled to push herself up, wiped the dirt off her face, and looked around warily.
This seemed to be the entrance to some massive natural underground cavern.
Light trickled down weakly through sky-high rock cracks above her. It barely lit up the open space ahead. The air felt thick and damp, heavy with mineral smells and... something else. Some old, living scent she couldn't figure out.
And the thing that had grabbed her was sitting right there.
That dark go
