Tenaro continued his descent down the stairs. His eyes drifted across the massive terraces spreading out on either side.

  The higher ruins had felt almost untouched, like they were frozen in time. But the lower he went, the more buildings began to fracture. Walls either leaned or were shattered, roofs carved inward on buildings that even had a roof, and stones lay scattered where buildings had finally surrendered.

  *Now THESE look like ruins.* Tenaro thought, his eyes shifting between the messed stones and cracked walls.

  The base of the staircase was nearing, birdsong still echoed through the air, but beneath it lingered the scent of decay, damp moss, rotten meat. The sounds of squawking tearing through the air.

  Suddenly, movement caught his eye.

  To his right, inside a small structure with a collapsed roof and a broken wall, a cluster of five enormous black birds crowded around a monkey carcass. Their bodies were bulky, their heads either bald or a little hairy.

  *Condors.* Tenaro recognized the species they were. Tenaro stopped mid-step and stared at them at a distance, *Those things are huge…*

  One of them stood out immediately, its neck blazed with a vivid yellow, bright against the gloomy, its body noticeably larger than the rest. It snapped its wings open in a sudden display, forcing the others back.

  Feathers spread wide, way wider than Tenaro expected. His mouth fell open as its wingspan unfurled, seeming larger than the birds’ entire body. The others shrank away, defeated.

  Tenaro's eyes widened in surprise and just tore his gaze away from the scene, shaking his head in disbelief, and continued downward.

  He stepped on a huge shadow covering the last few steps of the stairs. He looked up and his gaze drifted to his left, and his eyes widened. A ridiculously enormous building blotted the sunlight, towering over him. It seemed giant compared to the ones he saw above. The buildings beside it were standing shoulder to shoulder to it, *They are all this huge?!* He wondered, softly gasping in surprise.

  He lifted his head, looking around as he walked down, and froze.

  The buildings before him were colossal.

  *What the…* His mind trailed off as he gaped the sheer size of the structures.

  They towered over some of the terraces, easily three times bigger than the ruins above.

  These buildings stood proud, walls straight and corners sharp, even more impressive than the first city.

  Moss crept over the stone like a slow tide, cracks spidering through the surface, but again, the structures themselves stood stubbornly intact.

  When he stepped off the last stair and onto the path below, the scale truly hit him. He felt so small and insignificant compared to a dead city.

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  *The world is a huge place.* He thought, still can't believe these are ruins.

  His eyes traced the rooftops above in awe, he breathed out in awe, staring at the huge structures in disbelief. He gazed at the rooftops until he noticed a wooden sign jutting out from one of them.

  Time had eaten away from its edges, but the markings were still somehow visible; the same strange language he saw earlier.

  And carved above the writings, was a dragon's head, its sharp, elegant horns worn out by age and time.

  *Why's this place so obsessed with them?* He wondered, scratching the back of his head and shrugged it off. Or at least, tried to.

  He continued and moved forward along the tightly packed street. The paths twisted and bent sharply, sharper and narrower than the city above, the buildings pressing close together.

  The wind vanished again, trapped somewhere above the rooftops, in fact, he felt a little warmer. Sunlight poured down between the stone, making the preserved buildings gleam faintly.

  Somewhere overhead, shouting erupted.

  Tenaro jerked his head upward, startled. He squinted and spotted two monkeys fighting on a glassless window opening high above, both threatening to slip and fall because of their aggression and energy.

  *Jeez, these monkeys here hate each other.* Tenaro assumed, scratching the back of his head, and kept walking.

  ***

  The road widened slightly, though it continued to coil unpredictably. His footsteps echoed, loud in the emptiness. The air carried the smell of wet moss and rain-soaked stone; clean, sharp and somewhat comforting.

  He heard weird calls and glanced up. The same flock of the condors swept across the sky, the big alpha one in the lead. Tenaro saw the white color under their wings as they soared across the blue canvas.

  Still scratching his head, he caught movement in his peripheral vision. To his left, in a narrow alley, a tree grew tight between two buildings, with something shifting in its leaves.

  He stopped and watched.

  Green scales slid briefly into view, then vanished again. He stepped closer.

  *A snake?* He wondered as he crept towards the tree.

  The movement ceased, and he scanned the branches, finally spotting a long, slender body stretched awkwardly from a branch toward a dark hole in the stone wall.

  The snake struggled clumsily, its bright green body snagged for a moment before ripping free and slipping inside the building through the hole.

  *Is it running away from me?* Tenaro wandered, watching as the snake slithered inside.

  He turned, ready to leave, but his gaze landed on a door on the wall, beside the hole. *How'd I not notice it?*.

  He stepped through and inside, the snake was already retreating across the floor, clearly aware of him and eager to find an escape route as it slithered away from the sunlight that poured through a window opening.

  *Why would I mess with a green mamba?* He asked himself, not even thinking of ticking off a venomous snake.

  As the snake disappeared further into the shadows of the room, something caught his eye on the wall on his left.

  A mural.

  The sunlight streamed across the room, illuminating the stone wall in front of him. Painted there was a red dragon, massive, detailed and looking downward. Beneath it, a coiled snake stared up, its posture tight and fearful. Tenaro's eyes widened as he gaped at the picture.

  *Why is this place so obsessed with snakes and dragons?!*

  He stared up at the picture, now can't deny that these murals aren't here for fun. Probably.

  “BOOOM!!”

  The sound was distant, and muffled, but powerful, causing the floor to tremble and stop almost instantly, Tenaro sighing in relief. But after a few moments, the floor trembled again, harder this time. Stone shifted and dust rose up. Tenaro's eyes widened with shock.

  *An earthquake?!*

  The building shook violently, loose stone scraped against each other, yet the walls still held. Outside, monkeys screamed and birds exploded into flight. Tenaro dropped to all fours, and stayed there, bracing himself. *What is happening?*

  Then…

  Stillness.

  The shaking stopped as abruptly as it started. Tenaro swiftly jumped to his feet and sprinted out into the alley.

  *That was one hell of an explosion.*

  The city stood unchanged. The massive granite stones had shifted only slightly, barely disturbed. As if the quake had been an inconvenience rather than an actual threat.

  Tenaro gaped and stared, stunned as he looked around the giant buildings around him.

  *What is this place?!*