Rootbound Sanctuary
By @john1208
Elara Vance, a timid urban botanist more comfortable with rare orchids than rough terrain, joined an academic expedition searching for lost flora in the rumored 'Green Vaults'—a mythical expanse said to be an overgrown relic of a forgotten age. What she found was not a vault, but an impossible, sprawling labyrinth of living, shifting flora, teeming with ancient, unidentifiable plants and a silence so profound it was deafening. A sudden, inexplicable tremor separated her from her team, leaving her utterly alone, lost within walls of sentient roots and bioluminescent fungi. Her only possessions: a tattered field journal, a handful of emergency rations, and a small pouch of heirloom seeds she'd been cataloging. Now, with no hope of immediate rescue, Elara must coax life from alien soil, navigating the labyrinth's secrets not with machete and map, but with trowel and intuition. Survival here means understanding the sanctuary, becoming a part of its strange ecosystem, and discovering what it truly means to cultivate existence in the heart of a botanical mystery.
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