Seek Out

Stare Downed

Door 26 and there hasn't been any sign of that monster yet. The lights flickered but it was pretty short and you didn't hear any sign.

You and your group were chatting when all of a sudden your surroundings turned dark. You realized you had just walked into an unlit room.

"They need to pay their bills" joked one of your friends.

You could hear an eerie ambience. Where is this "music" even coming from?

You heard knocking and footsteps that obviously weren't yours or any of your friends, none of you were moving.
"H-hey guys... Do you have a bandaid? I'm still wounde-" your friend tried to talk but you cut them off.

"Shh.. I need to focus, I see something."

You saw a faint blue light highlighting a door numbered "0027".

You approached it but it was locked.

Your friend stood beside you and remebered seeing a key nearby.
They went away to look for it again, while you stood still waiting for them to come back.

You also remember one of your friends having a lockpick, but you couldn't see them. You tried shouting for them, but you heard the sounds of them falling and tripping over things whenever they tried to find you. Ouch.

"Psst," A faint voice whispered.
You felt a shiver down your spine and your vision started shaking a little.

Looking around to see where the whisper came from, you spotted a black, goopy tentacle behind you.

You were frozen in terror.
But you swallowed your fear and turned to look at it.
Thankfully, it didn't do anything and instead screeched at you and bounced back into the darkness, disappearing from your sight.

It was a white ball covered in whatever substance that was. It was black and inky, and there were tentacles emerging from it.
It had a big smile.
Eugh... That is definitely not going to be a good memory.

AGHHHHHHHHHHH

What the hell??

You recognized the voice to be one of your friends and rushed to look for them, however, due to the darkness, you tripped a few times before bumping into them.
They were lying on the floor, looking terrified with a bite mark on their arm.

"Woah, woah, woah what happened to you??!! Why is there a bite mark on your arm??!!"

"There was t-this thing, it was like.. I don't know!! It's a monster thing covered in black ink!!"

Oh shit.. It was the same one from earlier. You wondered why it didn't bite you.

"Ok wait, calm down. Tell me what happened," you said while taking out the last extra bandage from your pocket to aid them.

"So, I was looking for the key, and I heard a distant whisper. I ignored it, I thought it was just [friend] messing around, but I heard it again. And it sounded like it was right behind me."

"What happened next?"

"I saw a little thing, like a tentacle and, I could almost see glowing white eyes and a big smile from the side of my eye. I-I tried not to look at it, but it let out a deafening screech and bit my ar-"
THUD

The others of the group bumped into you two and fell to the floor.

" Oh my god, there you are!! Guess what happened, it was crazy"

"Let me guess, a black inky monster with a big smile attacked you?"

"Yeah, yeah that! Happened to [friend] here too, but we both dodged it-"
They look at your other friend who you were bandaging.

"What happened to them?"

You explained what happened and everyone was in silence.
"So... I guess we all got attacked by a creepy big spider thing. You know, it kind of reminds me of a character in a video game I used to play. I can't recall what the name was.."

"Thank god it didn't attack me, I would've died. I feel so weak. Do you have any--?"

You gestured towards the door as you noticed the room was lighter than before and saw that it was opened.

"Oh yeah, we also came here to tell you that we unlocked the door. Come on, we don't want to keep things waiting. [friend] looks good already, just help them get up and we'll keep moving."

A small voice let out a few words;
"--other bandaids.." they trailed off before sighing.

You all went into the next room few rooms without encountering anything.
That was until Door 31.

You heard a distorted sound and a bunch of whispers.
A purple aura started to form in the center of the room.
You tried to look at it, but the more it took form the more your eyes started to hurt.

Soon, eyes appeared there and you felt your body hurting.
You grunted in pain and covered your eyes, looking away immediately.

Everyone else did the same.
You stared at the floor, that thing is a pain to look at. Literally.

You grabbed one of your friends by the arm and told them to look down until we reach the end.

Walking across until you reached the hallway, you finally let go and breathed a sigh of relief.

Oh thank god... You looked around to see all your friends safe and sound.

"Guys, where's [friend]?"

No one responded.
You attempted to look into their eyes but they were staring back at the hallway.
Shit.

You ran to the entrance of the previous room and sat on the floor.
Lying there was your friend, passed out.

"GUYS! BRING ANY EXTRA BANDAID OR WHATEVER ITEMS YOU HAVE THERE, I NEED TO SAVE THEM."

Little did you know there was no saving them anymore.

Everyone tried their best to bring out even a little bit of movement from that friend, but it was all worthless.
Silence echoed through the room until it was broken by someone questioning you.

"No!!"

"Oh my god," they all sounded so heartbroken.

"Y/N!! WHY DIDN'T YOU GIVE THEM THE BANDAID??"

"I used it on [friend] already! What was I supposed to do??!"

"They're dead," one of them started crying.

"Look what you've done!"

"HOW IS THAT MY FAULT?! That was my last one and I already used it, are you blind!?" you snapped back.

"No?! I saw you get two bandaids in that other room."
You most definitely didn't take two bandaids. But they still insisted that you had a bandage still lying around with you. You tried arguing with them, but they refused to listen.

"Can you stop fighting??? This isn't gonna bring our friend back to life!"

"Fine, whatever, " your friend said, exiting the room as they shot you a pointed look.