Never ending rooms seemed to be all there was. After as little as eight rooms, more than half of our group was dead and it felt as if it had been days.
Our group started out with enough people that I hadn't even bothered to count them, now there were only a handful of us left. I had tried to keep as many of us alive and I had gained some sort of magical healing ability after a particularly hard challenge. My healing was the only reason all of us weren't dead yet and it seems I've become some sort of pseudo leader.
My power, while being used, turned my eyes into crosses and glowed green along with the area of damage I was trying to fix.
Entering the new room, I look around and examine the place trying to figure out the danger before it surprises us. The room is medium sized, square, and dark with a red tint to it all. On all four sides of the room there are giant totem heads completely inert and grey. On the opposite side of the room is the exit door but walking up to the others crowding around it our escape was locked.
Walking around the room and examining the totems produced no fruit until for some reason a dark hole opened in the middle of the roof and thick chains of steel with meat hooks attached to the ends flew out of the darkness, seeking out the closest four people. All of them getting a hook through a limb before being rapidly pulled back towards the centre.
Panicking, most of us try to stop the chains but it's useless. Thankfully the chains stopped on their own leaving their newest victims dangling from the hooks and bleeding out. This was new as all the traps before instantly killed whoever was unfortunate enough to activate them almost instantly or left debilitating injuries. The door previously locked, opened for us which was good news at least. The bad news was that the chains unendingly drained the blood of the hooked people. We have to leave at least two people hung up on the hooks for the door to stay open. Staking their limbs to the newly available hooks after hoisting someone down or leaving them there.
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Leaving the decision of who to leave and who to save to the group I go to do my job, healing the hooked people and constantly refreshing their blood to give us more time to decide. Choosing who to heal first was simple as one was already unconscious due to blood loss, two of them seemed to be okay comparably, the last one though was an annoyance and had been a nuisance to everyone throughout this entire hell.
Going up to the unresponsive person I get to work, ignoring the yells and demands of the narcissist. Putting my hands up to the point of stabbing I channel my power. Eyes and hands glowing, the flesh stitches itself together incredibly fast but I plan to stop before completely healing them back to good health to make sure they stayed unconscious so as to not cause any distress and unnecessary pain. One of the giant totems on the walls flares to life while I did this.
Glowing red symbols appear all around the head. The eyes, an even brighter red, open and focus in on me overpowering my mind easily before going dormant once more. The others not knowing something had happened to me were all focused on the totem wondering what would happen until the screaming started.
It was not me screaming but the person I was healing waking up, my eyes and hands were glowing red now but the injury continued healing like normal until fully healed, knowledge of my power not being very deep, I had never tested healing more than necessary to preserve strength.
Their skin started turning red, they were screaming that their eyes are going to pop out of their sockets, blood flowing out where my hands were placed. I couldn't stop or even twitch a muscle. Skin at the site of healing suddenly ballooning out like a warped Hoberman sphere, every pore being forcefully expanded before the skin flops to the ground like strands of spaghetti. A giant tumor starts growing up and around the hook and chain.
Being tackled by someone snaps me out of it, giving me control of my body back. A disfigured person hangs nearby no longer moving and a waterfall of red flows out of them. Thankfully the others knowing the totem was to blame don't outcast me, my healing still being necessary for future trials. Everyone will just have to be more alert for anything, a closer eye being put on me when healing.
With not having to argue on who to save anymore, we leave behind the narcissist and the bloated to the hooked chains and pull the others off making sure to heal them after we've left the room to continue our escape.