~ZANDER~

As we walked on the stone path, the six people by the fountain stared at us. It was a diverse group of people-a blonde girl, a blond guy, a girl with dark skin, an asian guy, an asian girl, and a white girl with black messy hair. They seemed to be having a conversation earlier, so it was safe to assume they all spoke the same language.

The girl with dark skin ran up to us and said, "Where have you guys been? We were getting worried about y-!"

"I'll tell you about that later," Ethan said, setting the oil lamp on the ground. "First, we have a new guy. Found him in one of those rooms by himself. So that makes ten of us now."

I took a step forward and waved in an awkward manner, "Hi, I'm Zander."

The girl with the dark skin smiled and reached out her hand to me. "Nice to meet you, Zach. I'm Isabel. There isn't much we can do to get out of here right now, but we'll eventually find a way."

I smiled back and grabbed her hand, and then a sudden blood-red flash covered my vision.

When I regained my vision in a few seconds, everything was just... wrong. The girl's hand I was shaking was on the floor bleeding with her eyes gouged out and lacerations throughout her body. I quickly dropped her hand in fear and noticed everyone was on the ground bleeding and mutilated. The fountain was overflowing with blood from the eyes of the statue, soaking the floor with the red liquid. The entire courtyard was on fire, and I could see hundreds of people wearing rags and robes among the flames walking towards me.

Zander... Zander... Zander...

"Zander!" Ethan was shaking my sholders, put up his fingers, and said, "How many do I have up?"

"Huh...? Um, eight?" I replied.

"Yeah, he's fine."

"How are you feeling? You were zoning out just now," Isabel said, with a worried expression on her face. She turned to Ethan and said, "You said you found him alone in a room, right? What was he like when you found him?"

"He was on the floor, all bloody, but I doubt it was his. He hasn't told us much yet since we were a bit busy with a lil' something something right after finding him," Ethan replied.

"What happened?"

"Well, better sit down. I'll tell what happened, campfire story style."

I felt nervous and uncomfortable because I wasn't sure what kind of reaction I would get from them. But I guess I didn't get any bad reactions. We sat down with the others, except Ethan.

"By the way," said Ethan, "We shouldn't split the exploration team into two groups of three anymore. We need to be more prepared next time we go to the hallways for supplies."

"Oh yah? What happened?" the filipino girl asked.

"Yeah, yeah, I'm getting to that part."

Everyone was sitting in a circle around the fire, and Ethan started telling the part of the story before they found me. He was talking about when they were walking around checking the hallways, they found a path that goes in a loop. He said he thought up the plan as a "what if" and as a joke when they saw the intersection, but it managed to get useful. But that was the only plan they could think of at that moment.

While Ethan was busy telling the story to them. I looked behind me to look at my surroundings, and it was really dark. The overgrown foliage here makes it feel like a creepy forest. I looked up at the sky and it was pitch black. I switched to looking at the fountain. There's a marble statue of a woman at the center, and water was flowing out of her eyes. The figure's face looks familiar...

...!

I averted my gaze from the statue's eyes. My heart was beating rapidly. I focused back on him talking.

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"We found this one creepy room with the entire room covered in blood. And there was this-"

I returned my attention to the courtyard. I just realized something. There's something glowing in the corner. It doesn't seem like they're noticing it, so I stood up and walked to the faint light.

"Huh? Where's Zander going?" said Fey.

I walked across the small hedge to the unpaved part of the courtyard. This place doesn't have many trees like an actual forest would. So the path was pretty much straight forward.

"Zander! Dude, what are you doing?" Fey shouted.

"There's something glowing over there. I'm going to check it out," I shouted back.

"Be careful. There're thorny bushes there," Sandra yelled.

"I will! Thanks!"

I continued walking. I saw the bushes Sandra was talking about and tried to avoid the ones that could hurt me. After a while, the glow gets brighter and brighter. I walked closer to the light until I saw what it was. It was gone. There was nothing here other than grass. I squatted down and started looking around to see if I could find something hidden among the grass.

"Boo!"

"Ahh!" I jumped back in shock. I turned around, and it's the filipino girl.

"Haha! Sorry. What are you doing?

"I think I just saw something around here. I might be seeing things," I replied.

"Hm?" she looked behind me and there wasn't a single thing apart from grass and the dark. "Hey, do you need to eat something? I'mma guess you're hallucinating from being in that room they talked about for too long."

"Yeah... I guess so," I could've sworn there was something glowing here earlier. Where did it go? "Anyway, thanks, um..."

"The one and only Ozzy Alcantara!" she made a peace sign, put it beside her eye, and winked.

...OK? I guess I'll play along. I need to cheer up.

"Many thanks 'the one and only Ozzy Alcantara!'" I mimicked her peace sign thingy.

"Yup! That's my full name!"

"Huh?"

"Hm?"

...What?

"Anyway, let's go back. Grab a piece of bread in one of those baskets over there, or something. You can drink the water at the fountain if you're thirsty," she pointed around the fountain. She tugged on my arm and started pulling me back.

Am I really sure I'm not having a bad dream?

After getting back to the others, I sat back down in my original place. They were still rambling about what happened earlier. I saw a couple of old baskets by the fountain, so I helped myself with a piece of bread. Their food was running low. Six pieces of bread were left in the basket, and I don't think that was enough to feed the ten of us. I looked at the fountain. I stood up and walked towards it. It looks clear and doesn't smell like anything weird. It seems safe enough. I cupped my hands and sipped the water from the fountain to quench my thirst.

...

"That's that then," Ethan sat down, "I think we'll take an actual weapon with us next time. Something that's better than a stick that breaks easily."

"I'll volunteer," The asian guy-who seemed to be korean-raised his hand. "I can be a super weapon if I get serious," he started unimpresively punching the air.

"You're super bait at best. But if you wanna take on a literal monster, then be my guess," the blonde girl interjected.

Ozzy raised her hand, "Shouldn't we call it a different name other than just demon or monster and write stuff about them? What if there are like, um... some other types of them, and um... stuff. Do you agree with me, Alex?"

The girl-who seemed to be named Alex-didn't utter a word, just smiled and nodded.

"See? She agrees with me."

"Type? Like that one game where you catch creatures in balls and make them fight?" asked the blond guy.

"Nooo, we're not going to make them fight each other-I mean, that would be awesome if we could-but what I mean is there's definitely more of them, so let's call them stuff so we won't get confused which is which."

"I understand calling them different names, but why write about them?"

"I dunno, weakness and shiz? I just wanna write something on paper again. It's been a while."

"I guess that could be useful. We have nothing to write with though," said Isabel. "So, what are we going to call her then?"

Ethan snapped his finger. "I know! 'Claw bitch!'"

"What? No," said Sandra.

"Yeah, that sounds stupid," The korean guy added. "Period mouth!'"

"Jin! That's even worse!" Sandra yelled. "You two aren't being serious, right?"

"Let's just make Zander name it. It'll definitely be better than what these two bozos will think up," said Fey. "Hey, Zander?"

... Oh. I was zoning out again.

"Zander, you can take a nap if you want to," Isabel said worryingly. "You must be exhausted."

"No, it's okay," I replied. "It spits blood nonstop and has claws. So, 'Bloodclaw'?"

"Edgy," said Ethan, " I like it! Any objections?"

No one objected. Ethan stood up and said, "Now that we're done with that! Introduction time!"

"Didn't we already do that days ago?" said the korean guy, whose name seems to be Jin.

"That's right! And we're doing it again, but we have to say something about ourselves this time! The new member of our little club has to know us somehow."

"Huh? Little club, my ass! We're stuck in a shitty place with an actual demon-"

"Nuh uh uh. Not demon, Ms. Schörling. Bloodclaw."

She was completely baffled and too perplexed to speak for a moment. She stood up as she shouted at him, "I had it with you! You're just treating this like it's some kind of fucking game!"

"Hey," the blond guy said to her, "That's enough. Sit down."

"Brynn, calm down," said Ozzy, "He's just trying to boost morale, that's all. He's taking this seriously... Probably. Maybe. I hope so."

"Now that everyone has calmed down," said Ethan, "Let's do this alphabetically. Alex, you go first," he pointed to the girl with the short messy hair. "Tell us your name and a bit about yourself."

[To Be Continued...]