The darkness of the room gave the group an eerie feeling. There was no light as Quinn looked around the dark void

There aren't any torches lighting the room. They must've come unlit while we tried entering this room.

Quinn whispered into the darkness, looking for someone to answer, “Are you guys still there? Does anyone have a torch?”

There was silence.

Suddenly, a voice spoke up, “Yeah… I have a torch but I have nothing to light it with.” It was the voice of Lex. He seemed to have a concerned tone. Quinn understood, the darkness could send monsters or other unknown beings at any moment. With the light, at least they wouldn't be blind to what is going on around them.

“I don't have anything either.” Cally made her presence known. The others began to do the same.

Cally, Liz, Alec, Lex, Kiara, Winston… It seems everyone is still here, but what are we going to do about this lighting problem?

Suddenly, a spark began to fly in the air and formed beneath it was a small fire. Winston had used his ability to brighten the room!

“Sorry it took so long. Using the flames in such big quantities forces me to use a lot of energy.” Winston spoke in a deep voice. Liz and Alec, the ones who still had torches, relit their torches using Winston's flames, allowing for more light to emanate through the room.

“Good, now at least we have some light. There doesn't seem to be any monsters lurking around, so I think we should be safe continuing forward.” Lex sighed a relief as he nodded towards Liz, taking the torch from her, then moving ahead of everyone else into a broad and dark room.

It seems he lost his torch in all of the chaos. It would be better if he still had his, but if this really is the exit to this layer then the torches shouldn’t matter for much longer anyways… hopefully.

Quinn followed at the back of the group, watching behind them in case any monsters tried to ambush them. Fortunately, the room seemed to have no monsters, making the job much easier.

Lex walked deeper into the room as he looked for any abnormalities that could occur. The room was so vast that the torch light couldn't reach far enough to each side of the room. It was only able to light the path a short distance in front of them, making it hard to see any monsters or creatures that may be lurking in the dark.

Just as Lex believed that the room was barren, his foot stepped on something wet and sticky. It was a black ooze, similar to the composition the previous monsters were made of.

“What is this stuff? Is this where all those monsters came from?”

Liz took a step towards the black oily ooze, examining it for anything that could be of use or harm against them, “It seems like it's alive. It flows similarly to the monsters from before… it even has the same putrid smell.” Liz covered her nose as she took a step away from the substance.

Quinn was curious, so he wished to examine it as well, “Lex, can you shine your light a bit closer to the ooze?”

Quinn took a step towards the ooze, bending down to examine it similar to how Liz did. Lex moved his torch closer, illuminating the area much better and allowing for Quinn to get a better view of the black substance.

“This thing, it really is like those monsters…” Just as Quinn said that, the black ooze began to wriggle, flopping back and forth as if in pain. Quinn was quiet for a few moments, but his senses quickly understood his situation. His eyes shot open as he quickly turned his head towards Alec, “The fire, it can feel it…!”

A black tentacle, moving like it had a mind of its own, quickly flung towards the group at a rapid speed. It slammed against Quinn first, then Lex. It then flew into the rest of the group, sending them all flying backwards and into the wall by the door.

Quinn’s head filled with pain as he tried to make sense of what occurred. Before the tentacle made impact he tried putting his arms in front of his body, but it was still able to do considerable damage even with the extra protection. More than that, the tentacle was able to hit the entire group with one swing, sending them all into a pile on the other side of the room.

Quinn was finally able to inhale a short breath as he regained his composure. His ears rang out as he looked to his left and right to see the other members of his group sprawled on the floor. Behind Quinn, he noticed Winston lying against the wall behind him, his arms spread out.

In only a moment after seeing the tentacle, Winston was capable of breaking the impact of everyone else by using his body to help shield the group from impacting the wall. He spread his arms out to make sure no one took any overwhelming damage after landing!

“Winston… are you ok?” Blood poured from Quinn's mouth as he turned towards Winston. His neck throbbed from the pain.

“I'm fine… My durability is much stronger than everyone else, so I was able to take the impact without too much damage. The others on the other hand…”

A case of content theft: this narrative is not rightfully on Amazon; if you spot it, report the violation.

This is the power of Echoes…? He was able to withstand such a large hit…

After realizing what had just happened, Lex stood up from the ground followed by Alec. They both looked as if they were about to fall over.

“No… Liz…” Alec turned towards the pale woman. Liz was still lying on the ground. Her eyes were closed and she had a faint heartbeat, but she was still alive. Lex sighed with relief, “She's still alive.”

Lex turned to look at Cally next. As he approached her, she suddenly burst up, unaware of her surroundings, “What happened! My chest… it hurts.”

Cally was fine. She seemed to only sustain a few broken ribs, but beside that, she sustained no other damage.

As Lex filled Cally in on what happened, Alec yelled towards Quinn, “Kiara… she's unresponsive…”

Unresponsive, does that mean… Quinn felt fear as he approached Kiara’s pale body. Dread began to fill his chest as he leaned down to listen for her heartbeat.

I… I don't hear anything!

Quinn was no medical expert, but he knew that in this short moment he may have left, he could still save Kiara. He spared not a second as he began to try resuscitating Kiara. He began counting the compressions, trying to bring her back to life. He leaned back in listening for her heartbeat once again, but there was no sound.

Once again, he began to apply compressions in attempts to revive her, “Come on Kiara… don't die… please don't die.”

Even though he had just met her, had barely gotten to know her, he couldn't stand watching as her lifeless body laid limp on the floor, pale and empty of life. He had to do something with what little time he had.

Alec, along with the rest of the group could only watch helplessly as Quinn tried to revive Kiara. Quinn listened for a heartbeat, but there was none. He continued to do compressions again, praying that Kiara would come back.

Once again, Quinn bent down to listen for a heartbeat. He was full of stress and fear as he listened. As his head pressed against her chest, he began to hear a subtle noise. A small thumping rhythm could be heard in her chest!

Quinn felt a sigh of relief as he watched Kiara’s pale skin become rosy red. Her eyes barely opened, but she was able to see Quinn and Alec leaning beside her. Words began to form through a quiet and groggy voice , “What… happened?”

“We were attacked.” Alec responded slowly. Kiara opened her mouth to reply to Alec, but Alec shushed her calmly, giving her a small reassuring smile, “It's alright, just rest for now.”

Kiara returned Alec’s smile with one of her own before she fell back to sleep on the cold floor.

Liz, who had awakened during all of the commotion, walked over to Kiara. She sat beside her, taking care of her wounds, “You guys go fight that thing, I can take care of her. Although I am sad I have to burden you with all of this, I would likely just get in the way.”

Quinn understood. During the attack, Kiara and Liz took the most damage. The injuries they both sustained had affected them deeply, causing them to be unable to fight at their normal standards.

After all the commotion was over, Lex made his way towards Winston who had now stood up and seemed to be in fine condition, “It hasn't seemed to attack us since. Do you think you can use your fire to illuminate the surrounding area just so we can see what we are dealing with?”

Winston gripped his hands into a fist, “I think I should be able to do that, but after that, I likely won't be able to use my fire. I have used it too much in such a short time span.”

Lex nodded, confirming that he still wished for Winston to do it. Winston opened his hand and began to draw energy towards his palm. A flame hovered above his hand, and with one motion of his arm, the sides of the room had caught fire and began to illuminate the area.

Quinn's eyes widened as he looked towards the opposite wall of the room. A giant black ooze ball sat near the back wall. Tentacles shot out from every side, reaching out to all sides of the room.

The fire that Winston had conjured spread across the room, slowly making its way towards the grotesque ball. After spreading across the tip of one of the tentacles, eyelids began to shoot open across the ball's surface, making room for dark green eye balls with jet black pupils to see. The tentacle covered in flame began to wave rapidly as it tried to remove the flame from its surface.

After removing the flames, the tentacle calmed down and the eyes began to search across the room for the object that caused it such pain. It looked around and its attention began to focus on a small group that sat on the opposite side of the room. Its eyelids narrowed as it watched Quinn and the others. Quinn shivered as he made eye contact with the monster.

After seeing the small group, a giant mouth opened up in the center of the beast, its teeth were sharp, much sharper than the monsters from before. The mouth let out a deafening scream, forcing Quinn to plug his ears to relieve himself of the pain.

As the monster screeched, a giant black tentacle came whipping out from behind itself. It flew towards the small group, hoping to get rid of the enemies that harmed it, but the tentacle fell too short of reaching them.

It tried even harder, but it was incapable of reaching to the other side of the room to attack them.

“I don't think it's capable of moving. If it wanted to move, it likely would have done so by now.” Quinn spoke to the others as he continued to study the hideous monster.

“You're right… That means we should be safe here, but still apply caution.” Lex watched the beast, trying to think of a plan on how to kill it.

“So how do you think we should kill the bastard? We can't allow it to get away with hurting Kiara and Liz. Surely it can feel some pain.” Fury could be seen in Quinn’s dark pupils. Lex was similar, he smashed his fist into his palm as he gave the monster a menacing look.

“It's strong. Very strong. But I think we can take care of it. All we have to do is watch out for those tentacles and we should be fine.” Malice emanated from Lex’s voice.

“Don't leave me out of this.” Alec stood up from beside Kiara and motioned towards Quinn. He stood beside Quinn and gave him a slight smile. This smile was much different than before. It was similar to that of a cocky smirk, rather than his normal grin.

Quinn returned him a similar smile before looking behind to make sure Kiara was still okay. After seeing that Liz was taking care of Kiara, Quinn once again looked towards the beast, “I wonder how this beast's head will look as a trophy.”