Doll steps slowly away from the water room. It recognised some of the monsters on the wall as fish, and perhaps some are... Bigger fish? Longer fish? It isn't sure, but it doesn't really want to go back and check anymore. It doesn't know how many big fish there are, and it doesn't want to know.

Doll not wanting to know something is a first. And an unwelcome one at that. But there is a forward, and Doll likes to...

...Corridors. If Doll could talk, it would sigh like that one adventurer called Rex. But at least it looks a little different. The glow doesn't come from the walls, but from more of that green slime, and the corridors feel wetter.

Doll feels that wetter is better. Wetter means more water. And it knows, even if it's not something it knows knows, that it can use water as a weapon.

More to the point, it feels like there are bundles of water that move, up ahead. Again, this is instinct, not knowledge. But those bundles of water feel like food, too. And Doll is curious. Doll has been curious all its short life, and it has no intention of stopping now.

And what Doll sees, as it moves forward, its steps much less stumbling than it had been even a while ago, is...

...Well, it looks like a bundle of water, but with food in the middle of it. It doesn't move quickly, but it seems to be able to move up walls. In fact, some of it is on the ceiling, not moving, just... Waiting.

If you stumble upon this tale on Amazon, it's taken without the author's consent. Report it.

If it were just a little darker, Doll would have a hard time seeing them without feeling the water they seem to be made of. And, since Doll hasn't met anything that can do this, it might not have noticed even if it were bright.

After all, the ceiling is high, and Doll can't look up very far.

Doll shakes its head. It can see them, it can feel them, and while Doll can think, it doesn't need to think about what could have been. What is is the more important thing. What's forward, what's new, is the more important thing to Doll.

So... Doll steps under the bundle on the ceiling, just to see what it does.

And lightly leaps back as it just... Drops. It doesn't seem to move quickly toward it after that, so Doll doesn't feel like it's very good at eating.

Doll slices at the bundle, its body swinging less than it would before (Doll is, after all, getting stronger!)

But it doesn't do very much, and Doll has to hop backward to avoid even the slow crawl of this watery thing.

At which point, Doll notices something.

Its knife is pitted. Smoking. It likely won't last another swing.

So Doll swings, right at the food this time.

And the food shatters, and...

Nothing. No voice. No sense of getting stronger.

Just a knife that will be useless very soon indeed.

Doll knows that if it eats the food inside this bundle, it will heal.

But it will hurt, every time, and Doll thinks it will come away still hurting.

And there is nothing around it.

Doll thinks, once again, that if it could sigh, it would.

These bundles of water are troublesome. And if Doll wants to eat them, it has to hurt itself.