Wheeeeeeeeeeen tha' moon hits your eye like a big pizza'pie thaaat's a-"Monsters!"

What? No, it's...OH.

Bringing my focus away from one of the greatest songs of all time, which sucked since I was in the finale, I see Stachy jumping up and...huuuh what word to use here...'brandishing'...would that work? Whatever. Anyway, he's waving around his axe at the darkness and just generally being loud to wake up the others.

Mr. Boots is out first, quickly followed by a sleepy Baldie and an agitated Fluffy. The three had gone to sleep fully dressed, likely for situations exactly like this, so they only had to unsheath their weapons to prepare for the assault.

Baldie and Fluffy moved to guard the way the group came from, whilst Mr. Boots takes a stance beside Stachy, fidgeting with the hilt of one of his matching daggers as he asks "What are we dealing with? Can't be goblins, it's too quiet. Is it...?"

Stachy glances down at his comrade for the barest of moments, then nods. "I heard the grinding a few minutes ago, but waited until I knew it was getting closer. Didn't want to attract it if the freak was just passing through."

Hearing this, Baldie in particular begins to look rather shaken. Well, shaking, and from the way he's clenching his thighs I think he's fighting back a severe case of shit-ya'selfitis.

Fluffy, well...he looks excited. Like, unnaturally excited. Guess we found the adrenaline junky of the group. Explains the lack of metal armor and twin swords. Berserker maybe?

Oh, crap, Mr. Boots is talking again. "-re's no way we can pack up before running. It'd be hard enough getting out with full provisions, but with just what we can grab without slowing down...we'd need to get to the second layer without stopping if we wanted even a speck of rest in safety."

Stachy, in his strange voice, hums a little as he contemplates, his eyes constantly scanning the darkness around them. After a few moments he replies with "That's a two-hour sprint provided things go well. Hells, start grabbing everything you can and be ready to bolt. Callum, Garish, slide your packs around to behind you so Reaves can reach them easier. Everyone, be rea-"

Hiiii, I'm back, sorry about that. Y'see, shit hit the fan right then. No, not all of the absolutely horrible and stupid names, though that did make me cringe.

As Mr. Boots was leaning down to start untying the rope holding the frame of his tent together, Stachy happened to turn his head to look back at the other two.

In that moment, I was the only one that saw the horror coming. The moment Stachy's eyes drifted away from the darkness, I learned what a creepcluster looked like.

Raw, decaying flesh reached out from the darkness. A literal tendril of death, cracked bones were used as a defensive plating, while teeth from every creature this thing had consumed whizzed through the cracks between these plates like some fucked-up nightmare chainsaw from whatever realm of rage, hunger and selfishness Rosie O'Donnel crawled out of as a child.

Within that brief moment, I watched that tendril completely wrap around Stachy's head and then pull him into the darkness with little more than the sound of a shoe sliding across dirt.

Then, to my absolute terror, I realized that this monstrosity was already directly overhead. I couldn't see the ceiling of the cave, but every few seconds I would catch a glimpse of a tooth or boneshard peeking into my sensory field. I wondered how it was possible that no one could see it, but then realized that the only lights the group had were dim stones sewn onto the chest plates of their armor, made for looking forward instead of up.

I notice Mr. Boots tense up momentarily, but very quickly he resumes his calm facade, even seeming to mumble a small prayer under his breathe as he instantly bolts past his two companions.

At this point, luckily for me, as he runs past a gust of wind (it was a gust to me) from his footfall manages to sweep me off of the floor and I somehow get wedged into a slightly damp blood-stained cut on his boot, seemingly where he was scratched by small claws before the inevitable blood-splatter.

Shockingly, just before they exit my vision I see Baldie slump down, a familiar dagger plunged into his ribs. Fluffy, however, laughs almost maniacally at the feeling of the blade in his thigh, and almost instantly reaches out to grab Mr. Boots.

Unfortunately for him, or maybe very fortunately for my new mode of transportaion, the creepcluster had already mostly cocooned his body before he could even full extend his arm.

The thing looked (I stress the word 'very' here) vaguely like an octopus or squid, but with fifty tentacles made from the decrepid flesh of it's victims sticking out haphazardly around what seems to be the base of it's body.

Granted, I can't shit my pants, I don't even have pants, but if CGI back on Earth ever gets good enough to replicate this thing, I would bet aaall my money that anyone that saw it would likely immediately lose a few pounds of excess waste.

However, something rather odd stood out to me as Mr. Boots fled the scene. It...it kind of looked like the creepcluster was using a kitten's skull as a face, a light glow coming from it's eyesockets as Fluffy seemed to sink into the storm of flesh like a ghost would a wall.

After the camp had left my vision, Mr. Boots had fled as fast as he could for what must have been an hour before slowing down at all. Even then, he just seemed to take it down a single notch until his breathing was less strained, then he was back to a full sprint.

A lot of crazy stuff happened during that run; giant spider attacks, leeches jumping out of walls, a little part where he had to jump on these little posts that would wobble a lot to get across a ravine, more spiders, darts shooting out of the wall, voices from my past hauntingly calling out to me, tiny pale humanoids that hissed and threw spears as we went past them, even a room full of these two strange species of mushroom that seemed to be lightly bumping into eachother with some kind of malicious feeling in the air. Maybe they were fighting?

Regardless, after all of that, Mr. Boots was somehow able to get to that safe zone the group had discussed earlier. Granted, he had to kill one of his friends and throw another under the proverbial bus to do it, but hey, who am I to judge? I'm a speck of dust. I'd do plenty worse than that if it meant getting out of this cave, and nothing even wants to eat me here.

Whoooaaa, hold up. Lemme' read that last part back....safe zone...bus...am dust...ooookay, where did that last part come from? I didn't mean it to be that harsh but...somehow I can't argue against it. Maybe all that time alone changed me...maybe I've always been like that but it wasn't until coming here that I could embrace it.

Maybe...maybe when it comes down to it, people that aren't willing to sacrifice others can only thrive in a society that caudles them to the point of uselessness to everything but the government?

Or...perhaps...maybe humans only value pacifism and harmony when they can run away and hide from the real danger? When they know that as much as they scream and yell, so long as they aren't uncomfortable, they'll allow others to be the monsters to justify their own actions.

Would I have killed Baldie and left Fluffy as bait in my old life?

Before I died, my country was at a point of civil war due to the argument of morality. What was right, who was wrong, who is the assailant, who is the victim?

That world showed me one thing, if nothing else. That so long as people use manipulation and propaganda, anything can be justified.

Whether it was the fact that the government was using Planned Parenthood as a legal way to commit genocide by performing more abortions than births of specific ethnic groups, or the slandering of a political party for racism when those same 'good politicians' where making hundreds of thousands off of communities they incentivised to be poor and fatherless for a government paycheck.

Why the long rant? What does any of this have to do with the current situation?

You see, I was one of those politicians. I was one of the people that lied over and over again, manipulated statistics and slandered anyone that disagreed with my policies by throwing around baseless claims of whatever niche I could.

In this world though...I'm going to change. In this world, I won't have to be lead around by public opinion, ratings, or my campaign sponsers. I won't destroy lives while telling them I'll fix the mess they didn't know I made.

In this life...I...I'm going be honest. I'll show people how to build themselves up instead of floating along as the water sinks! I...I'll...I'll admit when I'm wrong instead of changing topics or shifting the blame to the people...I....I just want to live without having to be a hypocrite, is that to much for a speck of dust to ask for?

I know that if I want to excell in this world, I will have to kill. If I stab someone in the back, I can't justify it. I needed to live, I had to care for myself first and that's all that mattered.

But...if I convince someone to run into the knife....if I could convince everyone that it was to help them somehow...I feel as though that would truly seperate me from my humanity.

Working in the government, you didn't have to give a fuck who you hurt because at the end of the day, regardless of your party, you were just playing everyone for fools so you could keep living comfortably while pointing your finger at the other side of the aisle. Hell, there were a few times I had meetings with my 'rivals' just so we could decide what topics we needed to bring to the public's eye so they'd ignore the actual bad things we slipped under their noses.

Here though...I am a speck of dust....the lowest of the low. As such, once I can make a change, I'll do it to benifit those at the bottom, instead of just pretending and lining my pockets.

Of course....I have to get out of this damned cave first.