I only did a quick PR, if you see any mistakes please let me know. Let me know what you like about my story, as well as what you dislike. Thanks for your support.

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My eyes opened slowly; the first thing I see of course is stone. It’s been… well I don’t know, a day? Two days? Time really doesn’t have any meaning in this place. I’ve slept twice, so I’ll go with two days, at first I was afraid to sleep, who knows what might happen if I lost consciousness in this place. But then I remembered I’m with a dog, and if he hears or sees anything he’ll bark his ass off.

As I look to my side, Ben is curled up close to me sleeping like a ba- Hey aren’t you supposed to be on guard!? Lazy mutt! .......Ah well… I guess it’s about as safe as it can be. I have to admit, it’s pretty boring here, and I’ve even started talking to myself to relieve the boredom. “he ehhe he, I’m not crazy, not yeeet” I say with a goofy smile on my face.

[Head shake] Be gone crazy thoughts!

Have to stand up, got to keep moving… “GROWL!” shut up stomach I get the picture already! That tail was surprisingly good, kind of stringy like jerky, unfortunately it didn't last long. As I stand up Ben lifts his head to look at me, I can tell he’s hungry too, that creature ended up being more bone then meat. Which brings me back to another of my current curiosities…

I brought the shell with me, there was still some left over creature meat stuck to it, so Ben had a hay day with it for a while until it was almost spotless inside. The shell is almost turtle like, by that I mean it wraps around to the front. Honestly it looks like an oddly formed shield with small jagged crystals on the outside, they aren’t that sharp, but with enough impact they can make you hurt. I wonder how much it’s worth? Is this real crystal?

Not that it matters right now; my main priority is getting out of here. I passed by a wall that seemed to be leaking water a ways back and filled the crystal shell with as much as I could… we needed water after all or we’d just die of dehydration, especially with all this damned walking! The water didn’t last very long but it kept our spirits up.

However the real discovery was one of hope, I could clearly hear water on the other side of the stone and dirt, if I could have, I would have started digging then and there. But it was far too difficult, even Ben with his strange digging addiction couldn’t do anything. So I kept walking, and finally we found a passage going right, the direction we heard it from.

I’m hoping I can follow the water out of this place, even if I have to swim up stream I think my chances would be better then all this walking aimlessly. Ben is a good swimmer too, so I think he would do fine. He might even enjoy it.

As I’m walking I start to smell a familiar damp scent… “Water?” A bright smile flashes on my face and my once dazed eyes are now wide-awake and full of hope. I look to Ben who is wagging his tail, his tongue hanging out like the dope-head he is, obviously he smelled it first, and was quite excited.

My pace quickens, but I keep my eyes and ears open, the mystery gems are being held in the shell, it gives off a surprising amount of light, like a lantern… almost. Ben runs ahead, obviously he knows something I don’t about where we’re going. I follow as fast as I can.

Finally, I come to where the source is, it’s a grand hollowed out cave, with water cascading down from various openings. These openings aren’t very large, but water comes out and falls majestically to the pool below us. Yeah, we are on some circular elevated ground that is about 20m in diameter all around, with a few stone formations here and there leading in and out of the cave in different directions.

It’s breath taking, and the best part is, LIGHT! Actual light, streaming down through cracks in the ceiling! I couldn’t possibly get through those cracks, but just seeing that we aren’t that far below ground is a godsend. There are multiple pools of water here and there, and by pools I mean the ground is shaped like small natural basins, overflowing with collected water.

Ben is drinking happily from one of the natural pools; I take after him and fill up my shell. After a good long drink, we are finally satisfied. Though we’re still hungry, one of the things killing us has been dealt with, and that gives me some relief.

As I look around though, there doesn’t seem to be any streams to follow or holes to climb out of. That’s a bit disheartening, but we’ve been lucky so far, aside from the meteor of course, though we are alive so I suppose that can be counted as luck.

Looking around in curiosity and trying to find out where we should go next, I gaze down at the great pool of water below us. I never noticed before, since I only glanced at it, but there are bubbles and steam coming from the water… a hot spring? “heheh” been a while since I’ve bathed, but I cant go swimming down there, I wont be able to get back up!

Smiling I look back up and see Ben off to the edge. He’s looking intently at something, I walk over to him, thinking he might have found a fish or something, but I stop as I hear him growling faintly. Before I ignored him and got a beating, fool me once, shame on you, fool me twice… aint gunna happen!

Slowly I look over at what Ben is so interested in, and in the pool below, I see an object, wait… no… it’s a head, the head of a lizard! It spots me, and then quickly submerges underwater, but not before I got a good look at it. What’s a crocodile doing in a hot spring!?

Before I can think of an answer I hear splashes coming from where I was before, I quickly run back to see, and what I see shocks me more than any freaky armadillo ever could.

Climbing out of the water, sticking to the stone with razor sharp claws, are dozens of humanoid crocodiles. Their legs and arms are thin, but obviously dangerous with the four-inch claws attached to them. Their eyes, like glowing yellow orbs of pure hatred are looking at me with hunger evident in them. They aren’t huge creatures, just about five feet long, but their numbers, and obvious ferocity more than makes up for it.

Ben is barking his head off, trying to scare them off; they didn’t seem to notice and just kept on climbing. “Come on Ben lets GO! NOW!” as I start to run for one of the exits I had mentally marked earlier, I didn’t have time to pick and choose which way to go. But as I looked at the exits I found they were surrounded by them, they were climbing on to our level… Did they know I would try to escape?

Before too many made it to the exits, I chose one and dashed forward. The crocs might have been a bit surprised by my action, since they seemed to stop moving for a moment, but their faces betrayed no emotion. I didn’t know what these bastards were, and I was confused beyond my limits, but more than anything, I knew I had to escape.

I barreled into one of them before it could react, thankfully they weren’t as lightning fast as the crocodiles I saw on TV, who would react instantly to prey. They seemed to calculate everything, and that was my advantage here, or so I thought.

The one I hit went flying off the bridge leading to the platform and splashed back into the water below, its climbing friends paid it no heed. I turned to the next three that seemed to have come back from the sudden shock my charge caused.

One of them lunged at me, it was faster than I thought, I managed to dodge its jaws, but it slashed my arm with its razor sharp claws, drawing blood. “AAargh!” the pain was worse than the time with the armadillo… the cut must be deeper. Thankfully the bridge was rather narrow, and the croc over extended itself with its lunge, with one well-placed kick it went back down with the other one.

The second one was about to attack me while I was kicking its buddy, but then the amazing Ben appeared!! Where the hell were you for the first two! Ben latched on to its waist and surprisingly drew blood, even with the scales. I guess they weren’t very hard… I couldn’t kick the thing down though because Ben might go down with it! My lapse in judgment caused ben to get a gash along his back.

Anger swelled up in me, and I punched the thing with all my might, right in its scaly chest. Ben had let go due to the pain he received, and the croc only went back a step, enough for me to push with some leverage, it fell, but not before making the last one behind it fall too, cracking it’s head off the wall as it went. “Don’t touch my dog… you scaly son of a-“

Before I could finish I saw even more making their way on to the bridge so I grabbed Bens collar and the shell filled with mystery gems and ran to the exit. We had just passed the threshold, when a searing pain assaulted my right shoulder. One of the wall clingers had seen an opening and bit my shoulder, holding me in place, I screamed in pain and frustration.

The confusion was gone and in its place was an urge, a NEED to survive! I tried to pry the jaws off but they held too tightly, and I was weak from pain. I felt something well up from inside me, bubbling over the surface.

“AAAAaaaaaaaaahhhhh!!!!” All my pain, confusion, my will to survive, burst forth from a yell that echoed all around, drowning out the soft, scratching steps behind me. Then suddenly, a thin wave of blue light shot out around me, slicing anything in half that was at chest level and leaving a burn mark on the wall. I felt the pressure release from me, and was slightly weak in the knees afterward, but I just started running. Ignoring the pain, ignoring the questions, and ignoring the smell of burnt flesh I left behind.

I must have been running for at least twenty minutes before my stamina finally gave out on me. The adrenalin was running low and I could feel pain all over my body, I fell, propped up against the wall. Ben was behind me; the gash wasn’t that bad, I’m sure it just hurt like hell.

My shoulder felt odd, heavy, I looked and nearly jumped out of my skin! Still attached to my shoulder was the head of the croc that bit me! Its eyes glaring at me accusingly, I gingerly peeled the thing off my shoulder and threw it at the wall opposite me. A deep exhaustion swallowed me… and I blacked out.

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