I stared at the monstrosity I had pulled out of the ground. It was unlike anything I had imagined!

I had been imagining these creatures from below to be demons. A humanoid shape, around 10 feet tall, perhaps with fangs, wings and a tail, two horns on the head…. that’s what I thought these underground creatures would look like. I could only laugh helplessly at how wrong I had been…

The creature in front of me was HUGE! A height of about 15 feet and width of around 10 feet. It had eight arms, eight legs, eight eyes and a huge gaping circular mouth that was lined with inch-long teeth that looked extremely sharp. This was just the start of the weirdness…

The legs and arms were differently coloured. Two were red, two green, two blue and two yellow. Which meant that what I had been thinking about different underground creatures having different abilities was completely wrong! I had thought there were four different kinds of creatures and each one of them could control one element, but seeing the eight differently coloured arms and legs made me realize that just one of these things could control all four elements at the same time!

The legs weren’t normal legs, but something like the tentacles an octopus or a squid has… they were all flailing about and looked extremely flexible. There were no suckers on them like an octopus has, but they were covered in some kind of sticky substance that I guess helped it to either climb up surfaces or grab a victim and make it stick to its legs.

The main body looked rigid and was black in colour, with the gaping mouth in the center and 8 crimson eyes arranged all around in a circular fashion. It honestly looked creepy as hell!

The arms were poking out of different places from the main body, with no discernible pattern of where they were supposed to be placed. It seemed like they were placed completely at random, and they were all moving around independently.

I observed all this in a matter of 3-4 seconds, my observation ability helping me out, and it was a good thing I didn’t take long to continue gaping at it because all of a sudden all sixteen limbs pointed at me and fired a combination of elemental attacks!

My hiding presence ability had once again been deactivated without me realizing it. It had been happening a lot lately, and I only just now realized that it required my concentration to keep it active. As soon as I lost concentration or got distracted my hiding presence ability would immediately get deactivated...

This realization came a little too late, as I saw the bunch of elemental attacks heading straight towards me! I immediately activated steel-skin, enhanced speed and hiding presence and tried to dodge all the attacks as best as I could.

I was too close and had spent precious few milliseconds gaping at the incoming attacks like an idiot, as a result I couldn’t completely dodge all the attacks. I got hit by earth spikes, ice spears, wind-blades and fireballs. My steel-skin helped me against the spikes, spears and wind-blades, and I came off without a scratch from any of them. The problem was the fireballs.

These fireballs had a diameter of about a foot, and were intensely hot! I tried to dodge them but in the end I got hit by one, and it was pure agony! I screamed at the top of my lungs as my mind went blank due to the pain! The fireball had hit me on my left arm and it had been completely burned to the point where I couldn’t even feel it anymore! I saw my burnt flesh dropping into the floor below and I could see my bones clearly in some places as all the flesh had been completely burnt away!

I was barely conscious as I rushed away upstairs at top speed trying to get away from the monster. Luckily, it didn’t seem to be following me as I couldn’t hear anything behind me. I rushed all the way to the ballroom while constantly trying to heal my arm.

I barged into the ballroom and immediately passed out, with the last image I saw being the shocked faces of everyone and my arm still in a miserable state. The last thought going through my head was ‘HEAL! HEAL! HEAL!’ as I dropped on the floor and faded away into unconsciousness…

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(Carmen’s perspective)

(Note: she refers to the ogres as monsters. So when she says monsters think ogres and not the underground creatures…)

I woke up in the morning and immediately looked around. It has become a habit of mine ever since these monsters appeared everywhere. Luckily, there were no monsters, only humans that I could see. I relaxed, got up and stretched, before wincing a little.

My right arm hurt a bit when I stretched it. It was a weird feeling… like the soreness you get after you have been given an injection…? It was the second time I felt this feeling in my arm, as it was the same feeling I had a couple days ago. Figuring it was just sore because I must have slept in a weird angle, I got off the bed and went to the bathroom.

After washing up I had a simple breakfast of canned tuna while I looked around the ballroom. Ben wasn’t anywhere to be seen as usual…

He was a weird guy. I now know he isn’t a vampire at least, because I had seen him moving about in the sunlight streaming through the windows, but I just get a weird vibe from him. It felt like he wasn’t being completely honest… like he was hiding something…

I couldn’t put my finger on it, and no one else seemed to be sharing my feelings. He had been helping out a lot, and it’s safe to say that without him we wouldn’t even be alive right now. Apart from saving all of us that night, he had also been the one who had gone to the kitchen on the first floor floor and secured food for us. No one else could walk through the hallways without being in danger, so Ben was the only one who left the ballroom regularly.

This was another weird thing about him, I had seen how he took all of the monsters out that night, so he could just as easily kill off all of them and make the whole hotel free from monsters, yet he had not done this so far. He had been going out each day but as far as I could tell he would leave the monsters alone. Why would he leave them alone? Does he want to keep us all holed up in this ballroom? If so, why? What does he want with us? If that isn’t the reason, then what is it that keeps him from killing all these creatures??

I finished up the breakfast and tried to stop thinking about Ben as I walked towards a few friends I had made in the ballroom…

The morning passed by as usual, with me chatting with others to stop myself from thinking about my family. They were almost certainly dead if what Ben told us about the underground creatures was true…

My thoughts were interrupted by the doors of the ballroom bursting open! I immediately got on guard fearing another monster attack, but what came through the doors was Ben….

He was screaming at the top of his lungs and immediately fell down on the floor, and then stopped screaming. Did he pass out…?

We all stared at his unmoving body for a few seconds before I snapped out of my daze and ran up to him. When I saw his left arm, I felt like puking… it was horrible!

His arm, or what was left of it, had flesh and blood dripping out and falling to the ground! I could even see his bones in a lot of places where the flesh had completely fallen off! I had no idea on what to do, and could only stare blankly at his horribly disfigured arm…

Someone pushed me away and I saw a number of people lifting Ben up and carrying him to a spare bed, his arms, one good and the other disfigured, dangling from his sides.

Everyone was at a loss on what to do after we had placed Ben on the bed. There were no doctors among us, and the only one with a healing ability was Ben himself. All we could do was wrap what was left of his arm in spare sheets and try and make him as comfortable as possible….

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(MC’s perspective)

I woke up groggily and immediately felt the unbearable pain from my left arm. I tried to ignore it but it was just too much to simply ignore..

I groaned and immediately heard someone exclaim, “He’s awake!” I opened up my eyes and saw myself surrounded by people from all sides as they gazed worriedly at me. My mind was still in a haze and my mouth was dry, so I croaked out the only thing I could think of, “Water…”

Someone immediately lifted my head gently and helped me drink a glass of water. After I was satisfied, I asked how long I had been unconscious and got the surprising answer of three days! I had been out cold for three whole days!

I sat up straight and looked at my left arm. It was covered with sheets which were probably used as a crude type of bandage. Ignoring the exclaims of others to stop, I ripped apart my bandages while trying to ignore the fresh bout of pain and saw my left arm…

It looked a lot better then I expected... The flesh was still missing from a lot of places, but at least bones weren’t visible anymore… I also wasn’t bleeding from anywhere, which was surprising.

Perhaps she noticed my surprised expression, because Carmen, who was also one of the people standing beside me, said, “Your arm has been healing itself while you were out. Though it is nowhere near completely healed right now, and we have no idea if it can even be healed to its original state, it at least stopped the bleeding and fixed up the flesh a bit…”

Wow! I had been healing my arm while I was out? Was it because my last desperate thought had been to heal myself…? That’s the only thing I could think of…

Then I remembered another ability I had, regeneration! I immediately focused on it and saw the surreal sight of my flesh slowly starting to come back and a fresh new skin starting to cover it! I ignored all the gasps of surprise around me, as I was pretty surprised myself!

I used both heal and regeneration together and in a space of 10-15 minutes my arms looked completely normal again! Seems like staying awake and actually concentrating on healing is much faster then unconscious healing…

Although my arm looked okay, it was still quite sore and I still felt a dull pain, though thankfully it was nothing even close to the intense pain from before.

I knew it would take some time for my arm to completely go back to normal, so I settled back in bed and asked to be left alone for now. Everyone complied, though they were all hesitant, except for Carmen who stayed and glared at me.

I ignored her for now, because all my concentration was in trying to come up with a plan to get revenge on that fucking abomination under the ground floor! I'll make sure to kill the fucker slowly and then drink his blood!