Neil 

The thump of something landing on my pack almost knocked me head first into the hole, and the skin on my neck started burning as I stood up. I had been back far enough that I hadn’t been knocked into the dark pit but it had been a close thing. Standing I twisted my body left and right as I took off my pack and threw the entire thing out through the doorway and into the first room. 

Taking a few deep breaths I tried to steady myself, if I had fallen forwards, I probably would have died. 

My neck burning, I decided that the best defense was a good offense and charged towards the other room. The fact that this action also got me out of the dark and spooky room with the deep hole into the depths of hell was just a plus. Entering the room I saw my pack in the middle of the floor and something else moving away from me in the dark shadowy room towards the wall.  

In the odd lighting of the room it looked like some kind of moving jello monster. Moving surprisingly quickly I saw it start to climb vertically straight up the wall and I was a bit worried that if I let it, it would climb onto the ceiling and try to land on my head again. “You mediocre fucking desert! You think I’ll let you get away with this?” I shouted at the unconcerned blob. 

Running towards some large pieces of rubble in the middle of the room I picked up a chunk of stone the size of my head with both hands, got a small run up and shouted “FUCK YOU JELLO.” As I hurled the chunk of rock at it as hard as I could. 

The rubble hit the evil jello dead center with a ‘splork’ sound and the rock scraped the slime off the wall. Partially trapped under the stone the slime was slowly pulling itself out from under the stone. Not giving up that easily I picked up another rock in both of my hands and walked over to it. Standing above it I watched and waited for it to be mostly out from under the rock. It may have decided running was no longer an option because I got the distinct impression that It was facing towards me.  

Lifting the rock above my dead I threw it down directly onto the monster and it exploded in a shower of putrid smelling slime.  

“Fuck!” I yelled as some of the slime landed on my arms burning them, I was lucky that didn’t hit my face I thought as I saw it reforming. Putting some distance between it and myself I picked up a few more rocks the size of my head I threw those as well. Hitting it dead on again it exploded in another shower of disgusting slime. Almost throwing up I decided that perhaps this was a fight I didn’t want to win that badly when with another ding a window appeared in front of me. 

I looked over the skills quickly before closing the window and moving on. 

Picking up my bag and examining it I was shocked to see that parts of the front of it were already melted through, fortunately it didn’t look like anything else had been damaged too badly but if I wasn’t careful half my stuff would fall out. 

As I looked at my bag I felt my body start to shiver despite the heat, “What the hell is this?” I thought “Shock maybe?”. I had seen dangerous animals before, once I had even had a close encounter with a bear on a trail. But this was the first time anything had ever attacked me and tried to kill me. 

Still if the window was to be believed I had beaten an honest to god monster, how many people could say that? After a few moments the terror started to give way to exhilaration and I started laughing. As I laughed and laughed I made sure nothing was falling out of my pack, I picked up my flashlight from where I had dropped it in the other room and left the building. In the bright light of day I started to feel a little better. It was dangerous but I had made it through it, it this was going to be my knew life, fighting monsters and exploring ruins I couldn’t break down every time something tried to kill me. I was now Lara Croft now after all, or maybe Indiana Jones was a better choice actually. 

As the sun shone down on me and insects buzzed around me in the trees I decided on a whim to try out a battle cry. Standing tall with my hands up I shouted “FUCK YOU SLIME!” Channeling as much professional wrestler as I could I continued “OOHH YEAAHHHH!” As I punched up at the sky. 

With a laugh I started to feel more normal and that is when the pain hit me. My neck and arms were burning where the slime landed on me. Touching my neck I sucked in a pained breath through my teeth as pain lanced through my neck and my fingers felt something wet on my neck. 

I’d need to wash these burns immediately to keep them from getting infected and hopefully prevent the burns from getting worse. 

Running back to the water rift as quickly as I could, I hoped that I wasn’t dropping things behind me as I went, but I was too rushed to check. Going up the stairs two at a time I threw my pack down as it finally burst open spilling the contents everywhere. 

Taking off my now ruined shirt I walked over to the pool and tried to remember if using water on acid was a good idea or not. Highschool science class had been a long time ago but I was pretty sure you weren’t supposed to put water on spilled acid, but use a base instead. I however did not have a base, I had no idea where to find one, or what one was made of, so water would have to do. 

Dipping my shirt in the water I started dabbing at my neck the pain getting worse and worse as I did so. I was about to just dive into the water when I heard rocks shifting behind me. 

Pausing I tried to listen behind me before deciding I was being silly, if something was behind me I should probably turn sooner rather than later. Slowly turning around, I was prepared to see another slime, what I saw instead was far stranger and more worrying. 

It was a young woman with green hair, a pretty face wearing a rough handmade looking shirt and a small skirt. That of course wasn’t too strange, no the strange thing was that the bottom part of her. From her hips down instead of legs was a snake tail complete with scales. That however wasn’t the worrying part, the worrying part was the bow and arrow she had pointed at me. Raising my hands I tried my best to look as non threatening as possible as the acid of the slime kept eating at my neck. 

We stood like that for a few moments, just staring at each other. I think she was about as shocked as I was because her face was about as slack jawed as mine. After a few moments she slowly started to lower the bow and I let out the reaction I had been holding in. 

“What the hell?” 

The ding and blue window that popped in front of me caused me to jump in surprise. Which caused her to let go of the arrow in surprise. Which was still unfortunately pointing at me.