To be fair, I think all the paths would at some point lead to a monster so they can't just avoid every single path or else how do they find the way home?
I get that they are trying to find a way home, but signs of monsters near are super obvious, why can't they just avoid that place for safety and come back once the monster is gone. I mean would you explore that path more when obvious signs of monsters plus bodies stuck on the ceiling? Might as well avoid that path than die
Well, the reasoning has already been explained. They've been exploring for 10 hours straight, constantly high on alert, and relying on methods that may not work with everything, on top of the growing anxiety that they did not make much progress. That led them to be more impatient and they started making mistakes. When I'm just tired from doing nothing in my day, I still make bad calls on League of Legends. So I can only imagine if I were tired in a hella stressful environment
Make sense, but still dumb
It’s realistic even if it can be frustrating especially when we as readers are used to mary-sue characters (the ones who know it all and do everything perfectly)
Some people are just super dumb, having a survival instinct of a grapefruit. I know you want to save your friend but it's all for nothing if you're just going to die anyway. Fuck why even go there in the first place when the bottle literally landed on some unknown goop. Ughhhhhhhhh