You feel soil crunching underneath your sneakers. The darkened suburbs feel like such a distant
memory behind you now. The cool mist that hangs in the air caresses
your skin tenderly. You’re in the middle of a vast wheat field,
you know that much, but the curtain of distant fog makes it almost impossible to see beyond
that. It’s a strange yet tranquil place. You feel so at ease here. For a moment, you entertain the thought that
perhaps this place is heaven. Maybe you weren’t such a waste of spac
e
after all, right? Welcome, Explorer, to Level 10. You fall to your knees, days of tiredness
catching up to you all at once like some tremendous cosmic punch. There’s dirt on your hands and slacks now,
but you don’t mind it. In fact, its naturalness pleases you. You grab two handfuls of dirt and just squeeze,
feeling the excess mud spool out from between your fingers. It’s the most connected to the earth you’ve
ever felt - in a metaphorical sense, at least, because this is not the earth. As if
perfectly timed to remind you of this,
a great shape suddenly comes lumbering towards you out of the fog. Of course, your first instinct is a jolt of
fear. Almost everything you’ve encountered in
this place so far has wanted to destroy you, or worse. But when the creature comes into focus - a
great, almost spherical, blob-like creature - you get the sense that this beast is docile. That it means you no harm. You calmly observe the strange creature from
your place down in the dirt. Despite its si
ze, its movements feel oddly
graceful. As though it carries no actual weight. While you have no reason to know this creature’s
name, the humans who’ve traveled through here know it as a Gluff. And like most docile creatures, it isn’t
alone. Several more Gluffs come trundling out of
the mist, perhaps indicating herd behaviors. Unlike most entities in the Backrooms, whose
favorite food is... One second, let me check my notes here... Oh, it’s you. These Gluffs are content to just graze on
the wheat
, which grows in abundance here on Level 10. And in exchange for what they take, they give
something truly wonderful: The Gluffs secrete delicious, sweet Almond Water that’s safe
to drink and gathers in pockets around the field. You even take advantage of one of these yourself,
as you decide to stand and venture further into the field. There’s an eerie emptiness to this place. You find stables filled with hay and horseshoes
but no horses. You find decrepit old farmhouses, rotting
from the eterna
l damp of the mist, with no signs of what you assume must have once been
human habitation. Perhaps this whole place was more alive during
a different time, but something must have changed that. You can’t shake that strange, lingering
aura of death, hiding just underneath the surface of everything you see. You happen upon a pocket of Almond Water left
in the ground by a Gluff and take a long, satisfying swig. Immediately, you feel rejuvenated. The vigor returns to your body, as if by magic. You s
tand again, feeling renewed, feeling
ready to take on this level. You remember now: You’re not just a survivor
anymore; you’re a fighter. You managed to outsmart and kill three different
Neighborhood Watch creatures on the last level. Anything you encounter on this one better
learn what it’s dealing with quickly. You continue your walking. You know well enough now that sometimes, the
best thing you can do in the Backrooms is walk and hope, though at least your recent
victories have bolstered you
r confidence a little. You pass more Gluffs along the walk, minding
their own business as you mind yours. You think to yourself, it’s nice to encounter
entities that seem to understand the concept of personal space. And they even have the courtesy to provide
you with sweet, sweet Almond Water, too. Eventually, you see a different shape emerging
from the distant mist. It’s honestly the last thing you expect:
What looks like a small cluster of stone towers, built hundreds of years ago, like someth
ing
straight out of the Middle Ages. Despite this, they’re left standing tall. You’d always been a little bit of a history
enthusiast back on earth - and, let’s be real here, a major high fantasy nerd too. How many hours of playtime have you clocked
on Skyrim, again? But hey, let’s not get into that here. Perhaps against your better judgment, you
know that you want to take a look inside these mysterious towers. So, what are you waiting for, Explorer? You climb up until you find your way to an
en
trance. It’s an old wooden door. You take a screwdriver out of your supplies
and pry it open with a few good pushes. You really are getting the hang of all this,
aren’t you? You walk inside and begin ascending a grand,
spiraling stairway up towards the top of the tower. It’s an impressive piece of architecture,
far more extensive on the inside than you’d imagined. You decide to take a closer look at one of
the many levels in the tower you’re exploring, and you’re impressed by what you see. The r
ooms are lit by great burning torches
mounted on old metal sconces against the walls. The furniture here looks like a remarkably
accurate museum recreation of a living area from the mid-sixteen hundreds. Feeling impressed with the find, you briefly
consider taking the weight off your feet and sleeping in the tower for the night, so that
you can feel like a king for once in a world otherwise designed to make you feel so weak
and small. However, this fantasy is interrupted by the
obtrusive sound o
f a loud trumpet being blown. Every time you think it’s going to stop,
it keeps going, and going, and going, for minutes on end. The noise of it rattles through the entire
building, so much so that you feel the need to step outside and investigate where it’s
coming from. However, the second you open the door, a deadly,
pointed arrow sticks into the wood next to your head at high speeds. You’re getting the royal experience after
all - But sadly, that royalty is either Russian or French. As the tr
umpets finally stop, you look up
and see a group of strange, goblin-like beings gathered at the top of the nearby stairs. Each one is carrying a bow and nocking an
arrow, preparing to fire them straight through your heart for intruding on their precious
tower. These are the Archers, and between the soundings
of the trumpet, the towers are their domain. So you better skedaddle, Explorer, unless
you fancy getting turned into a pincushion with depression. Hoping that today won’t be the day you die
- especially considering you’re going to encounter something oddly cute and wholesome
later in the video, we promise - you turn on your heels and begin running back down
the stairs, adopting the serpentine evasion style to avoid the arrows flying all around
you like murderous wasps. In less time than you would have previously
thought possible for your feeble little body, you make it to the bottom of the tower and
high tail it out of there, as the area around you is positively peppered with arrow
s. You throw open the door and make a run for
it out into the fields again, eager to avoid being killed by a gaggle of ornery medieval
goblins who’d loaded all their skill points into archery. You’re probably already half a mile away
from those accursed towers when the volley of horns comes in again, finally signaling
that the towers are safe once more. Not that you intend on taking your chances
like that again. You continue traversing the fields, feeling
proud of yourself for getting out of the
re so quickly. You stop to take a celebratory sip of Almond
Water from one of the pockets on the ground. Its sweetness replenishes you; it makes this
crazy world make sense again, if only for a brief moment. There’s something curious and enigmatic
about Level 10, something that lends itself to a mystery, almost begging to be unraveled. Once, a group of Explorers on Level 5 - the
infamous Terror Hotel - happened upon a Polaroid camera and a pile of notes next to a puddle
of mysterious, dried liqu
id. The camera contained several pictures, but
all of them were of the vast, misty fields of Level 10. The Explorers were also able to compile the
stack of notes next to the camera, which went as follows: “I’ve been walking for maybe six days
and there’s nothing but this dirt road and the field surrounding it. I tried going off-route and I got put back
on the path. There‘s almond water in the fields, it tastes
sweet.” “I’ve been hearing trumpets and roaring
in the distance and I saw something in
the fog. I snapped a photo of it, I can’t identify
it right now.” “If you hear someone yell ‘Fire!’ go back to the path immediately. Someone just shot a goddamn arrow at my shoulder
and I’m still bleeding. I think I saw a tower in the distance and
somebody on top with a bow.” “Everything is calm. It is silent. She saved me. An angel appeared in the sky, trumpet in hand." "If you find yourself in Level 10, stay in
one spot." "She will find you faster that way.” To this day, nobody knows who exac
tly “She”
is. But hey, if you keep looking, Explorer, you
may eventually find out. We just hope that when you do, it doesn’t
make you regret everything... But really, what are the chances of that happening,
right? Be sure to let us know your theories on who
“She” is down in the comments, too. Now that’s a long enough Almond Water break,
Explorer. Let’s continue. After more wandering, you happen upon something
extremely strange - though, of course, in the Backrooms, “extremely strange” is
a highl
y relative concept. You’ve seen abandoned farmhouses and stables
from what could have been the eighteen hundreds, you’ve found old stone towers straight out
of the sixteen hundreds, and now, you’ve discovered a strange little town that looks
like it’s been plucked right out of 1985. This is Malt Town, home to a decent collection
of fellow Backrooms Explorers and protected by members of the Backrooms Non-Aligned Trade
Group who are holed up in a nearby outpost known as the Level 10 Resource Stati
on. It’s always relieving to spend some time
around other humans down here. You make polite conversation with some of
the Malt Town locals, trade some supplies, and share war stories of your journeys through
the other levels to get here. It’s the first time in a while you haven’t
felt so alone down here. That’s when one of the members of the Backrooms
Non-Aligned Trade group tells you that, while you’re on Level 10, you’ve gotta check
out the nearby town of New Sodbury. He guarantees that you’ve
never seen anything
like it, which is quite an endorsement to receive while in the Backrooms. After receiving the instructions, you venture
forth through the fields once again. New Sodbury seems like an oddly whimsical
name for the Backrooms, so much so that you become oddly excited by the prospect of getting
to see it. After all, the very reason you came down to
the Backrooms in the first place was to leave your life behind and explore new worlds. This is precisely the kind of thing you went
t
hrough all this trouble for. And when you arrive, New Sodbury does not
disappoint. The settlement is home to over 10,000 creatures
known as the Artikeli, or “The Created Ones.” The name may sound a little sinister, but
you quickly find the actual creatures are anything but. In essence, the Article People are random
objects given sentience, with little cartoon limbs like Mr. Peanut and adorable drawn-on
eyes and mouths that are somehow fully functional. They can be literally any object - A flower
pot,
a soda bottle, a sword, a burger, a washcloth, a lamp, anything. They aren’t particularly intelligent, due
to education being prohibitively expensive for most of them, but they’re good-natured
and generally like to help humans along their way. You stroll around New Sodbury, staring at
its many adorable inhuman residents - who refer to themselves as “The Soddies” - with
a feeling of childlike wonder. You know that to laugh would be rude and condescending,
so instead, you just smile. The Back
rooms can be a dangerous and sometimes
even hellish place, but sometimes, it can be truly remarkable, too. Though we’ll see if you still think that
when you see the next level... Welcome back, Explorer. You’ve certainly come a long way to get
here, haven’t you? After all, Level 11 isn’t an easy one to
reach. To get here, you even had to backtrack through
Level 9. Regretting your decision to go through in
numerical order yet? But hey, we’re not here to judge your life
choices. We’re just here to
guide you through the
impossible nightmare known as the Backrooms, and now, you’re in the big city! At least it seems better than that strange
fog roiling behind you. Can you hear the wind whistling, Explorer? Did you see something move in there? No, you couldn’t have. Best to just ignore it and keep moving. You step out onto the vast and empty streets
of the new level. This is nothing like the dark, isolated suburbs
you’ve come to know from places like Level 9. There are looming skyscrapers as
far as the
eye can see. In the distance, you can see the Empire State
Building and the Statue of Liberty from New York, but you can also see the Golden Gate
Bridge from San Francisco, the famous Gateway Arch of Chicago, the Washington Monument from
DC, and the Space Needle from Seattle. It feels like a demented combination of so
many of America’s iconic cities, but the strangeness doesn’t stop there. Due to the inherently bizarre and extra-dimensional
elements of the Backrooms, many of the build
ings appear glitched in some strange way. Some buildings are clipping into one another. Some are juddering violently. Some have doors and windows in illogical places,
and some don’t have doors or windows at all. You see a surreal sight on the nearby sidewalks,
too: Facelings simply walking along like normal people, with Hounds on leashes, as though
they’re just regular dogs. It seems strange to you, but this is the effect
this level has on them. They act just like regular people. You keep walkin
g, wanting to see more and
still trying to ignore that ominous cloud of fog far behind you. Or did it get a little closer? Probably best just not to think about it,
right? Out of sight, out of mind. There’s a radio lying nearby on the sidewalk,
playing a genial-sounding host on his very own talk show, “Talkin with Ralph”, recorded
by the human-like entity known as Ralph, who resides at a building on this very level,
known as Radio Backrooms’ Studios. Ralph helps Explorers by dispensing useful
ad
vice on surviving the Backrooms, like the words fizzling out of the radio right now. “I'm sure you have had some problems surviving
here, in fact living here is not that easy, so a few tips to improve your survival skills
in The Backrooms never hurt, right? That's why today I'm inaugurating a new program
called "Survival 101" ! First my biggest advice is to find a group,
even if you don't plan to join them, most groups are friendly with newbies and will
help you adapt to your new life. Some migh
t give you the "Basics of the backrooms;
A Guide" which is useful but only at the beginning of your adventure. For your first "days" I recommend you find
Camp Amber in Level 0 they are open to trade and can give you instructions to reach The
Hub, one of the safest Levels of The Backrooms and critical if you want to wander around...” All useful advice, though perhaps a little
remedial for someone like you. You decide to wander the area for the next
few hours, getting in touch with the different g
roups and settlements, trading information
and supplies whenever possible. Let’s do a rundown of all the groups and
settlements present here. After all, you have nothing to worry about
- especially not that eerie fog a few streets back, surrounded by the dark whistling of
the wind. Of course, with the size of this level, and
the sheer number of livable houses within, it actually has a large civilian population
with no real affiliation to a particular group - These people are known as The Citizen
s of
Level 11. Some of these citizens belong to a faction
known as Malt Mart - The people who run stores around level 11, to keep the other permanent
citizens and transient wanderers fed. Of course, the Major Explorer Group has a
presence here with Base Beta, the fourth main base of the M.E.G. that is still being actively
constructed by members of the group. A group known as Camp Amber also has an outpost
here. Camp Amber helps people new to the Backrooms
learn the basic ropes and teach them the
skills to survive and prosper. There’s also Insurrection Base 07 - Where
you’re sadly not welcome, due to your prior interactions with the Major Explorer Group. These two really don’t get along. For any tech enthusiasts, there’s also a
group of three people who call themselves the Drone Surveillance Squad! - with an exclamation point - who use drones
to record the locales of the Backrooms. Then there’s the staff of the Homely Hotel
- a bunch of transplants from Level 5 who run a hotel building
for any Explorers like
you who want to take the weight off their feet. No evil cuttlefish men this time, we promise. The cult of Jerry, the blue parrot from level
9, also have a nice little settlement on this level, where they worship their avian godking. They’re down the street from the Anti Entity
Agency, a burgeoning group eager to terminate as many entities as they can find. They’re certainly less chill than the members
of Radical Radio - five teens who dress like they come straight out of 1
985, and have a
hip new radio show that competes with Talkin With Ralph. You’re on your way to visit Eternal Repository
Database 011-Omega, when suddenly, you hear that strange noise again, the whistling of
the wind. It sends surges of icy dread down the skin
of your back, making your muscles tense up and your heart pump hot tar through your veins. You turn around and see the cloud of thick
fog enveloping you, grabbing you with its white, wispy tendrils and pulling you inside,
into that snow-bli
nd hell of ethereal white. The place where you know something terrible
is hiding, waiting for your attendance. You pivot around frantically. It’s impossible to see beyond the fog, it’s
like the world around you has just melted away within it. It’s just you now, Explorer. You and the creature within. In the distance, you see something long and
black moving, so quickly that you wonder for a moment if maybe you just imagined it. But why on earth would you imagine something
like that at a time like
this, Explorer? When the fog is everywhere and everything... That’s when something moves in the fog again,
closer this time. You can hear and feel the whoosh of its sudden
skittering. Whatever it is, it’s thin but huge. It reminds you of times you spent in the yard
as a kid, watching garden spiders deftly navigate their webs with those long, spindly legs as
a fly wriggles desperately to be free. You always understood this transaction as
an impartial observer - Now, you understand it as the fly.
You’re trying to get your thoughts together,
maybe formulate an escape from this terrible situation, but the wind around you is deafening. You can barely even feel yourself think. And is that you thinking, really? Your mind is suddenly flooded with new memories
- Memories you’re sure aren’t your own. You suddenly remember your parents hunched
in the corner of the room, trembling with fear, as you approach holding a fire axe,
murder burning in your eyes. You remember the people you care about cry
ing
because of words that you said. You remember your world falling apart and
you causing it. You are worthless. You are a curse. You make everything worse. You keep telling yourself these memories aren’t
real. But if they aren’t real, how are they in
your head? It’s almost like something else, some other
entity, is forcing the thoughts into your brain. They’re infecting everything, growing and
spreading out like a cancer. You feel like you don’t know anything for
sure anymore, except one thing:
You are in the presence of great evil. As if perfectly timed with the solidity of
the revelation, a huge, bony hand on the end of an immense, black leg clasps around your
body. It squeezes so tight you can barely breathe
and begins to lift you up from the ground. It’s lifting you up towards a body, propped
up on the same for horrendous, insect-like legs. Soon enough, you can see its terrible face
emerging from the fog. The face is the worst part of it all. It’s not that it’s inhuman. Quite the
opposite. It’s that it looks far too human. Save for its milky white eyes and loose jaw
lined with razor-sharp fangs. Every time it breathes, you can hear more
of those deafening wind noises bellowing out of the creature’s mouth. This Entity is known as The Mangled, and in
all likelihood, it probably followed you here from Level 9. Suddenly, it tilts its head back with a disgusting
crunch, and its jaw begins fanning out like a flower, revealing an abyss lined with teeth
deep within. You close yo
ur eyes and accept it. Your time in the Backrooms is over. Your attempt to escape your terrible life
has failed. And the worst part is, you know you deserve
this. That’s when you hear the most awful screeching
sound as a huge, silver spear pierces up through the Mangled’s body from below. It spews dark brown fluids as it begins to
collapse to the ground, its arms going limp and dropping you, too. You scream as you fall before hitting the
concrete below, along with the twitching body of the Mangl
ed. You notice that the second it hits the ground,
the tip of the giant, silver spear descends, stabbing through the Mangled’s head and
putting it out of its wretched existence. The wind sound stops, and the fog begins to
clear. You couldn’t be more relieved that the Mangled
is dead. But now, you’re beginning to wonder about
the Entity that killed it... As the fog clears, you see a huge, humanoid
shape standing before you, at least nine or so feet tall. He’s wearing tactical gear underneath a
da
rk, black cloak, and carrying a huge silver spear. Aside from his size, he seems almost human,
but then you can finally make out his face and see that he doesn’t have eyes. But that doesn’t make sense, does it? Because standing before this creature, you
have never felt more watched in your entire life. It’s like the gaze of a thousand eyes is
boring into your flesh. It’s almost unbearable. “I am the mighty Argos,” the Entity, Argos,
booms. “With my spear of justice, I carry out the
Law here. I w
ill purge the sinners from this place. I will erase their scourge from my plane.” Of course, you think, filled with dread, out
of the frying pan and into the fire. Saved from the Mangled, only to be executed
by your savior for being the terrible person that you are. Argos is the most powerful entity on Level
11 - A punisher of sin who is impossible to understand and quantify. There aren’t even photos of him because
all the members of the Major Explorer’s Group who’ve encountered him have been ki
lled
by him in the process. Somehow, it feels like a fitting irony, perhaps
the perfect end for a life like yours. All you do is sigh and drop to your knees. “Do what you have to do,” you say, closing
your eyes and preparing for the strike that brings your existence to an end. But it never comes. How strange. You look up and stare at Argos, who seems
to be staring back at you, almost quizzically. “Why?” he asked. With tears in your eyes, you reply, “Because
I’m a terrible person. That’s why I ca
me here in the first place. I’m a bad guy, and I deserve to be punished.” Argos simply shakes his head. “I can see deep into you, Explorer,” he
says, “I can see the fizzling spaces between your atoms. The parts of your soul you don’t want anyone
else to see. You have fallen short of your potential, but
there is no darkness in your heart. You are better than you believe yourself to
be.” And with that, the mighty Argos was gone,
noclipped to somewhere else on the level to punish sinners who violat
e his immutable “Law”
- the same laws that you had, apparently, not broken. Well done, Explorer. You rise shakily to your feet and brush the
dust and grit off your clothes. Another level, another survival. You can’t help but indulge in a little chuckle
about that. You set off towards whatever comes next, enjoying
the mild heat of the sun on your face. You don’t even realize it at first, but
at some point, you start whistling a tune you enjoy, just for your own benefit. Perhaps Argos is right. Ma
ybe you’re not such a bad person. Maybe, sometimes, you might even be a good
person, when the opportunity presents itself, at least. Maybe, the thing out there that’s truly
bad, is still waiting for you... Welcome back, Explorer. You look tired. And of course, we don’t blame you. You’ve had a long journey through The Backrooms
so far, and considering some of the terrifying things you’ve seen over the previous eleven
levels, who could blame you for losing sleep? There aren’t many places in this f
rightening
dimension where you can comfortably take the weight off your feet and just relax. Do you think you’re any safer here? Well, let’s find out. Welcome to Level 12, Explorer. We hope you enjoy your stay. As you enter the level, you notice how different
it seems from so many of the others. In many cases, levels of the Backrooms have
been defined by their dizzying expansiveness. An office block that goes on for eternity. The endless, winding streets of a city that
feels more procedurally ge
nerated than constructed by human hands. A field, misty and desolate, going on and
on and on and on. But that’s not this level. It’s a white room, not especially large
or small. The gleaming paint job on the wall almost
induces a kind of snow blindness. It’s an unnatural level of crispness and
clarity, like walking into some surreal screen saver. There’s a door on the far wall, but strangely,
you notice that there isn’t a door behind you. Don’t worry, you’re too well versed in
the ways of the Ba
ckrooms to be bothered by the logical inconsistency of that. You’re instead focused on the chair and
table sitting in the center of the room - as though you’re preparing for a job interview,
and your interviewer just happened to be late. But you’re not late. Or early. Time is just sort of irrelevant in the Backrooms,
it’s something you’ve always liked about the place. It’ll never move on without you. It’ll always move at the pace you do - even
if the way it expresses that is by sending a horde o
f vicious, bloodthirsty monsters
after you while you run for your life. You have to take the good with the bad on
these things, right? The first thing you do is approach the door,
of course. It’s never a bad idea to see if anything
is waiting on the other side. With your free hand, you keep a tight grip
on the handle of the revolver that’s been with you for so many levels now .Anything
that even thinks about coming at you will have six of your tiny metal friends to deal
with, and they could move
a hell of a lot faster than any entity you’d met so far. However, as you jiggle the door handle, you
realize that the door is locked. Well, that figures. Several levels ago, that might have disturbed
you, or even led you to panic, but you’re more of a hardened Backrooms veteran these
days. Every level, you’ve learned, has its own
logic, its own internal rhythm. If you wish to survive in the Backrooms, you
need to remain ever versatile. You need to analyze every level on its own
terms, with no e
xpectation that it may exist in the same parameters of other levels. You need to learn the rules anew each time,
and learn how to properly play them. That’s why, given the only other objects
in the room are a table and a chair, you decide to take a load off, and sip some tasty, rejuvenating
almond water out of your canteen. You spend a moment thinking about how much
it would suck to be stuck in the Backrooms and have a nut allergy - would that effectively
spell doom for you? It’s a frightening y
et compelling question. It feels good to be sitting down and taking
it easy for once. You’ve suffered horrors that would cleave
apart the imagination and plunge the average person into a pit of gibbering madness - not
that you want to be dramatic about it, of course, but you’ve seen everything from
eyes that can vaporize people with a glance, to giant underwater horrors, to evil conglomerations
of pipe cleaners lurking around in a cursed hotel. You’ve lived about thirty horror movies’
worth of p
ure nightmares. You deserve a break, Explorer. But, there’s a problem. It seems that whenever you take a moment to
rest, all the problems you were worrying about on the outside suddenly return. Your regrets about your family and friends,
your fears about your worth and mortality, your doubts about whether you have any intrinsic
meaning as a person. You breathe a sigh and shake your head, wishing
all the thoughts in your head would settle down for a minute and let you rest. There’s an eternal deb
ate raging inside
you. Which do you prefer, the nagging existential
dreads from the old world that seem to be tattooed between the folds of your brain,
or the immediate, life or death threats that seem to lurk around every corner here in The
Backrooms? You can’t help but laugh at the surreality
of this - It’s like asking, “Would you rather be kicked in the face or punched in
the crotch?” There’s truly no winning. Your moment of self-pity is thankfully interrupted
when someone else enters the roo
m. This startles you - much like your average
gamer, it can be days or even weeks between moments where you encounter other human beings. And even in these moments, you can’t help
but wonder: Friend or foe? Reality or illusion? Are you a human being, or just a skin stealer
wearing one? The stranger who’s entered the room is a
tall, muscular woman with brown skin, wearing a grey vest and camo pants. Her arms are well-built, and covered in old
scars. Her black hair is drawn up into a ponytail. She
carries the large, military-style backpack
on her back with impressive ease. You think about going for your revolver again,
but you intuit that if you do, it may end up getting pulled from your hands and shoved
back into your mouth. Instead, you decide to be polite, and greet
this new stranger, welcoming her to Level 12. She asks you if you’re an entity that comes
with the level, still, seemingly, slightly on guard. You stifle a laugh and tell her, no, you’re
just a fellow Explorer, waiting for
something to happen. She smiles and comments that everybody is
always waiting for something to happen, then introduces herself as Trish. Before you even have a chance to get up and
offer her your chair - seeing as you’ve already been sitting down for a little while
now - she slings her bag off her shoulder and takes a seat on the table. Already, you can feel your worries from before
being pushed to the wayside. Being here with another human, actually talking,
is a welcome distraction from the h
orrors that have come before, and the horrors that
will surely come after. Here, with the achievements in survival you’ve
gained, you feel more confident talking to strangers. You’ve earned your place here. Trish asks you how you got down here, and
you recount the story we’ve been telling over the course of these videos. You hated your life on the outside. The reality is that there was no place for
you in that world anymore, and that’s a reality you had to face. After getting interested in the l
egends of
the Backrooms through reading about them on various niche Internet forums, you decided
to take the opportunity to escape into this strange, new world and leave the old you behind. Because you were nothing special before. Hell, you were nothing, period. Here, you had the ability to reinvent yourself. While you tell the story, Trish just seems
to listen and nod intently. There’s a strangely profound calm to her,
like someone who has seen it all and lets it all roll off her back. But it’s
been quite some time since you’ve
encountered a good listener, so maybe you overdo it, but really, it’s just nice to
have an opportunity to get it all off your chest, isn’t it? When you’re done, you feel self-conscious
about talking about yourself so much, so you ask Trish about her story. She seems reluctant at first, but you say
to her, who knows how long they’ll be on this level? The Backrooms is unpredictable like that,
so the two of you might as well swap war stories to pass the time in he
re. She chuckles when you use the phrase “War
stories.” Trish reaches into her vest and fishes out
a pair of military dog tags with her thumb, before letting them fall limply against her
chest. You were just politely curious about her story
before, but now, you just have to know. After some polite bugging, Trish finally relents,
and begins to tell the story of how she got to the Backrooms. A few years back, she was one of the many
soldiers deployed by the US Military in Afghanistan. She’d seen t
errible things during her deployment
- friends and innocents dying in acts of stupid, unnecessary violence. Her second tour was almost at its end when
her NCO had told her and a small group of three others to investigate an abandoned house
in a nearby village, where intel had reported suspicious activity. When her little group had entered the building,
they’d noticed that one wall seemed conspicuously darker than the others. Thinking logically, they assumed this might
be a false wall hiding a se
cret room. The last thing they expected was to touch
it, and then all be noclipped into the Backrooms. Trish and her fellow soldiers had been making
their way down through the Backrooms ever since, much like you. It didn’t take a genius to notice that only
Trish was here, without the three other soldiers she’d supposedly entered with. Thankfully, you didn’t need to feel insensitive
and ask what had happened to the others. Trish sighed and decided to surrender that
information voluntarily. They’d
lost their first, Colin, on Level
1, the endless warehouse. They’d missed Level 0 and noclipped right
through a concrete wall. None of them had ever heard of the Backrooms
before, so this was an entirely new experience for them. This is why Colin, who’d been one of the
bravest among them, was so easily ambushed by a group of Dullers in a hallway, who dragged
him away and ate him alive. Trish shuddered. She’d never forget his screams. The second team mate she’d lost, Andreas,
had been the most a
dventurous member of them all. He was the kind of guy who took chances - He’d
go for the moon shot that everyone else was afraid to take. That’s why, when they were on Level 4, the
Abandoned Office, he felt immediately drawn to the Windows. And as someone who almost underwent the exact
same fate, you know how this sad little story ends. Andreas prized open a window, hoping to crawl
up and get them some help, he was instead grabbed by a pair of huge, clawed hands, which
dragged him into oblivion
as he wailed in horror. Trish breathes a little heavier as she’s
recounting the fate of her team, but you get the sense that this might be the only time
she’s ever gotten to tell someone about this. You know well enough yourself, it can be cathartic
to share, even when the sharing is painful. The third and final member of her team was
lost in Level 5. His name was Derrick, and he’d been the
youngest member of the team. His timidness had kept him safe until now,
but it was clear that being trappe
d in this terrible place had been weighing on his mind. He stopped talking, developed a haunted, thousand
yard stare. The horrors of this place were hollowing him
out. In some moments, Trish had even noticed him
talking to himself. Trish sighed and said, “I think it noticed
his weakness. It saw a vulnerability it could exploit, so
of course, it targeted him. Targeted both of us.” They were wandering through the luxurious
halls of Level 5 when they’d heard a strange voice in their head. Deep and
refined, but at the same time, it
had a cruel, untrustworthy, serpentine quality. Trish knew, immediately, that these words
were not to be trusted. But Derrick was seduced by their content... “I have a wonderful opportunity for you,”
the voice said. “A way to not only escape, but to know kinds
of power and pleasure that you’ve only dreamed of. All we need to do is make a little deal...” By the time the legendary Beast of Level 5
manifested in front of them, it was already too late. Trish was bro
ught up catholic. She closed her eyes, feeling the dark power
humming off of this cephalopod monstrosity. In her mind, she kept repeating, “Don’t
listen, this is the Devil.” But poor, scared Derrick had no such defenses. He accepted the deal and shook hands with
the Beast, and just like that, he was never seen again. Since then, Trish has been alone, traversing
the Backrooms, Level by Level, just like you, and using her military knowledge and skills
to survive in spite of all the odds being agai
nst her. Hearing this, you finally understand just
how remarkable it is that you’ve survived this long. When Trish’s story is done, she thanks you. Nothing will ever make it better, but being
able to talk about it all certainly helps. She wishes you luck on your travels, and you
do the same for her. We hope you’ve enjoyed your time on Level
12, and the brief respite from the horrors that they’ve given you. Because very soon, it’s all going to get
worse... You awaken, feeling carpet against your
cheek. The same kind of strange, slightly outdated
pattern you’ve come to expect from the Backrooms. What is that peculiar sound you can hear? This oddly tuneless easy-listening music,
the kind you might find in an elevator spiriting you away to another world.Muzak that feels
like it was written by a committee of mosquitos. As you stand, you see the similarly strange
patterns on the wallpaper. This place never left the seventies, did it? Still, you’ll take it over some limitless
wilderness. Time
to figure out where you are, and how
you got here. You rise to your feet and begin to assess
the environment around you. It seems as though you’re in some kind of
lobby, lined with elevators on both sides, and marked entrances to stairways around the
back. Near the entrances to the stairways, there’s
a large front desk with an impossibly thick guestbook sitting on it. Behind the desk, there’s a single adult
Faceling in a classy grey suit. Presumably, you think to yourself, this is
the building
manager. You recognize this place - at least in essence. It’s much nicer than the hideous, rundown
apartment building that you used to live in, but it’s clearly an apartment building nonetheless. Very clever, Explorer. You really are learning from your time here,
aren’t you? If we were there, we’d offer you a shiny
golden sticker, but seeing as we’re just a disembodied voice, a welcome will have to
suffice as your reward. Welcome to Level 13, Explorer: The Infinite
Apartment. We do hope you find
it nice and cozy. Your mind briefly bristles at the thought
of the number. As much as it feels silly to admit in a place
like this, on the outside, you’d always been the superstitious type. You avoided letting black cats cross your
path, you never spilled salt, or walked under ladders, but above all, you avoided the number
13 at any cost. It made you thoroughly uncomfortable for reasons
you never even understood. Just because of the numerical association,
you get the sense that something evil i
s waiting for you on this level - a kind of evil that
you haven’t encountered before, even down here in the Backrooms. Suddenly, you remember how you got here. It wasn’t even your choice. You were in the previous level, the blank
white room, when you suddenly just noclipped through the floor. And now you’re here, with a sense of vague
dread gnawing at your guts. Wonderful. Isn’t the Backrooms full of the most delightful
surprises? You better get moving, before something finds
you. Because believ
e us, in the Backrooms, something
is always looking. You decide to avoid the elevators. After all, you can’t trust windows here,
so why would you trust a small, metal box that traps you inside for the duration of
your trip? Those things are unsafe enough in the real
world. You imagine that if you stepped inside one
in the Backrooms, the chamber would suddenly fill with digestive juices and dissolve you
into nothingness. No thank you. You’re going to get some exercise and take
the stairs instead.
However, you aren’t prepared for just how
many sets of stairs there are. They’re an iron staircase that seems to
just keep ascending, floor after floor after floor. Of course, this was probably to be expected. Nothing in the Backrooms goes on for a normal
amount of space or time, why would this apartment building be any different? Your best bet is probably to pick a floor
at random, and go explore, hoping to find some answers, some goodies, or maybe even
some fellow human beings. We’re glad tha
t you don’t notice the floor
you happened to choose is floor 13. Chance has a sense of humor. The floor is furnished in a similar fashion
to the lobby. Dowdy carpets, ugly patterned wallpaper. A kind of stale smell, lingering in the air. Like much of the Backrooms, something about
it just feels a little... off. You decide to draw your trusty revolver, the
one that’s done a decent job of keeping you alive all this time. You’re preparing for something dangerous
to appear around the corner of the l
ong, door-lined hallway. So when that exact scenario plays out, you
feel oddly vindicated. There’s a low, guttural snarling as a Hound
rounds the corner, its face twisted in animal malice. It’s the first time you’ve got a sense
of emotion from a Hound, beyond just the animalistic hunger that drives most of the monsters here. This creature hates you, and it wants you
dead. So if you want to survive, you’re going
to need to make it dead first. The Hound charges and you level your revolver. No more
running. That’s not who you are anymore. You draw a bead on the monster and open fire
as it gets closer and closer. Six loud, staccato booms, filling the Hound
with holes and dropping it to the ground. It lets out a rattling wheeze and dies. That, undeniably, felt good. You’re not just prey here anymore. You’re a contender. Almost any entity is as likely to be killed
by you in a fair fight as you are to be killed by it. In other words, you’ve come a long way,
kid. Well done. But, as much as we’
d absolutely hate to
taint the warm glow of your victory, it is important to know that all your actions do
have consequences. For example, firing off six shots in the enclosed
hallways of an Infinite apartment building will, no doubt, attract plenty of attention. That’s when you hear that terrible, distant
rumbling, getting louder and closer by the moment. You sigh and begin to wonder whether that
single moment of badassery was really worth the trouble you’re about to deal with. The Backrooms ce
rtainly knows how to put you
in your place. The rumbling is almost deafening, when suddenly,
you turn around and see its source. An absolute avalanche of Clumps come rumbling
around the corner behind you, and give chase. You immediately begin to run as the nasty,
fleshy rumbling noises get closer behind you. The Clumps are hot on your heels. You can feel all their grasping hands, yearning
to get ahold of you. Suddenly, going all Dirty Harry on that Hound
doesn’t seem like it was such a cool idea
. But really, now isn’t the time to beat yourself
up. You just keep running, leave the deprecation
to us. You turn a corner into another seemingly identical
hallway, where the only option is to keep running, because the pack of Clumps behind
you clearly aren’t slowing down. You’re beginning to feel that strain in
your legs. Your lungs feel like they’re pumping acid,
but you can’t stop. The last thing you want is to be devoured
by Clumps in some drab apartment hallway. When you do bite it, you at
least want it
to be a more exciting demise, right? But we can’t always choose how we go out. Sometimes, a crowd of about forty vicious
Clumps decide how we go out, and they rarely dish out glamorous dooms. All the horrifying entities you’ve faced
- All to die from these malformed wads of limbs. How embarrassing. You find an extra reserve of energy within
you and surge forwards, sprinting down the hallway at speeds you once would have thought
impossible, putting genuine distance between you and
the Clump collective behind you. Pure survival instinct. You even begin to entertain the idea that
you might survive this one, until your foot catches on a snag in the carpet, and you fall
on your face like a complete tool, while a horde of death quickly approaches behind you. This really isn’t how you wanted to spend
today, is it? As you force your eyes closed and prepare
for death, you hear a door click open next to you. Before you can even open your eyes, you feel
a hand - a human hand, you h
ope - clasping around your wrist and sharply dragging you. You feel carpet burn against your body, and
by the time your eyes slide open, the door is being closed behind you. You’ve been pulled into one of the many
apartments lining the halls, the owner - a tall blond man, his back to the door, breathing
heavily - has just saved your life. “You okay there?” he asks, and you couldn’t
be more grateful. The stranger, your savior, tells you his name
is Robert, but his friends in the old world always
used to call him Bob, so you’re welcome
to do that, too. Bob’s apartment has a different vibe to
the rest of the building: it seems genuinely comfortable, livable. There are photos of what looks like his family
members on the walls, and the strong smell of pine fresh air freshener. Bob leads you through into the living area
and lets you take a load off on the couch. He tells you that he gets the impression you’ve
had a long day. You feel the urge to correct him with, “Honestly,
it’s felt more li
ke a long life”, but decide it would be better to be a gracious
guest. Bob seems like a kind man, but there’s one
slightly peculiar thing about him: He seems to be avoiding direct eye contact. Of course, it’s not the kind of thing you’d
judge a person for - some tests you took in your early years placed you somewhere on the
Autistic spectrum, so you’re not crazy about eye contact either. Bob asks you if you care for tea, and when
you politely accept his offer, he scurries off to the kitchen to p
repare you a cup. Bob tells you that he’s one of the many
thousands of residents here in The Infinite Apartment. If you ask the Faceling at the desk for a
key, you’ll even get a room all to yourself, just like that. Since finding his own little space, he’s
been rebuilding a new life here. Making the most of it. Bob returns soon after and hands you your
cup of tea. You take a sip. It tastes a little weird, but you probably
have to use Almond Water here instead of milk, so you don’t draw any atten
tion to it. He asks you how you got to the Backrooms. Did you accidentally noclip through the ground
while doing some daily errand? He’s earnestly surprised when you tell him
you sought out this place on purpose. You tell him you needed a fresh start from
what you had before. Bob nods along, listening intently. “Fresh start. I get that.” You ask him about his story, and he says that
he’d be more than happy to tell you, but first, he’ll grab some cake from the kitchen. You look hungry. As Bob lea
ves the room, you perform the typical
procedure of nosily looking around his apartment, just to kill time. It beats the hell out of being chased by Clumps
in the hall. After perusing the books in his book case,
you decide to snoop at his family photos. That’s when you notice something strange:
The photographs themselves are normal, but it seems that Bob had scratched all the eyes
out of them. How strange. You start to feel a little woozy. A little light on your feet. Something is terribly, terri
bly wrong here. You turn and see Bob entering from the kitchen. He’s smiling, holding a cake in one hand
and a very large knife in the other. He says, “You’re looking a little under
the weather there, pal. Don’t worry - I’ll give you the first
slice...” Those as the last words you hear as you collapse,
and Bob’s carpet rushes up to meet your face. When you wake up, your arms are tied to restraints
on the wall. On either side of you, there are a pair of
skeletons in very similar conditions. Bob i
s standing across from you, still holding
his knife. You think about screaming for help, but you
get the sense it won’t help you here. He clears his throat and says, “On the outside,
the papers called me The Eyeball Killer. I’m not even the first one to be called
that. It’s depressing, the lack of creativity. Still, I got lucky, all things considered. The police found all the bodies I’d dumped
in the lake and came looking for me. Of course, I made a run for it, tried to hide
out in an old, aband
oned house on the edge of town. Then, next thing I knew, there was some little
blip, and here I was! Like you said before, a fresh start. And here, I can kill as many people as I want. Everyone just believes the creatures do it!” Bob gives a diabolical laugh as you try pulling
at your restraints. This is just your luck: Of course you’d
still find some way to run into a literal serial killer in the Backrooms! The ropes are bound so tight around your wrists,
it seems like you have no hope of escap
ing them, as Bob draws closer with his huge blade. However, in his excitement to do very unsavory
things to you, Bob made one critical mistake: He didn’t tie up your legs. You wait for him to get close enough, raising
his knife for the first blow. That’s when you lunge out with your feet,
taking his legs out from underneath him and sending him tumbling towards you.You dodge
away from the falling blade, as, just as you’d hoped, it cuts through the restraints on one
of your hands. With one of your
hands free, you quickly untie
the other and make a mad run while Bob regains his footing. “Where the hell do you think you’re going?”
he growls. But you don’t intend to answer him. Instead, you run out of his apartment with
incredible speed, as he hoists himself back up and gives chase. You’re running down the hall again, this
time with a very human threat hot on your heels, ranting about how he wants your eyes. And you really, really, really don’t want
Bob to have your eyes, but you also can’t
run forever. You turn a corner, and at the end of a long
hallway, you see one of those damn elevators. While you’re still a little afraid that
the elevator will eat you alive, you’re absolutely certain that if you don’t get
away quickly, Bob will 100% kill you - so it’s better to try your luck with an uncertain
fate than accept certain demise, right? That seems like pretty sound logic to you. You power ahead, putting a slight distance
between you and the pursuing Bob. Up ahead, you can see the
elevator doors beginning
to part. Are you about to get lucky? On Level 13? Truly anything can happen in the Backrooms. For once, you don’t question it. You leap into the open elevator and smash
on the door-close button until they do, with Bob only moments behind you. You breathe a sigh of relief as the doors
close, only for that relief to be annihilated when the blade of Bob’s knife slides between
the doors. This freak is persistent. You look at the control panel and suddenly
realize... the elev
ators don’t take you between apartment floors, they take you between
levels. You could have skipped this whole stupid thing
if you’d stepped into the elevator in the lobby! Cursing yourself for this absurd oversight,
you hammer the button for Level 14, and watch as the blade disappears as the elevator descends. Thirteen, it seems, really is an unlucky number. You haven’t ever seen something so beautiful,
have you, Explorer? You walk out amidst the trees - bark smooth
and black as pitch, lending
them a kind of witchy elegance. It’s a luscious red underfoot: The ground
is carpeted with a mixture of red grass and crimson leaves that’ve fallen from the many
long, interlocking branches up above. It’s twilight. The sky is dark blue and dotted in white clusters
of scattered stars. You can hear whispers in the air. The music of the forest. After being in so many terrifying places,
you find yourself breathing so easy here. Could this really be Level 14 of the Backrooms? It seems impossible, it
seems too perfect,
too lovely to be true. But it is, Explorer. Welcome to Level 14. Welcome to Paradise. You keep walking, wanting to see more. Your eyes are practically watering with the
majesty of it. The air smells like fresh cut grass. In the distance, a fat, white moon hangs in
the heavens, somehow calming you with its rays. You feel like you’re in some exquisite painting
you may have once seen in a dream. Perhaps, after all your suffering, this level
is a reward. A reprieve. An oasis of li
ght in the vast, cold desert
of malice. As you walk, you notice more strange things
on the ground. Are those bones, distributed amongst the red
leaves and grass? If they are, they look to be made of some
shimmering crystal. Diamond-studded. The moonlight shimmers off of them beautifully. What even is this place? You just keep walking, excited to see what
you’ll find next, when suddenly, a pang of hunger strikes you. It feels like a crude and ugly urge in a place
as pristine as this. Just like th
e confusion and dread you feel
when you reach for your backpack to find a snack, only to realize that, somehow, you’re
not wearing your backpack anymore. How could this be!? Your food, your supplies, your weapons, how
could they all be... Then, you breathe in another lungful of that
clean, crisp, slightly perfumed air, and the worries are chased from your mind. It’s fine. You’ll deal with this, one way or another. You haven’t survived fifteen levels of the
Backrooms by not being resourceful. Wha
tever is lost can be found again, it’s
just a matter of being patient, and taking everything in due course. But still, you’re hungry. You’ll need to solve that. You keep walking through the strange woods
of this fairytale paradise, searching high and low for something that can sustain you. That’s when you happen upon a dew-kissed
apple, laying on the ground amidst the fallen leaves. You’ve never seen a more delicious-looking
apple. Carefully, you pick it up and study it. A marvelous specimen tha
t feels like it should
be sitting on a teacher’s desk in a cartoon. It’s plump and shapely, with deep, rich
skin that shines somehow even redder than the undergrowth. Your mouth waters just looking at it. You feel your stomach rumble and decide its
time to indulge. You sink your teeth into the apple and eat
a sizeable chunk. It’s every bit as delectable as the apple’s
appearance would suggest. You feel so good. What is it about this place that makes you
feel so calm, so content? Even back in the
old world, that was never
you. Anxiety ate at you like a pit full of hungry
rats. You had trouble sleeping every night, because
you’d lay awake in bed, staring at the ceiling, being harried by your worries, doubts, and
fears. It was debilitating. You couldn’t sleep, but there were so many
days you couldn’t even get out of bed. You were terrified of the world, even before
you entered this realm filled with nightmares and monsters. You always had some invisible force kneeling
on your chest, makin
g it harder to breathe. But here, on Level 14 of the Backrooms, you
can breathe so easy. You drink in the air. You want to get drunk on this place. Some part of you never wants to leave this
place - but you also want to know why you don’t want to leave. What is going on here? You keep walking through the seemingly enchanted
forest, until you happen upon a clearing. A vast, flat plane, carpeted with the same
red grass. And there are people here. Happy, smiling people, all dressed in white
robes.
It’s a wholesome, pastoral setting: People
dance around a maypole. Others sit at a long table, feasting and chatting
happily. It’s the most truly content you’ve seen
other human beings in the Backrooms. The air sings with the most beautiful music,
but you can’t see anyone out there playing it. Is it really out there, or just in your head? You can’t quite tell. Suddenly, some of the dancing people notice
you, and begin to approach. They’re smiling so warmly, their arms extended. You feel so welco
med. You hardly even notice it, but you’re beginning
to smile. It’s the first time in as long as you can
remember that you feel like you belong somewhere. The people of Level 14 invite you into the
clearing to join them in their revelry. They speak about this place with the same
kind of reverence that you feel in your heart. They tell you that they’d had terrible experiences
in the rest of the Backrooms: They’d lost friends and loved ones to the monsters lurking
on the many levels. They’d been c
hased by Smilers and Dullers,
attacked by beasts in the deep, dark waters, and tortured mentally by the Beast of Level
5. Level 14 was an oasis, a reprieve from the
horrors. Why would they ever want to leave? And their words, they resonate with you. You’ve experienced a lifetime of being unsafe;
Is it really so wrong, so selfish, to want to take it easy for whatever time you have
left? This place seems so nice. Don’t you want to see the rest of it? Don’t you want to make a nice little life
for y
ourself here? One of the smiling, robed people invites you
over to a nearby dinner table. It’s a beautiful feast - with various roast
birds, apples, glass bowls full of delicious-looking berries, succulent sliced ham, and a variety
of desserts, from elaborately molded jello to bowls of warm, delicious custard. The first apple was certainly tasty, but you
couldn’t be more eager to partake in this incredible meal. You take a seat - one seemingly reserved for
you - and someone passes you an ornate,
metal goblet full of fruity-smelling drink. You drink deeply. It’s divine, transcendent. When you place your goblet down on the table,
one of the others leans in with a jug and fills it back up. You’re surrounded by so many grinning faces,
all welcoming you, all wanting you to be here. It’s such a warm, loving feeling. Is this place Heaven? But now it’s time to eat. You and the others congregating around the
table begin to fill your plates: Cutting away parts of chicken, turkey, quail. Liberati
ng slices of ham. Grabbing vegetables and pouring on decadent
sauces. After weeks, or perhaps even months, of energy
bars and thermoses full of almond water, to eat real food like this feels like the greatest
luxury. You eat ravenously. You want to take your fill, just like all
the others. That’s when you see one of the people across
the table making eye contact with you, smiling. It’s a slightly older woman, perhaps in
her mid-50s. Maybe you’re projecting, but she seems oddly
motherly to you. “
Are you glad to be here, Explorer?” she asks. You swallow your mouthful of chicken, washing
it down with a goblet of that tasty, fruity liquid. You nod, smiling politely in return. “Good,” she says. “You’re meant to be here. This is Paradise. It’s a beautiful, perfect place, a warm
blanket, a soft, protective membrane that keeps us safe from the horrors of this universe. It is kindness and abundance. It is our mother and father. We will stay here, and we will receive its
bounty.” It’s a little e
erie, but you decide to continue
smiling and nodding. The food is good, the vibes are immaculate,
you don’t intend to ruin anything. And after all, who could blame someone for
going a little loopy in the Backrooms? It’s a stressful place to be, to say the
least. Perhaps once, this might have bothered you. Maybe seeing something that seems a little
eerie like that, a little off, would have made you feel nervous. You’ve learned to notice little things in
the Backrooms, but here, you don’t feel tha
t same sense of unease. It’s as though, on this level, your brain
is being flattened. That’s when you notice another apple sitting
on the table. It looks just like the one you found in the
forest, so red, juicy and plump. Ignoring everything else, you pick it up and
take a big bite. Again, that delicious flavor cascades down
your throat. You chew for a moment, savoring the taste,
when suddenly, something feels off. It isn’t so much the taste, but the texture. You feel like something is moving ag
ainst
your tongue. What the hell is that? You grab a napkin off of the table and spit
into it. What you see within horrifies and disgusts
you. A blob of dark brown mush, filled with wriggling
maggots. Shocked, you turn and look at the apple you
just took a bite out of. It looks rotten and withered, covered in furry
mold with browning flesh within. It’s alive with hundreds of maggots. You drop it onto the table with a horrified
splat. “What’s wrong?” the older woman asks. You look up and gasp. Th
e table is completely different now. The food is rotten and rancid, covered in
mold, hungry flies, and nasty, wriggling creatures. The formerly pristine-white table cloth looks
like used toilet paper. The robes of the people around the table are
equally tarnished - The revelers, the people of Level 14, are filthy and emaciated. The grime on them looks almost bone-deep. Some of them are chewing on the old corpses
of Death Rats. Others smile with chattering black teeth. There is no music anymore.
The air smells like rot. The calm dissipates instantly. You open your mouth to let out a horrified
scream, but before the sound can begin, everything is back to normal. It’s as though a switch has been flipped. The food looks delicious again. There’s music in the air. All the other diners around the table look
normal once more, but now, you’ve drawn attention to yourself. They’re all looking at you, smiling. That sense of calm is trying to enter your
mind again, but this time, it doesn’t feel li
ke a guest, it feels like an intruder. This level is trying to sedate you. To numb your perceptions. To keep you from noticing the truth of the
matter. It’s like you’re in Plato’s cave, and
you’ve just learned the meaning of shadow. What is seen cannot be unseen. You turn from the table and vomit onto the
red grass, drawing even more attention to yourself. “Is something wrong, Explorer?” the older woman asks. You don’t want to answer her. You want to get out of this monstrous place. Without sayi
ng a word, you climb out of your
seat and begin to run back towards the woods. You can hear the people in the white robes
rising up from their seats to pursue you, but you don’t have time to look back, not
if you want to live. And, despite yourself, you now know that you
really, really do want to live. Life is full of mixed blessings like that. You keep running back into the woods. They still seem beautiful for a moment - the
red grass and leaves, the gorgeous, dark trees, the shimmering crystal
ine bones. You blink for a moment, and momentarily, everything
changes. The trees and the branches a dead, rotten,
and wilting. The ground is littered with decaying corpses,
all laying face down. The whole environment stinks of death, so
thick and overpowering you feel the urge to vomit. You look over your shoulder, and see the filthy
people, with soiled robes and hungry eyes, sprinting through the forest after you. And lucky for you, their malnutrition leaves
them without energy. Soon enough, t
hey fall behind, fading into
the darkness. Another blink, and everything is normal again. But you know what’s really here. For as long as you live, you’ll know... Welcome back, Explorer. Feeling a little sick of tangling with trouble
in Paradise? Who could blame you. The Backrooms can often feel like biting into
a big, juicy delicious apple, only to find that there’s a worm inside - or, more realistically,
half a worm now. Yummy. The Backrooms often evokes some vague feeling
of the past, whether
it’s the shag carpeting of the seventies, the outdated wallpaper and
storefronts of 1985, or even the desolate, corporate wastelands that feel all too native
to the era of Y2K. Ever feel like you’re born into the wrong
generation? Too late to explore the earth, too early to
explore the galaxy, but here just in time to browse the many levels of the Backrooms
- a real land of the lost, where past, present, and future seem to converge and coalesce. You’ve seen plenty of the past and the present
-
really enough to fill a lifetime - but you haven’t seen nearly enough of the future,
have you? Sure, we could get all existential and tell
you that, really, we’re always living in the future. The present is a single microsecond, a sliver
so thin it can’t even be perceived. Blink. It’s gone. Welcome to the future. We hope it’s everything you thought it’d
be. Welcome, also, to Level 15 of the Backrooms
- The Futuristic Halls. You don’t know how you got here, you don’t
know how you’ll leave. But th
at’s fine. It’s all fine, isn’t it? You’re just sprinting forward into that
eternal future, where all the good stuff is. The exit will be sitting somewhere in that
vague, oily mass we call the future, so the best you can do is trust yourself, trust the
instinct that has gotten you this far, and keep going. Keep walking. Keep exploring. If you survived this long, it can’t be that
counterintuitive, can it? You’re going to apply those exact same techniques
here, and see what happens. Hopefully thes
e dice don’t give you snake
eyes... A pair of metal doors slide open freely as
you approach, reminding you of the doors onto the bridge of the Starship Enterprise in all
those classic Star Trek episodes you watched a few too many times. On the other side, you see the first Futuristic
Hall stretching off to a bend in the distance. It’s a delicate mix of metal, plastic, and
ceramics, all threaded through concrete, blinding white and sleek silver, with pipes running
overhead. You walk tentatively o
nwards, your footsteps
clanking on the ground. You have no idea what could be beyond this
strange place, but your mind is already flooding with associations - half-remembered media
experienced near and far. You’re staying quiet, letting your heel
hit the floor first and allowing the rest of your foot to slowly, carefully fall. You’ve seen entities that the old you wouldn’t
have believed. You don’t know what could be lurking in
these ascetic, mechanical hallways, from evil robots to Futuristic in
visible beings. You remember that crappy Resident Evil movie
you watched maybe a decade ago, with the hallway full of deadly lasers. That’s another thing you’re afraid of
right now - you don’t fancy being lasered into cubes like some miserable human cheese
plate. Or what if a panel in the ceiling opens up,
and some insane, AI-powered minigun descends and opens fire? You try to regulate your breathing as the
anxiety mounts. You just need to keep walking down these sleek,
futuristic hallways. That
’s all you need to do, keep walking. So why does it feel like your heart rate is
rising and your body is boiling up into a rapid onset fever? Why does your brain feel like a scrambled
egg, your vision blurs, there are needles in your muscles? Are you... Having a panic attack, even though nothing
is happening? It feels irrelevant now - all that’s relevant
is you suddenly can’t breathe. You fall to your knees, panting. You just want to feel normal. You want your breath to come back. Why do you fee
l so afraid, Explorer? Nothing is even happening. It’s just a hallway. While you have the not-unjustified instinct
that perhaps this is some kind of anomalous effect caused by the level itself, the reality
is far more simple, Explorer: You seem to be suffering from a spot of Post-Traumatic
Stress Disorder. Since coming here to the Backrooms, you’ve
experienced so much sudden danger, to a far greater extent than you ever have before. It’s left an indelible mark on your mind
- Left your body and m
ind eternally preparing itself for some unseen horror, or violent
human, lurking just around the corner. Even the safest levels feel like they’re
full of hidden danger now. We’re sorry that you’re going through
this, Explorer, but it’s a natural side effect of your circumstances. Perhaps, if you’d decided to just stay put
on a safer level a while back, you wouldn’t be experiencing this suffering right now. But you didn’t come here to just laze around
and fall into all the old rhythms, did you? Y
ou wanted excitement. You wanted passion. You wanted a life that challenged you rather
than slowly ground you down. And you got that, Explorer, didn’t you? But every sword has two edges. And as you sit on your knees, clutching your
throat in these chrome hallways, you’re experiencing the other edge of that sword
we call excitement. We hope it was worth it. Eventually, you feel the strength and calm
to stand again, the panic attack passed, your ability to breathe returned. You keep walking, takin
g in the Futuristic
Halls with slightly more reasoned eyes. They just keep going, sometimes dipping or
turning slightly, but largely remaining the same uniform corridors of a million procedurally-generated
video game secret laboratories. When you start coming across heavy metal doors
that connect the hallways to other rooms, you can barely contain your excitement and
curiosity. For many of these rooms, you hear their impending
presence before you even see them. The endless thrumming whir of the
engines
within. Twisting servos and gears, the crackle of
electricity. You’ve seen machines like it on earlier
levels, but never this sleek and advanced before. Most of the doors leading to them are locked,
of course - likely for your own protection. But you can see what’s going on within through
the plexiglass viewing ports that many of the doors still have. Who built these machines, and what real purpose
are they serving now? Most just seem to generate electricity - but
for where? Here? Or the
rest of the Backrooms? But others create actual objects. As you head further in, the nature of these
rooms, many viewable through indestructible glass walls, seems to diversify. Some are empty, their walls plain white and
held up by metal beams. Others seemed to be laboratories once, where
some research beyond your understanding perhaps used to take place. And it doesn’t end there. There are kitchens, expansive dormitories
filled with three-layer bunk beds, control rooms filled with bullpens fu
ll of office
chairs and an assortment of glowing monitors all over the walls. Whatever happened here once, it seemed like
it was a truly major operation. Like some secret underground government base. But if that’s the case, where have all the
personnel gone? And almost as soon as you begin to entertain
the thought, you start seeing the bodies. There are so many of them, spread all over
in clusters, old enough to just be husks now, little more than dusty skeletons to be. You’ve seen far more viol
ent and disgusting
things in the Backrooms so far, but something about these bodies, and the mysterious nature
of who they once were and how they died, weighs heavily on you. It’s time to play amateur detective and
take a closer look, because who or whatever killed them all, no mind was paid to the concept
of subtlety in the process. A blessing and a curse for your admittedly
fragile state of mind right now. None of these deaths were natural, of course,
but nothing about the deaths seemed like t
hey were caused by a non-human entity. Most seemed to have been killed by improvised
knives and spears made from common objects that may have rested around in the various
rooms of Level 15. What had happened here? Had they all gone insane and violent somehow,
and killed each other in some kind of deranged, Level-wide frenzy? You scarcely want to think about it. Monsters and entities killing people is one
kind of terrifying, human beings killing each other is another level of horror entirely. You
keep moving, ignoring the now regular
smattering of bodies littered all around you. Most of them are dressed like scientists,
all of whom, you assumed, once lived and worked here. So horrible. An hour or so later, you pass by another strange
room. There are a huge pile of dead Hounds, right
next to a giant, burning furnace of some kind. You need to pour your mind into some other
subject or the anxiety of not knowing is going to drive you insane around here. You need to bury your thoughts in the
abstract,
or existing this firmly in the undesirable present is going to drive you insane. So, you ask yourself a question you’re surprised
that you’ve never actually asked yourself before: What exactly is the Backrooms? Of course, you could probably answer that
easily, in its barest, most literal sense. It’s a kind of multi-part alternate dimension
divided into these bizarre, varied levels. But why is all this here? It occurs to you, thinking about it, that
the very aesthetic of the Backrooms
is, for the most part, so strangely man-made. Like we said earlier, so many of these levels
evoke these relatively recent periods of human history, just a little off in some way or
other. This means, presumably, that the Backrooms
as a dimension isn’t as old as earth. After all, how could these levels have come
to be without the real world inspirations coming into existence first? The so-called “Front Rooms” that we all
call home. Perhaps, you begin to ponder, that the Backrooms
exists as some k
ind of strange residue of human consciousness. Every time a human being has a half-formed
memory - of their time spent working in a bland office, or a short childhood stay at
a strange old hotel, or a late evening trying to find your car in some ominous concrete
parking complex - the other half of that memory leaks into the Backrooms and influences things. It is everything almost forgotten. Memories without the core human component
that makes them live and breathe within the recesses of your min
d. Even now, what are you walking through? Hallways. Endless strange concrete hallways. These are, by definition, liminal spaces. Places never meant to be a permanent residence,
just a transient bridge between two more meaningful locations. The thought isn’t comforting: If your theory
is correct, you’re swimming in the residue of the human psychosphere. You’re part of everything deemed not worth
remembering, but somehow hangs on, at least partially, anyway. Under that definition, maybe you reall
y do
belong here. But before you can slip further into these
bleak thoughts that ruled your life out there, you hear another human voice that profoundly
relieves you. “Hello? Is somebody out there?” calls a voice from the other side of a heavy
metal door further down the hallway. The voice sounds more confused and surprised
than anything else. Eager for a social distraction, you run forward. You’re suddenly mindful of your clanking
footsteps against the ground - the same footsteps that must have
alerted this stranger to your
presence. Someone or something is always listening around
here, it seems. When you reach the door, you call out that
yes, somebody is here. You tell the mysterious stranger your name,
and ask him if he’s okay out there. “Yes, yes, I’m fine - well, as fine as
one can be down here,” the stranger says with a nervous laugh. “I’m Enric. I thought I was the only one here.” You say that you thought the same, and ask
him if he knows anything about all the mysterious dead b
odies littered around the level. “I’m afraid they were all already dead
long before I got here,” Enric replies. “I’ve been the only one here for so long. I can’t even tell you how good it feels
to hear another human being’s voice, even through a wall.” And you can’t help but feel the same way. You came here to run away from people, from
society, from yourself. But occasionally, in the many desolate levels
of the Backrooms, you’re just happy to be talking to someone. Sometimes, a little conversat
ion can really
save your life. Welcome back, Explorer. Here we are, primed and ready for another
adventure in the great unknown of the Backrooms. I suppose it’s easy to imagine you’re
significant when you’re the only living one wandering through endless cramped hallways
filled with the long since dead. How about we change things up a little today. No claustrophobic man-made creations, no suffocating
passages, or dusky suburbs, or vast, yet oddly anonymous cities. Instead, let’s return to nature.
It’s perhaps been a little too long since
you touched some grass, don’t you think, Explorer? Welcome to Level 16. Make sure to breathe
in the fresh air, while you can. You’ve noclipped into another strange and
alien place. Well, not entirely alien, just alien to what
you’ve seen so far. You watched enough David Attenborough documentaries
about the Amazon rainforest to recognize the lush bounty of biodiversity sprawling out
all around you. The towering, ancient trees, whose branches
and leaves f
orm a dense canopy overhead, pierced by spears of early morning light that fall
upon you like the many thick, green vibes dangling from above. Mist hangs in the air. How can it simultaneously be so humid and
still carry that distinctive early morning chill? Below you, the undergrowth is thick and fertile. Dead leaves, sprawling networks of roots,
wet, brown mud with the consistency of clay. The only thing that seems unusual about it
is the lack of insects and small lizards or snakes skittering a
nd slithering around. The Backrooms, after all, has its own unique
flora and fauna. Things might appear similar to the world you’ve
always known here, but nothing will ever be quite the same. Even seventeen levels in, that still takes
some time to adjust to. After all, no matter how acclimated to this
world you become, you’ll never be a native here. Still, you continue your journey. Observing a nearby flowing river and the great
willowy tree leaning down into the water, contemplating grabbing a
vine and swinging
across while bellowing like Tarzan. It’s not like anyone would see you here,
right? No point hanging on to something as petty
as shame in this world. As you run after and try to catch some falling
leaves like an excitable child, it begins to dawn on you just how much of the life you
had before was dictated by worrying about the thoughts and opinions of people you never
respected or even really liked. How many years had you wasted trying to impress
the people whose thoughts disg
usted you? What a funny way to live, Explorer. Funny indeed. Soon, you come upon something interesting
- the first sign of something man made here in this world of otherwise unspoiled natural
beauty. Something metallic is sticking out of the
lower trunk of a huge, broad tree. As you get closer, you make the assumption
that perhaps it’s a machete or a hatchet left behind by some previous wanderer who
was hacking through the branches and vines near here. But as you get closer, you see that strange
ly,
no, this isn’t the case. The man-made instrument sticking into the
tree is an ice axe, the kind someone might use to help them scale a mountain. You then notice that this highly out of place
instrument was used to carve a brief but frantic message into the tree’s bark. The message reads, “BEWARE! IT’S ALL GOING TO CHANGE!” An offering as ominous as it is vague. You’ve played enough video games in your
time to know that you’re clearly meant to take the ice axe. You don’t know what you’ll need
it for
yet, but you’re absolutely certain you’ll need it at some point - if not on this level,
then on some other. All the objects you discover in the Backrooms
seem to find their own uses eventually. You slide the ice axe through one of your
belt loops and move on, pondering what “It’s all going to change” could mean. Your pondering is interrupted by an icy breeze. Suddenly, you find yourself shivering. How strange. Why would you be shivering in the middle of
a dense, humid rainforest? A minut
e ago, you felt like you were starting
to overheat from the exertion of moving. Now, you’re hugging your arms around your
shoulders, teeth chattering, trying to retain what little warmth you have left. In that moment, the sinister prophecy carved
into that tree begins to come true all around you. Trees are sucked into the ground. Thankfully, the message put you on edge, made
you alert, exactly as intended. You dodge the branches as they’re pulled
into the earth, knowing you would have been crush
ed by them if you didn’t. The mist hanging in the air is replaced by
swirling, white snow drifts that sting your skin. You blink and the jungle is gone. You’re standing in the middle of a vast
and unforgiving frozen tundra, leading off for miles towards the sheer cliffs of icy
mountains. Just like the warning had said, it has all
changed. You don’t feel like you’re in the Amazon
anymore, you’re in the Arctic, and you can feel the cold in your bones. You keep moving. You need to move to preserve
at least some
of the heat inside you. If not, you’re doomed to become a part of
this frozen landscape. An Explorercicle, staring forever out of the
ice in slack-jawed horror like some primitive dead troglodyte. But hey, don’t feel bad, Explorer, if that
does happen, at least you can be an entertaining little landmark for whoever comes next. We like to be positive here at Backrooms Explained. As you move over an icy hill, rubbing your
arms and shivering so hard you can feel your bones rattling de
ep within, you feel a profound
sense of regret that you didn’t bring a thicker coat, or at least those nice mittens
you bought last year but hadn’t yet gotten around to using. But right now, you can’t get a coat, you
can, however, get a plan - and a plan might be able to save you. Might, of course, let’s not get our hopes
up too much. Your eyes turn to the nearest icy mountain
as the frigid howling winds around you make your ears ache. If you can get over there and find some kind
of cave, you ca
n at least shield yourself from the wind, and perhaps make some temporary
shelter or build a fire to stop yourself getting hypothermia or frostbite. It’s far from a safe bet, but right now,
it’s the best bet you have. Steeling yourself, you put as much energy
as you can into getting to that frozen mountain. Fortune, it seems, really does favor the brave,
because as you reach the mountain, you do indeed find a cave to secrete yourself into. It’s hardly warm and cosy, but, it’s a
respite from the
lashing, icy winds outside, and that makes it feel like a paradise in
a pinch. You pull out your canteen and take a long
sip of almond water to revitalise yourself, feeling your breathing steady slightly. Now, you need to figure out if anything you
have on you can make a decent fire. This whole situation has taught you a lot
about the value of carrying around a bunch of dry sticks and fire lighters in case the
world around you abruptly becomes a horrific frozen wasteland. You really never know w
hen this kind of situation
is going to come up, do you? As you sit there shivering and wondering if
maybe freezing to death isn’t that bad, after all, there are so many monsters that
could horribly kill you down here, you hear a strange hissing noise and feel something
odd falling onto your head. Instinctively, you reach your stiff, frozen
fingers up into your hair to feel what just fell into it. More snow, perhaps? But no. It doesn’t feel cold. It feels like something coarse and rough,
and capa
ble of getting everywhere. You look at your hand. Of course - It’s sand. Shocked, you look up and see cracks forming
on the roof of the icy cave above you. And more sand comes pouring out of the cracks. The whole mountain is rumbling around you
like an earthquake. Driven purely by your Backrooms-honed survival
instinct, you spring up and sprint out of the cave before it can implode onto you, crushing
you with its immense weight. But by the time you’re out of the ice cave,
you’re not in the froze
n tundra world you ran in from. You’re in a vast, scorching desert, the
kind of sandy hellscape that would sizzle a cactus to death. The sun, seemingly right above you, beats
down with tremendous force. The mountains of ice that once dotted the
landscape are instead replaced with monstrous sand dunes. You’re expecting a giant, horrifying worm
monster to be attracted by the vibrations of your footsteps, and spring out of the ground
to devour you. That would almost be preferable to the more
mundan
e but upsetting demise of being roasted to death beneath the red-hot sun like a slab
of cheap beef. You sigh and begin to walk again. You return to the old maxim: If you walk for
long enough, you simply have to get somewhere, don’t you? Personally, we think it’s very nice that
you believe this. Because we appreciate your optimism, we won’t
tell you that, technically speaking, not all Backrooms levels obey the typical rules of
the space-time continuum. So you can actually keep walking, and not
mo
ve anywhere at all. But please don’t think about that right
now. Just stay calm and happy. As happy as you can be while feeling like
a fried egg. You pull out your canteen again and begin
chugging almond water, hoping that one of its rejuvenating properties is preventing
this diabolical sun from giving you a severe melanoma. When you’re done drinking, you feel how
threateningly light the canteen is now, and you begin to worry about your almond water
supplies. It’s a cruel irony - It’s been one o
f
the most dangerous and hostile levels so far, and as far as you know, there aren’t even
any aggressive entities here. The environment itself is trying to kill you. You sigh and - foolishly, we might add - decide
to say, out loud, “At least it can’t get any hotter, I guess.” And as if on cue, you feel the ground rumbling
beneath you, and regret ever opening your big, stupid mouth. That’s when a jet of fire blasts from the
ground in front of you, just barely missing you as you stumble backwards.
You lose your footing and fall back, but instead
of your back landing, relatively harmlessly, against a pile of sand, you instead feel the
discomfort of hard, jagged rocks whacking you in the spine. What fresh hell is being delivered onto you
now, Explorer? The only way to find out is to look and see. You rise shakily to your feet, suddenly feeling
an even more intense heat all around you. The sand is gone, replaced by a huge vista
made from jet-black volcanic rock, cut apart by rivulets of glo
wing molten lava. Every way you look, massive volcanos, belching
great spouts of ash and leaking more lava down their sides, dominate the skyline. You’re in the middle of some primordial
nightmare borne of fire and rock, a proto-earth before the proper conditions for life even
formed. The air you breathe here feels thick and soupy. You don’t currently have the emotional bandwidth
to be horrified by this situation. Instead, you just stare blankly across the
expanse of lava world and say to yourse
lf, “This might as well happen.” All you can really do is shrug and keep moving. If you walk for long enough, you will reach
some kind of destination. And there has to be an exit around here somewhere... Welcome back, Explorer. We hope you have your sea legs, because, on
today’s episode of Backrooms Explained, we’re taking to the open oceans - or at
least, the Backroom’s equivalent - for Level 17. Now, now, don’t panic, we’re not dropping
you back into the briny depths of Level 7 to contend with
Tiny and the giant beast below. That’d just be inhumane, and who could accuse
us of that? Instead, you’re going to be the newest resident
of the Backrooms’ largest naval vessel: The Carrier. We hope you find it hospitable. Having thankfully noclipped out of the forever-altering
environment of Level 16 before you were frozen, burned, melted with lava, and dehydrated in
a desert in the same unpleasant afternoon, you find yourself wandering another old favorite:
A tight, metal hallway. You can hea
r pipes gurgling and steel creaking
all around you. Distantly, you can hear the ocean lapping
at the sides of the ship, a mighty aircraft carrier in the literal middle of nowhere. However, you’re still feeling hopeful. You’ll take a seemingly abandoned naval
asset over the harsh environment of an endless open landscape any day. After all, in the confines of the ship, you
might be able to get your hands on some MREs, meet some fellow Backrooms Wanderers, or maybe
even get access to some new suppl
ies and weapons. After all, these last few Backrooms levels
really haven’t been too kind on your attempts to gather supplies. Nobody said this experience would be a picnic,
Explorer. But you keep on walking down the narrow corridors
of the Carrier’s lower levels, cringing at every pronounced clank your footsteps seem
to make. You’ve learned on so many levels now what
a terrible idea it is to draw attention to yourself in the Backrooms. As the old saying goes, when the fox hears
a rabbit scream,
he comes running - but not to help. You make turns, twisting your way through
various reinforced doors and bulkheads. The inside of the Carrier seems to have the
same labyrinthine internals as so many other levels - However, what’s particularly frustrating
about a Backrooms labyrinth is the fact that they are under no obligation to be fair, or
make sense. Things become a lot less predictable when
you’re required to lose your more conventional sense of reality. In the Backrooms, truly anything ca
n happen. But that’s not always a bad thing. You know this first hand, because soon enough,
you come upon what appears to be an armory, hidden behind yet another reinforced door. You twist the valve until you hear the satisfying
pop of the door’s locks disengaging, and the scrape of its hinges sliding open. On the inside, you see a truly glorious sight:
Racks upon racks of weapons and ballistic vests. As you step inside, you feel like Neo in that
one scene from the first Matrix movie. You’re tru
ly spoiled for choice, but you
decide you’ll keep it simple. You grab a handgun, a ballistic vest, and
what you assume is a pump-action shotgun. You decide not to mess around with the grenades
- You know your own luck, you’ll probably just fumble it and blow yourself to smithereens,
you clumsy hairless ape. With your new found armaments, you decide
to set off once again and see what you can find. Level 17 has been kind to you so far - a little
sea sickness here and there aside - so perhaps there
are more goodies waiting for you. Who knows, this might even be one of those
rare chill levels you sometimes find, which always feel like a wonderful treat. These are the nice, cozy thoughts passing
through your mind when you suddenly get shot in the back. But hey, you’re not entirely unlucky. The shot seems to have come from quite a distance
away, and thanks to the ballistic vest you had the foresight to purloin, it really only
feels like someone whacking a baseball bat into your back with tre
mendous force, cracking
a couple of ribs and laying you out against the cold, metal ground. That’s when you hear the voices behind you. One of them says, “Why the hell did you
shoot him, Jonesy?” The other, quivering in a way that betrays
a kind of strained paranoia and panic, says, “He was an imprint! I just know it! He gave me the feeling!” Imprints? That’s a new one, you think to yourself,
as you desperately try to summon the strength to stand despite the sudden and immense pain
in your back.
You can hear a pair of footsteps getting closer,
and hope that whoever these two are, they’re not fans of implementing the classic double
tap. That’s when you hear the telltale click
of a gun being loaded, and a sudden rush of adrenaline springs you back up to your feet,
as though you’ve just been given an electric shock. You turn and see the two people coming down
a hallway adjacent to your own, both shocked strangers, wielding rifles. As the two instinctively shoulder their weapons,
assuming
that you are indeed whatever an “Imprint” is, you leap out of the way, darting down
the hallway out of view. The two strangers waste no time in opening
fire - The reports of their rifles are deafening in these tight metal hallways, as are the
loud ting, ting, tings of their bullets ricocheting off the walls. You need to get out of here before this pair
of paranoid weirdos turn you into ballistic Swiss cheese. You make a sudden turn through a door at the
end of the hall and find yourself staring
up the shaft of a large metal stairway. It’s too late to turn back now. You can hear the distant footsteps of the
duo getting closer. All you can do now is start running up the
stairs and hope they don’t find you. We just have one question: Are you feeling
lucky, Explorer? Well, are you? Sorry. We won’t load the question, but your two
new friends are loading their rifles, so you start sprinting up the stairs as quickly as
possible. By the time you’re half way up, the two
strangers enter the stai
rwell below you and begin opening fire, sending a volley of bullets
up through the stairs below you. Thankfully, these two are no marksmen, so
none of the shots make contact - Though some, you may readily admit, get far too close for
comfort. You just do what you do best, Explorer: Keep
running. Part of you wishes you could just stop and
reason with the people chasing you, but you get the sense you’re probably past that
now. They truly believe you’re an Imprint, whatever
that means, and to be an
Imprint appears to be a capital offense. Of course, you have the handgun and the shotgun
that you picked up, but even in a life or death situation, the idea of turning those
weapons against actual people sickens you. You’ve fought off and even killed Entities
in the Backrooms before, but do you really have it in you to take a human life, even
if it means saving your own? But you can’t spend too long contemplating
ethics, because those two strangers are running up the stairs again. The best you
can do is keep moving and make
sure you remain out of their iron sights, so you keep running, darting from hall to
hall at random, passing through different doors in hopes of making sure that they lose
your scent. This plan ends up paying off, because after
a few minutes of frantic evasive tactics, you can no longer hear their footsteps. It seems like you’ve lost them. Well done, Explorer. You take a moment to sit down and breathe
heavily as the adrenaline wears off. You feel that dull, throbbin
g ache in your
back again where the bullet struck your ballistic vest. You’re furious at every movie you’ve ever
watched that showed some action hero or super cop shrugging off gunshots with the help of
a handy bullet proof vest like it was nothing. In reality, it hurt like hell. Thought at least you’re still alive... For now. Perhaps some almond water will help ease the
pain, if you can find any out here. When you’ve regained some energy, you rise
to your feet again and continue walking down th
e desolate halls of the Carrier. You haven’t seen any rooms in a while, no
barracks, no engine or maintenance rooms, no supply rooms, not even another armory. Just more of those winding, bleak hallways. Occasionally, you come upon some hallways
that look flooded, with busted rivets in the wall letting jets of water spew out of the
metal underneath, leaving a shimmering pool on the ground. Your time in the Backrooms has taught you
that, oftentimes, hideous beasts lurk in the waters, so you make t
he wise decision to stay
away from any hallways that look like they might lead you further into the depths. Really, you’re a land lubber at heart, and
you’re not afraid to admit it. Naturally, when you pass into a new hallway
and see a human-shaped figure standing in the far end, you’re immediately on guard. You don’t intend to make the mistake of
your attackers and adopt a “shoot first, ask questions later” mentality. Instead, you shoulder your shotgun and carefully
approach. You even call out,
“Hey, I don’t want
any trouble. I’m human, just like you. I just wanna talk.” You wish you’d been treated with the same
courtesy. But... As you get closer, you get the vague sense
that something is wrong. For starters, isn’t it peculiar that this
stranger hasn’t reacted yet? The Backrooms trains you to be cautious and
jumpy, especially if something new suddenly approaches you from behind. Could this be a faceling that’s wandered
into Level 17? No. A Faceling still would have reacted to your
voi
ce. And how come you’re the one with the two
guns and the ballistic vest, but you’re also the one feeling nervous this time? It doesn’t make sense... Then, the stranger turns, and your body is
suddenly awash in icy dread. This... isn’t a human. They look almost like one, but you know, deep
down in your bones, that this entity is a furthest thing from human. You feel like you’re surrounded by long,
clawed hands, piercing your skin with their fingernails. You’re wise enough to follow your intuitio
n
and avoid looking at the entity’s face. Little did you know, if you’d made eye contact,
it probably would have spelled death for you. We suppose you’re not that unlucky after
all. This almost-human entity is an Imprint, the
same creature those two gun-toting, trigger happy strangers thought you were earlier. And who could blame them for being cautious? Well, you could, considering they almost killed
you, but it’s understandable that an encounter with an Imprint, and their inherent dread-induci
ng
properties, would leave a person a little shaky. They were lucky that, like you, they didn’t
look directly into the eyes of one of these creatures. If that happens and you’re fortunate, you’ll
be rendered unconscious for several hours. If you’re less fortunate, gazing into the
eyes of an Imprint is a one-way ticket to instant brain death. Imprints, as far as we’re aware, are flawed
copies of people who previously wandered Level 17. We don’t know what exactly causes them to
exist, but we do kn
ow it’s best to avoid them at all costs. So you make the sensible decision and high
tail it in the other direction until those feelings of unease wear off. It really is just your luck that you’d encounter
your two gun-loving friends in the hall, isn’t it, Explorer? Of course, wanting to find a diplomatic solution
to this whole mess, you try your best to explain that you’re not an Imprint. But one of the two terrified gunmen simply
replies, “That’s exactly what an Imprint would say!” and the chas
e promptly begins. Now, though, at the end of your tether, you’re
seriously considering just shooting these guys and being done with it. But that isn’t what you do. Instead, you keep running, from hallway to
hallway, from stairwell to stairwell, always going up and knowing those two paranoid maniacs
are hot on your heels. You keep running until you find yourself in
a decidedly different room: Some kind of viewing deck, with large windows leading to the outside,
each one letting in these strange,
shimmering shafts of light. Something about it reminds you of the light
that came out of the eyes of the Neighborhood Watch, light that was deadly to the touch. Still hearing the footsteps coming towards
you, you run across the room, making sure to duck below the light. Your pursuers, however, have no such tact. They run into the room, thirsty for your blood,
guns locked and loaded, but the second their bodies pass into the light, everything changes. Their bodies are rooted in place as they beg
in
to violently spasm, choking on seemingly nothing, until water gushes out between their lips. They flail powerlessly for a few minutes while
you watch in horror before collapsing onto the ground, water dripping from their mouths
and forming a puddle beneath them. The light, it seems, makes people drown just
by touching them. You exhale, a little traumatized by what you’ve
just seen, and think to yourself, “God, I need to get off this stupid ship...” Welcome back, Explorer. Gotten over the seas
ickness of the previous
level? Don’t worry, there won’t be any gung ho
survivors shooting at you here. We promise. And would we ever lie to you? Lucky for you, enough wandering through those
dark, wet corridors leads to you clipping to somewhere entirely new, through a vapor
that smells like cotton candy and the burning dust inside a boxy old analog television. It smells... like childhood. You close your eyes, feeling an immense pressure
compressing your entire body, until it stops. You open you
r eyes, and you’re somewhere
new. Or is it... Somewhere very old? Either way, welcome to Level 18, Explorer. And thanks for the memories. You realize you’re not standing anymore. You’re sitting cross-legged, like a child,
on a colorful carpet. You look up to see the garish room you’re
sitting in and you’re hit with deja vu like a runaway freight train. The rudimentary pencil and crayon drawings
on the wall, the alphabet garland snaking around the space where the wall meets the
ceiling, the poste
rs detailing facts about animals, science, and half-hearted anti-bullying
messages. All those tiny chairs and desks, and the blackboard
covered in scribbles. You’re in your second grade classroom. Miss Taylor’s class, yes, you remember it
clear as day, though you probably haven’t actually set foot in here in twenty years. And no, for once, we don’t mean that it
looks similar to Miss Taylor’s class, or that it evokes connecting memories. This is Miss Taylor’s classroom, exactly
as you remember it
, even down to the Darth Vader pencil topper on her front desk that
you used to think was so cool. How is this possible? Have you gone from a world where you’re
irrelevant to a place where you truly are the main character, if this world is drawing
directly from your memories? Okay, well, hold your horses a little there,
I’m afraid it isn’t that grandiose. Level 18 is a little more metaphysical than
many of the previous levels - It’s a generally highly personal experience, made from the
significa
nt or formative memories of whoever is subjectively experiencing it at any given
time. And for you, for some reason, it’s Miss
Taylor’s second grade classroom. What did this place mean to you, Explorer? What happened here? Why is such an innocuous place so important? You’ve taken in the scenery of this nostalgic
room quite enough. You rise to your feet and prepare for a good,
old-fashioned explore, an activity that you’ve grown extremely accustomed to throughout your
time in the Backrooms. Perha
ps because you’re walking around in
an externalization of your own memory, you feel as though you’re innately aware of
how to find your way around inside here. Or, at the very least, you hope. As you head towards the hallway near the back
of the classroom, you see photos of previous classes affixed to the walls. You take a step closer and look at them - all
the little children, lined up with the teacher for the photo. There’s something wrong with their faces,
all of them except Miss Taylor - the
ir features aren’t entirely gone, like a Faceling, but
they’re configured incorrectly. Eyes, mouths, and noses seem to be scattered
randomly across the children’s faces. Your best guess is that it’s because memory
is fallible - you can’t remember what these children look like, so your mind is filling
in the blanks. Why would you have remembered these kids you
never met? You continue out into the hall and you’re
struck by a somewhat eerie feeling. More so than other areas in the Backrooms,
you fe
el like you shouldn’t be here. It’s like you’re an intruder. Your mind is flooded with memories of parent-teacher
evenings, where you were left to wander around the school’s hallways at night, the lights
mostly off, feeling like you’d broken into a place where the universe was slightly altered. But here, you’re in a different universe
entirely, Explorer. And you know something awful is waiting for
you. At the end of the hallway, you find the school
library. You know it before you even see it, be
cause
when you open the door, you’re assailed with the strong smell of the librarian’s
coffee, and the scent of dusty old paper. You spent so many hours in that library over
the years, disappearing into the fantastical worlds of books. Your escape. Your respite from how hard and cruel reality
could often be. It gives you a warm glow inside to be in there
among all those childhood favorites again, until you remember the second floor. Just the thought of it sends a shudder down
your spine, even as
an adult. It’s remarkable how things like this can
still hold power over you all these years later. All the kids back then spread rumors about
the second floor of the library being haunted - Really, it was a glorified storage area,
connected to the library below by an old, creaking set of metal stairs. There was a prop up there, a strange, malformed
human body made out of paper mâché years before you were even born, probably made for
some school play or Halloween party. But it waits up there in
the dark. The kids back then would dare each other to
walk to the top of the stairs, while the rest just stood there and watched. The brave ones made it up half way, but none
of them ever made it up all the way. You remember trying it yourself - you felt
so courageous to begin with, but the second you saw that dark shape, the body, waiting
for you up there, your resolve melted. You ran back down those stairs faster than
you thought was physically possible, while all the other kids just watched
and laughed
at you. It was good practice, Explorer. Look at how well all that running has done
you now. You know better than anyone that sometimes
running is all you can do. The memories get to be too much and you decide
to leave the library. The bad vibes of the second floor erase whatever
goodwill the memory of books long since read might have given you. You get that nagging feeling you sometimes
get in the Backrooms, where it feels as though your thoughts aren’t your own, that some
alien forc
e is insinuating concepts into your brain. It’s a scary feeling, to feel as though
the boundaries between you and everything but you are beginning to blur. It’s dread, pure and simple. The dread of disappearing. Of fading away. That’s when the whispers start. As you walk down the long school halls, trying
to remember the way out, cruel whispers begin to invade your mind. They don’t say anything you haven’t thought
before, but they do it with such venomous intensity that you find it startling. It
reminds you of your horrific hallucinations
on Level 6. They start slow and quiet at first, so you
just keep walking, but soon enough, the mysterious whispers in your ears are too loud to ignore. “Remember when your mother left you behind
in the supermarket, and didn’t come back for you for hours?” “Remember when you flunked that test and
your father didn’t let you eat for two days as a punishment?” “Remember the time the bullies found you
alone in that park and beat you until you couldn’t even
get up and walk away?” “Remember when they rejected you?” “Remember all the times you were hungry,
alone, and afraid?” “Remember seeing the man from the dark?” Their words are hot and suffocating, reminding
you of some of the worst times in your life before, feeling like hands tightening around
your throat. Before the hyperventilating can start, you’re
lucky enough to see a fire exit. You’ll do anything for a little fresh air
right now, so you run towards it, gritting your teeth in hope that th
ose evil, poisonous
whispers stop. It feels like salvation when you push the
door and spill out onto the playground, the soles of your shoes squeaking against the
blacktop like so many years ago. The whispers have stopped, for now at least. That’s a relief. You take a deep breath in and exhale. Who would have thought it’d take going to
the Backrooms to finally make you adopt some healthy coping mechanisms, knowing some horrific
entity could kill you at any moment? Still, now isn’t the time to ge
t all existential. Instead, you look up at the clear, blue sky
and the shining sun. You could easily imagine you’re in the old
world. What a joy it would be to start again, to
make better choices. To avoid all the mines, now you know where
they’re all planted. But as a Greek playwright once said, one thing
is denied even to God: To alter the past. Instead, you decide to explore this long-buried
memory some more, walking around the playground, scoping out the old basketball court and the
faded ho
pscotch lines. Did you have fun here once? It’s hard to remember. It’s as though something else happened here,
some black hole that draws all other memories and feelings towards it. What happened here? That’s when you hear the voice, and you
feel yourself getting cold, as though an icy breeze has cut across the playground despite
the sun above. “Hey kid, why don’t you come over here? I wanna show you something.” Your head turns slowly as though on a crank,
seeing the grassy embankment that slope
s down to an old chain link fence, the only thing
separating the playground from the world outside. And that’s where the dark figure stands,
his blurry fingers gripping the metal of the fence. His breaths are deep and ragged. You walk to the edge of the grass, not in
control of your actions. “A little closer,” he says. “You won’t be able to see from there.” His voice sounds like a disease. It makes your skin feel dirty. You get the sense that you shouldn’t come
any closer. If you stay away from
the fence, he can’t
hurt you. You just need to stay away from that fence. “Closer,” he repeats. “Just a little closer.” “Are... Are you an entity?” you ask. The man on the other side of the fence just
laughs. You still can’t make him out. He’s one with the shade of the trees beyond
the playground. “Don’t you remember, James?” he says. “I’ve always been here. I’m part of this memory. Silly little kid. Didn’t your mommy tell you not to talk to
strangers?” You stammer out, “I’m not a kid anymore.”
The man lets out a long, hissing breath, and
says, “You’re always a kid here.” You’re not quite sure what to do. This man, is he telling the truth? Is he some entity, or is he why you’re even
remembering this place - something that happened here long ago, something you repressed? Maybe you should ignore your instincts. Maybe you should get closer. Investigate. That’s when you feel something tap against
the back of your leg and turn around, startled. It is quite literally the last thing you could
possibly expect: A pink plush dinosaur teetering on a pair of awkward legs, smiling at you
with shiny, black plastic eyes. It’s one of the cutest things you’ve ever
seen. It is, appropriately, mostly known as The
Plush Dino. It shakes its head, as if to say, “No, don’t
go down there.” And without a single word, you know to believe
it. It turns and walks away, and you decide to
follow, knowing on some level that this must be some kind of steward on this level, an
unambiguously positive force - a
wonderful thing in the Backrooms, for there are so few
of those. It will lead you out of this strange and frightening
episode of your distant pass. You don’t turn back, but you hear the poison
voice of the man behind the fence calling after you, one more time. “I’ll see you again, James. And you’ll see me, too.” You just keep walking, following that adorable
little Plush Dino. You know, so many have come to this level
and never wanted to leave. They’re bewitched by their nostalgia, they
want to
stay in their memories, in a foggy recollection of their past, forever - and
not even the adorable Plush Dino can help them. We suppose sometimes having a terrible childhood
has its advantages... Welcome back, Explorer. Do you know where you are? The Backrooms, obviously, but do you know
where you are right now? It’s dark and musty. The air is thick with dust and haze. There are boxes everywhere - They look so
old, barely held together by persistent strips of scotch tape. It takes a second for
your eyes to adjust
- you’d just been subjected to the harsh glow of an early memory, the gloom here seems
almost alien. At least it isn’t like some of the earlier
levels, where the darkness was so heavy and tangible that no light could possibly pierce
it. In that regard, we suppose you’re lucky. But soon enough, you’ll find out that there
is something far worse than darkness lingering in the air up here. The only open question is whether you’ll
find out before it’s too late. Welcome to Level 19
. Be sure to breathe it in. You adjust relatively quickly to your surroundings. The smell of moldy old clothes and mothballs
up here is hardly pleasant, but it’s something you can live with. In fact, it brings up memories, but now is
no time for nostalgia. You’re an Explorer, after all, it’s time
to Explore. You begin a careful journey across the old
wooden floorboards beneath you, each one giving an audible creak under your weight. The roof above you is arched, buttressed into
place by what loo
ks like equally old wooden planks. Every so often, you see vintage furniture
- old tables, chairs, armoires - stacked up along the walls, some covered in tarps and
others left to gather dust, like everything else. Do you... recognize this place? No, you tell yourself, that can’t be right. It must just be the lingering after effects
of the memory field of Level 18. You just need to ignore it and keep on moving,
don’t you? It isn’t that tight a fit, but still, there’s
a lingering sense of claustro
phobia to this place. Like most places in the Backrooms, there’s
no obvious exit, but here, that fact seems to really weigh on you. As you walk further and further down the attic,
it begins to occur to you that it might never end. The forever attic, where every dusty old childhood
thing is stored. Every gift never given. Every Christmas and Halloween decoration. A mansion of cobwebs with six generations
of spiders, who’ve never known anything else. It sends a shudder down your spine. This is not
a good place. Or is it? As if a switch has been flicked, suddenly,
your disposition reverses. The growing sense of unease you were feeling
before is now replaced with a warmth emanating from the middle of your chest, fanning out
through you, spreading comfort and tranquility. You exhale, your breath causing the dust particles
in the air to spin and twirl. Everything is right with the world, somehow,
you just know it. It’s like there’s a light at the end of
the tunnel. And we aren’t just speakin
g metaphorically
here. You can’t help but notice something amongst
the dusty old floorboards in front of you, a faint light seemingly flowing out from between
the floorboards. You feel yourself drawn to it, like a lizard
seeking the warmth of the sun. Whatever that strange, orange glow between
the floorboards is, you need it. It makes you feel good. It makes you feel happy. And things that do that are few and far between
down here, aren’t they, Explorer? You approach the floorboards with the ora
nge
glow and drop to your knees, pressing your fingers and face against the dusty old wood,
not even stopping to consider that you might get splinters. Nothing could put a damper on the peace you’re
somehow receiving from this orange glow. It reminds you of simpler times, times before
fear, before doubt, before the curse of self-awareness. The halcyon days when you still believed that
everything might be okay, when all is said and done. That’s when you remember exactly where you
recognize this p
lace from. So many years ago how, when you were just
a little kid, you went to go spend a week with your grandparents while your parents
were working through something. You remember your grandpa leading you up into
the attic and showing you all his old mementos from the war: A few rusty old metals in a
tin cigar box, his dog tags, and even his service pistol. It blew your young mind to see such a connection
to living history right in front of you. And once you were done, he’d lead you back
downs
tairs, where your grandmother would have a tray of freshly baked chocolate chip cookies
waiting for you. Just thinking about it makes a warm, contented
smile spread over your face. But you’re pulled from your blissful trance
by a familiar sound: Your stomach growling. Suddenly it dawns on you that it’s been
a long, long time since you’ve eaten anything, and you better rectify that very soon if you
don’t want your journey in the Backrooms to end before you hit Level 20. That would just be humilia
ting, don’t you
think? You rise shakily to your feet, not exactly
eager to leave behind the comforts that the orange glow under the floorboards provides. Sometimes comfort needs to take a back seat
to the bare necessities. You continue trudging down the length of the
infinite attic, the floorboards once again giving their telltale creak underneath your
alien footsteps. There are boxes everywhere - Surely one of
these boxes contains something safe for you to eat? There’s a nagging pain in your st
omach that
feels almost unbearable now. How is it possible that you didn’t notice
this feeling before? Was the orange glow that enrapturing? Hungry, hurting, and impatient, you grab the
nearest box and tear it open. It’s full of Christmas ornaments: Porcelain
baubles and tiny ceramic Santas with fading paint, garlanded by garish vines of tinsel. Nothing of use here, but what if there’s
something tasty underneath? You grab a bauble, clearly not thinking straight,
and stare into the box, only to s
ee more baubles underneath. In a state of mild delirium, you let the bauble
and the box fall to the ground. The box itself clatters but the bauble, strangely,
does not. In fact, the second it makes contact with
the floorboards, it doesn’t shatter, it simply crumbles silently into dust. If you were in a better state of mind, that’s
the kind of thing you might notice. But right now, all you’re focused on doing
is getting yourself some grub. You search box after box, only to be disappointed
again a
nd again. Christmas decorations, Halloween decorations,
dusty old knickknacks that even a thrift store would turn down. You feel like a child blowing their parents
money on endless mobile game loot boxes, only to get a dud every time. Except rather than just having to face up
to a very angry mom and dad with a devastated credit card, you feel like your guts are tying
themselves into knots. Food, food, food. It has to be somewhere in here. You need it. And eventually, you do indeed get lucky. You
find a dusty, old chest, the kind a cliched
pirate might bury his treasure inside, and you pop open the latches. Within, there’s a smorgasbord of delicious
treats, somehow perfectly preserved. There are crisp fruits and vegetables, neatly-cut
sandwiches, and delicious, freshly-baked cookies, just like the ones your grandma used to make. It seems too good to be true - and it wouldn’t
be the first time something in the Backrooms tried to get you with a classic honey trap
- but you’re too hungry a
nd delirious to even mind. All that matters to you right now is finally
getting to eat. You reach in and grab handfuls of food, ready
to stuff your face, when something horrifying happens. The second you remove the food from the confines
of the box, it begins to decay rapidly. In a matter of seconds, it becomes a breeding
ground for some unidentified furry mold. Seconds later, it’s falling apart in your
hand and dripping to the floor in unpleasant, brown globs, which soon fizzle away into nothin
gness. It’s like watching weeks of rotting take
place in less than a minute - just like the bauble that practically dematerialized before
your eyes earlier. Turns out, this place is even more inhospitable
than you first imagined. But I’m sorry to say, Explorer, your pain
is just getting started here. You rise once again, gripping your aching
stomach with both hands, as you turn and run back towards the floorboards with that inviting
orange glow. Surely, the glow will make it better. The glow has
what you need. But by this point, the ambient anomalous effects
of Level 19 have already started creeping into your frazzled mind. As you try to fumble your way back towards
the orange glow down the winding hall of the Infinite attic, you feel a sudden and crushing
sense of paranoia hit you like a meteorite. It’s as though a thousand strange eyes have
opened up on the walls around you, all just watching, judging. You can feel their stares, like something
is out to get you, even though you know
nothing is there. Though in the Backrooms, can you ever really
know nothing is there? Still, you know above all else that you need
to get back to the sanctity of the orange glow, the only thing that seems like salvation
amongst the horrors of Level 19 and its many cruel tricks. You know on some level that your fear and
anxiety and paranoia will finally dissipate, if only you manage to get back there. But you quickly begin to realize that it isn’t
just your mind that’s under attack here, it’s you
r body, as you feel that agonizing
spike of pain in your stomach. You can’t move an inch, the pain doubles
you over. It’s some of the worst agony you’ve ever
felt, even in the deepest abysses of the Backrooms. You feel a hot surge climbing up your throat
and vomit before you can even think to hold it back. It reminds you of the time you had stomach
flu for a hellish week back in sixth grade, but times by ten. You look down at the puke on the floor. Does it look oddly... red, to you? The paranoia
strikes again. Are your organs rotting away from the inside
somehow, just like the food and the bauble? Does this terrible place just cause everything
to decay? The orange glow. You need it more than ever. Perhaps it will heal you, fix you from the
inside and out. Yes, that must be why it’s here, to aid
frightened explorers like you in your time of need. You need to push through the pain, no matter
how terrible it feels. It’ll all be worth it in the end. You continue hobbling across the creaky
floorboards. The orange glow is in sight now. You feel shadows lurking all around you, reaching
out with long, spindly fingers, watching with invisible eyes. Your eyelids are heavy. You suddenly feel the most tremendous sense
of lightheadedness. Your forehead is glazed with a fine film of
cold sweat. Are you blacking out? No, you can’t. Not now. Who knows what would happen if you fell asleep
here? You need to get back to the safety of the
glow. It’s the only way. But when you reach the floorboar
ds with the
orange glow rising up between them, to your horror, you don’t feel the calm and serenity
you felt earlier. Only that terrible dread and pain, getting
worse and worse. Naturally, panic starts to set in. This can’t be possible! You needed this! What are you going to do now? You press your face up against the floorboards,
but still, you feel nothing. You rise to your feet in a state of pure terror. Then it hits you: The idea that might save
your life. What if all you need to do is get c
loser to
the orange glow, and the only way you can do that is by breaking these damn floorboards
- so that’s exactly what you do. Summoning all your remaining strength and
animal fury, you stomp on the planks below, again and again, feeling shockwaves of pain
shooting up your leg each time. But you don’t stop, you don’t give up. You just keep stomping, and stomping, and
stomping, until you hear the wood start to crack and splinter. The floor gives way beneath you and you fall,
but not into the o
range glow. You just so happened to find a direct route
to level 20, and all it took was a little attic vandalism. Who knew? You got lucky this time, Explorer. Next time, it won’t be
so easy...
Comments
I hope you guys continue adding more levels to this series, I miss seeing new episodes on here
YOO NO WAY THEY ARE BACK! Please continue making these videos and let us know when you are taking breaks because we thought this channel was lost.
This was my favorite series on YouTube when it was coming out. Hope it continues.
When the world needed him the most, he returned.
Don’t let this channel die please. Weekly content was the best
UCkszU2WH9gy1mb0dV-11UJg/KsIfY6LzFoLM6AKanYDQAgWow, look who finally came back!UCkszU2WH9gy1mb0dV-11UJg/KsIfY6LzFoLM6AKanYDQAg Even if it's a compilation video of previous levels, it's great to see you guys again!
Please don’t quit! These videos got me through the summer last year!😊
‘’And Somehow….. He returned’’
This is a nice confirmation of your comeback. I hope you guys will do more, because according to Wikidot lore. It only gets weirder from here.
Good to see you're back. I get it's a compilation, but it's been a while so I need a recap
YAY YOU’RE BACK! I really hope to see you eventually cover the lore of The Pantheon !
Love how Miss J managed to get herself into a backrooms episode
Begging you to keep making these!! I love the story you have going and it fuels my hyperfixation on the backrooms 💥💥
Keep the series going! Love these videos
Omg is the series coming back?! If so, I'm hyped!
Keep going with this series. You're doing great. 👍
He comes back after 5 months just to post a repeat nah I'ma go to his house and force him to give me content
What happened to the scp orientation narrator? Is he finally coming back? Or you just don't want this channel to be forgotten about? I know you guys were using him for this series recently, but around winter time both this and SCP orientation suddenly stopped. I just hope the guys ok and will come back to make great narrations again for us bored at work : (
This guy is so anomalously lucky he should have his own SCP designation…
so you returned with the milk