Info
Hi Backrooms. As I spend time on IRL projects and pump my Wiki time into some new sites I've been developing, I find myself with no time for you. But you'll always be my old flame, Backrooms, and I still think of story ideas way too often.
Just remember I'm still around — you never write, you never call — and stay a little tuned because I want to fix up the state I left Level 10 in. One of these takes place in Level 10, and this is the new L10 I have in my head.
By your local faceless scutoid as always, who swears he'll update his author page one day.
I peered into the tunnel, the threshold between the Level 9 and somewhere I didn't recognise, and already knew it was the end. I almost didn't trust it — almost thought death could never come — because I had seen too many the ends to count. That didn't matter as the hound crept towards me, leaving some saliva puddling on the ground where it stood coiled with bared teeth. Seeing the fear in its eyes, nostalgia bubbled up in me…
Daniel's apartment always smelled of bacon. I thought that was why the dog was always so worked up, but looking back, we could have trained her better. He had a nice living room. To him it was more of a home studio, but for me it was the kick your feet up, avoid leaning on Dan's Dr. Sample and watch Gilmore Girls room. It had a small balcony neither of us trusted enough to walk on. That dog would claw on that glass as if a few more scratch marks would make it a cubist masterpiece. As if she could jump off that balcony and glide into the night, weaving through lamp posts and paying a visit to the stars. It was why we named her Seagull.
I thought I had it all on that couch. He'd borrowed it from his mother, and I was glad of that. She approved of me, and we'd go shopping on most Thursdays. If there was a way to get my own mother to spend such time with me, I hadn't found it.
These moments don't contain the most nostalgia, though. Not in the slightest. I remember the space after him more. That night a busted mixing deck turned to a hole in the drywall where I'd ducked. The bowl of tears and ramen I shared with only myself in the apartment that still felt like his — not ours — even after he'd gone to clear his head. I remember Seagull's eyes, wild eyes that could see the pieces of our life scattered all around me. I was already reaching for the superglue.
The memory faded as I focused on what my body had been doing as I daydreamt. Phew. That was the fifth hound I'd bashed in. The part of my mind that wore a tattered PETA shirt and ate tofu on Christmas had died with the second or third. I had seen too much, and worse yet, I didn't hate what I'd seen. The subtle shift in the air as the tables turned. The rush, the pulling back and the follow-through. Crack. These Backrooms animals bled old, brown blood that seemed dead long before I came along. It formed little strings that clung to my baseball bat before letting it go, spreading the smell of iron and victory around me.
For a moment, I was the queen of everything again. I could only feel so big before growing was replaced by the closing in of walls.
I looked back out at the town, strange entities still on the prowl, and knew the tunnel was my only option. The cold was already coming back as the adrenaline slipped away, but I could tell that this was a maintenance tunnel. I closed my eyes and imagined the hot air of a colossal fan, the perfect place to curl up and die in. Those were few and far between here. I needed a hug more than I ever had.
"Hey, uhm, have you seen my cat?" were Alex's first words to me.
He was twice the height of me, especially if his afro could get away with adding a few inches. He looked down at all 5'3" of me and waited for an answer, patient as a dove.
What? No. Get lost, I thought on instinct as I went to remove my headphones. The words caught in my throat as I met his eyes and thought for a second about how lonely I'd been since I slipped out of reality in Daniel's shower.
This guy, blocking my sun, seemed just as lonely. Something in my chest stirred for a second — curiosity, probably — and I took the bait.
"No, I haven't," I said, bracing myself for a wild goose chase, "But where did you last see her?"
So started the best day of my life thus far, even if it's now nothing more than a footnote for me. Still, nobody has ever hugged me like he did when we finally said goodbye. He was the last person I ever met that reminded me of my mother.
I was wrong. The orange lights deeper in the tunnel mocked me as I froze bit by bit. I stumbled through, rats scurrying by my feet as I felt nothing from them. They could have bitten me and I'd have remained numb. It was worse than anything I'd experienced.
I yearned for Level 0 to take me, praying for a freak no-clip. There, it would be warm. God, how I wanted to live in that moment. Even if it killed me, I wanted to live.