Subliminal: A Backrooms adventure

Before you read this, please keep in mind that this story is based on a fictional fandom called the backrooms and that you may need to use the website to have a better understanding of the levels and to follow along with the main character.

Level 0 - The Backrooms

This is a work in progress.

Tell me if you like it so far.

By the way, people in this book are not associated with people in real life

CHAPTER 1

The Entry Point

It was a Wednesday night. I had done nothing productive as I didn't have a job. Too lazy for interviews I guess. I pulled out my pocket to find the few cents I had with me. I was getting hungry so I decided to go to a nearby gas station to get some noodles . As I looked around the store, I couldn't help but notice the smell of the damp carpet, the sound of a fluorescent buzzing light bulb. It was like having a sense of nostalgia for something that I've never seen before. It was like being at my friends' house even though he had been missing for about 2 years now. As I looked around I noticed that the staff-only room looked weirder. Me, being a curious human, decided to enter the staff-only room. I regretted it. 3 seconds later, I felt some weird vibration as the room around me slowly turned into, "the backrooms''. The walls turned a mono-yellow color, the buzzing light buzzing even louder than ever. The damp carpet gave out a worse stench than ever. The place seemed way too unsettling and yet sentimental, even though I have never seen this place before. Before I knew it, I was stuck in an endless million-mile-long maze. I swear I heard about this place in the news, but I never actually believed in it. I heard that there were millions of stages throughout this somehow endless maze, each one with a different location and danger. I sat and thought for 2 hours until I heard a scream that wasn't as far away. A second later I heard a faint growl ahead of me. I knew it was time to move. As I was walking down this strange matrix-breaking maze, I stumbled upon another unlucky scream. I found my first door since I got into this mess. As I entered the room, there was a small table with the following words scraped on it, "Level 2". I heard rumbling coming from level one. Before I knew it, all of level one had rumbled into strange and empty darkness. I had to enter level 2, a place with a sewer-like appearance. There were pipes sticking out of the walls. The pipes were dripping with some sort of sewage-like water that smelled like almonds. I entered the room. Not long after, my sense of thirst kicked in. I had to drink water from the pipes. And as I was expecting, it tasted like the smell of the almond, the nut I hated the most, "EW", I mumbled. Not long after, I heard a burst of strange laughter as I could see a pale creature's arms appear from the corner. The laughter slowly turned into screams of pain as he chased me. I found a dead end. It was the strange, empty darkness again. I decided for a split second then jumped. As I was falling, I slowly realized that things just can't stay the same.

CHAPTER 2

The Office

When I closed my eyes, I felt that same feeling of moist carpet, but it smelled different this time. I opened my eyes to find out that I'm in an odd empty office. I took a walk for a while. The place looked just like the first level. It had about the same height as it. Not long later, I came across this strange window. I stared at it for a while, while still being 7 feet away from it. Not long after, I saw pieces of confetti fly across the outside of the window. Along with that, I heard a few giggles. I decided to investigate and see what was out there. when I came close to the window, 2 hands, much like a human poked outside of the wall as if the wall was jelly, little dumb me kept walking towards the obvious bait. Just as I was about to lay a finger on the hand, some creature jumped at me from the side and pushed me away. The hands from earlier zipped back into the wall. I closed my eyes and slapped that other creature in the face. I heard the creature say, "Ouch!". I quickly opened my eyes to find out it was a human. We both got up and stared at each other awkwardly for a few seconds until I decided to ask him, "Why did you push me?!". He replied, "that my friend, was a partygoer,". Since I was heavily confused, I told him, "What are party-goers? Are they dangerous? How many are there?". He responded, "You must be new around here. I'll answer your questions once we reach the M.E.G outpost. follow me.". "What," I said, even more confused than before. He angrily spoke in a quiet voice, "just follow me". After what seemed like 30 minutes of walking, we reached this "outpost" he had been talking about. Turns out I wasn't the only person stuck in this mess. The guy from earlier told me to enter a small room in the outpost. "So, what were your questions?''.

CHAPTER 3

The Snackrooms

"well, the first one being, who in the world of fake realities are partygoers, " I said. The man responded with, "To make things simple, they are creatures that latch onto you if you get too close, and by the time they latch onto you, it'll be too late". "So, were they doing that," I said, relieved he pushed me at the right time. "yup, pretty much," he said. About 5 seconds later he says, "my name is Kevin, what about you?". "Well, I'm Matt," I said, trying to look cool. By the time I said my name I had already forgotten most of the questions I had in my head. Later on, that evening, while I was arguing with Kevin about the fact that the only form of water in the backrooms would be almond water, a man that seemed to be in his 40s barged into the room. He was wearing an office suit, with black pants, both seemed rugged and scratched. "Who is that," I said in a confused and shocked voice. Kevin replied, "he is Gary, another person that is in our group". Gary said, "Hey Kevin, Ulgirin sent you this recording that's in a flash drive". "Let me see," said Kevin in a deep voice. I asked Kevin, "who is Ulgrin?". He quickly responded with, "he is one of the members of the group. Right now he is exploring the backrooms for the closest and the safest levels out there with another member called jack. He must've found one now!". He plugged the flash drive into the back of a weird and odd 90s styled tv. As the tv turned on and was getting ready to play the clip, me, Kevin, and Gary all sat down on the wet carpet to watch. The recording contained the following dialog.

Ulgrin: "Is this recording"

Jack, dancing in joy as he drank a bottle of ginger-ale: "yup!"

Ulgrin, annoyed: "OK! Got it."

Ulgrin: "So, after exploring level 5 which is an old hotel, we reached level 6 which is more dangerous than you'd think."

Ulgrin: "we tripped on an orange wire in that level and ended up here. I'd call it level 6.1"

Jack, dancing even more: "Well I'd call it the Snack Rooms!"

Ulgrin: "this place contains almost every edible snack and drink in the whole wide worl-"

As the tape cut unexpectedly, I saw Kevin stand up and say, "I know what we are going to do today".

CHAPTER 4

The Adventure

As we were leaving the room another person tossed a strange item to me, it was a small screen with the number "4" on it. I asked Kevin what it is. He responded with "it's a level counter, we are on level 4 now". I was a bit amazed at the technology, I slid it under my pocket for later. As I, Kevin, and Gary left the front gates of the base and into the dangerous office space, the other people that lived in the base waved goodbye. I was walking with them until I got distracted by a cooler. I asked Kevin, "Can I open it?"."Yes." He responded as if I was the dumbest person on this level. When I opened the cooler I saw 5 water bottles, all of them made out of blue-stained metal. I took out the bottles and gave them to Kevin and Gary. I was very thirsty so I immediately slid the metal cap off and drank the bottle. I noticed that Kevin was staring at me with a pinch of laughter. It took me a few seconds to realize it was all almond water. I spit it all out in disgust as Kevins' laughter only became stronger. All of a sudden the face of joy on the 2 boys' faces gets serious. I look behind me to find 2 humanoid, dark and wolf-like creatures. They start to growl more and more every second they stare at us. "Run!," I hear Kevin screaming. We are all running, running for our lives. I spotted an elevator with the number "5" on it. "Follow me!" I say. As we all jumped into the elevator I saw the creatures nearing the elevator. I made the run for it and clicked the "up" button. When the door closed I saw Gary sigh in relief. And to be honest, so did I. Kevin told me to pull out that screen I had in my pocket. I felt intense rumbling from the floor of the elevator, and finally, we arrived. I pulled out the screen, now saying that we were on level 5. The elevator doors opened.

CHAPTER 5

The Terror Hotel

In front of me, I saw a fancy early 20th-century hotel that looked as if it hadn't been cleaned for decades. The second we left the elevator door we could hear some smooth piano jazz. As we searched the main hall for any signs of weapons we could use, we heard a crashing noise coming from the ceiling and shortly after, a scream. We turned around. Kevin pulled a knife out of his pocket, Gary picked up a wood shard, and I put my hands up as I had no weapon next to me. The person who fell was a chubby guy in his 20s. he was a pale man with ginger hair and a Boston Red Sox t-shirt. Kevin and Gary lowered their weapons and the scared man introduced himself to us. "I am Boe, a wanderer in the backrooms," Boe said. We all introduced ourselves until we felt a bit more comfortable with each other. When we looked up at the hole in the ceiling that Boe made, we saw 2 moths come out of it. after 3 seconds ten came out. Next thing you know, an entire horde came rushing out towards us. When the moths were about to reach us they immediately stopped and formed a triangle formation. A single moth came down on my arm. I was about to comment on how cute it was until it all of a sudden bit me. As surprised and scared as I was, I said "C-can moths b-bite?". Boe yelled at me," These aren't just normal moths, They are Death Moths!". The horde of Death Moths that were in a triangle formation earlier instantly swooped down to us aggressively and we all started running. Kevin yelled at me, "Take off a piece of your shirt!". "But why!" I yelled back. "Just rip it off you idiot!" shouted Gary. Since almost everybody was yelling at me I raised my shirt and bit a decent-sized chunk of it. Before I gave it to Kevin I stared at it. All of those stains, all of the colors on each stain, just for a few seconds I realized how my life back in the "real" world was just as bad as it is here. I tossed my clothes over to Kevin as I watched him pull out a lighter and light my clothes on fire. He tossed the clothes to Boe who then threw them over to the opposite side of the hallway. The moths immediately went after the cloth. We ran over to one of the dining tables and sat on the chairs. Boe passed us some of his almond water but I denied it since I still had leftovers. I had gotten used to drinking almond water and its slightly bitter taste, especially after I learned it can help with thirst, insanity, and hunger. Mid drink I was interrupted by Boe who asked us why we are in level 5. "We are trying to reach level 6.1,". I look behind Boe and see a man. No, not any ordinary man. It was a man with a suit and an octopus for a head. Since I had also gotten used to the Chernobyl wildlife here, I tried to ignore it. And I was able to ignore it until I heard a very loud ringing in my ear. As the ringing intensified, I could hear the man speaking to me. "Run.Hide.Quiet." were the only words I could hear coming from the man. Once the ringing stopped, I started to yell at Kevin and the others. "We need to hide! Go under the tables!". They started to hide as I hid too. Just as we hid under the reception desk we could hear a faint buzzing coming from the main hall along with loud, trembling screams of pain from what seemed to be unlucky backroom wanderers. Right when I opened my eyes after blinking, a blond man's bloody, scraped, and chopped-in-half head fell from above and bounced on my hand. I was just about to scream in disgust until Boe put his hands over my mouth and made a shushing sound. Once the tearing and shredding of clothes and flesh had stopped, Gary asked me, "How did you know the moths were coming here?". "A weird-looking man told me to run and hide," I responded to him. I stood up to show him the man but to my avail, the man was gone. "But he was there!" I spoke in shock. Boe reminded me, "About that almond water, I think you need it now".

CHAPTER 6

Lights Out

We looked at all the shredded people in horror as we walked past reception. The rooms in the hotel had red-colored walls that gave off a 1920s jazz vibe. We walked up to a door left of the reception desk with a metal sign on top that said "Beverly hall" in a fancy font. Boe tried to open the doorknob but it had been broken as it became too rusty to function. Kevin told all of us to back away as he kicked the door. After a few kicks, the door finally opened. The Beverly hall was a massive carpeted room with almost all of it empty. In the middle of the room, there was a granite table with an unfinished game of Mahjong on it. Above the table, there was a lit chandelier on the roof but other than that, there was nothing but some other chandeliers.

I didn't know why, but I felt like finishing the Mahjong game. As my hands started to reach for the game, Kevin slapped my wrist.

"What was that for!"

"Don't touch it. You will be sent to a worse level. I wonder how you are still alive."

"W-What! I didn't know that!"

After my almost deadly mistake, we noticed that there was a door in the far right corner of the room. We decided to check it out. The room had a plate on top of it that said, "Boiler Room". Just when I thought I wasn't going in that dark room, Boe said, "that's our only way to level 6.1". Kevin opened the door to the boiler room.

The second he did so a faint hissing sound could be heard from the hallway. We entered the room. It was less of a room, but rather a wide hallway with old and broken machinery in it. Every once in a while I'd step on a puddle made of some strange liquid. "Is it just me, or is it getting hot in here?" I said, with sweat dripping from my chin. "Don't worry, If we can find an entrance to level 6 early enough we won't die of heat here," said Gary, also sweating. Boe stopped in his tracks and hushed all of us. "Can you hear that?" he said, whispering. I could hear that same hissing sound, but this time it was getting louder. "We must be getting close," said Kevin. It was also getting warmer and warmer, to the point where even the sweat wouldn't last long. We climbed a long, metal ladder that led to a platform suspended in the air. The beautiful hotel that we started in was starting to turn into this dark room. We found this door with a symbol that looked like a person that was alone. Boe passed transmitters to each of us. "Why do we need these?" I asked. "In level six you are alone, so we will need these to communicate and not go insane," Kevin said. A sudden fear hit me, as I realized I might not survive level six. Boe could notice my fear and put one of his hands on my shoulder. "It will be alright," he said. We each entered the exit one by one, Kevin entered, then Gary, Boe entered after. I thought for a few seconds considering the mess I was gonna get myself in. Finally, I entered. I tried opening my eyes, but I couldn't. I touched my eyelids and realized that my eyes were open, but the room was too dark to see anything. I tried using a lighter I had in the real world but as hard as I tried, the lighter just wouldn't light. I turned on the transmitter and heard Kevin asking if everybody had entered the level. I heard boe and gary tell Kevin that they had entered. "I made it too!" I yell into the microphone. They sighed in relief. I heard that same laughter from level 2 but this time, it was right behind me. I tried punching the creature from behind, but I missed. That same creature started to say, "You think you can kill me?". Just then I heard Boes voice from the transmitter. "At this point you may start to hallucinate but you need to ignore it and drink plenty of almond water". I listened to Boe and tried to ignore the insults coming from the hallucinations. The creature started to get agitated because I was ignoring him. "Hey! Can't you hear me?". The creature started to scream in hopes that I would get annoyed, but instead I drank some of my almond water and the sound of the creature slowly faded away. I knew this peace and quiet wouldn't last long so I immediately continued to venture on in hopes of finding a wire. Kevin started to speak. " I can't find that orange wire that you talked about". Then Gary said, "If you are unable to find the wire then try nocliping". I got confused so I turned on the microphone to say, "wait, you can noclip in the backrooms?". Boe said, "it is possible, but it requires practice. You have to imagine the wall in front of you turning into air, then walk through it". "Wait, can I try that to enter the snackrooms?" I asked. Boe said that I could. I held my hands in front of me and walked forward until I felt a wall. The wall seemed like it was made of fine concrete. I took my hands off of the wall and imagined that there was nothing in front of me. I ran towards the wall in hopes of noclipping.

CHAPTER 7

A Safe Haven

My vision went dark. I couldn't see anything. It felt as if I was falling. Once my vision became clear I found myself falling from the ceiling of a bar. My head slammed onto one of the wooden tables and my leg tossed a beer bottle off the table. As I got off the wooden table, I looked around to see ten people around me. They stared at me for a few seconds and then went back to talking to each other. I looked at The bartender. He seemed to be a man in his sixties. I asked the bartender what level I was at. "You're at 6.1, my boy," said the bartender, with an Australian accent. I asked the man if all the people in this level were entities. "Ay me brother, this is a safe haven for all wanderers,". "So, everybody here is a normal wanderer?"."Should be, mate,". I asked the bartender if he knew where my group was. I described Kevin and the others to the bartender. He said, "well, I did see some people that looked just like that.". "Where did you see them go?", I asked. He pointed towards a wooden door to the right. I opened the door to find Kevin, Gary, and Boe. " Glad you made it. Any longer and you would've gone insane," Boe said. We hugged each other knowing that we had finished our journey. I asked Kevin if the people on this level were real. " They are real. If their faces are blurred then they are facelings, a backrooms creature," said Kevin. We walked back to the barroom to grab a few drinks and talk with some of the people. I walked up to the bartender to apologize for his table. "Ay mate, don't worry, it will fix itself in a few seconds," said the bartender. I stood back and watched in awe as the broken table slowly rearranged itself. "My name is Markus, what's yours?" said the bartender. "Mines Matt, " I said, still surprised as to how a broken table could fix itself so fast. We shook hands and I introduced my friends to Markus. Markus introduced us to his other friend, Bethany. Bethany was a woman with ginger hair. She seemed to be the same age as Markus. "So, are you planning on staying here?" said Bethany. "Yes," said Boe. Bethany opened up a dark oak door that led to a wooden tiled floor with a table on the right of the room. On the left of the room, there was a stack of blue cots. "Will we be sleeping here?" asked Gary. "Yes," said Bethany. Once we arranged the cots into place and picked our blankets we decided to enter the barroom to enjoy what it had. When we entered the bar we noticed that the lights had dimmed a little more. While Boe and the others were busy chatting with the wanderers, I was at the main desk of the bar talking with Markus. I asked him for some root beer. Once he passed it to me, I stared at the glass bottle in awe. The bottle had no labeling, not even the cap did. The bottle reminded me of my missing friend from the real world. Every time I and him went out to play together, his mother would make root beer in bottles that looked just like the one I was holding in my hands. A tear ran down my face as I remembered that he went missing years before I entered the backrooms. "Are you alright?" said Markus, concerned. "It's nothing too serious, it's just that the bottle reminds me of the real world," I said. Markus put his left hand on my shoulder and said, "Hey, don't worry, you have new friends here. Why don't we talk about our past, I'll go first,". I listened to him as he started to talk about his past life and how he entered the backrooms. "I was a good man back then, I was a good grandfather of three children, I remember going out with the family to a park for a picnic but then I somehow got here," said Markus. I was confused and asked him how the park got him in the backrooms.

"Well, I somehow forgot, I guess it was because I've been in here so long,"

"Oh, that's ok,"

"Do you want to tell me your story?"

I remembered my life back then, how I had nobody to support me during hard times, how I had accomplished nothing because of that. Then I thought of my time in the backrooms, how the new friends I had made supported me. "Hello, are you there? It's ok if you don't want to speak, " Markus said, interrupting my thoughts. I was about to tell him my life story when the lights suddenly dimmed and the people in the bar started to walk to their rooms.

I asked Markus about the lights and the people leaving. "This level has a day and night system, when it gets late, the lights dim. And the people here walk to their rooms to catch some sleep," said Markus. He waved goodbye and entered a small room behind the bar deck. Kevin and the others walked towards me and asked if I wanted to sleep. I had lost track of time and felt very tired from all of the things that had happened to me. We entered the room and locked the door. As I was laying on the cot in the dark room I felt calm and relaxed, knowing that I was safe.

CHAPTER 8

Comatose

Three weeks had passed since our arrival at level 6.1. I had gotten used to the daily routine of waking up in that windowless room with Boe and the others, having a conversation with Markus, and having a drink at the bar. But as time passed, something started to happen. Something bad. Gary had been more and more isolated as time passed. Not only that but he was slowly becoming more and more insane. I sat at the bar with a glass of almond water in my hands and looked up at Markus. "Don't you ever get tired here, serving drinks for your lifetime?" I asked Markus. "Well I'm safe here and I get to do what I like, but now that you have said that, I'm not as sure," said Markus, realizing his situation. A scream could be heard from across the hallway, in a dorm room to my right. Markus exited the bar deck and ran towards the dorm door, and I followed.