Gaining Skills in The Backroom

A door opened, revealing a tired man.

His suit was in disarray, his breathing haggard and rapid.

He slowly lumbered his way onto a chair, where he slumped down into its comfy cushioning.

"I… really gotta… get a new…. apartment…" His constant mutters were interrupted by his breathing.

After a few minutes the mans breathing calmed down, and he checked his computer screen.

"Ok, normal emails in check, let's hope they aren't too hard…" Muttering again, the man expertly got to finishing his emails, as the small apartment the man was in was filled with the sounds of computer clicking.

"Ok… wait. What?" The mans eyebrows rose slightly at one email.

'Random Survey for XXXXXXX'

"A survey…? Did we do those? Well, it says it's random, so…. Maybe?" The man shrugged, and simply clicked on it.

It indeed was a survey, asking about living conditions, mental health, name, birthday, all kinds of stuff.

It got a bit out of hand when it started asking for certain kinks and porn he liked, which he dutifully didn't answer.

Then, the truly weird shit came up.

'Which type of Lore/Game/Fictional worlds are you most intrigued by?'

"What?" The man was rightfully so confused, as he once again looked back at the sender of the email.

"Ok… this is getting way out of hand honestly, but fuck it. I want to keep my job."

The man leaned back into his chair, thinking about something he was invested or intrigued about, and then it clicked.

"The Backrooms…" he muttered, before sitting up straight, and typing away.

After finishing up the last few questions, which were mostly about the world one had picked, the man shut down his computer, and walked into his bed, where he just flipped onto the bed, without taking any of his cloths off.

==========

Florescent lights buzzed softly.

A Oder wafted, smelling horrible.

Eyes strained to open, as the man awoke.

"What the fuck…?" His confused exclamation served only to confuse him more, as his eyesight got better.

Yellow wallpaper greeted him, and the squish of the soggy carpet wake him up to stand, but the wetness had already been transferred.

"How the actually fuck?" Confusion continued to arise inside the man, as his head swept the room he had found himself in.

The same Yellow wallpaper greeted him, its design being a pike blade with two curving protrusions on the sides of the blade.

Mushrooms grew in the corner, their brown heads giving slight comfort to the man, before he realized he was still in this weird space.

The squish of the carpet floors made him cringe slightly, but he shook it off, and looked towards an opening to another room.

Poking his head out, he saw the same exact room, just larger. More mushrooms accompanied the corners of the room, but everything was the same.

The Yellow wallpaper, the mushrooms, the squish carpet, the smell…

"Oh holy fuck!" The man gagged at the smell that had managed to waft into his nose. He coughed a bit, before he got somewhat used to its stench.

Stepping into the room, the man eyed the room in its entirety, scanning for anything to make sense of the situation he had found himself in.

Unfortunately, nothing of the sort was found, as he sighed.

He looked to find not one, but two different openings in the room, each leading to the same exact room, just in different sizes.

Scrunching his eyebrows, the man ventured into on of the two rooms, only to now find a filing cabinet inside of it.

Instead of rushing like a lunatic, the man instead carefully looked at his surroundings, making sure to note everything, before he picked up a mushroom, and throw it at the cabinet.

The mushroom thunked the middle cabinet of the filling cabinet, before plopping down onto the ground softly.

"Not a mimic…" The man chuckled to himself, before he walked towards it.

Trying to open the cabinet lead to no results. No matter how much the man tried to pull the cabinet open, it refused to open.

Narrowing his eyes, the man simply lifted up the filling cabinet, and smashed it onto the floor.

It clanked loudly onto the floor, and dented it slightly.

The man sighed, and before he could lift it up again, he heard growling.

Whipping his head around, he saw something that made his spine tingle.

Standing three rooms ahead of him, was a dog. No, calling it a dog was too kind for it. It looked like a hell spawn born from The Ring girl and a dog.

Hair covered it's eyes, but not it's unnaturally large mouth, which was grinning ominously at him. It's grey skin reminiscent of some kind of zombie, and it's claws looked sharp as it clearly pierced through the wet carpet.

Widened eyes and swallowing his saliva, the man stared at the beast, as the beast stared at him.

He slowly picked up the filling cabinet, which in turn, enraged the beast, as it ran at him at break neck speeds.

Scrambling to pick up the cabinet, the man smashed it into the head of the beast, as it got close enough.

A deep thunk sounded from the impact, as the beast yelped in pain.

Hurriedly getting away from the cabinet, the man grabbed his belt and loosened it, before hitting the the beast with the metal part.

It yelped again and again, as the man continued to beat it over and over again with his bept, to the point where red blood began to emerge.

The beast, after a few seconds, got the cabinet off itself, and launched itself at the man, its jaws wide open.

A piece of metal interrupted the beasts lunge however, casing it to tumble back, and be continuously bludgeoned by the metal.

After a minute of beating the beast, it's yelps ceased, and all that was left was the panting of a man, who was now covered in red blood.

[You have killed an Entity! Passive Skill obtained!]

"What… the fuck?" The man muttered.

Yet, before he could understand anything, growls emerged from multiple directions.

Widening his eyes, the man couldn't even turn, before he was attacked from two sides.

Their teeth and claws dug deeply into his flesh, and his screams of pain only seemed to excite the beasts more.

He couldn't think at all, as his body was teared into and eaten.

[You have Died!]

===============

Florescent lights buzzed softly.

An Oder wafted, smelling horrible.

Eyes strained to open, as the man awoke.

The man sat up quickly, his sense on full alert, as he looked around wildly.

Yellow wallpaper greeted his vision, and the horrible smell wafted-

"What the FUCK?!" The man couldn't help but yell. The pain he had felt seemed to linger, as his body shook rapidly, his breathing haggard.

"How the fuck, how the fuck, how the fuck fuck FUCK?!?!" The man continued to yell, his mind in too much disarray for him to handle.

The man slowly managed to calm down, his breathing stabilized, and his mind calming.

"What the fuck is actually going on?" The man muttered, as he leaned his back onto a wall, slowly sliding down into the carpet.

He didn't care for the wetness of it, he just needed to sit down. And sit down he did.

"Ok, collect yourself Mark, just, deep breaths, slow and calm breathe, in and out, in and motherfucking out."

He sat their quietly. Only him and the mushrooms.

"Ok, Ok, let's think for a bit now." After finally having calmed himself, Mark looked over what the past few minutes detailed.

First, he had killed some kind of beast, and he was given some kind of system notification about it. Something about a passive skill?

"System?" Nothing.

"Status?" That triggered something.

A panel suddenly emerged in front of him. It was a simple black panel, with white words arranged neatly on it.

•===============•

Name: Mark Marlin Mason

Species: Human

Physical Condition: Fine

Mental Condition: Disarray

Active Skills:

N/A

Passive Skills:

Lvl 1 Toughened Hide

Terror Form: Unavailable

•===============•

His eyes widened, before narrowing his eyes on Terror Form.

"What the fuck is that?" It was unfortunately unavailable, but just the words alone were menacing.

He then brought his eyes to the passive skill section, when he found something new.

Level 1 Toughened Hide: Your skin has become naturally harder.

"That didn't help at fucking all." Mark muttered under his breath, before looking at the level of the skill.

"Oh shit. Can it level up?"