Chapter 10 - January 15 2020

Level 2:

Class 1

Unsafe

Secure

Minimal Entity Count

Hayden and Rose walked down this dimly-lit hallway. While walking, Hayden realized that something felt a bit off. This hallway was very dark, he had to use his flashlight. The walls were dirty, the air was stale, and it was unbearably hot. Plus this hallway went on for quite a while.

"Something feels weird about this place," said Hayden. "Rose, let's turn back," he said, Rose nodded. They turned around. Right behind them, their way back was blocked by a cinderblock concrete wall which certainly wasn't there before. It just appeared behind them, forcing them to move forward.

"Oh are you fucking kidding me?" said Hayden, striking the concrete wall with the blunt end of his spear. "It's just like time I first came in here." he said to Rose, turning around. "You know, the time I got here. I went down into my friend's basement cuz he was too lazy to grab something in his own frickin' basement. I opened a door into this yellow office building and BOOM! It disappeared right behind me. I was trapped in here!" he said. "Ugh!"

"I guess we have to fight through this level, if I could fight through the yellow place, then the two of us can fight in here, so long as there's food and that almond water stuff." said Hayden. They turned around and faced the level. Hayden drank from his canteen of almond water to clear his head. He gave some to Rose too.

. . .

This level was much less inviting than than the last level. It was quite dark, the lights were sparsely placed between each other, and it was hot. The walls were concrete, but they were noticeably darker and dirtier. There were also rusty pipes and metal tanks on the wall, and vents which had black stains coming from them. It seemed like an old and dilapidated maintenance tunnel which went on and on.

This level was uncomfortably hot. It was somewhere close to 90 degrees, maybe more, and there was weird black slime dripping from the vents. Hayden wiped sweat off of his forehead. The machinery was loud, but the sound was like a train engine running, not the electrical hum. To make matters worse, they heard monsters growling from every direction.

"Get ready to fight, Rose!" said Hayden, grabbing an iron pipe off the ground. He handed it to Rose. Monsters swarmed in from all directions, monsters of all kinds: each one of them grotesque or ghastly in their own right.

Hayden stabbed the smaller and weaker monsters and hit them with his spear: The "shadow people" which looked like ghosts, the "polygonal men" which he had fought before, and those aggressive little girls which carried scissors and knives. They were like little demonic versions of Rose.

Rose dealt with the stronger creatures: the crawling doglike creatures, the wormlike bloated men, and the naked men which wore a suit of skin and had octopus suckers all over their skin. They discovered new monsters: bundles of limbs which thrashed around, giant moths, and crawling humanoids with blisters on their backs. Other than that, it was the same creatures on the first level except in greater numbers and much more aggressive.

...

"That's the last of them, Rose!" said Hayden, huffing. He killed a shadow person and threw its body on the ground. Hayden was exhausted.

Rose took a worm-man and hit him on the head with the pipe. Hayden fell to the ground and Rose caught him. She dragged him out as if to say "come on, let's get out of here." Despite killing way more monsters than Hayden, she didn't show any signs of exhaustion.

The two of them rested in a storage room- or rather Hayden did. He sat around stitching while Rose opened boxes. He was fast, he had experience knitting scarves and also doing DIY projects. After he was done, he played on his phone and listened to music.

. . .

"Oh hey Rose!" said Hayden, sitting up. Rose came back with a handful of supplies: more medical supplies, almond water, and more shoelaces. She opened the duffel bag and took out some food. Hayden ripped open and mixed together bags of chips, cheese, and instant ramen. This was their lunch.

"You know Rose, you're the first person I'm able to open up to. You're the only person who knows about my knitting hobby, where I'm from, men don't knit, it's seen as girly and something only grandmas know how to do." said Hayden, chuckling. "Honestly, I can trust you more than a lot of the people back at home." he said, laughing.

"..Mhm!" she said, happily. She gave Hayden a hug. Due to her height and his short stature, his face was directly in her breasts. He blushed and tried forcing her off, she wouldn't budge.

"ROSE, ROSE!" said Hayden. She didn't let go, only continued to stroke his hair. "ROSE LET GO!"

Chapter 11 - January 18 2020

Level 2:

Class 1

Unsafe

Secure

Minimal Entity Count

Rose and Hayden stood before a battlefield of dead creatures, they didn't disgust him anymore nor did they scare him, his life was full of combat. Hayden was getting better at fighting too, he was less timid, and his spear-technique was improving. It was like he was getting his own stripe in Taekwondo.

Suddenly, something lit up in the distance: two eyes. Then a wide toothy grin of glowing white teeth. Whatever it was, it wasn't friendly. Hayden pointed his spear at the smile.

"...Shit, what is that," said Hayden, pointing his flashlight at it: big mistake. Rose yanked his hand and the two of them ran. It was the first time that Rose ever ran from anything, but this meant that Hayden had no chance as well. He ran with her.

He looked behind, the creature was less than ten feet away. They found a brightly-lit tunnel, but this light made the creature more aggressive. The thing tripped Rose over, they had to fight.

"FUCK YOU, ASSHOLE!" shouted Hayden. He tried to charge it, but he was slapped aside by a long tendril. Rose took her pipe and approached the creature. She punched a tendril away and smashed it.

The creature tried to attack her with its tendrils, she smacked them with the pipe before they made contact. It roared even louder.

"Rose, catch!" groaned Hayden, tossing her his spear. She brandished the spear and sliced off the tendrils. When she got to the body of the creature, she began punching. Her fists hit fast and hard- the creature was roaring. Whenever it tried to hit her, she cut off a tendril.

"RUUUUAAAHHHHHH!" shouted the creature. The lightning-fast volley of punches did appear to harm the creature, but it didn't kill it, it only roared louder and attempted to hit Rose.

"THE TWO OF YOU, GET BACK!" shouted a man. A group of men came with beer bottles lit with a rag. They threw a volley of bottles at the creature, setting it alight. The creature disintegrated as soon as the bottles made contact, the lights on the eyes and teeth flickered off and shattered on the ground. Rose picked up Hayden and went along with these men.

"Kid, you must be a special kind of brave, or a special kind of stupid!" said the man who rescued him. "The two of you, fighting a Smiler!" he laughed. "You boneheaded little idiot,"

"Is that what you call that creature?" asked Hayden, laying limp on Rose's shoulder. They were going into the tunnel. "A smiler?"

"Yeah, you need Smiler Exterminator fluid, and you need to not run like hell or make a racket or the damn thing will chase you." he said. "And you also have to turn off those god damn flashlights or you're dead!"

The rescuers opened an electronic door and everyone filed in. Armed guards with rifles examined the two.

"Hey Cole!" said the guard. "I see you have a newcomer!" he said. "Two of them."

"Yeah," said the rescuer, Cole. "These two dumbasses thought they can take on a Smiler by themselves. Thankfully we found them right outside our little compound before they were eaten!" he laughed. The rest of the team laughed except Hayden.

"...Alright, a kid. Wait wait, who is this?" asked the guard. He walked over and moved Rose's obscuring bangs out of her left eye, discovering the blank spot. "A faceling! This boy is traveling with a faceling!"

"Don't you dare hurt her!" shouted Hayden. "If you even lay a finger on her, I'll..." he didn't give any further threats. "Rose is my friend! She's the reason I've been able to stay alive for so long."

"Is this faceling your girlfriend?" laughed the guard. "Go ahead kid, if she doesn't attack anybody, she's welcome here," everyone laughed. Hayden groaned, blushing.

Chapter 11 - January 20 2020

Level 2 - Office Space EL3A:

Class 1

Safe

Secure

Minimal Entity Count

"Alright Hayden, you seem to be doing just fine," said Doctor Cole. "Now, lemme look at your friend Rose for a sec. When I'm done, I'll write out some notes for you," he said. "Since you're travelling, you might as well do it safely."

"Alright," said Hayden, reaching into his pocket. He pulled out his journal and began writing. "Office Space EL3A.." he wrote. "Cole the Doctor... BNTG... Faceling..."

Hayden looked up from his page. "Tell me, what is Rose?" he asked. "I know she's part of my team and all, but I don't know what species she is- she's definitely not human. The guard called her a Faceling earlier? What's a Faceling?"

"Yea, she's a Faceling: a humanoid entity native to the Backrooms." said Cole. "Don't ask me what exactly a Faceling is I'm a doctor not a scientist. She's an adult False Faceling, quite a rare specimen. She has most of her facial features intact," he said, looking at her completely white right eye. "Dare I say she's a very beautiful young woman, you're a lucky guy with such a beautiful travel partner, and a strong one at that."

"There's other kinds of Facelings: Polygonal facelings, Shadow People, and Pink Dress Facelings: those little devils." he said. "I'm trust that you know what I'm talking about." said Cole, listing off different Faceling types.

"I know exactly what you're talking about, the two of us killed dozens of them in our time here. We also killed a lot of other creatures, and she'd usually be able to kill everything. For some reason though, she somehow knew she couldn't fight that Smiler thing."

"Yeah, you two definitely can't take on a Smiler-level threat, or anything above as of right now," said Cole. "You two came in here woefully unprepared." he said. "If you just decide to wander the Backrooms like this, you'll probably die to another Smiler, and this time we won't be able to help. Or you'll die to the Partygoers, the Follower of Jerry, the Eye of Argos, or even worse, an Antiduller. We even have the Nazis and the Ku Klux Klan in some levels of the Backrooms." Hayden cringed at the last statement.

"If I should be more prepared, where is the nearest Taekwondo studio? Which level?" asked Hayden. "Come on, I was supposed to get my black belt by now! I'll get my Black Belt, i'll fight the fuckin final boss, also kill all the Nazis and coneheads on my way out, and I'll escape this fucking place!"

"Hahahaha, first off, I find it hilarious that you think having a black belt will prepare you!" said Cole, using a typewriter to jot down some notes. "I took Kung-Fu as a kid too," he laughed. "If you really wanna find a studio, Level 1, Level 3, Level 4, and Level 11 have pretty large M.E.G bases." he said. "Also you passed by Level 1, the largest base is the B.N.T.G Trader's Keep- one of ours actually." he said. "This base is just a little outpost in comparison, all the stuff is down there."

"As for the escaping part. Everyone's always talking about escaping: ways to get out, the end to the Backrooms, what they're gonna do when they finally leave, but there's no confirmed way out. Be prepared to stay here for the rest of your life," said Cole. Hayden flew into a blind rage and threw his book.

"BULLSHIT! I PROMISED I WOULD TAKE ROSE OUT OF HERE AND SHOW HER EARTH!" shouted Hayden, throwing his pencil. "SHUT THE FUCK UP! ASSHOLE!" he roared.

"Typical kid-" muttered Cole under his breath. "Accept it, there is no way out of here, we're are in this place for the rest of our lives!" said Cole. "Also, think of your plan for a second- we in the B.N.T.G might accept her presence because we live in a world full of entities, but on Earth?" he said. "Think- what would they do with a nonhuman entity. She'll be locked up in Area 51!"

"Calm down kid, there are some nicer levels, it's not all that bad down here. There are some nicer levels. Level 9.1, Level 27, Level 48, Level 63, and Level 140. Then there's Level 11 which is a city, you could very well live there for the rest of your lives." he said. Hayden was not having it.

"FUCK YOU! GO FUCK YOURSELF YOU BITCH!" roared Hayden in a blind rage, he ran towards Cole with the intent to kill him. Rose immediately snatched Hayden from behind and wrangled his writhing body in her arms. He swung around like a little toddler. "I'M GONNA FUCKING KILL YOU!" he hollered, kicking. "ROSE, LET ME GO AND KILL HIM! HE'S SO FULL OF SHIT! HE'S A FUCKING LIAR!"

"Rose, take your little man out of here. I need to write your notes out so that you two can survive in here," said Cole. Rose nodded and carried Hayden out effortlessly. He kicked and flailed around in her arms like a misbehaving toddler.
. . .

The Backrooms: they are a place beyond our reality. One could enter the backrooms by no-clipping from reality in several ways, interacting with corrupted objects, falling through the floor, or entering through weak points in reality like what Hayden did. Nobody knows what the backrooms is: some believe the Backrooms is a universe which had collided with ours, while others believe it's an endless nightmare and everyone in it is in a dream. All that is known is that there is no escape.

There are many levels in the Backrooms. Level 0: the mono-yellow office, Level 1: the concrete warehouse, and Level 2: the dangerous maintenance tunnel, and hundreds of other level beyond those. Dangerous entities inhabit these levels and threaten to kill all wanderers, yet the people stranded in here have made a life for themselves: Hounds, Facelings, Skin-Stealers, Smilers, Wretches... They all want to kill you.

Hayden had to accept that he was going to spend the rest of his life here: he was going to die in the Backrooms. However, this didn't change his goals of survival. He was still going to do whatever it takes to survive.

. . .

"Hi yah!" shouted Hayden, swinging. He had begun Taekwondo practice with Rose, it's been weeks since he practiced, and he felt that he neglected it long enough. They practiced by sparring with broomsticks, and Hayden also showed her some Taekwondo moves.

The two of them wore different outfits. Rose wore a black hat with long bunny ears and bat wings, and she also had a black shirt with long white sleeves. She had a black pleated skirt, a corset, and leg warmers with X patterns stitched together by white shoelaces. She had weighted gloves and boots which did more damage to anything she punched or kicked.

Hayden wore a matching male version of this outfit. He had the same hat, same shirt, same gloves, same leg warmers, but also a pair of cargo pants and a gray hand-knitted scarf. He made the entire thing himself from pieces of cloth he found on Level 1.

They practiced in an empty room in the Office Space EL3A settlement. The whole place was a network of office blocks partitioned into housing units for the Backrooms Nonaligned Trade Group, or the B.N.T.G. In the center of the place was a smaller-than-average warehouse. This outpost held a large inventory of supplies which are to be dispersed among other communities in the Backrooms. Sometimes, the AC would fail for hours at a time, sending temperatures soaring to 95 degrees just like the rest of the level, but this was one of the most well-lit and comfortable areas.

"Good practice," said Hayden, huffing. Rose handed him his canteen of almond water and regular water- ice cold, and he drank. "Come on Rose, let's take a break. Sit down and let's plan our stay here, we need to plan the rest of our trip." he said, short of breath.

"Hey!" said Cole. Hayden jumped, spitting out his almond water.

"Jesus fuck Doc! You scared me!" said Hayden. "Anyways, what the hell is going on?"

"I finished writing your notes," said Cole. "It should include all the large settlements that you might wanna visit, and also some of the nicer levels you might want to stay on should you ever stop adventuring." he said, flipping through a stack of papers. "Oh also, you left your notebook in my office when you had a temper tantrum," he added, Hayden scowled.

"Do you have any Earth stuff?" asked Hayden, wiping sweat off his forehead with a towel. He took the notebook and the stack of papers.

"What do you mean by that?" asked Cole. "Earth stuff."

"Do you have any Earth stuff: Pictures of Earth, a map, anything like that. If I can't take Rose to Earth like I promised, fine. But I'll take her to all the levels, that way she'll get the full Earth experience. It'll be just like visiting Earth one level at a time, less tourists and more weird entities out to kill us." said Hayden. "Also I want anything, like a mini-globe or a map, or a travel atlas, and a camera I can print stuff off of if you have it."

"You know Hayden, you're a really good boyfriend. I'll check the storage room if we have any maps, we probably do." said Cole, He left.

'..I am WHAT?" roared Hayden, sorting through the notes. "Whatever, this guy gets on my NERVES," he hollered. He took out his duffel bag, took out a pair of scissors and a glue stick. He cut around the notes and pasted them into his notebook like a third grader. The notes were all typed out neatly on a typewriter.

"Hey Rose, look over here," said Hayden, holding a note. Rose came over to take a look. "Let's go to Level 3, 4, and 5 next." he said. "Level 3 has a lot of good supplies but it's super dangerous, we can survive it though. There's hounds, facelings, wretches, deathmoths, skin-stealers, dullers, clumps, bursters... Shit, Smilers too." he said. "Same stuff as here, just more of them."

"Oh wait," said Hayden, reading over the notes again. "It says there's both male and female deathmoths. The females... Shit they can spit acid." snapped Hayden. "And we have to deal with the Followers of Jerry as well? Who the fuck is Jerry?" he asked.

"Rose, we're gonna need new weapons for this." said Hayden. "Apparently on Level 3 there are larger supply bases than this. Hopefully someone from M.E.G or the B.N.T.G knows how to forge a sword for you, and a spear for me." he said.

Chapter 12 - January 24 2020

Level 2 - Office Space EL3A:

Class 1

Safe

Secure

Minimal Entity Count

"Doc," said Hayden. "Do you know anywhere I can find a blacksmith on Level 2 or Level 3? I need to make Rose a sword, and I need a better spear for myself," he said. It was lunch time in the Break Room. The food in this base was good, even for Frontrooms standards: better than the food at Hayden's school.

"Wait Rose, weapons come first before Martial Arts training, right?" asked Hayden. Rose nodded and held her thumbs up. "Yeah, order of business is to get better weapons and then to get my black belt!" he said.

"I dunno, Karate Kid!" said Cole, laughing. "I'd check the M.E.G base on Level 3. A lot of bases on that level, but they're spread quite thin because it's such a large place: 350 million square miles. You'll be travelling for days to get anywhere, and there's a lot of entities. Come prepared, expect to fight alone without any help."

"...350 million square miles- god damn." said Hayden. "How the hell am I supposed to walk through this level or find anything?"

"We have a radio system in most levels, and most levels are partially mapped out by M.E.G. Go to the nearest M.E.G or B.N.T.G base- we have a good relationship with the M.E.G and they're willing to help anyone in the Backrooms. Just stay away from all the dangerous bases, and don't fight Smilers head-on like last time." said Doc. "We're going to give you the necessary supplies once you leave. The B.N.T.G is mostly centered around trade, and M.E.G is centered around establishing order in the Backrooms, so pick which one you want to go align with."


Chapter 13 - January 25 2020

Level 2 - Office Space EL3A:

Class 1

Safe

Secure

Minimal Entity Count

Rose and Hayden packed their bags: sleeping bags, firesalt, smiler exterminator fluid, medical supplies, and food. They reviewed their notes and looked through their supplies once again before they went to bed.

"Alright remember, Level 3. Find an unlocked door. We'll either end up on Level 3 or Level 4. We'll have to skip Level 6 at ALL costs or we'll die." said Hayden, going over his notes. Cole knocked on the door.

"Come on in Cole!" said Hayden, shouting. He packed his notebook away. "We're about to go sleep, is there anything you need?" he said.

"The Earth stuff you wanted." said Cole, opening the door. He reached into his bag and took out a travel atlas with a map folded into it. Hayden's eyes lit up with excitement. He began flipping through the pages.

"Thank you Cole!" said Hayden. "Hey Rose, let's read this!" he said, sitting back on the bed. Rose picked Hayden up and sat him on his lap. He looked through the books until he found his own city. "This is the city in which I grew up in: Philadelphia! I can't take you there since we're stuck in the Backrooms, but I'm sure Level 11 will be a lot like Philadelphia." he said.

"Wait, come to think of it, I forgot to ask if you know how to read or write, since you're a faceling after all," said Hayden. Rose shook her head. "Alright, let's start with this page..."