Ayo! Sorry I'm late, I had a long day of doing things that didn't end up amounting to much. Fun times! Anyway, I won't let you wait any longer; let's DIVE right in!

...Get it?

Wait, that joke only makes sense after you read this. Uh... look! Under the note! It's a cool and epic chapter! See you at the bottom of the page!

Go With the Flow (phrase): Accepting a lack of control over a situation, and allowing whatever happens to happen

At some point, the water had become shallow enough that it only went up to Rupert's ankles, but aside from that, absolutely nothing of note had happened for what felt like hours. It made him feel frustrated, tense, and impatient. The texture of the tiles under his fingertips as he walked along the narrow hallway made his hand feel numb, and the monotony of wading through the shallows in almost total silence nearly caused him to nod off once or twice.

Gadget Gabe had been checking in on him every so often, but it was evident that he was also displeased with Rupert's lack of progress. He couldn't be sure, but he was pretty sure Gadget Gabe was napping on the other side of the walkie-talkie. Honestly, could he blame the little freak? His own lack of sleep was working against him, hence why he'd braced his hand against the wall for so long. If he slipped and fell in the water, Gadget Gabe would throw a massive tantrum, and frankly, Rupert couldn't bear the thought.

He was about to give up- there was clearly nothing here, and surely Dave would have gone back way before now- but just as he was about to make the call, he stopped to brace himself more firmly against the wall. He glanced down and noticed that the water was actively flowing. It streamed quickly in the direction that he'd been going... which didn't make sense. Wouldn't shallow water mean he was going up an incline, and thus make the water flow the opposite way? Rupert had no idea, but it was something different, which was enough to convince him to contact Gadget Gabe again.

"GG, this is Price, do you copy? Over."

There was a long pause. Rupert made to press the button again when the device made a series of staticky noises, followed by some crunchy yawning and snorting. "This is Gadget Gabe, yes. What is it?"

"Minor development: the water seems to be flowing in the direction I'm headed. It's fast, but not too fast. I think there might be something close by. Will keep you posted, over."

Gadget Gabe hummed tiredly. "Carry on, but you'd better hope that you're right; Gadget Gabe is getting tired of waiting."

"You and me both," Rupert muttered. Just before he could return to his normal speed (he'd slowed down to concentrate on balancing while talking), he stopped short. The path in front of him... it was distant, but he was certain that the endless hallway finally ended just a couple meters ahead. And if his eyes weren't playing tricks on him, there was something much bigger through that exit.

He hurried a little faster, trying his best to keep his balance; even the water seemed excited for a change of scenery, and was streaming even faster towards the end.

"Bloody hell…" Rupert wasn't sure what he was looking at; it was just so bizarre. It seemed that the hallway he'd been walking through was a suspended waterway of some kind. The hall stopped short in the middle of the air, letting a thin waterfall stream into a much larger pool below. Every surface was still covered in those same white tiles, but strange structures seemed to be dotted all over the place: platforms, stairs (some of which were upside down), and… was that a bloody water slide?

The sight was incredible... but it was also incredibly pointless.

He groaned and turned on the walkie talkie. "GG, this is Price. The hallway opens up into this big space, but the only way I can keep going this way is if I jump off a ledge and into a body of water that is definitely too deep to walk in. I can't keep going. I have to turn back."

The sound that the walkie talkie emitted in the wake of this information was a perfect description of what Rupert was feeling: a strained groan that bordered on screaming, interspersed with grumbled swears that Rupert couldn't identify, nor did he care to. If he could be making that same noise, he would. All of that walking- nearly three hours based on his last check in with Gadget Gabe, plus however long he'd been going after that- all for nothing! He couldn't imagine Dave throwing caution to the wind and taking a leap of faith into a seemingly bottomless pool. In fact, with Rupert's luck, Dave had probably never even come this way. Or if he did, he'd turned around and gone to the right of the stairs instead of the left, meaning Rupert just wasted valuable time over nothing. It was infuriating.

Without waiting for a response from Gadget Gabe, Rupert turned around to begin trudging back to square one. He was exhausted. The combination of poor sleep, hours of nothing, and the struggle of walking through water of various depths was making his footsteps unsteady. The third time he almost slipped, he realized something.

"GG, this is Price. I... think the water is moving faster."

"...What?"

"The water" Rupert repeated, "it's moving faster." In fact, he could almost feel the current of the stream pushing him back towards the waterfall, especially when he stopped moving. "I think something's changed."

"Hmm," Gadget Gabe said boredly. "Is it the Backrooms that have changed, or is it you that has changed?"

Rupert blinked several times. "...Excuse me?"

"You've been traveling in the same direction for four hours now," he explained. "It's possible that your mind is tricking you into thinking that the water is going faster than before. Human brains often create their own means of entertainment, in the event that they're under-stimulated."

Rupert felt his brow twitch. "Are you calling me crazy?"

"You said it, Gadget Gabe did not."

He grit his teeth. "I'm not going crazy!" He snapped, squeezing the walkie talkie hard enough to make the plastic creak. "The water's moving faster; I'm not- WHOA!"

His foot slipped out from under him and he landed in the water, just barely turning his head in time to avoid breaking his nose. The walkie talkie made a watery, gravelly noise, the speaker dripping with water. Rupert cursed and pressed the button again. "GG, this is Price, do you read me? Price to GG, do you copy?"

Somewhere in the thick layer of wet static, Rupert could hear Gadget Gabe swearing up and down again, none of it comprehensible through the ruined walkie talkie. Rupert growled and tried to climb back to his feet, but each attempt was pointless. The water was actively pushing him away. In fact-

Rupert startled when he realized that that wasn't an exaggeration: the water was moving so fast now that despite its shallow current, it was strong enough to drag his whole body across the floor... and straight towards the drop he'd been trying to walk away from.

Scrambling for purchase, Rupert managed to turn his body sideways and brace himself with his arms and feet on either side of the hall, slowing down his movements significantly but subsequently presenting a new problem: since he was putting all of his strength into not moving, he couldn't even begin to crawl back the way he came, let alone the literal four hours it had taken for him to get to this point. And without his walkie-talkie, he had no way of connecting with the real world.

He was trapped.

Rupert yelled at the floor in frustration. Of course; just his luck that he'd manage to get so close to saving Dave, only for blood gravity to join in on the universe's scheme to make him a failure.

How could things possibly get even worse?

A low rushing sound drew Rupert's attention to his right, away from the waterfall, where he saw something completely inexplicable: something was rushing towards him at an increasing speed, getting louder as it approached. It was like a wall was barreling towards him, or a-

A wave of water.

Rupert had just enough time to shout, "What the-?!" before the wave crashed right into him, knocking him loose from his power grip and sending him flailing past the ledge and down into the pool below. He tried to swim up as soon as he hit the water, but the weight of the torrent splashing from above was forcing him to sink like a stone. He struggled to swim away, but the waterfall was like a weight, pushing him down and only down. He didn't have enough oxygen to keep fighting.

His vision faded to black, but as it did, Rupert could have sworn that large shadows were swimming in the dark water around him. Circling and circling and circling, like sharks did with their prey.

Well, to be frank with you, Rupert, you literally said "how could things possibly get worse", so everything that happened after that is completely on you. Sorry; I don't make the jinx rules.

Welp, as far as anyone in the real world is concerned, Rupert's dead. It's not like they can find him to prove otherwise; not anymore. At least Gadget Gabe got a little bit of useful data out of it, right? At the end of the day, that's all that really matters!

*people throw tomatoes at me and I die*

Anyway, I've got to go to BED. Leave a comment and let me know what you thought of this one! I'll see you next Monday; until then!