Hey, hey! I meant to post this earlier today, but uh... I forgor. It was only because I was watching a Backrooms video that I remembered I had this to post, but it's here on time! I won't keep you waiting; see you at the bottom of the page!

Surprise Party (noun): a secretly planned celebration for someone who does not know about it until they arrive; something that someone goes out of their way to set up just for the honoree

Upon waking, Dave turned on his side and threw up. It was mostly water, way too much water, and each choking heave sent lances of burning pain through his entire body. He sobbed between chokes as his stomach slowly emptied itself.

He trembled with effort and strain as he tried to remember what happened. He'd been dreaming; or he'd been drowning. The pain was muddling his mind, making him feel clumsy and uncoordinated as he struggled to string his thoughts together. His ears were ringing, too, and his tongue felt huge and fat, like he could choke on it. His vision was blurred.

After what felt like hours, things began to clear up around him. He was lying on a thin, dark blue carpet, patterned with tiny and confusing shapes that came in yellows, reds, greens, and pinks. It almost looked like confetti. The carpet stretched far beyond what he could see, barren of any furniture whatsoever. Wait, no- there was something up ahead, and it looked kind of like… a bounce house?

Dave forced himself to sit up, wincing through a pounding headache to look around. As he looked, his pain was slowly replaced with confusion, curiosity, and surprisingly, anticipation. The room- if it could even be called that- was huge, like a warehouse. The ceiling was far overhead, and he couldn't even see the walls. The yellow and red object he'd seen was, in fact, an inflatable bounce house, but it wasn't the only one.

In every direction he looked, inflatable attractions of all sorts were scattered randomly around the space. There were slides, climbing walls, miniature race courses, even what looked like an inflatable basketball court, and they were all big and colorful and blown up perfectly. The air machines attached to each attraction droned in a low, comfortable hum, and it smelled like plastic and grubby hands; a surprisingly happy scent.

Dave had heard of places like this. The wealthier kids in school came to these places for their birthday parties, and they were supposedly the best parties in the world. Dave couldn't afford such luxuries, and he was never close enough to the other kids to get invited, so the idea of coming to one of these places always felt like a pipe dream.

But now here he was, with the entire place to himself, despite all of the pain he'd just finished powering through. He felt… happy. Excited. Like a kid in a candy store, so to speak. And since he was here, with seemingly nothing to stop him from doing so, well…

Why not enjoy himself for a while?

The hype was real.

The giant slides weren't much of a struggle to climb, and the smooth and speedy trip down was well worth it everytime. The obstacle courses were just the right amount of challenging to make him want to try again and again, despite not keeping track of his times. And despite the lack of variety between bounce houses, Dave found himself going inside each one anyway, wondering if one of them was bouncier than the rest.

He was resting now, making random breathy giggles as he lay in the center of his most recent bounce house. Maybe it was silly to find so much enjoyment in this place, but Dave had been sad and afraid for so long that this was practically heaven. The one thing that would make this even better was if Rupert were here.

Rupert hadn't been able to afford places like this either, and though he always insisted that he didn't like the idea of a room full of plastic slides, Dave had always gotten the sense that he might have been a bit jealous of those rich kids. If Rupert were with him right now, they could have raced each other on the obstacle courses, competed to get the most hoops in the basketball court, and slid and bounced to their heart's content. They could be resting together, if Rupert were here. Dave could picture it perfectly: Rupert's arms wrapped around him protectively, strong, warm, and loving-

Dave's stomach jerked so violently that he sat up in shock, only to curl back in on himself. The pain was sharp, yet hollow, twisting inward as if trying to eat itself. Of course; he hadn't eaten anything for at least a whole day, and he just wasted so much time and energy on this frivolous crap!

He was starving to death, and it hurt.

He managed to crawl out of the bounce house, the aching, desperate need for food forcing him to keep going. He tumbled out of the entrance, knocking his head against the floor awkwardly, but too entrenched in his hunger pains to really notice. He needed to eat, he needed to eat, he needed to eat-

…Was that a cake?

There was a table, a fold out table that he somehow hadn't seen earlier, and on that table was a simple iced sheet cake. It was rectangular and blank, with a simple border of blue icing around the edge for decoration. There was even a chair in front of the cake with a shiny balloon tied to the back of it. A bright red paper plate and plastic fork sat neatly next to the cake as well, as if the whole arrangement had been set up especially for him.

Bewildered, Dave pulled himself into the chair and stared at the cake. It looked like something straight out of a grocery store bakery, prepped and ready to have a name and message written along the top. It looked so good… He'd put a forkful into his mouth before he could even begin to think it might be poisoned.

There was a light chill to it, as if it had been kept in the refrigerator. The chocolate cake was a bit dry, but the sugary sweet icing made up for it perfectly. It was absolutely delicious, and Dave kept eating, forgoing the plate completely as he shoveled cake into his mouth. He managed to eat several slices before he was full, but it wasn't an unpleasant fullness. It was satisfying, cozy and relaxing in a way that made him very, very sleepy.

He sighed in relief, leaning back in the chair with satisfaction. He had no idea how he hadn't seen the cake to begin with, but he was immensely grateful for it, like his guardian angel had decided to grant him a boon for his many, many, many trials.

Dave glanced back at the bounce house he'd been in moments earlier. He couldn't imagine a better bed to sleep in, though he felt a bit chilly now. It would have been nice if there was something to use as a blanket…

He looked back to the table and saw a thin, plasticky red table cloth draped halfway over it; he must have been too hungry to see it earlier. He dragged it off the table and into the bounce house, taking a moment to nestle into one of the grooves in the floor before closing his eyes. Things were finally looking up, and the humming drone of the air machines lulled him easily into a gentle, wonderful sleep.

Yay, nap time! Whee! Nothing weird or dubious going on here! WHEE!

I didn't get to go to inflatable party places often growing up, but I do remember having a ton of fun at them. It's a pretty good workout, too, if I recall: all of the climbing and rushing around got my heart moving aplenty. Imagine if they had places like this for adults to use; I'd exercise every day with a local place like this! Possibly. I hope. I'd like to pretend that I might do the fun, healthy, and responsible thing if I were given the chance. Too bad that chance will never come.

Is Dave acting rational here? Absolutely not, but given that he's been kidnapped, beaten up, dropped into an endless hallway, and nearly drowned, don't you think he deserves a break? If you went through all that and suddenly found yourself surrounded by bounce houses and cake, you'd probably let loose too. Don't deny it!

Sure is convenient that cake showed up when it did, huh? The balloon was a nice touch, too. Something special, just for Dave!

Anyway, I'm going to get back to the video I was watching. Leave a review and tell me what you thought of this one! I'll see you next week; until then!