THE BACKROOMS

THE PROLOGUE

"[NAME], come check this out."

You lazily peek open your eyes, tilting your head up from your current work to come to eye contact with your boss. His hair is shiny and slicked back, with a definite overuse of hair products in order to keep it that way. A big contrast between you two, as you don't put as much effort into your entire outfit as he did his hair.

He pulls out two files from behind his back, swiftly sliding them down onto your desk side by side. On the left, a pale yellow with five black dots in the middle. It smelled strongly of alcoholic marker and drugs. Ew.

On the right, a modern black folder. This one was not from their job, but rather someone else. it had yellow duct tape encasing it closed, written poorly on the tape with black sharpie "BACKROOMS".

Now this, this was serious.

"Unfortunately, because you're our best worker here, you are tasked with these cases." He looked down at you sharply. You couldn't decline this. Not unless you wanted to loose your job.

You sigh, reluctantly opening the folder on the left. It contained four records of different people linking to the same case. It very clearly wasn't in the best condition, as if someone was trying to keep these away from you, or your boss. But you shrug it off and take each one out, laying them side by side in front of you so you can examine each one individually.

Evan Adams.
22 Year old male.

He was last seen live on a viral interview, being questioned about the other disappearances. He was given no time to answer any questions, to much dismay, before a chandelier fell directly down onto him. When police arrived at the seen, there was no body. Shards of glass and remains of the chandelier were found, but absolutely no trace of Evan was ever found, and eventually the case was closed.

Charlie Kolt.
Unknown age and gender.

We have no records of Charlie's last appearance.

You read over the line again. What?

"How do we not know?" You sigh, looking up at your boss.

He hesitates for a second. "Supposedly when Charlie went missing, there were no witnesses nearby to see it. We don't have any theories of what happened, they simply just disappeared."

That can't be true.

You look back down at the photo of this so called Charlie Kolt. They look dead at the camera, a bored look plastered all over. It sends shivers down your spine, so you quickly switch to the next one.

Rei Young.

"...REI YOUNG?!" You exclaim in shock. One of the worlds most famous popstars worldwide. Missing. In the backrooms. Your boss hesitates, breathing shakily.

"There's no ▓▓▓▓▓▓ way that ▓▓▓▓▓▓ COULD ▓▓▓▓▓▓▓▓▓▓▓▓ YOU'VE GOT TO BE FUCKING ▓▓▓▓▓▓ TO ▓▓▓▓▓▓▓▓▓-"

what

Did you just cut out in real life?

"Okay, stop for a moment, if you just let me-"

"No, don't say anything right now." You skim through Rei's record, a video recording already available, which you'll definitely watch later

Pepper.
▓▓▓▓▓▓▓▓.

▓▓▓▓▓▓▓▓▓▓▓▓▓▓▓▓▓▓▓▓▓▓▓▓▓▓▓▓▓▓▓▓▓▓▓▓▓▓▓▓▓▓▓▓▓▓▓▓▓▓▓▓▓▓▓▓▓▓▓▓▓▓▓▓▓▓▓▓▓▓▓▓▓▓▓▓▓▓▓▓▓▓▓▓▓▓▓▓▓▓▓▓▓▓▓▓▓▓▓▓▓▓▓▓▓▓▓▓▓▓▓▓▓▓▓▓▓▓▓▓▓▓▓▓▓▓▓▓▓▓▓▓▓▓▓▓▓▓▓▓▓▓▓▓▓▓▓▓▓▓▓▓▓▓▓▓▓▓▓▓▓▓▓▓▓▓▓▓▓▓▓▓▓▓▓▓▓▓▓▓▓▓▓▓▓▓▓▓▓▓▓▓▓▓▓▓▓▓▓▓▓▓▓▓▓▓▓▓▓▓▓▓▓▓▓▓▓▓▓▓▓▓▓▓▓▓▓▓▓▓▓▓▓▓▓▓▓▓▓▓

You pause for a moment. "There is literally nothing on here besides a name and a shitty picture. Where is the last name?"

"Well, uh.. Nobody knows."

Nobody knows? What the hell is that supposed to mean? They just, don't have a last name? Find some legal documents or something, those always have it. That just... doesn't make any sense.

Your boss pulls a small sticky note with an address written on it, slapping it right onto the middle of Pepper's file and sealing it on there. "Pepper is the only one who hasn't gone missing. We're only relating him to the case because he's closely affiliated with everyone else. That's the address he supposedly lives at. Be careful though, he can be a bit... Aggressive." He looks away for a moment, before stepping back towards the door.

"I'll leave you to it. And good luck, because you'll definitely need it."

Click!