I lay on the ground, feeling more out-of-it than ever. Surrounding me was 48 Almond Water bottles, all fully drunken out of. Almost, all fully drunken out of.
"3 more..." I I woozily tell myself.
I look back to Elias to see how much progress he's made.
0
0 progress. HE STOOD THERE FOR A GOOD 45 MINUTES, AND HALF-DRANK LIKE 1 OF HIS BOTTLES.
"Are you telling me you stood there for like 45 minutes, doing literally nothing but aiming at that last light bulb...?"
"Yes...." He says, in full concentration.
I was on the verge of slapping him across the face as hard as I humanly could. This guy did literally nothing for the past few minutes. Literally nothing.
I looked over to Leo, and he looked ok. Looked like his fear passed by. He had drank his bottle then went to sleep.
How were they so calm in a moment like this? Were literally about to die yet 1 one of them goes to sleep and the other sits in complete silence for so long. Maybe I was stressing out to much? I guess I could learn a thing or two on calming down from them. Maybe.
"Wait I thought Leo would heal in 2-3 hours it's been a few minutes." I say confusedly.
"Maybe the Almond Water will help?"
"I thought you said it wouldn't."
"I did?"
"Did you?"
"I don't know that's why I asked you."
"You said you knew this level though."
"I do... I think so..."
"Maybe you just forgot."
"Yeah I am a forgetful person."
"Whatever, a few more minutes until you shoot that light bulb.
"Yeah, like 5, it's been 45 minutes."
"Wait... 45 minutes...?" I say in thought.
"Yeah... There are 5 light bulbs." He says as he looks beside him. "45 minutes means that 4 light bulbs have already exploded... Leaving THIS ONE LEFT!" He says as he goes back into full concentration.
"Know that I doubted you before, but this moment is going to decide whether or not we live or die. I hope you were right about you being good at aiming..." I say in fear.
"Don't worry, I was." He responds.
I head over to wake Leo up.
"Wake up. Leo. Wake up. Wake up Leo were probably gonna di- wake up Leo."
"Ok ok jeez I'm up. What's happening?"
He then looks at all the empty Almond Water bottles.
"You didn't..."
"I did. Now Elias is trying to shoot the last light bulb 0.1 seconds before it explodes, because apparently that'll take us to level 150."
"What's level 150 like?"
"We don't know, we'll have to go there for us to figure out."
"Alright guys, keep quiet, I need to concentrate-
Then, the last light bulb explodes.
"...."
"..."
"..."
"You missed your chance."
"I missed."
"YOU MISSED YOUR CHANCE YOU IDIOT!"
Then the place goes pitch dark.
"Turn on your flashlights!" Leo tells us.
We turn on our flashlights, and none of them work.
"Why aren't they working?!?!" Leo fearfully asks.
"Wait..."
I turn on my weapon to see what's happening.
(Eventually, after 50 minutes, the supposed 'safe area' will go completely pitch dark and the person will not be able to see anything whatsoever. Not even flashlights or other sources of artificial light will work in this particular instance. Roughly one minute after that, the tall brown fence containing the darkness will suddenly burst into flames and quickly disintegrate into a few piles of ashes. Once the fence can no longer contain the extremely hostile outside environment, its dark energy and power seeps into the previously safe section of the level. At this point, all hell breaks loose, and the wanderer can now hear an incredibly loud rushing sound. And approximately 5 minutes after the lights went out completely, a massive wave of boiling water will sweep the wanderer away, killing them within the hour.)
Just then, the fence bursts into flames.
"Oh no... What d'ya think is behind the fence?!" Leo asks.
"I don't know... But stay on guard." I reply to him.
I aim my weapon at the burning fence, and Leo and Elias aim at it a bit after.
Were sitting there, staring at the fence, waiting for the fire to clear up. We can hear whatever is outside trying to make its way in.
"That doesn't sound like something we can handle..." Leo says.
The noise gets louder and louder, and I see a black figure making its way to us.
"ELIAS DRINK THE BOTTLES ALREADY!" Leo says.
We then forcefully chug both bottles down his throat. (Not the bottles, but the water.)
We noclip through the floor as he chokes on the water.
<><><>
We land through the floor, landing on a medium-sized swamp.
"Ugh... Are you guys ok?" Leo asks.
"Yeah I think so."
"Wait a minute... Couldn't we have just noclipped through our weapons...?" I ask.
"Well... We don't know how dangerous whatever level we would have noclipped is. Were still scouting out the backrooms, and these weapons were updated like this just a few months ago, they're still broken, and can go "haywire" during noclips sometimes."
"What do you mean "haywire?"
"As in even if we do have a designated level we want to noclip to, it may take us to another random level, and some reports have reported that they take us to... The Void..."
"What's the void?"
"Simple. A void. The void is a "level" in the backrooms that is an empty, black void. The void has various entrances through other levels and even the Gamemakers have the power to send you there if they want to. So many M.E.G. soldiers have fallen into the void, and we've never heard from them again. These weapons have proved to noclip people there sometimes, so it's a risk using them to noclip."
"Maybe if we knew this earlier we wouldn't have picked these guns up. Why didn't you tell us?" Leo asks.
"For that exact reason, these weapons have proved to be our strongest long-range weapons we've ever made, and since we haven't charted all levels or entities, the best option would be to attack them from afar. Melee weapons are too risky."
"So there was no point in picking up this knife that can cut through anything?" I say.
"Well, it may help in terms of surviving a level's environment, and exploring, so no."
"Oh, ok."
"But, let's continue."
"Where are we?" Leo asks.
(Level 66 appears as a swamp, similar to the Florida Everglades. This Level has a large amount of entities, with special Death Rats that swim in the swamp water. It is hard to navigate this Level, as there are no pathways. Isolation is common, but drinking enough Almond Water can help. The swamp water seems to be especially disorienting, so it is possible to enter the Wretched Cycle. It is not recommended to drink it. The Entities in this Level are Death Rats, Wretches, Skin-Stealers, Camo Crawlers and Deathmoths. There are also Alligator Entities, which remain unnamed. These entities will act like a normal alligators, with the exception of being faster, stronger, and having spikes on their backs; this makes them very dangerous. Fortunately, the Entities get distracted by the Death Rats, but it's advised to avoid the alligators at all cost regardless.)
"What are death rats? Wretches? Or Camo Crawlers?" Leo asks.
"I don't know..." Elias responds. "The only entities we know from that list are death rats and wretches. Death rats are rats with red eyes that will kill you in packs from the inside and will eat you afterwards. Wretches are just insanities, insanities are wanderers that have gone insane and are now just beings of flesh and pus that will attack you on sight." He adds.
"Well that sounds totally safe!"
"But it's not."
"You suck."
"What did I do?"
"Guys, guys. Stop please. We don't know where we are, so let's go."
I wade through the swamp, trying not to accidentally fall in, with Leo and Elias behind me.
<><><>
A few minutes later, I see small splashes in the water.
"What was that?" I say warily.
"I don't know..." Leo responds.
"Wait, pull your weapons out, that could be one of the alligator's Anthony's weapon said lived here, and be quiet. We don't know where they could be." Elias says.
We all pull our weapons out, and stand quietly as we look around for the alligators. By the splashes in the water, it only looked like there was 1 alligator, good. We might be able to take him out easily.
The splashes get more distanced, but also closer as they become more frequent.
"Where is it..." Leo whispers to himself as he pulls out his flashlight.
He flashes the light onto the swamp, looking around for the alligator.
"... Wait... ANTHONY LOOK OUT-
The alligator then jumps out of the water, biting at my arm.
"AGH! HELP ME SHOOT IT DOWN!"
The alligator then drops to the ground as I pull out my knife and stab it in the back. I see the steam from the knife and the blood from the alligator as it screams and lets go of my arm.
I look onto my arm, a good chunk of my hazmat suit was taken off, and so was a bit of skin from my arm, causing it to bleed. Thankfully the hazmat suit saved me from a worse injury.
The alligator retreats back into the swamp.
"Are you ok Ann?" Leo asks.
"Yeah... OF COURSE NOT IT TOOK OUT LIKE A GOOD CHUNK OF MY SKIN!"
Elias then looks into his bag, and takes out some supplies. He takes out something and sprays it onto my arm, then wraps my arm with an arm wrap.
"Does that help?" He asks me.
"Not really. I guess?"
"Well, I don't have much left, hopefully your arm heals over time." He tells me.
"Well... Thank you."
"Your welcome."
Just then, the alligator jumps out of the water at Leo.
Leo quickly switches around and shoots the alligator multiple times in the face.
The alligator drops to the ground, and lays there dead on the ground, with blood dripping from multiple areas around his face.
"Is it dead...?" I ask.
"I shot him about 5times in the face with a laser gun, I think he's dead." Leo responds.
"Nice job, now let's get out of here." Elias says.
Then, we hear more alligators coming, and they sounded mad.
"Oh no..."
"Guys... RUN, FOLLOW ME!" Elias says as he dashes off.
We follow behind him, wading as quickly as possible through the waters, while the alligators chase after us.
Were all running as fast as we can, getting tired the farther we go. Leo is behind us, shooting as many alligators as he can.
"I see a nearby cabin! We're almost there!" Elias says.
We all make it up to the cabin and climb into it, with Leo shooting the alligators behind us. We all make it into the cabin and shut the door behind us, blocking the alligators from entering.
We hear them banging on the door as we block it with everything in the cabin.
---------------------------
"Just go through a tunnel!" I say as we disperse through different tunnels.
I run through the tunnel I entered not stopping as I hear the growls behind me getting closer.
"Dang it, where do I go?!" I ask myself as I look around.
There was nowhere to go! It was just a straight tunnel!
As I feel myself getting more tired and tired, I feel an earthquake beneath me, the earthquake was strong, as I lost my balance and was struggling to get up. The growls behind me seemed to still keep going.
"Come on... Don't give up now..." I tell myself as I drag myself across the quaking floor.
Eventually, the floor breaks, and I fall down lower.
<><><>
I fell at least the equivalent to 3 floors. With my state getting worse and worse the lower I go.
I make it to the ground again, injured. That fell combined with the earthquake, badly broke my arm, and the rocks on the ground scraped my leg a bit. I could still walk, but my right arm was out of commission.
"Ow..." I whisper to myself as I slowly get up.
I look behind me to see a few of the hound-like people chasing me, crushed by multiple rocks. They were bleeding and multiple limbs were scattered around that area. But just a few seconds after I noticed the bodies crushed below the rocks, the rocks retreated back up into the ceiling, and fixed it as if nothing happened.
"Well there goes my way back up." I tell myself.
I mean either way I wouldn't be able to go back up, in the current state I'm in.
I turn around and continue down the now darker tunnel, with my flashlight out in my other hand. The tunnel seemed to get darker the farther I go, and it eventually darkened to me just being able to see the light from the flashlight and whatever it was illuminating.
Eventually, I hear noises coming from inside the walls.
"What was that?"
I flash my light onto the wall, nothing. Just a wall.
The voices seemed to be differentiating, as if there were multiple people within the walls.
"Hello? Is anyone in there?"
The voices don't respond.
"Wait wait wait, I think I heard someone." A voice says.
I then hear the voices within the walls go silent, as they listen out for me.
"Hello? Is anyone in there?"
I then hear the voices whisper to each other, before promptly "breaking" the wall, letting me in.
I open my eyes to see multiple people, with multiple weapons in their hands.
"Who are you guys?" I ask them.
"Roanoke" One of them responds.
"Roanoke?"
"Yes, a colony. We live here."
"Oh."
I look around and see a lot of people, like maybe 30.
"This is a big colony."
"It wasn't before, we only had about 10 people before until everyone else came. We asked them why so many people are coming here, and they responded that levels of the backrooms are being taken over by some colony called the "Moth Cartel", and that the 'Cartel's killing everyone who gets in their way or is in a level they take over. Apparently the Moth Cartel's been getting faster and more aggressive, and are relentless."
No... The Moth Cartel's getting faster... I have to reunite with everyone else and tell them the news, because things are getting worse and worse the longer we spend.
"Thank you for telling me this." I tell the guy as I leave the colony.
I start running down the tunnels, going as fast as I can.
Until another earthquake occurs.
"Dang it..." I tell myself as I fall to the ground.
The floor breaks again and I fall another floor.
Instead of landing on rocks, I land on a human.
"Benjamin?"
"Avery?"
"Oh thank god!" I say as I hug him.
"Yeah!"
"Where is everyone?" He asks me.
"I don't know. After we separated we all went different ways, I haven't seen Ami or Elizabeth since. You look worried, what's wrong?"
"The Moth Cartel's attacks are getting faster."
"What? How do you know?"
"I found a colony in this level called "Roanoke" a guy told me that a lot of people retreated to this level because the one they were previously in got taken over by the Moth Cartel, apparently the Moth Cartel's attacks have been getting faster, and more aggressive. We have to tell everyone about this."
"Yeah."
We continue down the tunnel, until we come into an intersection again, this time with only 43 paths.
"Where do we go?" Benjamin asks.
I see a small flicker of light on one of the paths.
"Over there! Follow me and don't lose me!" I quickly say as I dash into the tunnel.
Thankfully, Benjamin follows me into the tunnel.
When I head into the tunnel, I see the tunnel being made. The tunnel literally fades into existence as I enter it.
"HEY! AMI! ELIZABETH?! IS THAT YOU GUYS?!" I exclaim.
"AVERY?! IS THAT YOU?!" Ami exclaims.
"YES! STAY THERE!" I respond.
We dash up to them, and like I expected, I saw them! Ami and Elizabeth were walking down the path.
"Avery! Benjamin!"
"Yeah! It's us!"
"I'm happy you guys survived." Elizabeth says.
"Yeah, me too." I say.
"But anyways, we have bad news." Benjamin says.
"What's wrong?" Ami asks.
"The Moth Cartel." He responds.
"So basically, I found a colony called "Roanoke" and according to them people have been escaping to different levels because the Moth Cartel's attacks have been getting more frequent and aggressive. So we need to find where everyone else is so we can plan on how were gonna stop the Moth Cartel." I say.
"Oh god..." Elizabeth says.
"Yeah, so we need to get out of this level, now."
We all point our weapons down, put them into noclip
"Were heading to level 106." Elizabeth says.
"But what if they noclipped to another level?" Ami asks.
"Let's just hope they didn't." Benjamin responds.
Then I get a sort of "call" on my weapon.
I pick up.
"Hey umm this is my first time trying this feature out but yeah you can call wanderers now." Leo says.
"Where are you guys?" Elizabeth asks.
"In level 66. We need you guys to noclip here because were kinda stuck in a cabin with multiple spiked alligators outside slowly breaking their way in, noclip to level 66."
"Good. Not you guys' situation, but this is a good chance to tell you guys something important, we'll tell you when we get there." I tell them.
"Umm cool, but PLEASE GET OVER HERE ALREADY!" Anthony exclaims.
"Ok, ok where on our way." I respond.
We input '66' on our weapons and head into the noclip portal. Falling through.
<><><>
We land in a dirty swamp, getting up as we look around.
"Is this the place?" Benjamin asks.
"I think so, but there's only one way to find out. We have to locate the cabin they said they were in." I respond.
We walk through the swamp, staring at multiple long branches, spiky bushes, and fallen-over trees.
"This place is creepy." Ami says.
"It is."
We then hear multiple growls coming from one direction.
"Wait, everyone stop." I say.
They all stop as I listen for the growls again. The growls seem to be getting more aggressive. I hear them from the left of us.
"Follow me!" I exclaim to them as I wade through the swamp to my left.
"Why are we going TOWARDS the growls instead of from them?!" Elizabeth says.
"Because I think those growls are after Leo, Anthony, and Elias." I respond.
As the growls get louder, I know were getting closer, and eventually, we make it to the cabin.
The door was broken down, and I could barely see them inside, blocking the door with everything within the cabin. Outside the cabin were these crocodile-like animals with spikes on their backs, all of them growling and scratching at the house, trying to get in.
"Get your weapons out, we gotta shoot these down." I quietly whisper to them.
We all get our weapons out and start shooting the crocodiles.
Some of the crocodiles still scratch at the door, while others turn around, noticing us.
"Run, RUN!" I say as I start running away from the crocodiles, while still shooting at them.
Everyone starts running from the crocodiles while shooting, trying to take them out before they reach us, but the crocodiles were fast in the water, like extremely fast in the water. Within seconds they had caught up to us and were attacking us.
Multiple crocodiles bit me, as I shot and stabbed them. I attacked them first, so they were all after me, with only 1 or 2 after Benjamin and Elizabeth, and now that I mention it... Where was Ami? I know that we didn't leave her... So where is she?
Just then, Leo, Anthony, and Elias start shooting the crocodiles down with Benjamin and Elizabeth. With Ami joining not long afterwards.
Eventually they got all the crocodiles off of me, and helped me up. I had multiple scratches and wounds from the crocodiles.
"Are you ok?" Leo asks me as he helps me up.
"Yeah... I think so..." I respond.
"No, no your not. Those guys did a number on you, come on." Elias says as he helps me into the cabin.
He lays me down on a chair and gives me a bottle of Almond Water, as he starts patching my wounds up.
"I'm happy you guys made it." Elias says.
"Yeah." I respond.
"Where were you Ami?!" Benjamin asks annoyed.
"I snuck out so I could tell the guys about the Moth Cartel issue, and help them out of the cabin so they could help us out."
"Well you could have been a bit faster." Elizabeth says.
"Yeah, sorry."
"So the Moth Cartel's attacks have been getting faster?" Anthony asks.
"Yeah, in level 34, we found a colony with a lot of people in it, because people have been retreating from safe levels to others because the Moth Cartel took them over."
"Oh, what was the colony?" Elias asks.
"It was called Roanoke, ring a bell of any sort?"
"Yeah.. I think so... I think I've heard of Roanoke before, they live in level 34, was the colony ok?"
"Yeah, but I fear that they won't have enough space for long."
"That's bad, we'll have to move faster then, we gotta find everyone else."
"Yeah."
Then Elias finished patching me up.
"You'll still be in pain for a bit, but hopefully it heals in a while."
"Ok, thanks."
"Your welcome."
I look over to see Anthony writing in his notebook.
(Anthony's POV)
I look over my notebook to see Avery looking at me writing in it.
Log Entry 34: To get caught up - basically we were split up into teams, we found each other, and now have 1 more team to find, (forgot what team number they were), but all I know is that we have to find Amani, Willow, and Rory. They should be in level 87, so were heading there next, in other news, the Moth Cartel's attacks are getting faster, and we seem to be getting slower. We have to find everyone else, and discuss how we're gonna catch up to the Cartel. I feel that things are getting worse and worse every second we waste.
I close up the notebook.
"Ok everyone, if I remember correctly, team 1, (I think) should be in level 87. Let's noclip there and we'll find them." Elias says.
"Ok." We all respond.
We put '87' in our weapons, point them down, and noclip through the level.
-----------------------------------
I wake up and head out my room to see Willow and Rory sitting down, talking.
"Oh, Amani, your up. Me and Willow were waiting for you." Rory says.
"Thanks," I respond as I look outside. The pink fog is still out there.
"Yeah, the fog was still out there when we woke up this morning. We still don't know what it is." Willow says.
"Let's just hope that nobody's out there right now."
"Yeah. But come on, we have to ask someone what the fog is supposed to be." I tell them as I start heading to the door.
We all exit the room and head downstairs to the reception room, and see wayy more people than before, and more receptionists at the desk.
"Hey- what's going on?" I ask the receptionist that gave us our room.
He was helping other people find rooms, and was multi-tasking by talking with me as well.
"I don't know, but ever since last night all these wanderers have been showing up. We've been working overtime."
I look at Willow, then to Rory.
"That's weird... Well, we came to ask you a question." Rory says.
"What is it?"
"What's with the pink fog outside?"
"Oh, the fog, it's called the Rose Fog, it rarely occurs every year, thankfully, though, if you do happen to get lost, you will be teleported to the position you were right before the fog began. It is rumored that you can see the spirits of your fallen loved ones in the fog, and when you get close to the spirits, they vanish. It is merely a rumor though. The event is supposed to last for about 7-10 minutes, but it's been lasting for a day or so, that can rarely happen though. So I guess we're lucky."
"Oh, and it doesn't hurt you?" Willow says.
"No, it doesn't." He says before going focusing on the new people entering the hotel.
"Oh, guess it wasn't a problem. Come on, let's go." I tell them as I head back into the elevator to our room."
Willow and Rory follow close behind me, as we head back to our room.
We eventually make it to our room, as we lay down on the couch.
"Where do you guys think everyone else is?" Willow asks.
"Probably in another level, speaking of... We should probably get going as well, we don't know if they found a safe level yet." I respond.
"Well, if they did, they probably would have noclipped here to get us, but they haven't yet, so I assume they are still searching." Rory says.
"Yeah, so we should all pack up and go." I say.
"Wait, I saw some strange buildings and heard of colonies in this level, we could maybe ask them for some useful information before leaving." Willow says.
"Yeah, I saw some too, we can check those places quickly before leaving." Rory adds.
"Oh, well ok then." I say.
After packing up everything, were all ready to go.
"Come on guys." I tell them.
We all head to the door, and immediately jump at the sudden sight before us.
"Elias?!"