The Backrooms(Book 1)

Chapter 8

The day had finally come. At exactly 4:00 pm, after school, Lewis and I hopped on our bikes, racing through the streets with our chests pounding in excitement. Amanda joined us shortly after, coming from her school. We were going to uncover something big.

Lewis pedaled faster ahead of us, leading the way since he had studied the map meticulously. “We’re here!” Lewis yelled, skidding to a stop. We braked hard, our tires screeching to a halt in front of the old house.

Armed with flashlights and fueled by curiosity, Amanda, Lewis, and I cautiously approached the dilapidated house. The paint was peeling, the windows shattered, and an eerie stillness hung in the air, as if the very walls held their breath in anticipation.

“This is it,” I whispered, feeling a mix of fear and excitement. The adventure we had been waiting for was about to begin.

“This place gives me the creeps,” Lewis muttered, glancing nervously at the broken windows.

“I know, right?” Amanda added. “But that’s what makes it so interesting.”

With trepidation, we pushed open the creaking front door, revealing a dusty interior shrouded in shadows. The air was thick with the scent of decay, and the floorboards groaned beneath our weight as we stepped inside. Each step felt like a tentative probe into the unknown, and the groans and creaks of the old house echoed like faint whispers.

Exploring room by room, we discovered remnants of Mr. Hendrick's life scattered amidst the debris—old furniture, faded photographs, and forgotten trinkets.

“Look at this,” I said, picking up a dusty, framed photograph of a smiling family. Mr. Hendrick's, his wife and three happy children. He looked so different from the Mr. Hendricks we had seen at the asylum. This version was youthful and full of smiles. What had A-sync done to this man? “Do you think they were happy here?”

“Hard to say,” Amanda replied, examining a tarnished silver locket she had found. “But something definitely went wrong.”

As we ventured deeper into the bowels of the house, we stumbled upon a hidden door concealed behind a tattered tapestry. My heart pounded with excitement as Amanda pushed open the door, revealing a narrow staircase descending into darkness. We exchanged uncertain glances, the thrill of discovery mingling with a tinge of fear.

“This is it,” I whispered, feeling a mix of fear and excitement.
“You guys ready?” I asked, trying to keep my voice steady.

“Nope, not at all!” Lewis said, gripping his flashlight tightly but grinning. “But that’s never stopped us before, right?”

Amanda chuckled, shaking her head. “You’re impossible, Lewis. Let’s do this.”

Without hesitation, the three of us descended into the depths below, our flashlights piercing the blackness like beacons in the night. The basement was a labyrinth of dust-covered rooms and decaying memories. Each step we took seemed to stir up the past, the dust dancing in the beams of our flashlights.

Amanda, ever the keen observer, stumbled upon a hidden compartment concealed behind a crumbling bookshelf.

“Guys, check this out!” she exclaimed, her voice trembling with excitement.

With trembling hands, she pulled out a dusty tome bound in cracked leather. Intrigued, we gathered around as Amanda flipped through the pages, revealing cryptic symbols and arcane incantations. The book seemed to pulse with a strange energy, its secrets beckoning us to uncover them.

“Do you think it’s real?” Lewis asked, his eyes wide with curiosity.

“I don’t know,” Amanda said, her fingers tracing the intricate designs on the pages. “But it feels real.”

As we delved deeper into the mysterious book, we saw references to the Backrooms—a realm of infinite corridors and endless darkness, hidden just beyond the threshold of reality. The descriptions were vivid and haunting, painting a picture of a nightmarish place where one could become hopelessly lost.

“Listen to this,” I read aloud from the book. “‘Beware the endless halls, for they lead to nowhere and everywhere, trapping souls in eternal wanderings. And if you're not careful, and you no-clip out of reality in the wrong areas, you'll end up in the Backrooms, where it's nothing but the stink of old moist carpet, the madness of mono-yellow, the endless background noise of fluorescent lights at maximum hum-buzz, and approximately six hundred million square miles of randomly segmented empty rooms. God save you if you hear something wandering around nearby, because… it sure as hell heard you!’”

“Whoa, that’s seriously creepy,” Amanda said, her eyes wide with a mix of fear and fascination. “Can you imagine getting stuck in that place?”

Lewis shivered slightly, “Yeah, no thanks. I think I'll stick to getting lost in the school hallways. At least there, I can find a vending machine.”

I chuckled nervously, but the eerie descriptions lingered in my mind. “This is intense. If there’s any truth to this, we need to be really careful.”

“Careful is my middle name,” Lewis quipped, though his attempt at humor couldn’t hide the slight tremor in his voice. “Well, technically, it’s Eugene, but you get the idea.”

Amanda rolled her eyes but smiled. “Alright, Mr. Eugene Careful, let’s keep going. We have to find out more.”

With a mix of trepidation and excitement, we continued to explore the ancient tome, feeling the weight of its secrets pressing down on us. Fascinated and unnerved by the tales within the pages, we became consumed by the desire to uncover the truth behind the enigmatic Backrooms. Ignoring the warnings whispered by the townsfolk, we embarked on a quest to unlock the secrets of the abandoned house and the psychotic neighbor who had once inhabited it.

Our journey led us to forgotten libraries and dusty archives, where we pieced together fragments of a dark and twisted history.

“Look at this old newspaper clipping,” Amanda said, holding up a yellowed piece of paper. “It talks about a man who went missing after claiming he found a doorway to another dimension. And look at the bottom,” she pointed to the bottom of the page.

“A-sync” I read.

“This is getting intense,” Lewis remarked, his voice tinged with excitement. “We might be onto something big.”

Each new discovery seemed to draw us deeper into the mystery, the lines between reality and the supernatural blurring with each step. The more we learned, the more we felt the presence of the house and its secrets wrapping around us, pulling us inexorably towards the truth hidden in the shadows.

“Look. A journal” Amanda yelled. Pulling a dusty old book from the cluttered mess beneath us.