The Backrooms

Psychiatric work, the toughest fucking job i've ever worked. Poor souls don't deserve what they have happening to them, divine judgement blindly aimed towards the innocent. Funny thing is that you can always tell if someone is unlucky or traumatised by events. Despair lingers in their eyes, the event corrupts their brain like a tumour.

This was no different for Emily either.

Despair was too light to describe what she had in her soul, fate was beyond cruel with this woman, I have seen people who have witnessed the most gruesome things imaginable by the most twisted humans minds. She looked more distraught than even them.

"Hello, Emily" I politely said to her. Ignoring me, she sat down. "What may I help you with?" Y'know, all the generic shit you say to someone with the potential to harm you or themselves. "Are you like the others?" She spat out in a terrified pitch of voice, "will you just, fucking disregard me and call me crazy if i tell you? Don't call me insane, please don't"

My brain took a while to process this, she seemed crazy, was she crazy? Who knows? I'm not allowed to be rude anyway.

I gently reassured her that it was alright, she could tell me what her issue is and it would stay in between me and her.

Fate is a funny thing, she showed up to me, traumatised, paranoid, a danger to herself right before this whole chain of events happened. If she died at home or in there, everything would be different. Since you are reading this, that obviously didn't happen.

"Please, Emily. Tell me the problem," reluctantly came out my mouth.

"The rooms..." was her simple response. Short answers were never helpful, but were never rare either.

"Can you elaborate for me?"

She took a deep breath, shakily exhaled and told me what she mean't

"A week ago, I was tired after a party, I was slightly drunk, so i decided I wanted to fall asleep" she began

I thought maybe she got drunk, slept around with a guy who she regretted sleeping with due to the fact it isn't too uncommon for this to happen to teenagers such as Emily.

Never before have I said this, but I wish this was the case.

"When i got home," she continued, "I collapsed on my bed and shut my eyes for 3 seconds..." 3 fingers were held up by her for emphasis "3 fucking seconds"

Patting her on the leg, asking her to breathe, all that got her to continue with a shaky voice.

"I didn't fall asleep, I didn't wake up, I ended up in a room, with a dark yellow glow, the lights were bright and radiated an eerie hum."

"Were these the rooms you mentioned of before?" I cut in to ask her, confirming my suspicion, she carried on.

"Quickly, I managed to gain control of my body. Examination of the area didn't point to any exits or any sign of life, time felt messed up, I felt loopy, light headed."

'What the fuck? Does she seriously believe that she mystically teleported to a different dimension?' Was my immediate thought. Although she seemed completely serious.

'Fuck it, might aswell listen to her, give her anti-depressants and ask her to come back after month'

"Screaming for help was barely louder than the hum produced by those fucking lights. With no other choice, I began to walk. Walking through hundreds, no, thousands of hallways produced déja vu. All of them looked the same, bright yellow wallpaper, some with darker patches of wall or mould."

"Wait." I stopped her to ask. "You walked through thousands of hallways, how long would that have took you?" I was told that it probably took her 16 hours to walk along this hallway 'despite the fact it felt like an eternity'.

"The layout was always the same, 20 offices on either side of the walls, all with no work or even paper on the desks, barely lit in stark contrast with the blindingly lit halls. Then, the offices stopped, you would turn a left to pull open a double door and continue this whole fucking cycle again over and over again."

Writing this down on my computer, she burst into tears suddenly, I thought the trauma came from repetition of this fucked up dream she had. Endless hallways, much like chinese water torture, would bring any sane person to the brink of madness. I was only partially right.

"I heard a tapping in one of the offices, in a human rhythm." Tapping on the desk, she continued. "Rushing to the office, shouting 'are you okay', i came across that fucking creature..." her leg started bouncing she started hyperventilating. I begged her to calm down to no avail.

"Its neck bent to its arm, it had no face, its legs were like a dogs, it was inhuman." She put a picture on my desk and, with even more panic in her voice, screamed "It fucking snapped backwards, i could here it say two simple fucking words...

'Get out'

Managing to calm her down again, I asked her for more details, she pulled out a drawing of the creature.

An hour had passed at this point, so I wrote her a note for Xanax and Prozac for 'anxiety and possible Post-traumatic Stress Disorder induced nightmares' and requested she saw me in a month.

Emily repeatedly thanked me for not calling her crazy. At the time, I thought she was, but I smiled, told her it was no problem, and we went our seperate ways.

I would never see her again, she must have went back, as she was found dead from a Xanax overdose in her home, with a note saying "never let me go back to the rooms."

Upset, I faked an illness to stay off work. Maybe if I hadn't give her the Xanax, she would still be here.

Trying to distract myself didn't work, it didn't matter what I did, I decided to just sleep as I had nothing better to do anyway.

As I layed down to sleep, I closed my eyes for 3 seconds.

Without falling asleep, or waking up, I found myself in a yellow hallway with blinding lights that produced a violent hum...