If You've Entered the Gallery, Read This Post First

I stuffed the supplies into my bag and wandered around for several hours. As expected, the space was absurdly vast.

According to the lore, the Backrooms spanned six hundred million square miles. Just hearing the number made it clear that exploring the entire place was impossible.

They say one of the three things even Chinese people can't do is tour all of mainland China. This place made that look like child's play.

When I'd just read the wiki settings, it had seemed so badass. Now I understood exactly what people meant when they said, "Horror tropes like trauma, TS, NTR, and yandere are fun because they're not happening to me…."

A comedy from afar, a tragedy up close. I really wished this had stayed a comedy.

Walking through the same scenery for hours was enough to give me mental illness I didn't even have. I'd heard that psychiatric isolation rooms were painted white to reduce visual stimulation. Would everything being white here have made it better? Probably not.

"Guess I'll check the terminal."

I sat down, leaning against a nearby wall. If this had been a proper liminal space version of the Backrooms, I might have unrolled a sleeping bag and lain down. But in an uncertain situation like this, that would have been suicidal, so I couldn't bring myself to do it.

The phone screen showed both "Out of Service Area" and "Data Usage Active." Could those two things even appear together?

"Calls are obviously dead."

112, 119, 113…

No matter which emergency number I dialed, all I got was that unpleasant electronic tone. I thought about trying other numbers, but there was no way a brand-new phone would have any saved contacts. I didn't even know anyone's number by heart.

Data seemed to work, but apps like NewTube and other internet services were completely unresponsive. The only thing left was a single app labeled Bureau Gallery.

"Finally, one last tip for all of you. Your Bureau-issued phone comes with a pre-installed anonymous bulletin board app."

Those had been Manager Kwak Choon-bong's final words during orientation. This had to be it. If even this didn't work, I'd truly be isolated here all alone. But if it did… if it worked, it might give me enough help to survive a week in this place.

Of course, I couldn't deny there was also the small part of me that was excited about gallery posting again—something I'd sworn I'd never do.

Was this how it felt to think, "I want to die, but I still want to eat truffle caviar mala xiang guo"?

"They said the censorship is strict, but as long as it works, I'll take it."

With that flicker of hope, I tapped the app icon with my finger.

"Ahhh…"

The painfully familiar UI greeted me like an old friend.

View counts and comment numbers were high, with new posts appearing every few minutes. I had no idea how many Bureau employees there were, but it was clear a significant portion of them were active gallery users.

"First things first. When you enter the gallery, you read the notices."

To be honest, how could anyone put up with that?

And in the gallery, you don’t actually start with the notices. You only look at them when you need an excuse to stab someone you don’t like or when you want to chew out the mods.

I kept scanning my surroundings as I read through the posts. The topics were all over the place. Everyday life stories, work-related complaints as the default, boss-bashing, mother insults, bait threads, reaction pics… The atmosphere was so free that it was hard to believe any censorship was happening at all.

"If this is what they call censorship, what exactly are they censoring?"

Were there people who periodically posted actual Bureau secrets?

After pondering it for a few minutes, my curiosity finally won out. I pressed the create post button.

Thanks to the power of clickbait, comments flooded in one after another. My phone wouldn’t stop vibrating.

If I’d gotten this much attention in real life, I might’ve even aimed for the gallery master title.

People seemed shocked to realize my post wasn’t fake. While similar comments kept pouring in, one stood out.

The comment had an orange badge in front of the username. There was only one thing that badge meant: the person who posted it was a gallery administrator—one of the head mods.

ㄴ (OP) ManagerBung(225.xxx): Okay okay okay

I showed my willingness to comply and clicked the notice. I normally refused to read notices on principle, but getting on their bad side and getting banned was worse. Sometimes you had to bend your principles.

"Iron-fist rule, huh…"

I guess you needed that level of tyranny to control people who faced all kinds of monstrosities. Following the notice, I changed my nickname.

In the meantime, the gallery had turned my story into the main bait thread.

I wanted to click on all of them except one, but avoiding a ban meant verifying my nickname first.

Leaving behind the warm reactions created by my grand gesture, I checked the most noticeable post I’d been putting off.

A fifty percent survival rate right from the first filter. This was basically lottery odds.

No matter where I turned, all I saw was the same irregular yellow scenery.

"Huh?"

When I looked back at the gallery, my last post was flooded with comments.

People were suddenly spamming urgent messages telling me to run. Startled, I looked around again, but there was nothing but the yellow scenery.

"Aaaaaaaaah!"

I sprinted back the way I came without looking back. Even as I ran, my phone kept buzzing with notifications. If this really was a prank, I could get angry later. Please, let it be a prank.

"Haa… haa… haa…!"

How long had I been running? My legs finally gave out and I collapsed. My breath came in ragged gasps that tasted metallic from lack of oxygen. My body was drenched in cold sweat and felt disgusting. I pulled a bottle of water from my bag and chugged it in one go.

"Haa…"

As my breathing returned to normal and my body began to calm, I looked around. The yellow scenery was exactly the same as when I first arrived. I checked the gallery again.

My bait thread was burning hot on the board.

"What the hell is this?"

It was the photo I’d casually taken and uploaded while writing the post. What should have been nothing but yellow scenery now showed something else. A black face that mainly appeared in dark places. The popular Backrooms monster with glowing eyes and sharp teeth.

"Smiler…"

One of the most popular entities among the creatures created in Backrooms-based fiction. And it was smiling brightly in the photo.