The Abandoned Warehouse (2)
“W-what the hell?! ”
The web that had swallowed my arm crackled and wriggled.
Whatever it was, glittering faintly beneath the dim light like a sheen on water, was moving way too actively to call it a spider web.
Scratch, scratch, scratch, scratch-
It came crawling toward me with a gnawing sound.
“Aaagh, shit!”
I yanked my arm back without even thinking. If I tried to pull it out properly, I was pretty sure that thing would come with it.
The mannequin arm dropped to the floor, got chewed up by the writhing white mass, and then vanished.
“…Fuck, it got plumper. What the hell is wrong with these things?”
Looking closer, I realized it wasn’t a spider web at all, but millions of tiny white wormlike things wriggling like mad.
It reminded me of the shock I’d gotten the first time I saw a squat toilet as a kid.
The bloated white maggots didn’t have much mobility, so they didn’t come chasing after me or anything.
Instead.
“They’re building a nest… those lunatics.”
When the ones on the ceiling extended downward in long strips, the ones on the floor climbed up along them.
Then, as if splitting apart, they branched out into several pieces, spread wide, and returned to the shape of a spider web, freezing there as if nothing had happened.
“So all those webs are…”
There were several more behind me besides this one.
So I was supposed to get through all that and open the door?
After what I’d just seen, it wasn’t any different from telling me to shove my arm into a pile of maggots.
Fuck it, just throw a monster at me instead... I hate this so much...
I was shaking with pure bodily revulsion.
What made it worse was that there could be even more webs behind that door. I had no idea how far I’d have to go.
“Ah, fuck!”
Then I remembered the webs I’d passed on the way here and hurried back.
When I opened the door in a panic, the web from before had already reformed, though it was a little smaller than it had been.
For now, I needed to get back to where I’d started.
I spread the Thousand Hands again, wrapped them around the web in a snap, tore through it, and ran. The first room had been clear.
I only made it back after clearing three webs. Then I shut the iron door and staggered back.
“Fuck, fuck, fuck, this is seriously too much, you insane bastards!”
If zombies had shown up, I would’ve laughed and killed them.
If some monster that looked like an orc or a troll had come out, I’d have found the will to fight just so I could trade blows with it.
But maggots spinning spider webs while writhing all over the place?
Maybe I should just die.
But then again, if I was going to die, I didn’t want to be eaten alive by those things either, so even that sucked.
I really want a flamethrower.
If I’d had nothing but a can of bug spray and a lighter, I could’ve burned the things to death.
I searched the surroundings just in case, but of course there was nothing.
I was getting hungry, and there was no way to go back.
I should’ve just stayed put and listened.
I’d gotten cocky for nothing, and now I was about to starve to death.
I missed the Gallery. Especially Jemmin.
If it was Jemmin, who seemed to know everything, maybe he’d know this worm thing’s weakness too.
But in a warehouse with no electronics, the Gallery was impossible.
I was completely alone now.
* * *
“This isn’t going to work.”
I didn’t even have a clock, so I had no idea how much time had passed.
Whether I wandered around the warehouse or stood there blankly, I still couldn’t think of a way out of this mess.
No, that was a lie. There was one way.
Open the doors in front of me and keep going.
It sounded simple, but it wasn’t.
Plow through hundreds, thousands of maggot-webs and advance?
Anyone who could pull that off had to be some kind of anomaly.
Anyway, I’d need to at least move back to where I’d already been and search more thoroughly.
Sitting still by myself was driving me insane, and more than anything, I was starving.
I’d already eaten all the energy bars I brought, and I’d licked the coconut water bottle clean right down to the mouth.
The lights never went out, so my sense of time had been broken for ages. Even when I tried to sleep, I kept hearing that scratchy crawling in my ears, and I couldn’t sink into anything deep.
“Hoo...”
I let out a long breath and moved forward with the Thousand Hands spread wide.
The maggots pretending to be ordinary spider webs didn’t move until I touched them.
Holy hell, those things were method acting like crazy.
Should I try dodging through the webs?
They were dense enough that if even one strand brushed me, I was sure the whole thing would come crashing down on me like a net.
“Oh, a box.”
For convenience’s sake, I’d been calling the place I first arrived at Warehouse 1.
Past one door, in a corner of Warehouse 2, there was a box beneath a spider web buried under gray dust, like it had been sitting there forever.
Weapon or food!
Praying for anything useful, I quickly stripped the web away and tossed it far off with the arm attached to it.
I had to throw away two arms before I could finally get the box.
I shook the box hard just in case there were maggots inside.
“Drumroll, please- it’s time to unbox!”
I brought the box back to Warehouse 1 and set it down.
I didn’t know what might jump out, so I gripped my hammer tightly and carefully opened the box with a hand made by the Thousand Hands.
“Phew, just hardtack.”
Luckily, the box I found had food in it.
One box of hardtack.
It was hardtack, of all things, but I still tore into it to soothe my immediate hunger.
Once my stomach was a little less empty, thirst came right after.
It was dry and choking, and I forced down a mouthful of saliva just to get by.
“Wow, that’s one more suicide method right there.”
If I stuffed a whole bag of hardtack into my mouth, would I choke to death?
That was more humane than being buried under a mass of maggots.
No, fuck, get it together.
I had to get out of here alive.
Just because my childhood trauma had leveled up didn’t mean I should start thinking about dying.
Maybe I should just beat the hell out of all of them?
That thought got tossed out along with the memory of something popping and bursting under my feet.
Besides, how long would that even take?
Let’s check the other warehouses up to the third one for now.
I’d found food in Warehouse 2, so there might be more in the others.
With my stomach a little fuller and my strength back, I moved right away.
I spread the Thousand Hands deep, wound up the webs with a few quick motions, and then—thud.
After sacrificing two arms and tossing them far away, I opened the door to Warehouse 3.
Looking closer, there was a box in this corner too.
Webs blocked the way, but I cleared them the same way and lifted the box. It was heavier than I expected, which gave me hope.
On the way back, I saw the things I’d cleared from Warehouse 2 gathered together in a little mound.
They were already chewing through the arms and trying to build a nest.
I stopped walking and drew my hammer.
“Let’s do some popping candy ASMR.”
I was going to crush that trauma right here.
I couldn’t stay trapped here forever.
I might as well start by trimming away the edges, one by one.
As long as this wasn’t some loop format, there was still a chance.
“Hup!”
I spread the Thousand Hands to shield the front and brought the hammer down with a bang.
With a wet popping sound, white juice splattered everywhere.
What had been a little hill turned into something like milk porridge, all sludgy and disgusting.
The hammer was dripping too, which made me feel sick, so I recalled it immediately.
I’d taken out one of the two spider webs guarding the Warehouse 2 door, and then I grabbed the box and headed back.
I could check the results later.
As long as it wasn’t a loop.
Then I’d just deal with them one by one and keep moving.
“What’s in here, then.”
I shut the iron door and opened the box, and inside was a trove of bottled water I’d been desperate for!
I had no idea plain water could make me this happy.
I rubbed my cheeks like I’d just found an oasis in the middle of a desert, then twisted one open and drank it down right away.
Ah, sweet.
But... this isn’t some weird thing, is it?
Come to think of it, the existence of food in a Backrooms full of paranormal nonsense was questionable to begin with.
Still, the label was normal, and the brand was one I knew.
I couldn’t find anything especially strange about it.
Well, I’d already eaten the energy bars and coconut water in the shopping mall, so if those had been suspicious, something would’ve happened long ago.
Either way, if I didn’t have this now, I’d die the same way, so I figured I might as well die with a decent taste in my mouth.
“Hoo, I feel a little more alive.”
After getting some life water back into me, I slept properly for the first time in a while.
Then I woke up.
I had no idea how long I’d slept, but I didn’t feel bad.
If only the Gallery were here too.
If it had never existed in the first place, that would be one thing. But I’d started by relying on the Gallery, and now I felt like a lost kid who’d lost his mother.
“Sniff, sniff... Jemmin-mommy. My little sister’s angel... Big Bro... get lost, you bastard.”
I started calling out to the Gallery members I’d come to think of as family, one by one.
Not that I really meant they were family, just that the image fit.
The annoying cousin-like hotel, the legendary uncle, the friend-of-mom nuisance.
I’d only seen their faces once, if even that, but I called out the names I wanted to see most in this moment, one after another.
You should’ve stopped me harder!
“Hoo. So this is how a person goes insane.”
I remembered seeing some experiment like this once.
People were paid if they could last a month in a completely sealed space with nothing in it.
Everyone supposedly struggled, then gave up in the end, and only one or two people managed to succeed?
Honestly, I remember thinking it sounded like easy money.
I could meditate, exercise.
I could spend time imagining things, dragging the hours out with daydreams based on novels and comics I’d read.
I’d always thought I was a pro at lying on a bed and killing time, so I’d taken it lightly.
But once I actually ended up like this, all that imagination went straight to hell, and instead my thoughts kept drifting in a bad direction.
Imagining maggots crawling up the walls at any second.
Nightmares of waking up only to find myself being eaten alive.
I didn’t even know what time it was, so it made me feel even more insane.
No wonder they’d insisted it was dangerous if you couldn’t use the Gallery.
“Enough with the bullshit. Let’s move. Moving will help.”
I shook my head hard once and stood up.
There were two things to check today.
First, whether the spider web I’d smashed yesterday had looped back.
Second, if it had, whether the food box had returned too.
With a pounding heart, I opened the iron door and stepped into Warehouse 2.
“...Fuck, what kind of bullshit is this now?”
Right in front of the Warehouse 2 door were two spider webs, exactly as they’d been yesterday.
But if this was really a loop, then the box of hardtack that should’ve been sitting in the corner was nowhere to be seen.
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