The Backrooms Gallery
Backrooms Gallery
"If it's the Backrooms, you mean that thing, right?"
The moment I posted my answer, a reply snapped back.
"You absolute— you little shit!"
Hot rage shot up my spine and I swung a fist straight at the Backrooms Gallery window — but my fist passed clean through the screen, leaving me flailing at empty air.
Swallowing my fury, I typed out another reply.
And so — what exactly was this Backrooms Gallery? I took a slow, deep breath, tapped the pinned notice at the top of the gallery, read it through, and understood at last.
"So this is a clubhouse for the thoroughly screwed."
Welcome, all of you who have been invited to the Backrooms Gallery.
This Backrooms Gallery was created by me — one who once specialized in dimensional magic — after a miscalculation during teleportation trapped me in the seams of infinite space. I built it to help others who find themselves in similar circumstances.
I modeled it after the galleries of other worlds I had once glimpsed through dimensional magic, back when I still lived in my original world.
Merely keeping body and soul together in these misaligned dimensions is struggle enough, so the gallery itself does not boast many features. I ask for your understanding.
First, you must all recognize this fact: you are trapped in a place called the Backrooms.
I must begin by explaining what the Backrooms are. The Backrooms you now inhabit are an endlessly sprawling space, entered through any number of circumstances (collectively known as Noclip) — a coordinate error during teleportation, a botched warp activation, simply walking into a certain building, or simply falling asleep and waking up somewhere else.
It may be the middle of a boundless ocean. It may be a house of infinite connected rooms that makes you wonder how such a thing could even be possible. Or perhaps it is merely the inside of an endless hallucination conjured by a twisted mind.
Which world, which era, which place your home world belongs to does not matter.
For in truth, this Backrooms — and this Backrooms Gallery — are places where beings from other worlds, or beings from different eras of the same world, come to encounter one another.
In any case, I am certain you are all confused and afraid. I wish you all peace of mind and a safe escape.
I hope that through sound speculation and mutual aid here on the Backrooms Gallery, you will find your way through this Backrooms.
And should you — by any chance, however slim — succeed in escaping, it is presumed you will lose access to the Backrooms Gallery. Please bear this in mind as well.
Beyond that, I dug through pinned posts and information threads, piecing together my situation one scrap at a time. In the end, my conclusions could be boiled down to roughly four points.
"First. Only people actually trapped in the Backrooms can use this Backrooms Gallery."
Which meant I hadn't noclipped into some cave on Mount Bizarro in Canada — I'd fallen into a wholly separate dimension where the same cave repeated on and on, forever.
"In other words: screwed."
"Second. The users of this Backrooms Gallery come from every kind of world, in every kind of era."
Just look at the other gallery regulars — one was slinging magic around, one was practicing martial arts, one was fusing with a mechanical pet to power up a suit. Which was probably why the gallery itself seemed to carry some kind of translation function, rendering everything in whatever language the reader spoke.
"Which also means: screwed."
Meaning that even if I escaped this place, there was a decent chance I'd come out not on Earth, but in one of those other worlds the gallery users came from.
"Third. Backrooms usually have rules."
Every time you committed some Wrong Action within a Backroom and moved on to the next space, an anomaly would strike the previously identical surroundings — one side of the room staining black, eyes sprouting from the walls, blood welling up across the floor, monsters appearing. And if things worsened, gallery users reportedly began suffering hallucinations and phantom voices — with speculation that it could end in death.
Why mere speculation, you ask?
Because the user who'd been live-reporting the whole progression never posted again.
"Which also means: screwed."
In this pitch-black, lightless cave where my only sources of illumination were a flashlight and my phone, the moment my battery died, I could end up dead — having committed a Wrong Action without ever living to see the Incorrect Action Reaction manifest in this cave Backroom.
"Fourth. The Backrooms are designed so that you can survive inside them."
But among the phenomena triggered by specific actions, there were not only the results of Wrong Actions. Food could appear. Tools could appear. Objects could be duplicated. These were known as Command Actions.
Then again, some places just had a refrigerator sitting right there in the open.
Of course, given that mine was a cave, I doubted I'd be getting anything like that.
Which was to say — if I wanted to survive in this infinite cave, I too would have to start trying things and feeling out the correct answers.
"This means I am not, in fact, completely screwed."
There was still a way to survive, after all.
With most of that crammed into my head, I sat down and wrote a new post.
1. Thought I was just wandering a cave, but I noclipped partway through and dropped into an infinite-cave Backroom
2. I'm screwed
3. Standing still might count as a Wrong Action too, so I have to keep moving
4. I'm screwed
The comments came pouring in almost the instant I hit upload.
"What is with this guy's speech?"
Anyway, the moment I answered that last question—
And with that, the gallery began flooding with posts offering me their condolences.
You won't last long~
How many days do you figure this one lasts?
I'm calling 3 days
Quit wasting time on a guy who's about to die and spend it finding an escape method instead
The gallery filled up with comments and threads like these.
I mean, seriously? It's that bad?
Absurd beyond words, I wrote a post.
Are the Earth Backrooms really that hardcore?
But then I read the answer that followed—
"Ahh."
Before I knew it, I was nodding along.
Still, I couldn't exactly just sit here waiting for death, could I? I was, after all, a professional explorer of the unexplored. So I resolved to try something — anything.
Good evening. No, there is no se*x.
I'm planning to try all sorts of actions to figure out Command Actions, so I could use some help. What would you recommend I try first?