The Door (8)
"Hey! Wait up!"
I stuck my head through the open leather door and shouted.
"...What is it?"
"You still haven't told me your name!"
"A name. A name, you say."
With that, it seemed to ponder for a long while, slowly rotating in place in midair, before speaking again.
"I'm so old... that recalling it was difficult. And it's been far too long since anyone asked. Yes. Selapis. How I've missed that name."
"Selapis... I see. And I'm—"
"No, that's quite enough."
"Huh?"
"You were about to give your name, weren't you? Better that you don't. The Backrooms can use it against you. Just 'Newbie' will do, or 'Rope,' after your nickname."
"But you told me yours?"
"Do I look like someone who could be so easily manipulated?"
Hmm...
Fair point, actually.
"Okay, got it."
Name, title, whatever. As long as I understand what's being said, it doesn't matter.
"One more thing. Is there anywhere that looks like an exit, or anywhere that seems suspicious?"
Whether it led back to Earth, or at the very least back to the cavern, I had to get out of here.
"Hmm... I see nothing special. The Backrooms are, as ever, a space that does entirely as it pleases."
"I see."
Well, I did fall asleep and end up here, so maybe it's strange to expect some obvious doorway back. It was only after seeing this leather door that I'd started to think escape might actually be possible.
"Guess I'll just have to keep running for it."
I pulled my head back out through the door.
Time to explore again.
"Be careful, now. Like that glass door before, there may be dangerous things lurking out there."
"Gah!"
A voice rang out in my head that shouldn't have been able to reach me outside the door.
"How are you talking to me?"
The sounds of the machines hammering inside the yellow door hadn't carried out at all, so Selapis's voice shouldn't have either.
"I gave you a sub-avatar, so it's possible."
"Ah, I see."
So it wasn't just a garment with functions. It came with a communicator built in.
"Then warn me in advance if anything dangerous like that shows up."
"If you ask me what counts as suspicious, I can only say that everything is suspicious."
Right—so those things look just like ordinary door-spaces right up until they start acting.
"Until then, I suppose I'll just have to dodge whatever you tell me to."
Still, having Selapis act as an alarm beat blindly springing triggers I didn't even know existed.
Garments
It seemed best not to mention Selapis on the gallery yet. As far as I could tell, everyone assumed Selapis was some winged, human-shaped angel, just like I used to.
And since only I could go visit it, if that got out there'd definitely be gallery users pestering me about it.
"Alright, time to go exploring somewhere else, then..."
Without a hint from Selapis, I'd just have to rely on instinct again.
Since I'd come this far to the left, I decided to follow the passage further.
Right in front of me, the shards of the glass door I'd broken earlier had vanished without leaving a single fragment behind.
Something periodically cleans the corridor...?
Or does it just clean itself?
"Selapis. Is there anything else moving around this corridor besides me?"
If you're curious, just ask. Especially someone who can actually see.
"Something moving, you say. It doesn't feel like a living creature, but there is something moving. Some distance away, though."
Figures. Not a living creature—so a robot or something of the sort?
Though the transparent thing that had appeared when the glass door broke had something living-like inside it, so maybe it was a similar kind, or a different kind entirely.
It was far away anyway, so I decided to keep looking around.
Then something caught my eye.
A door made of stone.
Wedged into the gap was a strand of hand-spun red yarn, trailing inside.
I examined the yarn.
A crimson thread wound around with a thin, slightly stiff cord.
"It looks exactly like the one I made..."
Which meant—could this be a trace of the yarn that ran all the way to the cavern, or the one I'd tied off back on Earth?
In a word, a way back to the cavern. Or—
"A way out..."
3E4?
Let's go in.
I pushed aside the massive square stone blocking the way and opened it up.
A dark passage of dirt and rock. With no light, it was so black that I couldn't see anything inside.
"If only I didn't have my phone."
But the phone that always followed me around—unbreakable, never losing charge—would light the way the moment I turned it on.
I turned on the phone, held it up, and stepped into 3E4.
"If you didn't have what, may I ask?"
Selapis's question echoed in my head.
"Ah, that was me talking to myself. I was saying that without my phone, I wouldn't be able to see a thing in this darkness."
"I see. Though that wouldn't quite be true."
"Huh?"
Then the sleeves of the garment dropped away, leaving it sleeveless, and the living flesh that had formed the two sleeves bunched together and began taking shape.
That was...
"A flashlight?"
It was the flashlight I knew so well.
"I mimicked it based on what I saw on your gallery."
Click!
Press the button, and it even lights up. Though it was far lighter than the original flashlight.
Well, it can't exactly see weight, can it...
"Now I don't have to carry my phone around. Thanks."
I slipped the phone back into my pocket and walked on, flashlight held forward.
The red yarn lay stretched along the floor from the entrance onward.
"Follow this, and it'll surely lead me to the cavern or an exit."
I quickened my pace, little by little.
But—
At the end of the red yarn lay neither the cavern nor the Earth outside, just a completely dead-end room.
"It wasn't..."
Was this space, too, made just to toy with me?
E...
Echo?
Did it simply copy my memory, echoing it back at me?
Struck by a sudden, biting emptiness and irritation, I slammed my fist into the wall where the red yarn had burrowed.
Thud!
"Huh...?"
The inside rang hollow.
Which meant there was more space beyond it.
The red yarn running from the floor straight into the wall had been guiding me all along—it just meant the path wasn't finished yet.
But without my pickaxe, digging through this wall would take forever.
Shhhk!
If only I didn't have these fox arms with their sharp claws, that is.
I extended my claws, swung my arms, and tore into the dirt wall at speed.
In no time, a gap big enough for a person to squeeze through had opened up.
The moment I climbed through the hole in the wall—
Chwak!
It must have been some kind of switch, because something came flying at me from the side.
"Ghk...!"
Somehow, guided by a strangely sharpened sense, I dodged the stone spears that shot through the wall from either side.
Chwak!
Stone spears springing out from the side at regular intervals.
I kicked off my legs and leapt forward.
Clearing the range of the stone pillars, I rolled, ran, and kept following the red yarn onward.
Then a small dirt room appeared, looking safe enough. Soft moss bloomed across the floor, and a few blue fruits grew along the walls.
The red yarn was tied to a single small tree root jutting out of a corner.
Knock!
Knock!
I rapped the surroundings, but nothing else rang hollow.
I'd half expected the yarn to be guiding me somewhere again, like the wall had, but it wasn't burrowed into the root—just tied around it. And when I dug at the root, it came out clean, a severed root showing only its cut cross-section.
I'd hoped for a vertical shaft or some other passage.
"So it really was fake..."
I'd gotten my hopes up far too much because of that red yarn.
"The Backrooms have always been that kind of place, haven't they?"
"...I know."
Though honestly, I think I'm still in the middle of learning that.
I picked the blue fruits from the wall and gathered them in my hand.
3E4...
Was this something of the "3" level?
For now, I pocketed the fruits.
They might come in handy someday.
I turned back around to head out.
"No need to rest? This looks like a place of respite."
"It's a path I've already walked once."
Chwachwak!
Stone spears flew at me from every direction as I turned and ran.
I kept low, dodging them, and quickly reached the dirt wall I'd broken through before.
Climbing back through, following the red yarn onward—and I was back in the endless corridor.
"Looks like I've still got a long way to go..."
I need to feed Yagwang-i, too.
No, it seemed like a wild creature to begin with, so it probably managed on its own.
Best case would be if time back there didn't pass while I was here—but if all of this wasn't a dream, that seemed unlikely.
"Be careful. A trace of something has just appeared in the corridor."
Selapis's words echoed in my head.
Could it be... someone else wandering the Backrooms?