The Miracle of 502 Bars

"Backrooms! High five!"

A palm pushed out of the wall and slapped my hand.

"Backrooms! Fist bump!"

The palm reshaped itself into a fist and knocked against mine.

"Backrooms, send me home!"

"Tch……"

Why is it that the one thing I actually need is the one thing it can't do? What I need here is an escape.

"So creepypastas really are creepypastas after all. A building that moves and talks. Unbelievable."

I leaned my back against the wall and stared up at the ceiling. After running my experiments, I'd reached ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠a conclusion: the Backrooms understood what I said, and moved exactly the way I wanted it to. Raising pillars, restructuring rooms — even creating objects out of nothing and flinging them around. That was the trick behind how I'd turned one of those Bureau agents into dalgona.

...Putting it that way, it's actually kind of terrifying.

I'd brushed it off as a joke, but honestly? It scared me a little. Right now, for whatever reason, it was doing what I told it to — but didn't that just mean I'd handed the Backrooms full power over whether I lived or died? Who knew. Given a few wrong turns, it might flatten me into a thin sheet, just like that agent.

"Huh?"

As I sat there brooding with my arms crossed, the wall shifted through a strange color, and new letters surfaced across it. Lack of power. So it wanted to let me out, but couldn't manage it on its own?

"Whatever. I wasn't expecting much anyway."

You can't miss what you never had. Sure, the Backrooms was friendly to me, but at the end of the day it was still a creepypasta. The fact that it hadn't already stomped me flat was thanksgiving-worthy in itself — an escape was asking for the moon.

I reached out and patted the wall soothingly. ...It was, for some reason, damp.

—Grrrroowl.

"Hoo... man, I'm getting hungry, though."

A stomach growl rolled through the entire room, my body screaming at me for nutrients. The problem was that there was no food to be found here. Even a prisoner locked in solitary gets vermin to snack on — I had literally nothing to eat.

"Hmm. How do the forum anomalies deal with this, I wonder?"

Curious, I typed up a post and threw it onto the gallery.

Whoa. That's straight-up hell. They eat people because there's nothing else to eat? They say human meat doesn't even taste good — how pitiful... no, wait. Not the time for sympathy.

"Then what about me? I can't even eat people!"

This was no time to be worrying about the forum regulars. What mattered right now was the bare essentials of survival — food, clothing, shelter — and one of those was completely missing from the equation.

"Dodged a ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠bullet just to starve to death instead. Fantastic."

I was scrolling through the thread, hunting for some workaround, when—

—Crrrrashhh.

"...What was that?"

A sound like something enormous spilling out came from behind me. I turned around, and—

"Th-this is...!!"

Almond water and energy bars of every kind lay heaped across the floor.

...Damn it, Backrooms, I love you. Everything I was scared of a minute ago suddenly feels embarrassing.

—Rrrrip!

Without a second's hesitation, I tore open an energy bar wrapper and stuffed the contents into my mouth.

"Oh — god, it's so good."

By my estimate I'd gone without food for just over a day, and the taste of that first bite was beyond anything I could have imagined. Since when does a damn energy bar have umami? Even the meat I ate after escaping the orphanage wasn't this good.

The Backrooms offering its little consolation in warm lettering. Something in my chest tightened, and I held an energy bar out toward the wall.

"Come on, you have one too—"

Oh. Right. Creepypastas can't eat food. I'd accidentally teabagged the poor thing.

"Seriously, sorry — I didn't mean it like—"

"What?"

While I stood there flustered, the Backrooms formed a huge mouth out of the wall and swallowed the offered energy bar in a single bite.

"...You can eat food?"

"But you just ate one."

An arm extended from the wall and pointed at the mountain of energy bars.

"Don't tell me — these are things a creepypasta can eat?"

"H-how?"

Hah. Recognition 999 for you, I guess. Is that why it's on a whole different level of competence from every other creepypasta out there? Just as I was marveling at an ability I never could have imagined—

—Diiiing!

Right on cue, the gallery notification chimed, and my eyes — still glued to that one word, YES — finally moved.

"Huh. I could actually work with this."

Meanwhile, somewhere deep within a forest, inside a cave.

—Drip.

A water droplet hanging from a stalactite let go, cut briefly through the empty air, and then caught in a spiderweb — never reaching the floor. This was the home of all spiders, a sanctuary where born hunters nested and raised their young.

"Aaagh, I'm starving, my stomach's about to split open..."

The mistress of that cave, Arachne — known on the forum as [EightSpiderLegs] — drummed her fingers against her belly and scowled in discontent.

—Scuttle.

At that moment, a spider the size of a house crept toward her at the sound of her voice.

"My Queen, our stockpiled food supply has run completely dry."

"I know! That's why I'm starving too!"

Arachne drew her fangs in a whine, and the entire cave rang with the sound — gouging deep craters into the ground where it struck. A short while later, having vented her frustration, she stood there panting heavily.

"Haaah... and the children?"

"No different from yesterday."

"So they really are on the verge of starving to death."

Every spider anomaly living in the cave was currently under a feeding ban — and the target of that ban was, of course, humans. Deprived of the only food a creepypasta could eat, the spiders were collapsing from hunger, with the occasional death to show for it.

"Maybe I have no choice but to authorize the hunt again..."

"It will mean clashing with the humans. You issued the feeding ban to stay out of the Management Bureau's sight in the first place, did you not?"

"Then what do you suggest? Got a better idea?"

"...No, My Queen."

"There's a limit to how long we can hold out. Last time, the children resorted to eating their own kind, remember."

She had endured so far because the Bureau's strength of late was anything but ordinary — but with her children dying, she could not endure any longer. Nothing in this world mattered more to Arachne than her family.

"...Shall I mobilize the hunting parties, then?"

The subordinate spider bared her razor-sharp fangs.

Hunt Captain Alfonso. He, too, had been pushed to his absolute limit — he simply hadn't shown it, out of deference to his Queen. Arachne knew both his patience and his loyalty well.

And in the very instant she moved to reward that devotion with an order—

"...The newbie?"

"Y-yes!?"

A crisp mechanical chime echoed through the cave. The subordinate spider jolted into the air at the Queen's words.

"Th-the newbie? You mean THAT person, the one I'm thinking of!?"

"That's right. Why are you so shocked?"

"How could I not be!? They're the monster — no, the creepypasta — that crushed the Management Bureau at its own game!"

The subordinate spider reared its forelegs above its head in sheer disbelief.

She'd heard the news too. Apparently they had killed a Bureau employee for the first time in fifteen years, by Earth's reckoning.

Impressive is an understatement. We're so scared of those people we gave up hunting entirely.

Not that she meant to belittle the newbie — quite the opposite. The Bureau's power of late sat at a historic peak. Even famous named creepypastas with a reputation to their names were currently keeping their heads down, and Arachne herself was among them. Considering her own Recognition was hardly anything to sneeze at, the newbie's feat was nothing short of extraordinary.

"This is no time to sit around! Open the post already!"

"Fine, fine."

Goaded on by her stamping, hopping subordinate, Arachne relented and unfolded the post. No phone required — creepypastas could summon the gallery window straight out of thin air.

"Hm? Why is the newbie selling energy bars?"

"We can't even eat food."

The two of them read down through the newbie's post, their faces brimming with curiosity over what it could possibly contain —

"...Wha!? C-c creepypastas can eat them!?"

"This must be a dream. Excuse me while I return to reality, My Queen."

"W-wake up, Alfonso...! This is not a dream!!"

Within seconds, both faces had drained into pure astonishment.