Chapter 1: Chapter 1: Into The Backrooms

On occasion the omniverse itself births someone who is unusually attuned to it. Such individuals are rare, but often they tend to be fated for great and weird things. When one such individual is born in a universe that is itself hostile to sapient life, unnatural events take place.

For example, the life of the young disabled man who is about to cross the street is filled with strange occurrences. From the start of his life, when even as an infant he spontaneously came into existence outside of a chain-restaurant to events as recently as last week when he managed to nearly come across no less than six creatures native to other dimensions without realizing it, the young man has always had experiences with forces beyond his comprehension in ways that defy his comprehension.

The events of the next few moments are destined to be both no exception to that rule and the start of a strange and otherworldly journey for the young man. Like many great journeys this one begins with someone taking a single step. In this case the specific step is onto the street between the apartment where the young man lives and the café he frequents for an early morning coffee to celebrate his most recent accomplishment: having graduated from high school.

At the same time as the man is taking his first step onto the street a woman in a car is in a hurry. The woman is well on her way to being late, and that has made her a bit off-balance. She is pushing her car quite recklessly due to the fact that she is feeling pressure to be on time, and she is experiencing fairly intense tunnel vision.

Ordinarily all these events wouldn’t have any connection to each other, but by pure happenstance the moment that the seemingly perfectly average young man is crossing the street the driver hurtling towards him happens to glance away from the road so she can check her phone. She is relieved that there are no notifications on it and she begins to glance back up at the street, only to hear a distressing chime emanate from her phone. Her eyes quickly dart back to her phone and so when the young man sets foot onto the road she doesn’t notice him. She continues driving right along, unaware of the collision she would normally be responsible for causing.

Fortunately for Gustavo the omniverse is not so easily denied one of the people it is attuned to. Even as he listens to an energetic remix of a Porter Robinson song on headphones, with the car that ought to kill him barreling towards him, the omniverse itself acts to protect him. As he places his crutches ahead of him and he lifts one foot into the air, his fate is both sealed and changed in ways that he could have never imagined.

The suddenness of the omniverse itself acting to deny Gustavo such an inglorious end manages to wrench him free of the universe’s scripted, dreadfully mundane fate. The floor beneath where Gustavo’s foot is destined to land becomes an incorporeal, wispy thing and when his foot is brought down it passes through the floor causing him to stumble and fall. Instead of being hit by a speeding car and perishing in a rather anticlimactic way, Gustavo is safely shunted between dimensions and out of the universe of his birth.

The man begins to fall, brought into the relative safety of the omniverse’s loving embrace but without a place to land. As far as Gustavo can tell he went from falling through the street to falling infinitely downward in a sky-light expanse stuck in mid-day in a split second.

He sees no clouds, no sun, only infinite, beautiful blue sky. As he falls through this space he is calmed and soothed by the intentions of the omniverse which are subtly and brilliantly communicated to him by the ambient energy of the place. He knows, unconsciously, that he is safe here.

Unfortunately, before the omniverse can safely correct its slight oversight in not making a place for Gustavo to land, its actions are noticed. Universes have consciousnesses of their very own and they tend to be possessive of people from within them so the universe in which Gustavo was born is keenly aware of the unusual intervention the omniverse conducted on behalf of the young Latino.

This particular universe does not seek to antagonize the omniverse, but it does seek out Gustavo, hoping that the relatively small scale of its actions will not inspire either the omniverse or its pleniversal microbes to violently deliver justice later. It is hoping against hope that the omniverse’s actions were a mysterious, unfathomable fluke rather than thoughtful, coordinated action. Even vast cosmic beings as alien and otherworldly in scope as a universal consciousness can make foolish, bone-headed decisions.

For a few moments the man gets to fall, or rather nearly fly, in the infinite void but all too soon this strangely safe space is disturbed by the universe of his birth. The malicious cosmic mass extends a dark tendril into the warm, safe area where Gustavo was meant to recover from the universe’s dark designs for him.

This feat is only possible because of the eldritch cruelty and dark will of this specific universe, coupled with the specificity and precision of the actions it is undertaking to retrieve the young man born within it. This grotesque mockery of a living thing has dark plans for Gustavo and a universe is not so easily defied, even by the rest of the omniverse. If the omniverse could easily influence universes then all of existence would be more fantastical, but universes possess defenses that help keep this from being the case just to maintain their autonomy.

The tendril wraps around him and snakes back into the universe from whence it originates, dragging him from the safety of the omniversal pocket he was momentarily stored inside of to a particularly nasty version of an afterlife known only as “The Backrooms”. Luckily for Gustavo, the omniverse is not without its fair share of tricks and abilities.

As Gustavo is forcefully pulled back into the universe of his birth the omniverse strikes the young man with a burst of conceptual energy, energy which sacrifices Gustavo’s memories of the glorious and endless infinities of the omniverse’s warm embrace to awaken the young man’s true nature and power as a jumper. The memories of the strange, sky-light void he spent a few moments in are burned out of his mind and instead the creature being teleported to an endless parade of impossible and alien landscapes fills with cosmic potential and even bits and pieces of realized power.

The omniverse also deals a light blow to the universe of Gustavo’s birth by sending a thin, devastating spear of light lancing past Gustavo and into The Backrooms ahead of him. This spear rockets into the incision into the omniverse that happened to be caused by Gustavo’s home universe’s foolish choices The spear only stops when it collides with the floor within the area of the first level of The Backrooms that Gustavo will have to deal with: “The Halls”.

This attack is both small scale enough and precise enough that it deals no true damage to the dark universe, but it does aid Gustavo in a really specific manner: it creates a safe space for him to land. Gustavo falls for another twenty-five feet before painlessly landing on a soft, safe entryway into “The Halls”, the first level of The Backrooms.

As he lands, on his face, the last of his memories of the omniverse are incinerated and thus stripped from his mind. In exchange for this, deep within him supernatural powers possessed by the omniversal explorers known as “Jumpers” begin to awaken. His very flesh begins to change, to morph and bubble, as his body acclimates to the fearsome power awakening within him.  

By the time he looks around and studies his surroundings, his body is already changing in helpful ways such as his physical disabilities being cured and various maladies that were affecting cease to do so. Other, stranger changes begin to occur at first, but they are not as readily apparent or as immediately impactful as the young man regaining his ability to walk unaided by devices such as crutches or needing to lean onto a wall for balance.

All he remembers of the last few moments is almost getting hit by a car and falling into the street beneath him. His heart is racing as he surveils the strange place he suddenly finds himself in.

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I glance at my surroundings even as I try my best to take stock of myself. I currently feel unhurt, despite my fall, though I suspect that that might not prove to be true when I get up…

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I am in the middle of a weird hallway, like something out of one of those “Liminal Space” videos, and I feel different somehow. I cannot quite articulate how I feel different, but I am keenly aware that something other my surroundings has changed. My heart is hammering in my chest, but I can feel it beginning to slow down as I look around.

The walls that surround me are all covered in weird yellow wallpaper. I am distinctly aware of the humming of fluorescent lights, and the rhythmic sound of distant dripping. The smells that accompany an old office building fill my nose and I look around for my crutches.

I quietly accept that I cannot find the things after searching for them for a few seconds which annoys me since it means that I will be walking, at best, very slowly throughout this place. Nevertheless, I was taught to accept that there are somethings that I can’t change and to accept such annoying inconveniences gracefully so I take a second to swallow my annoyance and then I attempt to get up off of the floor.

I gasp when I realize that I don’t feel any pain or discomfort as I get up, and when I am on my feet I begin to gain greater awareness of the changes that have occurred to my body. I slowly take a few steps, careful not to rush unnecessarily into danger and find that I can move freely and without pain. I’ve been partially physically disabled since I was seven and now I can move without my mobility aid? I practice taking a few more steps, slightly quicker this time, and smile when I find that I still don’t feel any pain.

“How?” I ask, stunned by this revelation. I am met with silence, which is almost reassuring. Truthfully I am not surprised when no one answers me, after all I am alone here.

I glance at my legs and what I see surprises me. My legs are thicker than they were before, noticeably so. My pants aren’t torn apart by the extra mass, but in the chaos of the last few moments I never really noticed that one of the new things I could feel was the fabric of my pants stretching and straining against my powerful legs. This fills me with curiosity, so I begin to look at the rest of my body and chuckle as I notice that it seems that all of me has been changed.

I have been changed so thoroughly that for a split second I wonder if what is going on is that I’ve always looked the way I look now. I quickly manage to avoid gaslighting myself as I recall old school pictures and firmly internalize the fact that something happened to me when I fell into the street. I don’t know if I died and this is a sort of transitory space between life and death, or an afterlife, or if there is something altogether… weirder going on, but I quietly acknowledge that I am different now, somehow.

As I look at myself I see a powerfully built, warrior-like figure. Before I fell into that street, I was a fairly average looking guy, but now even without trying to study my face I can tell that I have somehow gotten a complete makeover and that something about me has changed in ways that go beyond the physical.

My disabilities are gone, and my senses are razor-sharp. I have been changed, in ways that I do not yet understand and for reasons that well and truly elude me. I know something like this, like me falling into the street and then landing somewhere else, awake, alive, and improved can’t be unlinked coincidences…

I am almost paralyzed as I consider all of this, before I realize that if I want answers I’m going to need to move forward. I’ve certainly spent a few minutes here, studying myself, and it’s clear that no one is coming. I steady my breathing and focus on what lies in front of me, before I begin to walk towards the end of the hallway I am in. There is a door at the end of it, and for better or worse I’m going to see what lies beyond it.

I spend nearly two minutes walking towards the door at the end of the hallway before I reach it. When I do I hear the soft sound of something falling behind me. I turn in the direction of the falling noise and I am surprised to see a backpack falling out of the air not far behind me.

I walk towards where the thing is destined to fall, as I effortlessly predict where it’ll land with a glance, and watch as it hits the ground exactly where I thought it would. I approach the thing, a simple looking perhaps hiking backpack, and open one of its pockets, only to find a hastily scrawled note inside of it when I reach my hand into the darkness of the object’s pockets. The words on it are ominous.

“Danger awaits. So does opportunity. 12 levels. Grow stronger each time you exit one level and enter another. Enter and exit ‘The Ruined City’, and you’ll be free.” The note reads, causing me to subtly realize that answers to my questions all, in all likelihood, await me beyond the 12^th level of this space. I don’t know how to feel about that, other than pissed, I didn’t choose to come here and now I am supposed to accept that I am stuck? That sucks. Nevertheless I still check the rest of the backpack.

I run my hands over the thing and sense objects pushing against its dimensions. I quickly begin to open up the pockets of the thing, and I am surprised to see entire crates of items within each of its pockets. I’m no scientist but I can tell that what I am seeing ought to be physically impossible, the crates are larger than the backpack and yet somehow they fit inside of the thing with no problems.

I look at the crates and I can see items like simple spears, clubs, guns, and even food and drinks! All sort of valuable equipment is stored safely inside of the backpack, so much that it astounds me and even just gawking at the contents of the backpack is enough to remind me that I am in a place unlike anywhere I’ve ever been.

At least at a glance none of the stuff seems particularly weird, though the water bottles contained in a number of crates are not labeled in any way that I am familiar with… Instead of saying things like “Dasani” or “Aquafina”, they all read “Almond Water”. There are dozens of them in a few crates safely tucked away near the bottom of the backpack, and I am halfway tempted to trying to take a sip out of one of them to see if the water is tasty, but even with the abundance of bottles in my possession the knowledge that I have to cross twelve “levels” to escape is sobering so I resist the curious urge I was just feeling.

I eventually close the backpack, and attempt to lift the thing. It is surprisingly, clearly unnaturally lightweight, and so I put it on my back before I glance at the door. I take a deep breath and I walk over to the thing, armed with my… magical backpack.

When I reach the door I place one of my hands on it and it parts in front of me, allowing me to step through into a square room with the same weird wallpaper, connected to a number of other rooms. None of them hide what lies beyond them with doors, and so I study my plain, empty surroundings and I learn to somewhat tune out the constant humming of fluorescent lights as I begin to make some sort of strategy for moving forward. I walk into the middle of the room, even as I eye the various pathways leading out of this room and into another, visually identical one.

“I… I guess the only way out is through?” I mutter, unsure of whether or not I happen to have any other options here. I decide to just march in one direction and take off in what feels like “North” at least if I assume I came in from the “South”. I begin to march in the direction of one of the northern doors, an uncertain look etched onto my face.

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