Entity #444

1: Stay Still - Don't Move

Playlist songs for this chapter:
Darkness Descends- Midnight Syndicate
Past Recognition- Sjellos
***

Lamp off.

I laid my body down and shut off all the processes in my mind in order to sleep. I was in my favorite spot in bed, which sank in from my indent. Ten milligrams of sublingual melatonin was in the process of dissolving under my tongue.

I nestled in and let my thoughts wander, arching my back into the mattress. Closing my eyes, I welcomed unconsciousness.

Hours later, my eyes opened to a blur of mono-yellow and bright fluorescent lighting. It took a minute to ground myself and get my vision right. Once I did, I realized with horror where I had ended up.

Before me was an empty room.

Beyond that, there was another... empty room.

Then another.

And another.

Oh no. This must be The Backrooms...

A pang of anxiety wracked my chest, which I clutched at with one hand. I ran my fingers through my raven-colored hair with the other hand. My breath left my lungs and wouldn't return. I didn't noclip here into the Backrooms as the lore had always said. Instead, I had projected myself into them through a dream.

It was past time to wake up.

I was used to incidents such as sleep paralysis or lucid dreams, and I was good at knowing when to wake myself up. I'd experience intense chest or torso vibrations followed by a strong sense of impending doom. This was normally the first and last warning sign that I needed to wake up... or else.

I shouldn't be here.

I tried willing myself to wake up, and when that didn't work I tried blinking super hard. Then wiggling my toes. Breathing heavily. When that too failed, I came to terms with the fact that I was out of ideas. I was stuck, and there was nothing more I could do but accept my fate. So reluctantly, I started walking with hesitation and caution.

As I traveled with light, shaky steps, I put it out of my mind as to what I would do if I was ever unlucky enough to encounter an entity. I had read a great deal about the Backrooms, the different levels, and the entities that wandered within. As I hesitantly turned corner after yellow corner, the sensory-hell buzz of the fluorescent lights bore down on me increasingly.

What felt like an hour went by with no contact, no sounds. I know what happens here, I said to myself. Don't talk, don't call out, and don't stay in one place for too long. My heart stayed in my throat and my head began to ache. Panic lingered in my chest and blurred my vision.

I trudged onward nonetheless, through the empty officespaces. I rounded a corner which opened up to a large room. The back wall had what appeared to be writing scribbled onto the wallpaper. The scribble read:

STAY STILL
DON'T MOVE

Fantastic, I thought. This completely contradicted what I just told myself. Was this realm like a web, the more you move the tighter you're wound- heading exponentially faster towards a certain death? Or did this pertain to the confrontation with a certain entity? My mind was riddled with anxiety, but I carried on.

An ungodly noise cut off my thoughts. It sounded like a blend between a siren, elk bugle, and deep, haunting, human wailing. The sound drifted through the halls and its echoes bounced off the walls. It was accompanied by two subtle booms which sent vibrations through the floor. Then it started. A heavy, 2-beat pounding that I could feel, intensifying by the second.