It was the seventh of April when we were beset upon. Giant fleshy tendrils, with the souls of the unremembered still within. It came from somewhere underground, though none of the poor saps sent to investigate ever found its true origin. Billions were lost during the first week, though none seem to truly remember them except for me. Our active destruction has become but a normality. Today, I woke up to a scraping noise coming from my floorboards. I have less time than I thought. I must write, or none will realise the true dangers we are facing. The threat is only visible or noticeable to those whose minds can recognize both worlds. Not many have escaped the Other World without fully accepting it as their home, and vice versa. Many of the others simply died. Those who are left won't leave; who would want to come to us now? Its roots have burrowed through the world, skewering and absorbing its inhabitants. Your mind will probably tell you that you have always been alone, that Riverside has always been a ghost town. This is a lie. Everyone is dead; that is why the world is so empty. If you find this, the Riverdale Warehouse has an entrance to the Backrooms. You must inform everyone, if the warehouse is even safe anymore. Your friends, your family, even, have been pulled out of the very fabric of reality by this entity, and consumed. As I write this, I have packed up and set off through the flesh and corpses. The creature looms above us all; as I watch it, I wonder if those who cannot see it are concerned about the eclipse. I hope to find a safehouse at a neighboring town. If you are reading this right now, though, I didn't make it.
You pocket the note. You came to Riverdale because of it´s purported hauntedness, however something more seems to be going on here. It´s namesake river runs silent, and everything seems to have been abandoned mid-day. Meals rot inside the houses with meals uneaten, however none know what happened. You sit, pondering the note. On one hand, it seems unplausible. On the other hand, it would explain why you and virtually every other child you knew growing up were orphans, why you kept finding random belongings with you, why this town seems to have entirely stopped in the middle of the day. After a moment, you make up your mind and begin to walk.
The warehouse is utterly dilapidated. Overgrown plants stretch around it,the brickwork is falling apart in certain areas as if hit with a sledgehammer, and the door has been long gone. A chill runs down your body as you step inside of the warehouse, and the lone tapping of your feet on the ground becomes sharper but somehow quieter. Sunlight seems to hesitate entering the warehouse, as it seems to dim it´s beaming through the roof. One section of the wall is noticeably darker than the others, as if light is being literally sucked through it. You take a step through the wall, and then stop. Your vision becomes blurry, your legs unsteady. A sound that you find eerily similar to human screams begins, as well as a light scraping noise coming from the other side of the warehouse. You take a step back towards the wall, and the scraping grows agitated and louder. Now, it´s a full fledged burrowing noise. You back up against the wall, and fall directly through.
You wake up in an old building, it´s wallpaper a sickening yellow. The carpet is stained with some sort of liquid, and smells of mildew. The buzzing of the lights immediately strikes you as an unbearable, and unrelenting. Seems like the kind of place that you´d go insane in. Normally, you´d simply curl up and die. However, you have to see what the note was talking about. You walk, and walk. The yellow rooms are unchanging,and seemingly infinite. The buzzing seems to grow louder and louder. You feel eyes on your back, and turn around. Nothing is there. Time starts to blur together, and you can no longer tell whether it´s been minutes or days. The only indicator is the increasing soreness of your feet, and heaviness of your eyes. You attempt to reach an uneasy sleep, but the buzzing and the light won´t let you. Your pain is the only independent variable of this place. You are entertaining the thought that you may be trapped here forever, when you notice the buzzing lights start to dim and the walls begin to darken once again, eventually turning to concrete. The hall expands and expands,until it resembles some kind of parking garage.
Relieved at the sudden change, you begin taking uncautious and heavy steps forward. Your footfalls against the concrete grow louder and louder, reverbating and echoing through the cavernous ¨Garage¨. Your footsteps are soon answered, by a low snarling. Adrenaline surges through your veins as you begin to panic. You instinctively pick up a length of rebar (Seemingly fallen from the ceiling) off of the ground with a loud clattering noise likely alerting whatever else lurks here, and also by instinct hide behind the nearest object, a pillar. A second later, you realize the pile of seemingly random abandoned furniture which would have granted better cover, but you have frozen up in the meantime. Emerging from the shadows is what seems to be a cross between a dog and a human child. The thing skitters towards your pillar, seeming to know your position. Before you can react, it lunges and latches onto your arm. Blood quickly wells up and begins to drip onto the floor. The sudden pain causes you to drop your rebar, and attempt to shake it off. However, it has a vice grip on your arm and you only succeed in tearing more flesh away. It claws at your chest, drawing more blood. You manage to lift it´s 60 pound body off of the ground, and strike at the back of it´s head desperately. The wound deepens, but the thing lets go. As it falls, you manage to grab it´s hind legs. Before it can react, you slam it into the concrete four times before it finally dies. You smash in it´s head with the rebar for good measure. As your heartbeat slows a bit and the adrenaline begins to wear off, you realise the severity of the wound. Your movement had made the bite much more severe than it was initially. A few human tooth-shaped puncture wounds, most likely infected already, torn into a much larger wound. You are losing a large amount of blood. You tear off a piece of your shirt and use it to staunch the flow, but the damage has been done. You are trapped in this hostile environment, with a most likely infected wound, and something more dangerous has probably caught the scent of your blood.
There is no time to waste. You begin moving once again, in search of something that could help you. People could survive this place, after all. There must be something that could help you. As you search, you come upon a small crate. Opening it, you find a package of 8 bottles labeled ¨Almond Water¨. Only looking at this label do you realize your thirst. The last time you drank was, from what you can tell, a long time ago, and you only brought a single bottle of water. This liquid is dubious, but it is the only potential option for survival. As you drink the first bottle, an immense soothing feeling falls over your soul. The pain dullens, your aching throat stops, and your paranoia as you look towards the shadows is lessened. You almost feel as if this place is your home.
