I hate the Backrooms.
My name is [REDACTED].
When I was younger, but a carefree child up there...
My father was killed in a car crash.
As an only child, I watched my mother's mental state unravelling.
I did my best to help her, but nothing worked.
Then one day, I awoke in these yellow halls.
I had been separated from my mother...
When she needed me most.
I spent so long wandering these halls in despair.
My mind kept telling me I should just give up and die.
That I wasn't enough for my family.
I could have saved my father.
I could have saved my mother.
I just didn't care enough.
At least, I thought it was my mind saying all that.
That all changed one day, when I met a faceling girl.
We fell in love, and were married.
I joined the Backroom Colonists.
But nothing happy lasts in this damp labyrinth...
On our first anniversary, her blood ran clear.
I spiralled into depression again, and quit my job at the Colonists.
Those thoughts returned to my head...
I really thought I could be good enough.
I thought I could start over.
But redemption isn't a thing.
I will never be good enough.
Not for my wife, my mother, my father.
I deserve to die.
No, I told myself, I must find the will to continue living, even with this grief. I must push through. I cannot die here.
But still, the thoughts consumed me...
On my lowest day, he came to me with an offer.
He told me that he was the one putting all those thoughts in my mind.
He told me that I should stop resisting him.
He told me that this was the only way to achieve salvation.
At that point, I was already too broken to care.
Instead of fighting it, I let his words wash over my body.
It's strangely calming.
I close my eyes.
This is the end for me...
But what does it matter?
I never deserved to live anyway.
ENTITY NO. 222
THREAT LEVEL:
SQUIRREL
Habitat:
The Void
Aggression: 4/5
Attacks on a whim
Intellect: 6/5
Godly levels of intellect and cognition
Danger: 5/5
Attacks are fatal without fail
Entity 222, also known as Ratatosk the Reaper, is perhaps one of the most enigmatic and terrifying beings in the entirety of the Backrooms.
You are worthless...
You don't even deserve to be alive...
What good do you bring to the table?
You're just a speck of dust floating in a vast cosmos.
Overview[]
Ratatosk the Reaper is a being of the Void, proclaimed to live within the Akashic Field and somewhat analogous to a god in many mythologies. He has been deduced to be linked to various forms of human and non-human technologies, ranging from the most primitive makeshifts, such as windows, ropes and doors; to complex devices such as radios and televisions. Reverently venerated by many sentient entities born of Technological Compatibility, it is widely believed that he may be responsible for this phenomenon, and by extension capable of seeing into or even manipulating the Backrooms's past, present and future.
According to various records of Ratatosk across the course of human history, the entity most commonly appears as a humanoid figure with a head resembling a newfangled form of technology — for example, in this day and age, his head seems to be a sleek, modern flatscreen television. In terms of his attire, Ratatosk usually wears a red pinstripe coat decorated with faint acorn patterns, with two coattails trailing behind that often billow anomalously even in the absence of wind, and a black bowtie fastened in an acorn-shaped knot. He carries a golden walking cane somewhat like a thyrsus, albeit with a massive acorn that never seems to deteriorate topping it off, rather than a pinecone.
Intriguingly, Ratatosk seems to possess an anomalous aura of ionising radiation, though various tests conducted by way of analysing this radiation reveals its true nature — these rays are not X-rays, nor gamma or UV rays, but copious amounts of psychic energy; the very substance which creates tulpae, warps minds into wretches, and comprises the vast sea of the Akashic Field. No other living being, not even infamous psychic powers like the Party Host, the Beast of Level 5 or the Mime, has been documented to constantly produce such great quantities of psychic radiation passively; thus a theory has been made that Ratatosk may be the embodiment of the Akashic itself, the ultimate tulpa, a collection of all thoughts and memories rolled into a humanoid form.
But a word of caution about the human mind...
Its inner goodness is always outshadowed by its evil.
Behaviour[]
Ratatosk the Reaper is a fickle being, and while perceived as being impartial towards humanity's existence — unlike a certain few other higher dimensional deities — he occasionally decides to descend from his perch in the Akashic Field so as to mentally toy with lower sapient beings, apparently, as he puts it, "just for the hell of it". Such encounters are usually devastating for the victim, and Ratatosk will often leave them in an extremely deteriorated mental state or, worse, manage to claim their life entirely; many victims of trauma and depression have reported encountering the entity multiple times, during which he only serves to worsen their mental wellbeing. In rarer cases, Ratatosk will simply manifest to engage in a mundane conversation with a wanderer, claiming that "it amuses [him] how adorably humans act in their natural state, without [his] psychic influence". If the entity is to be trusted, he apparently visits the "mortal realm" more often that one would think, but rarely interacts with humans or other similar beings.
Ratatosk is known for being a silver tongued entity, skilled in verbal assaults. In fact, the negative psychic energy radiating off him apparently seeps into and bystanders' minds of its own accord, conveying these scathing insults directly into their victims' mindscapes without the need of Ratatosk himself to even make a sound — on many occasions, victims had even believed that it was their own minds producing thoughts of self-doubt. This radiation can cause serious mental degradation to Ratatosk's prey, albeit it seems that the entity is capable of regulating the minds of those near him, carefully keeping from slipping into pure insanity those whom he wishes to converse with or simply torture a little longer.
It is well known that Ratatosk's affinity for technology is able to be harnessed in various different fashions. First and foremost, he is able to travel between various units of technology instantaneously; records have documented him materialising behind unopened doors and windows, crawling out from between the speakers of vintage radios or the inner working of generators, congealing from the ink on scrolls and books, and even emerging from televisions, laptops or computer screens. Before this happens, there is usually some indication that Ratatosk is about to appear — a faint scratching behind doors, the sound of rodents chewing emanating from ropes or pulleys, the chirping of squirrels accompanied by static from radios, or even an outright image of the entity himself displayed in a screen before it passes out of the two-dimensional plane and takes full form.
Upon utilising a unit of technology for whatever eldritch purpose his twisted mind may conceive, Ratatosk leaves behind a lingering trace of himself on that particular object: a strong presence of psychic radiation. It is unknown what exactly this radiation causes, but many researchers theorise that, given enough time, the ionising radiation will eventually warp this inanimate object into something far stranger.
Intrepid research conducted by various groups has revealed that many entities, specifically those presumably born of Technological Compatibility, appear to venerate Ratatosk the Reaper as a leader or king of sorts. Windows, predatory doors, radio demons, lights, nutcrackers, mirrors, BACK-NET Version 1.1, filing cabinets, the News Crew, the Mustang, Entity PC, and even the Death Locomotive have all been documented to behave in a more docile and submissive fashion when Ratatosk is present, likely as a display of reverence or worship.
That's right, I am a god amongst men and mice.
And I know I am... but what are you?
You are nothing, next to me.
You all are.
Biology[]
Being an incorporeal, shifting being, Ratatosk the Reaper's biology is difficult to determine. It appears that his head — the only body part of his not obscured by his clothing — manifests as a popular form of technology in the day and age in which he appears. For example, hieroglyphics on an Ancient Egyptian papyrus discovered within Level 866 describe the entity as such:
““He appeared in a truly impractical garment: two expensively decorated robes, one scarlet on his torso with tails that flowed behind him, and the other jet black and wrapped around his legs; in his hand was a curious gold sceptre not unlike that of a pharaoh; and on his feet was tight-fitting black footwear with no holes, that did seem extremely uncomfortable, though he showed no pain on his face. Indeed, he did not have a face, for in place of his head was what seemed a sundial! We had never heard of a god whose head was a sundial, but he introduced himself as such — Reaper-of-Souls Ratatuskr he named himself — and we decided he must be a god from a vastly differing culture to bear such a strange appearance and wear such strange attire.”
Meanwhile, a Chinese delineation of Ratatosk dating from the period of the Han Dynasty reads as follows:
““The demon was dressed in a very constricting costume, not silken and flowing with complex imagery as noblemen do adorn themselves with, but with rigid lines stitched all over it and stiff, simplistic patterning of what seemed to be acorns as its embellishment. I would have had him dismissed as an oddball if it were not for his face: instead of regular human features, his entire head seemed to be a scroll of paper, scrawled with lines that simply read squirrel (松鼠) over and over again. He told me that he was a god, but I could not bother to believe him; who had ever heard of a paper-headed celestial? I called him the Paper Demon-king and told him to be off with it, but he refused, wanting to converse with me more.”
More recent records include a book published in 1931 by one Robert J. Walker, titled An Anthology of the Creatures and Cryptids of the Wake, including an entry on Ratatosk apparently based on the author's personal encounter with the being:
““Ratatosk the Reaper. Though given such a foreboding name, this strange creature seems quite intelligent and respectable, perhaps beyond even human cognition, and wears a fashionable pinstripe suit in a dark red, with flowing coattails billowing behind him. Most curious of all is his head, which bears great semblance to one of those radios wherewith we often listen to broadcasts of affairs about the world and such. He claims to have the power to induce delirium with simply a snap of the fingers, so it would be ill-advised to anger him.”
Since around 2010, Ratatosk has began to appear with a flatscreen television as his head rather than the cathode-ray tube TV that was documented as his previous form. However, researchers theorise that, in the coming years, the entity's head will start to assume the shape of a virtual-reality headset instead, due to the rising popularity of this particular technology.
Knowing that I have lived long enough to see civilisations rise and fall...
How does that make you feel?
Your life is just the blink of an eye to one like me.
Possible Affiliations[]
The Serpent[]
And you dare to mock me with it?"
According to accounts dating back to the Dark Ages, Ratatosk gives an intriguing reason as to why he bears the name of his Norse mythical namesake, the primordial squirrel Ratatoskr. Apparently, just as the mythological squirrel carries insults between the eagle perched atop Yggdrasil and the dragon Nidhogg at its roots, Ratatosk the Reaper is a connexion, a bridge of sorts between two greater evils: the twisted, corrupted minds of the human race, and the primordial shifting darkness in which all wicked things gestate, the Serpent. He supposedly cares little for both "the lowly sapient beings that walk in and out of rooms" and "the massive mommy snake of all smilers and anethikas", saying that he merely acts as a messenger between the two, bringing eternal wickedness from the Void to the humans, and transient corruption from the mortal realm to the Serpent.
The Fallen God[]
YOU WILL BE THE FIRST ONE I COME FOR."
In 1994, a M.E.G. operative by the name of [REDACTED] conversed with Ratatosk the Reaper. During this conversation, some insight was gained about the entity's connection with a certain other deity: the Fallen God of Level 899. According to the operative's account, Ratatosk stated that the Fallen God is his arch-nemesis, for HE is a being of oblivion who wishes to return the world to a state of complete nonexistence, contrasting greatly with the Reaper's fluctuating, chaotic nature and his reliance on psychic radiation from existent beings to stay alive. This may also imply that Ratatosk had some role to play in the binding of the Fallen God to the monochrome level.
God's Blind Spot[]
Level ███████ is a level that has constantly been referred to by Ratatosk as his "playground". What this refers to is unclear, but it may imply that this hellscape is but a sandbox for the godlike entity to torture his victims. Operatives from various groups are currently attempting to investigate the matter, but to no avail.
Why do you call me a demon, a ruthless god?
Don't you know that I'm simply here to save you?
Why do you fear me?
Why do you fear being irradiated by my aura?
WHY?!
Don't you see?
This isn't radiation poisoning!
This is radiotherapy!
If you would just let me into your mind, for once...
Perhaps you would stop going insane!
*sigh*
Riddle me this, Gary...
When you look into my eyes for the first time, for the last time...
Hear my voice seeping into the darkest cracks of your psyche at long last...
What will you make of the minds we lost out of
Notice from
The Antulpaic Order
Our order does not oftentimes show itself. In fact, we are perhaps the most unknown group in the entirety of the Backrooms. But it is crucial that you understand the truth behind this phenomenon, and so our vow of secrecy shall be broken just this once due to the importance of this matter.
That's right. We said phenomenon, not entity.
Open file?
Author: The Bishop
Inspired by: Ratatoskr (Norse mythos), Loki (Norse mythos), Alastor the Radio Demon (Hazbin Hotel), people with TV heads, that girl who climbs out of the TV (no I haven't watched The Ring I just happen to know about it)
Background Image: This Reddit thing