After I finished counting the supplies, I carefully slipped out of the room. At that moment, I started debating whether to meet up with M.E.G. or hunt for a special door to bail out of Level 3. The first option seemed like a dead end, while the second was a total death trap. For a sec, I was totally stumped.
"Let's just wing it," I sighed, trying to pep talk myself.
In the Backrooms, especially in Level 4, sticking around in one spot was basically signing your own death warrant. I had to keep moving and find a way out.
As I wandered down the hallway, I passed a bunch of rooms but didn't dare to step foot in any of them, scared of another "Smiling Room" situation. At the same time, I kept running into these prison bar-like spots.
Every time I passed those bars, I felt this icy stare burning into my back, sending chills down my spine and making me speed up.
Then, I hit a corner in the hallway. From the other side, I heard kids laughing.
In this nightmare of a place, there were kids playing around?
I was totally baffled. My steps faltered, and I started backing away slowly.
I didn't dare to bolt. I was scared that the sound of my running would tip off whatever was lurking around the corner.
But just then, three little girls in white dresses slowly appeared at the corner, holding hands.
They had their heads down, and their long hair covered their faces. I couldn't see their faces, but weirdly, the three little girls were singing the children's song "Find a Friend" together and kept creeping closer.
"Looking for a friend, looking for a friend, finding a good friend..."
The three girls sang and danced, forming a circle around me by holding hands and kept circling around me, singing.
Being surrounded by three creepy little girls singing in the Backrooms was definitely not a good sign.
Suddenly, the three little girls stopped singing and froze. They all lifted their heads at the same time, revealing their faceless faces, and slowly asked me, "Big brother, do you want to be our good friend?"
"Holy crap!"
Seeing those three smooth, mirror-like faces, I freaked out and cursed. Then, I mustered all my strength to break free from the circle formed by the three little girls and bolted down the hallway without looking back.
Behind me, the three faceless little girls let out "giggles" and followed me like shadows, constantly chanting, "Stay and be our friend, stay and be our friend..."
Thanks to the Level 2 speed core, I was booking it. Gradually, the sounds behind me faded.
I slowed down and glanced back. I saw the three faceless little girls standing in the darkness, silently watching me leave. Next to them, there was another white figure, also without a face.
I shuddered. Seeing that they weren't chasing me, I hightailed it out of there.
After ditching those faceless freaks, I finally breathed a sigh of relief.
Since I landed in Level 3, I'd been walking and stopping countless times. Now, the exhaustion was hitting me hard.
At that moment, it dawned on me that I'd been in the Backrooms for a while, but I hadn't slept much.
On one hand, there was no day or night in the Backrooms, and I didn't have a watch, so I didn't have a regular sleep schedule. On the other hand, since I got here, I'd been living on the edge, and the constant tension kept me from feeling sleepy.
Now that the drowsiness hit, I knew it was because I was totally wiped out.
In this situation, crashing in the hallway was a death sentence. I needed to find a safe spot to catch some Z's.
Not far from me, there was a room. I walked over, knocked on the door, and then pressed my ear against it, listening carefully for a bit. After making sure it was silent inside, I carefully pushed the door open and stepped in. Once inside, the room was pitch black. This time, unlike last time, no pairs of eyes lit up. This was a normal room. It was super basic, so basic that there wasn't even a bed. After closing the door, I found that it could be locked and quickly did so. With the door locked, I pulled out my gun, loaded it, aimed it at the door, and then lay down in the middle of the room. I was so beat that I conked out within seconds after hitting the floor...
For some reason, in my sleep, I faintly seemed to hear the sound of the door being opened. But when I woke up, I found that the door was indeed open! The door was wide open towards me, and behind it was a dark and silent corridor. I immediately broke out in a cold sweat. I had slept so soundly that I didn't even notice the door being opened. But I clearly remembered locking it, so there must have been some unknown entity that passed through the wall to open my door! The slight drowsiness I had just woken up from vanished instantly, and now all I had in my heart was fear of the unknown. If that thing wanted to kill me, I would have been dead while I was asleep.
I had originally planned to meet up with M.E.G., but now I had no such mood. I knew there were entities in Level 3 that could kill me at will. Even though it had spared me this time, who could guarantee that it wouldn't suddenly decide to kill me one day? I tightened my grip on the gun and, with full alertness, entered the corridor. Although I had just slept and replenished some energy, I was still very worried about that unknown entity. So now I really wanted to leave Level 3. Perhaps because I had explored Level 3 for a long time, I finally found a different door at the end of the corridor. I pressed my ear against the door and could even hear singing from behind it. I was almost certain that this was the door to the next level. I glanced back at the dark corridor and opened the door leading to the unknown. As I stepped through the door, I felt a sense of falling, and a second later, I landed on solid ground. I stood up and found myself in a large circular stadium, with an ice rink below. The ice rink was decorated with colorful lights and playing some popular music from the front hall. Everything here looked very similar to the ice rink in the front hall. On the surrounding stands, I saw many shadows of wanderers. Seeing my kind, I was naturally very happy and quickly walked towards the nearest shadow, patted it on the shoulder and asked, "Hello, friend, do you know where this is?" The "wanderer" looked up at me, but didn't respond. Instead, it walked away on its own. But when it looked up, it scared me a lot because this wanderer had no facial features, just like the three little girls I met in Level 3! But what puzzled me was that this faceless entity didn't seem to have any hostility towards me. At that moment, a familiar voice suddenly came from behind me: "That's an adult faceless spirit, a friendly entity. Don't worry." Hearing this familiar voice, I quickly turned around. It was Jiu! Seeing Jiu in an unknown level, I was both happy and worried. I was happy that Jiu had survived in the Backrooms for so long and was very experienced. With his guidance, my chances of survival would greatly increase. I was worried that as a member of the Blade Ridge guerrillas, Jiu would usually go to the most dangerous places. My encounter with him at level 9 was the best proof of that... But now that I met Jiu here, did it mean that this place was also extremely dangerous?
I quickly took out the Babel Lip Balm and applied it to my lips, then asked Jiu, "Which level is this? Why are you here...?"
Jiu smiled and said, "Don't worry. This is level 31, very safe. I'm here to carry out a mission..."
From Jiu's mouth, I learned the information about this level.
Level 31, Circular Ice Rink
Level 1
• Safe
• Stable
• Very few entities ...