How To Survive The Backrooms

How To Survive THE BACKROOMS A survival guide by Adyson Dragon

How to Survive the Backrooms - Adyson Dragon The carpet beneath your feet squishes with every step. The moisture in the air smells old, and you can practically feel the mildew permeating your lungs. Above you, fluorescent lights flicker inconsistently– you’ve given up trying to find a pattern. You can’t escape their constant electric buzzing no matter what room you enter, and you have nothing you can use to drown out the noise. All around you is a sea of yellow.

Yellow carpet, yellow ceilings, yellow walls.

Unfortunately for you, you’ve arrived in the Backrooms. How did you get here? You must have misstepped, falling through what you thought was a solid floor and tumbling into a dimension you were never supposed to enter. A reality outside of reality, never meant to be discovered. If you accidentally found your way in, is there a way to get yourself out?

At last, after some wandering, you come across what seems to be the first sign of life in this place other than your own. Arrows point you towards a wall covered with tallies, scribbles, and barely coherent words. Four of them stand out to you most:

DON’T MOVE. STAY STILL.

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How to Survive the Backrooms - Adyson Dragon What are the Backrooms, and where are they from?

The Backrooms are an internet urban legend created by a thread of anonymous internet users. During a discussion about liminal spaces where users were sharing their favourite photos, one person posted the now famous image of a mysterious place with yellow walls.

Another person added some cryptic lore to go along with the ominous photo:

“If you’re not careful and you noclip out of reality in the wrong areas, you’ll end up in the Backrooms, where it’s nothing but the stink of old moist carpet, the madness of mono-yellow, the endless background noise of fluorescent lights at maximum hum-buzz, and approximately six hundred million square miles of randomly segmented empty rooms to be trapped in[.] God save you if you hear something wandering around nearby, because it sure as hell has heard you[.]” - Anonymous, Sun 12 May 2019

The legend exploded in popularity, and many began to add to it or create their own works inspired by it. But if there’s an endless amount of interpretations of the Backrooms, how does one find a general canon among the chaos? After all, we want to know exactly what we’re up against here.

How to Survive the Backrooms - Adyson Dragon First, here are some quick definitions of words often used in conversations about the Backrooms.

Noclip: The word “noclip” is a video game term used to describe the ability to walk through solid objects, either intentionally or through glitches. This is similar to the way we see ghosts floating through floors and walls in popular culture.

Liminal: The word “liminal” alone describes being in an inbetween state. This word became very popular on the internet, and is used to describe a specific genre of photos called “liminal spaces”.

This internet aesthetic encompasses photos of places that are transitory (an in between place), as well as places that are meant to be inhabited and used by people but are unsettlingly empty.

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How to Survive the Backrooms - Adyson Dragon Which version of the canon is the most developed?

It might bring you no comfort to know that your survival is in the hands of a teeanger. In January of 2022, 16-year-old Kane Parsons uploaded a viral video to YouTube titled “The Backrooms (Found Footage)”. This short animated film (yes, it is animated, believe it or not!) thrilled the internet, leading to Kane posting more videos and continuing the series, building a cohesive world around such a simple premise.

This expanse of lore contains many elements that are unique to Kane’s Backrooms. In his version of the story, a research foundation called ASYNC discovered a way to build a portal into the Backrooms, but in doing so, messed up our current reality, causing accidents where regular people find themselves falling in without warning.

The ASYNC researchers explore the Backrooms in iconic yellow hazmat suits to protect themselves from a mysterious contagion.

Most notably, an entity known as The Bacteria lurks around the corner, chasing after anything it sees move.

How to Survive the Backrooms - Adyson Dragon

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How to Survive the Backrooms - Adyson Dragon DANGER #1: THE BACTERIA

Of course, what you should probably prepare for first and foremost is the monster you might inevitably run into. What do we know about The Bacteria, and how can we fight against it? (That is, of course, assuming there is only one.)

APPEARANCE: The creature is all black, with gangly limbs that are covered in wire-like tendrils. Its arms reach to the ground and its head is considerably elongated. While in pursuit, its screeches are ear-splitting and sound vaguely electric and distorted.

ABILITIES: The entity may look like a stick figure, but it has enough speed to chase a human and keep up with it. While we don’t know how good its hearing is, we assume that its primary sense is sight. It also seems to possess the terrifying ability to mimic human words and sounds, like a recording.

Its behavior and intentions are a mystery, and we have yet to recover any footage of someone fighting back against the Bacteria with a weapon. After all, most people who come in contact are unarmed scientists or unprepared victims of noclipping. There seems to be only two ways to evade this monster. You can try to outrun it

How to Survive the Backrooms - Adyson Dragon (which, seeing as you’re less familiar with the terrain than it, you’ll only really survive if you’re lucky), or follow the advice of the unknown wall-writer: DON’T MOVE. STAY STILL.

Of course, there are many different theories about what this entity is, and even what its intentions are. Some theorize that it is a camera and tripod being controlled by a bacteria, hence the name it was given by Kane himself. Others say that this monster could actually be a human who fell into the backrooms and became deformed, and isn’t trying to hurt anyone, but rather communicate and get help. Could this be wishful thinking? Oh, and one more thing... all who enter the Backrooms seem to end up with a slight cough. I wonder what that could mean?

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How to Survive the Backrooms - Adyson Dragon Danger #2: Starvation and Dehydration

The Backrooms aren’t a natural place. There is no dirt, no sun, and no convenient McDonalds open 24/7. So how are you going to find food or water?

When it comes to water, you could always look down at your feet. After all, the carpet is perpetually moist, and it’s beginning to seep through your shoes and into your socks. But are you really going to drink carpet water? Assuming it’s even water at all...

If you wander around enough, you could stumble upon the most well-known part of the Backrooms second to the endless yellow hallways– the Poolrooms. Once again, ask yourself: Do you trust this other-dimensional liquid? Is it chlorinated? Is it even water? Do you dare find out? Eventually, you might have no choice.

As for food... The items that spawn in this place are random; rope, ladders, upside-down street signs, to name a few. Some items you may come across are things that have fallen in, things others brought with them when they ended up here, and some things that were simply... generated, just like the many rooms and hallways of the Backrooms. Keep in mind, as a creature that

How to Survive the Backrooms - Adyson Dragon is incapable of photosynthesis (not that you will find any sunlight in the Backrooms), your diet consists of organic, living organisms.

However, as far as we know, nothing organic lives in the Backrooms.

Well, other than the other lost people wandering around this infinite expanse. Who knows if you’ll ever run into them– and even then, are you desperate enough to resort to cannibalism?

...I wonder how edible the carpet is.

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How to Survive the Backrooms - Adyson Dragon

How to Survive the Backrooms - Adyson Dragon Danger #3: Insanity

Let’s say that, due to the otherworldly properties of the Backrooms, your body is frozen in time and no longer requires sustenance, leaving you in perfect health to eternally wander this never ending labyrinth. How much will your mind be able to handle?

Due to the size of the Backrooms (which are quite literally infinite), it’s highly unlikely you’ll come across another person.

You’ll be wandering all alone, constantly on edge, anxiety coursing through you at the mystery of what’s around every corner. The lights above you never lessen in brightness, and their buzzing never ceases. I can’t imagine that a place full of damp carpet would smell very pleasant. The dream-like nonsense of the randomly generated architecture will certainly start to wear down your psyche, always filling your mind with questions and never ending answers.

And, of course, there’s the realization that your may never escape that’s beginning to settle into your mind, making each step of yours slower than the last as you begin to succumb to the hopelessness– you can never escape this nauseating scene of

yellow, yellow, yellow.

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How to Survive the Backrooms - Adyson Dragon CAN YOU LEAVE?

At the very least, Kane Pixel’s version of the Backrooms brings some hope for the lost wanderer. ASYNC has created a portal, after all– a guaranteed way out, if only you’re lucky enough to find it, or any of ASYNC’s researchers exploring the area.

Also, how was any of this “found footage” recovered, anyway?

It’s confirmed that it is possible to noclip out of the backrooms, as we see a poor boy’s film camera fall through the floor of the Backrooms after the Bacteria catches up to him. However, concerningly, the camera ends up in our world at about cloud height, plummeting to the earth.

So, really, at the end of the day, it’s all about luck. And if you end up in the Backrooms at all... I’d say you really don’t have any.

How to Survive the Backrooms - Adyson Dragon

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