It was the whisper of fabric on fabric, this time accompanied by a blur of motion off to my left. I wheeled, catching the fluttering edge of a blue sheet, just before it disappeared behind one of the racing machines. Another flash of movement in the corner of my right eye revealed a small figure, no more than four feet tall, who scampered out from behind one of the claw machines.

For the first time, I got a good look at our visitor.

At first glance, I wasn’t particularly impressed or worried.

It looked like a kid wearing a bright red sheet draped over its head. The stupid ensemble made him vaguely resemble a ghost. There were jagged holes gouged into the sheet, but I couldn’t see any eyes—just pits of black that seemed to go on and on and on. Those black endless sockets were the most disturbing part by far. A pair of gnarled, bare feet protruded from beneath the hem of the loose-fitting sheet, the toes long and pale and capped with yellowing nails that hadn’t been trimmed in ages.

Dweller 0.393C – Arcade Specter [Level 2]

Arcade Specters look like grubby toddlers pretending to be ghosts for Halloween and that’s about how dangerous they are. Hell, if anything these little rascals can be mildly beneficial. Their meat is chock-full of healing nutrients, assuming you’re willing to indulge in what is basically borderline cannibalism. Unfortunately for you, the thing that likes to HUNT these guys isn’t so harmless. I’d run if I were you…

“Uh, Croc, how boned are we here?” I asked.

“Hmmm, on a scale of Milkbone to prehistoric fossil, I would say we’re solidly preserved mammoth tusk.”

“What the fuck is that supposed to mean?” I shot back, one hand already reaching for my newly enhanced hammer.

“It means no need to panic yet, Dan. But…” The mimic trailed off. “But maybe best to hurry it along, yeah? You can ooh and ahh at your goodies once we get out of here.”

Croc had never sounded worried before, but the dog sounded worried now.

Which probably meant I needed to really, really worry.

I spun back to the machines and started feeding my high-end Loot Tokens into each of the respective Gashapon machines as fast as my fingers would move. Three Silver Tokens—a basic Delver Token, one Medic!, and an Elementalist—one Gold Ambassador Token and, of course, the coveted Diamond Sentinel. I didn’t even bother to look at the contents of each capsule, but instead shoved all of them into Storage without a second look, nervous sweat beading on my forehead and running down my cheeks.

There was a thump that rattled the floor off in the distance, followed by a distant sound that was hard to place, but also strangely familiar. It was droning and repetitive. Almost hypnotic.

“And now we should panic,” Croc called. “Time to go, Dan. Like right now!”

The sound was growing louder, more insistent.

With the capsules all safely stowed, I rushed over to Croc’s side and froze when I saw something huge and round emerge from the end of an aisle, not far off. The creature was easily the size of a compact sedan, perfectly spherical, and covered in pebbled yellow flesh. It had two beady black eyes, glossy and lifeless like a shark, and a cavernous maw filled with rows and rows of cruel curved teeth. The jaws of a deep-sea anglerfish, maybe.

I was staring at an off-brand, horror movie rendition of Pac-Man.

Dweller 0.3327A – Mobile Murder Muncher [Level 27]

Let’s not pretend we don’t all know exactly what this is… Yep, a Mobile Murder Muncher. The Triple M is a triple threat and is as fierce as it is stupid. A voracious creature of pure, unthinking hunger, the Mobile Murder Muncher yearns for the healing flesh of the Arcade Specters, which soothes it from the unrelenting pain of its own terrible existence—at least for a short while.

With that said, it isn’t a particularly picky eater and will consume anything unlucky or stupid enough to get in its way. If there is any saving grace to this shitshow of a situation, it’s that the Triple M will not leave the Arcade for any reason. It’s also dumber than a sack of hair. But then so are you for being here in the first place. You really should’ve run when I told you to…

The monster opened and closed its mouth in a rhythmic fashion as it levitated a foot above the star-speckled carpet. Now, I knew exactly what the sound was.

“WAKA-WAKA-WAKA,” the creature thundered, before disappearing down the next aisleway.

Dead ahead one of the Arcade Specters appeared, this one clad in blue. It took off at a sprint, moving as quickly as possible away from the Murder Muncher. In Pac-Man the ghosts usually hunted you, but in this bizzarro world, of course it was the other way around. The Codex entry said the Murder Muncher was stupid, but it also said the monster was hungry, and if it was after the creepy ghost kids, I didn’t want to be anywhere near them.

I turned and took off in the other direction, running toward the glass-fronted entryway, hoping to get clear of this place before the Murder Muncher could get within chomping range. I took a sharp right and skidded around an aisle filled with more claw machines—these filled with miscellaneous weapons and odd bobbles—then bolted past a bank of first-person shooters, which stood near the exit. Except there was one problem. One huge, pain-in-my-ass problem. A metal security gate had been unceremoniously rolled down from the ceiling and secured to the floor with a thick metal lock.

I could easily stick one hand through the metal slats of the rolling gate, but there was no way I could squeeze my body through. Picking the lock was out of the question, and I didn’t have any Artifacts or Relics that would let me get past the gate. Theoretically, I could bust the lock with my hammer, but it was outside the metal gate, so getting a clean shot would be impossible. And the most Bleach Bolt would do is leave the metal sparkling and clean.

This narrative has been unlawfully taken from Royal Road. If you see it on Amazon, please report it.

I had a full charge on the Slammer of Shielding, but that was a stopgap measure at best.

I needed to find a way out. Fast, quick, and in a hurry.

I rushed over to the broad glass panel flanking the security gate to the left. I doubted very much that I’d be able to bash my way through, but my hammer did have a few fancy new upgrades and I had Surveyor’s Mark as part of the Catacomber Emblem, which allowed me to alter the physical structures of the Backrooms in small ways. Admittedly, smashing out an entire window probably didn’t qualify as “altering things in a small way,” but I’d feel dumb as shit if I didn’t at least try.

I let the Mana in my core flow down my arm and into the hammer gripped tightly in my hand. The makeshift weapon felt hollow and hungry, like an empty vessel desperate to be filled. My blue Mana gauge flared to life, dropping by several points, then suddenly the weapon swelled, growing to the size of a sledgehammer. It blazed with cold cobalt light, as though it were built entirely from forged Mana, but weighed no more than it had before.

I planted my feet, grabbed the handle with both hands, then swung for the fences, activating Gavel as I did. My Stamina plunged as well, dropping close to zero as even more power surged into the weapon.

The blunt face slammed into the glass with a thunderous reverberation and the smallest hairline fracture crept outward from the impact. Seeing the tiny crack made me think that I might well be able to bash my way free. If I had an unlimited pool of Mana and Stamina and a couple of uninterrupted hours to bang on the glass. But I didn’t have either of those. What I did have was a handful of seconds before I was shark chum. The racket had drawn the attention of the Murder Muncher, and it was racing toward me at an unbelievable speed.

“Oh, fiddlesticks! We need to move, Dan!” Croc bellowed, slamming into my hip with one shoulder.

I stumbled, frozen for a moment by the sight of the onrushing avalanche of pebbled, waxy skin and too-big teeth. The creature was horrifying, but watching its jaws rhythmically shoot up then snap shut was hypnotic. Dreamy. There was a part of me that wanted to stand there, staring placidly into the maw of certain doom like a moron. Thankfully, the jarring shove from Croc broke the strange trance and coaxed my feet into motion. I shook my head and staggered into a run, darting down the connecting aisle.

There was a whoosh of displaced air as the Murder Muncher erupted from the aisle, then turned on a dime and proceeded to follow us.

The rumbling growl of “WAKA-WAKA-WAKA” chased us down the hall, the sound vibrating inside my chest. It was the sound of memories. Of long summer nights and childhood friendships. It was also the sound of my death.

“The Arcade is locked,” I hollered down at Croc, who was pacing me easily. The mutt was fast when it wanted to be, and it seemed Croc had a very strong urge not to be eaten. “What the hell do we do now?”

“Two options,” Croc replied, panting a little even though the mimic didn’t have lungs to speak of. “There should be an emergency exit that will dump us back into the mall. Could be anywhere, though, so we’ll have to stay alive until we can find it. Or we can find a Ravenous Hunger Pellet. It’s a white ball, about the size of a fist. Floats in the air. It’ll make the Murder Muncher vulnerable for three minutes.”

“And then we can kill it?” I asked.

Croc barked a laugh. “Heavens no. It’s level twenty-seven. Even vulnerable, it’ll shrug off anything we can throw at it. But its teeth will vanish for a bit, so it’ll have to gum us to death instead—which it is fully capable of doing, by the way. It’s just a much slower death. More painful, in all likelihood.”

“Then why would you tell me about it!” I yelled, still running.

Except, the words were lost as the “WAKA-WAKA-WAKA” behind me grew so loud it was deafening. I could feel hot fetid breath on my back, and I knew that if I turned around, even for a moment, the creature would bite me in two.

We blasted out from the end of the aisle, and I saw a red neon exit sign a few rows over.

Unfortunately, a pink-sheeted ghost slammed into me at the exact same instant, and the pair of us went down in a tangle of limbs. We rolled several times, and when we finally came to a stop, the ghost was lying on top of me like a lumpy sack of potatoes, and the Murder Muncher was less than ten feet away and closing fast, its predatory eyes locked onto our position.

Oh fuck.

I fumbled for the Slammer, but my fingers felt numb and useless. That was the adrenaline settling in. Adrenaline is one helluva potent drug, but it has a few drawbacks, like diminished hearing, tunnel vision, and the temporary loss of fine motor skills. Which was the reason my fingers were staging a mutiny. But it also has the added benefit of slowing time down to a crawl. Things weren’t actually going any slower, of course, but my brain was processing information at a breakneck speed.

I knew I wouldn’t have the dexterity to use the Slammer, but there was one option that might buy me a few extra precious seconds. Just enough time to get to the exit, if I was lucky.

If I was unlucky, I was going to die horribly.

It wasn’t a great option, and I would have trouble looking at myself in the mirror for a few days, but it was that or be devoured by a mutated version of Pac-Man. Given the outcome, the choice was a no-brainer.

I pulled my legs up, jammed them into the Arcade Specter’s stomach, and mule-kicked the son of a bitch off of me and straight into the oncoming jaws of the Murder Muncher. The ghost was surprisingly light—it only weighed as much as a small child, which had a number of disturbing implications. It sailed through the air like a punted football, its little legs kicking as it issued a terrified mewling noise that might have almost sounded like the word help.

Or maybe not. I was hoping not.

Then the jaws crunched down and there was an explosion of gore. The creature was dead so fast, its Health bar didn’t even have a chance to appear.

A geyser of crimson erupted outward in an arc, spraying the purple carpet and drenching me in blood, bone, and bits of fluttering sheet. It was easily one of the most horrendous things I’d ever seen. I’d kicked that defenseless ghost child into the creature’s mouth, knowing it would be devoured. I hadn’t been aware I was feeding it into the supernatural equivalent of a woodchipper.

Yep, definitely didn’t feel good about that.

But it was me or the ghost, I reminded myself, and I’d pick me all day every day. The Murder Muncher had stopped moving and was mashing through the meat in great noisy gurgles. I scrambled to my feet and took off like a bullet, racing around another arcade machine—classic Donkey Kong—beelining for the emergency exit.

“You okay?” Croc called, appearing beside me at a run. “Because that is an obscene amount of blood.”

“It’s not my blood,” I yelled in reply. “Now move your ass!”

In the distance, the ominous “WAKA-WAKA-WAKA” had started up once more, like the engine of a murderous combine tractor roaring to life, but Croc and I raced through the door and into the relative safety of the mall.

I skidded to a stop—sweating, shaking, and bloody—then doubled over, hands pressed against my knees as I sucked in great, greedy lungfuls of air.

I stole a sidelong look at the dog. “Hey Croc,” I said, “let’s not make any more unnecessary pit stops, okay?”

“Oh, fiddlesticks. But there’s a great Froyo place not far from here,” Croc replied, looking crestfallen. “Don’t know why, but the Arcade always puts me in the mood for Froyo.”

“I just donkey kicked a toddler into the equivalent of a sentient bear trap,” I growled, looking down at my blood-spattered shirt. “We are not, under any circumstances, getting Froyo.”