“You know, I like that Jakob,” Croc said as we exited through the sliding glass doors by the front register.

“That doesn’t mean anything,” I replied. “You like everyone.”

“That is true and a fair point, but this time I really feel it. Like the warmth I feel in my belly after eating someone. It just feels right, you know?”

“Having never eaten anyone, I do not know. But I’ll take your word for it.” I paused and stole a sidelong look at the dog. “Thing is, Croc, we need to be careful about people like Jakob. He seemed like a straight shooter to me too, but he could be playing us. He can’t hurt us inside the store, but the second we leave, we’re fair game. For now, the only people we can trust is ourselves.”

“Because we’re friends, Dan?” Croc asked. “And friends stick together forever and would never lie, betray, or eat one another?”

“Bingo,” I replied. “Besides, we don’t need Jakob. We can find Howlers Hold ourselves. We know it’s somewhere on the seventh floor, and with Unerring Arrow, we’ll get there eventually.”

Instead of exiting directly into the sprawling expanse of the third floor, we found ourselves in a large shipping elevator. The kind they use to move cargo around shopping malls. Running down a sleek silver panel on the right were buttons that corresponded to each of the various doorway anchors I’d planted so far. There were five buttons in total—one for the Lobby and each of the first three floors, plus a fifth button that simply read VIP.

That button was only accessible by me.

The curious thing was, I hadn’t intentionally added the elevator using my Blanket Fort ability. It had just sort of shown up after I planted the second doorway anchor. Apparently, it was the Backrooms’ logistical solution for one door that had many entrances and exits.

I thumbed the VIP button and the elevator rumbled and vibrated as though great, invisible cables were hauling us up into the abyss. After a few seconds there was a ding and the doorway slid open with a smooth whisper. Croc and I stepped out through an unremarkable gray janitorial door, set in a beige service hallway on the third floor. The door clicked shut behind us, taking with it the view of the overlarge interior of the elevator.

Curiously, if I were to step through the doorway again, it wouldn’t take me to the elevator at all, but through the sliding glass doors and directly into the store. It was a weird bit of spatial magic that hurt my brain to think about. It was a good thing overall, though, because it meant that if Delvers wanted to use the storefront as a means of traversing between floors, they’d have to pay for the privilege first.

I turned around and ran my fingers over the black plastic faceplate, which simply read “Private Service Access Point,” and tugged it off with a thought and a small trickle of Mana. The placard served as my private VIP doorway anchor, and unlike the others, I could move it freely with no time or placement restrictions. With the faceplate now tucked away in Storage, the door would legitimately connect to a janitor’s closet.

One filled with a level 6 amorphous ooze that breathed out toxic chlorine gas.

I fixed the seventh floor firmly in my mind and cast Unerring Arrow, conjuring the ghostly blue arrow that shot down the corridor to the left. It quickly disappeared into another door that led to what Croc had dubbed a “double-decker stairwell”—meaning it connected both to the floor directly above us and to one of the floors below. This particular stairwell was extra useful, however, since it skipped the fourth floor entirely and let out directly onto the fifth.

Finding stairwells was hard enough, but finding stairwells that jumped floors was like finding an uncut diamond in a pile of horseshit. In hindsight, I’d been damned lucky to come across the janitorial bathroom guardian, even though it had nearly killed me in the process.

I unlocked the metal push bar using the same key I’d taken off the Janitor so long ago and shouldered my way into the stairwell. I took a quick glance around to make sure the way was still clear and that nothing nasty had set up shop since we’d last scoped out this location, then Croc and I headed down two simple sets of concrete steps.

The descent was remarkably anticlimactic, which was fine by me.

Even though Croc and I had discovered the double-decker stairwell almost a week ago, this was the first time I’d actually ventured below the third floor. Croc had told me in endless detail about what to expect, but it still caught me by surprise as the door swung open and we stumbled out into what I could only describe as a 1920s luxury hotel.

Gaudy gold-and-crystal chandeliers dangled from frescoed ceilings, casting warm buttery light across polished marble floors. The soft, distant sounds of a piano drifted through the air, mingling with the muffled chatter of unseen patrons. Crushed velvet drapes framed grand arched windows that looked out into nowhere, while plush armchairs, ornate tapestries, and gilded mirrors hinted at an era of unparalleled luxury. Although I didn’t see anything or anyone, it was impossible to miss the earthy scent of cigars waltzing with a hint of floral perfume.

The place wasn’t my style, not even close, but I’d spent time with people who would pay an arm and a leg to stay in a hotel this fancy. Hell, me and the boys had worked on a renovation job up in Cincinnati that strongly reminded me of this place—and I knew for a fact that even the low-end rooms went for four hundred or more a night. There was nothing in the world that would convince me to pay that much for a place to sleep.

I’d slept in tents, under the stars, and on top of honest-to-god tank treads, and there wasn’t anything a four-hundred-dollar-a-night room could do for me that a bed down at the Motel Six couldn’t accomplish.

Still, assuming things went well with the folks in Howlers Hold, maybe I’d venture back up here and snag a block of rooms to graft onto the store. It would give visitors a little more space, and I could charge quite a bit more for a luxury suite than I could for a tent or a cot in the storage area behind the freezers. I planted a standard Doorway Anchor on a gilded door that let into an empty guest room with a king-sized bed and a boxy TV that buzzed with fuzzy black and white static.

With the anchor set, I’d be able to come back here and look around at my leisure once I’d finished taking care of business with the settlers in Howlers Hold.

We didn’t spend much time exploring the fifth floor, and Unerring Arrow quickly spirited us not toward a stairwell—as I’d first assumed—but toward a dumbwaiter that dropped us down onto the sixth floor, which was utterly and completely dark. Crawling out of the cramped box, barely large enough to accommodate my bulk, and into a pitch-black room was an unnerving experience. I pulled the high-powered Maglite from my tool belt, but the watery beam of light was about as effective as farting into the wind.

The darkness seemed to be a living thing that ate the light after only a handful of feet.

I pulled a secondary flashlight from Storage, hoping that the extra beam would somehow reduce the oppressive nature of the hungry dark. It didn’t help at all. Not a lick. When I dropped to a knee and examined the ground beneath me, I saw pitted concrete, which suggested this was an indoor location of some variety. Past that, though, there were no distinguishable features of note.

But there was a sound in the darkness.

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The howl of a distant wind blowing through the branches of a leafless winter tree.

There didn’t seem to be any Dwellers to speak of, but the longer we stayed the more I felt the weight of unseen eyes watching me from every corner.

Not that there were corners.

Or walls.

Or rooms.

This wasn’t a twisting labyrinth like the Lobby or even the endless urban sprawl of the third floor. This was a Void place. A realm of complete emptiness, barren of anything that could conceivably be used for survival. There was just… nothing.

Hell, I couldn’t even locate a Monolith. Not one that existed on this floor, at any rate.

When I asked Croc about the discrepancy, the mimic merely shrugged.

“Of course there aren’t Monoliths,” the dog replied as though it were common knowledge, intuitively known by all. “Lots of people think the sixth floor isn’t a proper floor at all. This is Superspace. Or maybe Subspace. No one seems to agree on which exactly. Far as I can reckon, there are about half a dozen of these floors scattered throughout the Backrooms. The sixth floor. The hundred and third. Two hundred and thirty-two. Three hundred and forty-nine. Those are the ones I’m reasonably sure about.”

“If they’re not real floors, then what in the hell are they and why do they exist?” I asked, still scanning the darkness, looking for threats that weren’t there.

“Now that is the question, isn’t it?” Croc replied sagely. “Why does anything exist, Dan? Who am I, why am I here? What is my purpose, amiright?”

I grimaced and pinched the bridge of my nose. “I can appreciate that it seems like you’re having an existential crisis right now, but I’m not talking metaphorically. Like if this place isn’t a proper floor, why is it in the Backrooms?”

“But that’s what I’m trying to get at, Dan. No one knows. That’s the thing you have to understand about this place—no one really knows anything. About anything. At all. Except maybe the Researcher, but there’s a good chance he’s insane now, so even he’s probably not an entirely reliable source. And that’s assuming you could find him, which you can’t. Or that he’ll talk to you even if you did, which he won’t. We’re all just taking a wild, blind stab in the dark.

“I’ve heard other Delvers say these floors are like connective tissue. Or quantum glue, maybe.” Croc paused, wrinkling its nose. “I’ll be honest, I don’t actually know what quantum glue is, but there was this Delver named Mikal who said it and it sounded really smart. He was some sort of scientist or something before he ended up here. But now that I hear myself say it aloud, it sounds kinda dumb.”

“What happened to Mikal?” I asked because I always had to ask.

Maybe if I survived impending execution at the hands of the Flayed Monarch, I’d take some time to chronicle all of the countless deaths Croc had witnessed. A Thousand Ways to Die in the Backrooms, I’d call it.

Croc’s face fell. “Mikal didn’t last long, but I want to go on record and say that was not my fault. He was in bad shape before he ever got here. Some sort of accident with something called the Large Hadron Collider.” Croc leaned in close. “Not sure who Hadron is or why he’s so large, but he must’ve been one mean fella.

“Mikal’s organs were all mixed up on the inside. Honestly, I’m surprised he made it as long as he did, considering the circumstances. But he was an interesting case, since he’s the only Delver I ever meet who bypassed the Lobby entirely and Noclipped straight to level five, which is where I found him. His lungs were on the outside of his body.”

“Does that mean he died of natural causes?” I asked.

Croc just laughed for a good solid minute. The sound was oddly muted in the dark. Eventually it wiped a tear from the edge of a googly eye with one paw. “Natural causes. That’s funny, Dan. It’s good to see you haven’t lost your sense of humor yet. That usually goes pretty quickly for most Delvers.”

We walked for another hour or so, accompanied only by the sound of our muffled footfalls and the rustle of the distant breeze that never abated, but never drew any closer either. I cast Unerring Arrow every ten minutes or so, but the arrow always pointed straight ahead. Even when I turned around and cast the spell a second time. I got the sense that direction didn’t matter at all here. I wasn’t even sure direction existed. Eventually, my flashlight beam reflected off a freestanding metal door, jutting up from the floor.

It wasn’t connected to anything at all.

No walls. Not even a proper doorframe.

Croc and I circled it three times, scanning for traps. But it was just a freestanding door. When I cast Unerring Arrow, the ethereal trail of light curved around the door and seemed to disappear into its backside. Because I couldn’t leave well enough alone, I tried the door from the front side and thought my jaw might hit the floor as it swung open to reveal the sweltering interior of a machine shop on the second floor.

I shut the door quickly, before anything nasty could lumber through and ruin my day, then tried entering from the other side. This time the door swung open, revealing what appeared to be a dilapidated elementary classroom.

The room lay in ruins. The tile floors were scuffed, chipped, and covered in a thick layer of dust and flaking plaster. Ancient desks, crafted from rusty iron and moldering wood, were haphazardly scattered about the room—many overturned as though the former occupants had left in a hurry. They were small, those desks, and wouldn’t fit anyone larger than an eight-year-old. Looming at the front of the classroom like a wounded buffalo was a significantly larger desk, crafted from rich mahogany.

A wooden ruler sat on the desktop and beside it was a heap of crimson rosary beads.

Behind the heavy desk was a weathered green chalkboard, its cracked and pitted surface covered by a list of rules, written in tight, white cursive lettering.

1. Good children are seen but never heard.

2. The best children are never seen at all.

3. Good boys and girls always say their prayers, or they will be taken by the left leg and thrown down the stairs.

4. When the bell tolls thrice, return to your chambers. You know why.

5. At 3 AM the Sacred Hour begins. Stay in bed, eyes shut tight. No matter what you hear, DO NOT leave your room.

6. Obedient children will avoid the mirrors. It is as it ever was and so shall ever be.

7. Good boys and girls avoid the indulgent temptations of the Partygoers. The cake is a lie. The cake bearer, the Father of Lies.

8. Children who avoid their studies and stay too long at the playground will receive delicious penance.

What the fuck is wrong with this place? I thought as I scanned the list of rules, trying to commit each one to memory. Were they here solely to scare the absolute bejesus out of anyone who stumbled across them? Probably.

Unless they weren’t.

And these rules were so incredibly weird and specific, I had to assume they were in some way a warning. Or at least a glimpse into whatever dangers this creepy place held.

Croc slipped into the room behind me, and the door we’d entered through closed with an audible click, which seemed thunderous in the stillness of the abandoned classroom.

On instinct, I turned around and tried the handle. It opened with ease, but now it no longer led to the yawning darkness of the sixth floor, but rather revealed a small supply closet filled with a heap of old papers, covered with the faded scribblings of children. I crouched down and snatched up a sheet of construction paper with a crude scene sketched in crayon.

There was a little stick figure kid with a wide grin holding up what appeared to be a birthday cake covered with a ridiculous number of candles. The stick figure was in some sort of party room with balloons, and standing behind the figure was the lanky form of a clown in a bright yellow suit. The clown had tufts of red hair poking out and a smile that stretched beyond the bounds of its face.

I shuddered and let the drawing flutter back to the discarded heap.

If there was one thing I disliked even more than furries, it was clowns. And with the furries, it wasn’t a moral judgement. They just made me uncomfortable. But with clowns? I specifically and actively thought less of anyone who, of sound mind and their own volition, decided that being a clown was a good and appropriate life choice.

“I’m guessing this is the seventh floor?” I asked, stealing a look at Croc.

“Of course. It’s the School Zone. Although sometimes people call this place Level Fun, on account of all the Arcades.”

“I thought you said each quadrant had one Monolith and one Loot Arcade. Except for level six, which doesn’t have any,” I amended.

“Yeah, but the Loot Arcades here are enormous. They’re actually larger than any other Loot Arcade above the hundredth floor and they offer a better selection of prizes, too. That’s why Howlers Hold is here. This is one of the best levels for resource access…”

“Why do I feel like there’s a but coming,” I said, forehead furrowing in suspicion.

“Because I was about to add one,” the mimic replied sheepishly. “This is one of the best levels for resources access, but the trade-off is that the Fun Zone Arcades are also among the most dangerous and well defended. Lots of Dwellers. Lots of Blighted areas. On floor three, the Arcades are clear eighty percent of the time, but here, it’s the exact opposite. More danger, but proportionally bigger rewards.”

“We talkin’ Murder Muncher levels of danger here?” I asked.

“Or worse,” Croc said happily. “But I’m sure we won’t have a problem, Dan. You’ve got all your fancy navigator abilities, so I fully expect nothing bad whatsoever to happen to us in anyway.”

Which is precisely when we heard the melodic giggle of a child…