Velli

The light is both right and wrong. It’s right because it’s no longer blue. It’s wrong because it’s an ugly fluorescent yellow that pulses above me. So much yellow. The carpet… Why is there carpet in a forest? It is thick, old, and the fibers are hard to move. The ugly, urine-colored yellow carpet is as hard as a rock.

The walls—still yellow and hard to look at for long—trap me somewhere. Decay marks every inch of the enclosure that now forms a sort of maze around me. Above me, the glare from the lights is too strong to look at. I shut my eyes and rub my forehead to compose myself. The pain of my headache amplifies the buzzing. The annoying, constant, monotonous, ever-present hum of those lights. Electric fly traps sound better.

Despite the lack of comfort, relief floods through me. I’m alone and safe. This is the safest I’ve been in what feels like forever. No need to rush. I can sit and plan here just for a little bit. Or could I even nap? I lean my back against the wall and glance to my left and right for any hazards. Nothing. This place is empty. I should be afraid, but I’ll take this over death itself.

I pull out my phone, and of course, my signal is gone. That’s obvious. I should wait it out here until morning. My Fairy-Tale Forest plan is a failure. That’s fine. I can even afford a little nap. Darkness swallows me.

I wake up full of anxiety. How’d I fall asleep that easily? I thought of it, and I was gone. I pull out my phone to check the time. Maybe things are just going to work out. Maybe it’s already sunrise and the monsters will soon leave. It’s still 12:30 a.m. That’s impossible. I felt it. I napped. I dreamed. I dreamed about… It’s gone now.

I did fall asleep, though my body has that interrupted-sleep-cycle tiredness. Honestly, I could go for another nap. Darkness swallows me.

I wake up on the floor. My mouth’s covered in drool, and I spin to check my surroundings. I touch myself to make sure I wasn’t attacked. I’m fine. Nothing’s around. Only the annoying buzz bites at my skull, keeping me company. What’s wrong with me? What’s wrong with my brain? With just the wish of a nap, my body was not my own, and I fell asleep.

It was an awful nap too. I fell asleep, and my body begs for more. It’s still only twelve thirty. No, the clock is wrong. Somehow, the time on my phone lies. Slower, maybe? I need to move. I’m so tired, though, and things could be worse here. A nap, first, maybe. Darkness chokes me.

I wake up with alarm because, this time, I saw it. Pure darkness. It leaped on top of me, pressed its body into mine, and put its hand on my mouth until I fell asleep. I need to move. It’s a maze. I run through it, and it becomes clear where exactly I am. It’s not safe here.

I’m in the Backrooms. I don’t want to run into whatever haunts this place. I can only walk. I wander through the long, never-ending maze it stretches farther than the eye can see. I know I’ll fall off. I don’t know when.

I sniff twice. I can smell it. I can smell the beast that haunts the Backrooms. I’ve killed monsters all night. What’s one more?

I walk through the modern-day labyrinth, in awe at its malicious commitment to the maddening mundane. Every wall of the maze is the exact same shape and size. The walls reject any attempts I make to mark them, refusing to acknowledge my presence and refusing to be of any aid to my attempt to understand if I progress at all. It’s like arrows against steel. Sounds of normality also avoid this maze. My footsteps make no noise. The malicious atmosphere muffles the jingle of my belt and the equipment on my chest. My own breath is the only noise the room allows. I become conscious of the weight of my own clothes, skin, and bones.

You’re scared of what’s coming.

It’s just a monster. I’ve killed worse tonight.

Then why are you panting?

It’s a maze.

No, you know how your life works now. Things don’t work out. Things can never be simple. I promised you a fate worse than death if we didn’t end our life soon. Maybe this is it. Oops, almost tripped there. And managed to make a little noise when your head banged against the wall. What are you scared of? You’re sweating, Velli. Oh, that stench. That bovine stench is getting closer, Velli. What are you scared of? Oh, you can taste the beast on your tongue we’re so close. And you’re shaking. Why are you shaking, Velli?

I turn the corner to see my enemy, and I’ll kill it, like I’ve killed the others. It is a minotaur. It sits on its backside. It’s already dead, its body torn open. Someone in a large sombrero picks out its bones. This someone has the most beautiful whistle I’ve ever heard.

They put the bones in a bag, a brown man-sized knapsack. Things punch and crawl inside the knapsack, creating indentations but never a single tear. Whatever he puts in there is very much alive.

I was wrong before. The minotaur is alive. It just… it just… it doesn’t make sense that it’s alive. It moos, a faint, long, mournful sound. It’s down to only bones, no fur, no muscle, just bones. It’s still alive—and in so much pain.

It’s got no eyes, just blank spaces where eyes should be, but it looks at me—toward me. What did I do to it? It’s looking at me. No, stop looking at me. If you look at me. Then he’ll…

He looks at me. I wish he were bones. I could beat bones. I recognize him. I’ve always loved legends. His wide-brimmed hat covers his face in shadow, or is he so tall, his face is impossible to see? His hat does crunch against the top of the maze as he stands to his full height. His sleeveless vest shows all of his lengthy arms. So much muscle and power in something so slim. His gray skintight pants look like a second layer of flesh until they stop at his ankles. He’s so tall. Three of my steps would be one of his. He is El Sibon. El Sibon does one sharp whistle in my direction.

I run back through the maze.

Stop running, Velli. Just accept it. You’re not going to find anything you can kill. There will always be an El Sibon or something worse, far worse.

El Sibon, a legend of Venezuelan lore. El Sibon, the man who killed his own father and, in turn, was cursed by his grandfather. He was tied to a pole and whipped by his grandfather and left to be eaten by wolves. Now, he wanders the world and collects the wet bones of the living.

I bump into corners of the maze because it’s a stupid maze, and turns come out of nowhere. Why is his whistling so close?

Because he’s close, Velli.

No, that’s not how the story goes. If he’s nearby, then it sounds like he’s far away.

Now, does that make sense?

Do monsters make sense?

No, and they also don’t play by our rules. Velli, I’m looking right now, and he’s nearly touching your back. I know you hear that whistle.

I do. It’s so sharp and holds no tune. It’s like a dog whistle for humans, a sharp command that splits my brain. He has to be there. That’s the only thing that makes sense.

Why don’t you look back?

I can’t look back. If I look back, I’ll slow down.

Then stop and die.

I run faster. That’s my only choice.

Steps! I listen for steps but hear none. Only my breath, the buzz of the lights, and a whistle that wants to split my skull.

You’re going into his bag of bones. You’re going into his bag of bones. You’re going into his bag of bones, Fate sings.

Left, right, right, right, right, left, left, right. I make up patterns of turns in my head to escape him. To shake him. Maybe if I can lose him, he’ll give up.

Someone! Someone other than El Sibon appears. She has green hair and wears an all-black dress that stops just above the knee. I follow her. We twist and turn throughout the maze and never stop, but we slow because of the maze’s power. The atmosphere enforces a sweat-inducing speed limit on our bodies.

Left, right, left, right, left, left, left. She, too, makes a random pattern. It’s comforting, partly because I’m not alone. She screams. Grabbing the back of her quad, she collapses to the floor.

Ensure your favorite authors get the support they deserve. Read this novel on Royal Road.

I risk a look back. No one’s there. Am I safe? I go to attend the girl.

“Get away from me!” she screams. “Stop following me!”

“Something’s coming,” I tell her and don’t dare to say El Sibon’s name aloud. “The whistler… the guy whistling.”

“Leave me alone!” she screeches loud enough to make me step back.

A long, single-note whistle toys with my brain. He’s still coming.

“Hey,” I tell her slowly, calmly, smiling. “I’m Ve—”

“Leave me alone!” she screams.

“No, wait, I’m trying to explain—”

“Leave! Leave! Leave!” she yells.

I leave her. That’s all I can do. I don’t hurry this time. It’s a walk as monotonous as the buzzing. I’m in a maze. I’m just as likely to find a way out as to run into El Sibon.

The bones were living, active things bouncing around a bag. Do you think you can talk in there, or is it just consciousness? Consciousness in a bag of bones. What would be worse, remembering what you once were in the bag, forgetting what you were, or thinking you were something else before, like a minotaur? Oh, you probably want to forget what you are. And well, if you want it, you know what’s bound to happen. You won’t get it.

I spot a staircase. Anything is better than this, so I make the journey down. It’s black and dark. Each step is invisible to me, and somehow, I never miss a step. Around the corner, the same fluorescent light bursts from another room and another sound—the sound of people.

Hundreds of them are all dressed in well-fitting black pants and shirts. They are people, but they give me an alien feeling. I have a hard time distinguishing their genders. They sit at long tables that hold maybe fifty or sixty people. They answer phones, chat, and slam them down with incredible intensity.

“Hey, excuse me. Excuse me.” I wave to the table in front of me. “How do I get out of here?”

Annoyed. The man to my left or maybe my right—I suddenly find it hard to distinguish them or any directions—pushes a phone to me.

“Call, man. Call,” he whispers while he speaks to someone else on the line. “Order a way out. That’s the only way.”

“Uh, okay.”

“And don’t forget about me when you get out,” another man or the same man says.

Unsure of who to call, I pick up the phone and stare at it like it could tell me. I could buy a rescue… and go into debt. Dream is definitely not an option. I’d rather die. Lue or Jeremy?

“Hello?” the person on the other end says.

“Hello!”

“I’m in trouble. Please, can you help?” It’s a kid’s panicky voice.

“Yes, wait, um, I’m a bit stuck. Are you in the Backrooms too?”

“No, what are the Backrooms?” The kid’s voice cracks. “I’m at home.” Home. The innocence in the voice. The way he says it. It’s not a teenager. It’s a child, and he’s very scared.

“Okay, I think you have the wrong number. Were you looking to hire a rescue?”

Someone yells loudly or maybe growls. Maybe it’s a call for somebody on the other end.

The kid’s voice drops to a whisper. “No. I don’t have money for a rescue. This phone was in the closet, and it said to call for an emergency. I’m in the closet, and he’s coming closer.”

“Okay, okay, hold on.” The phone’s simple, black, just a normal cell phone, not even a brand on the back. “Okay, wait. On the desk, a sheet of loose-leaf paper has a few codes.” I read down the list.

**342—calls the Magnahgalin

**704—hangs up, blocks the number, and redirects your call

**888—sends help to contact

Okay, that seems close enough. No idea who the Magnahgalin is, so I won’t be giving him a call. I don’t bother to read the other numbers on the list and click **888.

The phone clicks to signify the call’s end.

“Wait! Are you there?” I ask.

“Hello,” a robotic feminine voice says. “Please tell us the number of those who need to be rescued.”

“Those? Oh, so you can get me too?”

“Please tell us the number of those who need to be rescued,” the voice says again.

“Yep, yep, hold on.” Okay, it should be somewhere. I’m scrambling for something that should list my number inside the phone. “What’s the number here?” I ask the coworkers beside me. They ignore me. “The number,” I say with growing veracity. “The number!”

The phone has no contacts, and the settings tab won’t open.

“Please, tell us the number of those who need to be rescued, or the call will be redirected.”

“Give me one second. The last call! Can you go back on the last call and rescue that number?”

“Please, tell us the number of those who need to be rescued, or the call will be redirected.”

“Last call, redial, previous number. That’s who you rescue.”

“Please, tell us the number of those who need to be rescued, or the call will be redirected.”

“How do you get the last call rescued?” I ask my coworkers again, and they only mouth intelligibly. “What? Speak up. Please just speak!” I yell at them, but they refuse to yell back.

“Please, tell us the number of those who need to be rescued, or the call will be redirected,” the voice says again.

“I’ve told you who to call. Redial! Redial!”

“Call redirected.”

“No! There’s a kid on the other line. He’s scared and alone! I said redial. You heard me. I said redial!”

The phone doesn’t ring.

A new voice comes on, a middle-aged man. “I’m sorry.” He’s practically begging, dragging out words from his wet throat. “I’m sorry, I’m sorry, I’m sorry. Please stop calling here.”

“Oh, no, this is, Velli. I’m not who normally calls. I just need help. I’m in an office space sort of. Or maybe I’m supposed to help you. I don’t know.”

“You’re always Velli. I know, Velli, it’s you. It’s you. It’s always you! Why won’t you leave us alone?”

“I have never called here before. I promise.”

“You have, and it’s on purpose at this point because you know that whenever you call, he comes! Please, please, please.” He stops begging.

“Sir? Are you there?”

The man on the other end cracks. His laugh is throaty and loud. “Oh. Oh, oh, oh. I’m the last one! My family’s gone. It’s my turn now. I hope he comes for you next, Velli.”

He hangs up. The office goes on as normal. The line’s dead. I run again. Realizing I never learned the name of the child or the man. I know running is pointless in my attempt to avoid him, but I run through the maze like a gerbil. I know it’s pathetic. I know I’ve done nothing but run and hurt people since I’ve been in this maze, but this is better. I can escape.

Someone walks in front of me. They’re dazed—tense shoulders, stiff arms, and shaky legs.

I’m careful to walk up to him slowly.

Yeah, don’t want him to be like the last girl you got killed. What’s your body count looking like now? Including the kid and dad, and let’s just put Dream on there. Why not? She’ll probably die without you. The death of Dream and the death of your dreams.

She’ll come back around.

“Hey,” I call to the slow-moving man. Maybe he’s been here awhile. He has the stench of a long, physical day’s work. Sweat drips from pool-like stains in the armpits of his white T-shirt. His black pants hold shaky legs and are soaked with a stench stronger than sweat. Oh, Division, that’s not mud on his pants.

“Hey, man,” I call again, placing two soft fingers on his shoulders so as not to startle him.

He wanders on, ignoring me. I pull back, weigh my options, then decide to yank him toward me. Maybe he’s stuck in a paranoid daze.

“He hears ya, man. He just can’t answer you,” someone says in a deep voice behind me. It belongs to a half-naked man in plaid shorts with white designs. Through his white-painted lips, he says, “He belongs to me, if you will. So he works and works, but there is nothing to do here in the Backrooms, so I make him pace until every muscle hurts, until the soles of his feet are melted, and until his blood vessels burst open from being tightened for months without rest.”

“What?”

“It’s your fate too. I see it in your eye. You fear the Reaper too much. So you’ll start working for me. Give it time.”

“I need to get out of here.”

“Ain’t no getting out for you.”

“Wait, wait, wait, what do you want? I can’t work for you. Let’s bargain.”

“Ain’t no bargaining!” he yells and reaches deep in his throat for another sound. From behind maze walls, more of the half dead crawl. Dressed in all manner of modern clothes and still with the horrible smells, at least a dozen of them. They’re zombies. Their jaws hang slack straight toward the ground. “I am the slave maker of the Ti Bon Ange! Outcast of the houngan. I am—”

Four shots. I don’t know if I needed less, but that’s what I gave him. Four shots. Just like Mogvaz. And that was it. I didn’t expect that to be it, but that was it. I couldn’t do it anymore, the smell, the hopeless look in their eyes. I couldn’t let that be me. I would rather die. I don’t celebrate. No jubilation. Somber peace comforts me, a peace that says I would much rather face Death himself than be a zombie or live in the bag of El Sibon.

The rancid bodies drop. They thud and splash in their own filth and sound like the hammering of grand wet drums. The bodies don’t flinch. They fall into inglorious positions, and death freezes them there.

Velli, Velli, this does not absolve you. You are still guilty for the death of the man and the boy.

Maybe, and I can feel guilty, but I’ve done a good thing as well by killing that man. I let the dead have their peace. That’s how things work. Do some bad things, do some good things, then die, and that’s fine. No more running for me. That’s it. I’m moving on. I’m killing El Sibon, then I’m killing Death, then I’m making the Old Soul swear to obey me for all her days.

The whistle cuts through my head.

I whistle back.

There’s no noise. My heart drops for a moment. He’ll step up right behind me and stuff me in his bag. What’s taking so long?

He’s letting the fear settle. He wants me to be afraid. His whole bit before… The minotaur! What are the chances he just now killed a minotaur? Allegedly, this place has existed since the Fairy-Tale Forest. It’s been years, and he just now killed the minotaur. No, that’s a trap. He wants me to run so I’ll be afraid to either get turned into a zombie or give up, drop out of exhaustion, and get put into El Sibon’s bag like the girl probably was.

El Sibon steps in front of me—skin and bones, nine feet tall, and four more shots from my gun take him down. His body drops to make less noise than it should, and the bones rattle twice in his bag before they are forever silenced. I step over him. As I said, enough is enough. Running felt good, felt safe. But monsters are never as bad when one faces them. I’m excited for my rematch.

I head to the table of callers again, ignoring the phones they push toward me. Fate mentions something about trying to use the phone again. The comment is easy to ignore as I take out my anger on the paper trimmer and slam it into the floor until I can rip the blade from it. It’s not Excalibur. It’s similar in build to a machete except duller and more curved, but I know a story about a guy who killed a thousand men with a jawbone. A weapon is a weapon in the right hands.

And you—

Shut up, Fate. You’re getting boring.

I swish my new weapon with both hands, getting used to its weight, light and quick. The Backrooms’ steps are gone, but that’s fine. I wander and scream over the noise of those awful buzzing lights.

“Death!” I yell. “Death! I want you! You hear me!” I scream into the void of the Backrooms. “Come take me. No more running.”

It takes a long time for Death to respond. The void of the Backroom becomes grosser. The solid, square-shaped maze melts and flattens like an expressionist painting. The yellows blend and make a new greenish color. Crickets chirp, owls hoot, and monsters crawl, all replacing the buzz. And the light—it’s funny how much I missed moonlight, even if it’s not the real moon. The real world appears in front of me, the two horsemen and Death himself, and I’m so grateful.