Backrooms Settler Project
Promoted by the M.E.G.
Heya, this is Danny.
I followed your instructions and found the place, like ‘ya said I would. It’s a nice little plot of land. Truth be told, I don’t think I’ve seen a spot in Level 1 that's this open before. I got your water tap setup, too. There’s a couple of almond water puddles out here, so once I get this hooked up to one of ‘em I should be golden in terms of water.
I appreciate y’all setting up something like this. I’ve always wanted to start up a little community away from Traders Keep, and this is really helping that dream come true. I imagine in about a month you all will be able to send more people my way, and then we’ll have a nice group going.
I’ll send another update in a week, like ‘ya asked. See you then.
Weekly update: 1
Danny unplugged the laptop the M.E.G. had given him and wandered towards the nearest almond water puddle. It had formed around a small dent in the concrete, probably from an entity or something else ages ago, and a small patch of the water had started to form inside of the hole.
He kneeled down to the puddle, and stuck one of the pipes he had been given firmly into the middle of the hole. Sure enough, the pipe started to siphon the water, filling up an empty carton he had placed below. In seconds, he had a container full of almond water, and the hole had been emptied.
He took a deep drink from the carton. He had grown almost numb to the taste of almond water at this point. Though he hated it, it was important to stay hydrated in places like Level 1, and it wasn’t like he was going to find anything more appetizing.
He put a cap over the rest of the container, and stashed it in a small box he’d taken with him. It was time to get to work, and turn this little corner in Level 1 into a home.
Backrooms Settler Project
Promoted by the M.E.G.
Danny again. Been about a week since I got here, and things are slowly taking shape.
Been using that water tap you got quite a lot, actually. Working on building these shacks is pretty damned exhausting, more so than I thought it’d be. Still, as of today I’ve made a house of my own! It’s real small, and you gotta crouch on your knees to go in it, but I didn’t have enough materials to make it much bigger. If y’all could send more, I’d appreciate it.
Been having to go farther and farther out of camp to get more almond water. I’m storing most of it up for whenever you guys send more settlers my way, but I still don’t think I have quite enough to support a whole community yet. That stuff saves lives!
Still, things are going well. Be back in another week.
Weekly update: 2
Danny stood over a small crater of almond water. He had travelled almost a mile from camp to find this one, and it was much smaller than he’d hoped. It was obvious to him now that he’d been using up a lot of resources…
He plunged the water tap into the hole and began siphoning it into another carton he’d been carrying. As the water dried up, he saw that it had only filled a quarter of the container, the smallest amount he’d ever gotten from a patch of almond water so far.
“Damn…”
Danny hoisted the tap up to his belt, and started walking back towards camp.
While building and setting up the camp had been easy, resource gathering in The Backrooms was near impossible for him. He was a worker, not a scavenger! The M.E.G. had sent him quite a lot of supplies at the start, but they hadn’t gotten back to him yet, and it had almost been three weeks.
He wanted this settlement to work. Hell, he needed it to, but it was starting to frustrate him.
As Danny neered the camp, he noticed something odd in the distance…
There was another puddle. Not very far from camp at all, and bigger than any he had seen so far. This one must’ve been big enough to fill three different bottles, at least!
He marched over to the source, and as he grew closer, his confusion worsened. How did he miss this? It was massive! He had combed the entire surrounding area, and hadn’t seen anything nearly as big as this before.
As he reached the puddle, he kneeled down to it and looked closer. The water was darker than usual, and somewhat thicker. Could it have been Cashew water?
No, he doubted it. It usually didn’t show up in Level 1.
He dipped his hand into the water and scooped up some of it, sipping it afterwards. It tasted sweeter than normal, almost sugary. Honestly, compared to regular almond water, it wasn’t that bad at all. He began to siphon some of the water with the tap he had, but as it began to fill more and more cartons, he noticed that the puddle itself wasn’t draining.
How the hell…?
He grabbed the tail end of the pump and pushed it into the water, before feeling it hit the end of the indentation. This crater was maybe a few feet wide… How was it not being drained by the water tap?
“Ah, what the hell… Doesn't taste that bad anyways.”
He began to march back to his shack, ready to gather all the containers he could find. He wouldn’t run out of water this time.
Backrooms Settler Project
Promoted by the M.E.G.
You guys won’t believe it, but I found something really strange the other day.
A water source. This one doesn't drain, though. I’ve been pumping water from it all day long, and not a single drop has actually left the puddle. Filled up six canisters just off this one source.
When you can, send one of your scientist boys down here. I don’t know what the hell is going on, but I won’t complain about it.
Weekly update: 3
Danny closed the laptop, and turned around to the creaky bed behind him. It had been a long and confusing few days, but he felt like he could finally relax. So much of his time had been spent just gathering resources to survive, now that this wasn’t a problem, he could get the outpost finished in only a few more weeks.
Exhausted, he laid down, and drifted to sleep, hoping for a more productive tomorrow…
As he woke up the next morning, Danny could immediately feel something was wrong. It took him a few minutes to notice, at first lazily wandering out of his hut and over to the new water source, but as he went to grab the water tap, he saw it…
…There was a second thumb, sprouting out from the palm of his hand.
He grabbed his hand in shock, and gawked at the sight in front of him. The thumb was awkwardly protruding from a lopsided angle in his palm, the entire area of his hand completely numb. After stomaching the courage, he pulled at the new appendage, and felt a shock of pain emitte from it.
He fell to his side, grasping the hand firmly. Without thinking, he crawled over to the box of tools the M.E.G. had given him, and picked a hack-saw from within the chest. He positioned it over the new thumb, and grimaced…
…But he couldn’t do it. He didn’t have what it took to cut it off. He cursed to himself, and stood back up.
What could have done this? Was there an entity he hadn’t read about, a property of Level 1 that—
He looked back over to the puddle of Almond Water.
It seemed almost irrational, but somehow he knew not to trust it. He shouldn’t have even gone drinking from it in the first place, because it no doubt had… something to do with whatever the hell had happened to his hand. He shuddered, thinking about how much of it he had drunk over the past two days…
Later that night, he opened the cabinet above his bed, where he had kept the almond water from previous nights. As he looked through the individual cartons, he grew even more frustrated. There were at least eight of them, but he couldn’t tell which ones were from puddles earlier, and which had been contaminated from the one outside.
He slammed the cabinet shut in frustration, but in doing so, the shelf that supported it snapped and the cartons of fresh almond water spilled all over him and his clothes.
He yelled again, and hit his hand against the wall, before writhing in pain from the thumb on his hand having been smashed against the steel wall. If this water was what caused the growth, then…
He quickly got up and began to dry his face off with a quilt he had found earlier. He had been drenched in the stuff.
“God damn settlers… Fuckin’ water…” He mumbled indiscriminately, frustrated and confused from the day. After a few minutes, his face was dried, and the puddle on the floor cleared up. He went to bed again, hoping for the best…
He awoke the next day, and quickly checked his hands. The thumb was still on his palm, now a gross crimson pigment from having been crushed last night, but other than that nothing new had surfaced.
He went to a mirror in his shack, and anxiously looked at his face, before spotting…
What was that? A hole? Yes, that’s right… Slightly above his eye, a small hole had formed…
It was an eyelid. An empty eyelid had grown above his left eye.
He screamed.
Backrooms Settler Project
Promoted by the M.E.G.
I don’t know what the hell that water was, but it is not safe.
I need y’all to send a doctor, or a researcher… Someone equipped to deal with what the hell is going on out here. I want a response now. I need some god damned help.
Weekly update: 3, follow up.
Danny slammed the laptop shut in anger. He didn’t sign up for any of this, it was meant to be a simple project. He thought about leaving, going back to Traders Keep, but knew it wasn’t worth it. If the M.E.G. got his message, they’d send a doctor out, and maybe they’d have an idea as to what the hell had happened to him.
Or maybe…
They wouldn’t.
The thought scared him.
Another week went by, with complete silence from the M.E.G. It had begun to dawn on Danny that they hadn’t ever responded to any of his messages. He wasn’t even sure if any of them had sended.
He had begun to decay further as well. Teeth started to sprout from his arms and face, almost like pimples. It started out small, but in only a few days they were dotting his arms in a uniform pattern. A thick, bulging lump had grown on his back as well, which numbed his entire backside every moment he touched it.
The reality of his situation was beginning to close in on him. Slowly, but surely, he was changing. Morphing into something ungodly, and no thanks to that damned water.
He stood up from his bed and wandered over to the almond water source in question. He had stopped working a few days ago, and started to hide in his house, waiting for whatever was happening to leave on its own in naive ignorance.
The puddle hadn’t gotten smaller. If anything, it was bigger. It was a much darker, disgusting pigment then the last time he had seen it, and it smelled awful. Then again, so did he…
He picked up the water tap and threw it into the puddle in anger. If it weren’t for the damned M.E.G. sending him on this mission— not giving him enough supplies… he wouldn't be dealing with this now.
But he was beyond the point of trying to find someone to blame. He knew that. It was becoming more of a matter of figuring out what to do with himself.
He pushed against the roof of his mouth with his tongue, and felt a new protrusion. He was beginning to lose track of what was growing where, and it was agonizing.
Backrooms Settler Project
Promoted by the M.E.G.
Something in the waghter. Killing me.
Do ont send anywhone. Hurts to tuype. Thumbs growing everywhere. Don’t send anywhone.
Can’t send ane more messages now. If this one reaches you, do not send anyone.
Goodbye.
Weekly update: 5
Another week had passed. If it weren’t for having to send a final message to the M.E.G., he would’ve lost track by this point. Calluses and fingernails were growing from almost every point in his body. The hole that was once an empty eyelid had grown into a disgusting, pupil-less eye that burned his head. The roof of his mouth was lined with new tongues and teeth, making it near impossible to speak, and even harder to breathe, and the lump on his back had grown much larger, now beginning to turn into some sort of limb of its own.
He got up from the laptop, barely mustering the energy to close it, and looked at himself in the mirror. He was a nightmare, his skin a blackish-red, fingers and bone protruding from his face. He turned to a small cabinet to the right of the mirror. There was one more option he hadn’t considered yet.
Inside the cabinet housed an old, rusted shotgun, loaded with a singular shell. He had no idea where he had gotten it, but somewhere in his travels he’d acquired the thing. He had no idea if it even worked, but if there was ever a time to find out, it was today.
He slumped over his bed and grimaced from the immense pain he felt. He shoved the shotgun against his forehead, or what was left of it, and closed his eyes…
“Cemon. Kill me. Please.”
The shotgun blew off his head with a loud blast, killing him instantaneously. As he died, the rest of his body slowly began to wake up.
A week had passed, and The M.E.G. settlers had finally arrived at Danny's settlement. There had been an outage in the M.E.G. servers a little under a month ago, and they hadn’t received any messages from him since. Still, the M.E.G. trusted him, and told the settlers he was reliable.
As they opened the gate to the outpost, they began to wander towards a lone shack in the middle of the makeshift camp, presumably Danny’s. They quietly knocked on the front door, but heard no response…
…They opened it, and saw what was left of Danny, slumped against the floor of the shack. Rogue fingers covering his body were crawling wildly against the floor, his legs spasming in random and unpredictable directions, and his body bleeding from every orifice they could still see clearly.
On his back, a new head was starting to form.