Info
Author:
CutTheBirch
Author Page
SURVIVAL DIFFICULTY:
Class 5
- {$one}
- {$two}
- Powerful Entity
Description:
Level 32 is an ever-dark forest that stretches out infinitely under the eyeless gaze of a crescent moon and a starless sky. Hanging from the trees that make up the level are a number of skeletons, their pale bones shining under the moonlight, clattering in the wind. Some say they can hear the skeletons speak. Sometimes they speak of their former lives or of prophecies yet to come. Or perhaps it's simply the wind whistling through their skulls, creating the illusion that some life still exists behind their dead eyes.
Aside from the skeletons, only a single entity roams the level; one being in two forms. Her first form is that of The Belle, a pale woman with black hair who appears in a long, orange Victorian dress and skeletal face paint. The Belle does not speak, but she beckons wanderers to follow her like a siren luring in its prey. If wanderers chase after her until they lose sight of her, they will quickly run into her other form, The Skeleton Queen.
The Skeleton Queen is a tall skeletal figure who wears a tattered black dress. She is a powerful creature and seems to have almost complete control over her domain. If you treat her with respect, then she may let you go, but if you do not, she will command the trees to rip you limb from limb in a second. Or worse, she may toy with you, letting you run, letting you think you have a chance to escape until you can't run any longer and she forces the ground itself to swallow you up, leaving not a single bone in your wake.
Entrances and Exits:
No one knows for sure how to enter Level 32. It seems that all it takes to enter is getting lost in a dark forest. Some survivors have even said they've arrived in the level directly from the Frontrooms. What we do know is that once you see the skeletons hanging from the trees, there's no way out until you meet the Skeleton Queen herself, and at that point, your fate is in her hands.
Those who have been released by the Skeleton Queen find themselves waking up in another forest of the Backrooms as if all they had been through was just a nightmare.
But it is no dream.
A single wanderer travels through a foggy forest, searching for the domain of the Skeleton Queen. She is not the first to intentionally seek out the forsaken forest, but very few have come before her, for no one in their right mind would risk such a fate as those who have fallen prey to the Skeleton Queen.
Maybe she isn't in her right mind. Perhaps that's what allows her to keep going. She is wrought with grief; tears perpetually stream down her cheeks as she cannot escape the memory of the one she cannot bear to live without.
Or perhaps she is in her right mind. The loss of the love of her life served only to make her understand where her priorities truly lie. To make her realize that there are some things more important than her short, short life. Some people more important to her than herself.
She sees a skeleton hanging from the tree in front of her. Like the first star to mark the dusk, it's quickly joined by more. Hundreds of skeletons lining the trees within her view. She continues her walk.
A soft crunching of leaves awakens her from her trance as she sees a figure in an orange dress up ahead. The figure turns and runs into the night. She follows until the figure is out of sight and braces herself for the meeting that is about to commence.
"Ah, a martyr," says a deep, feminine voice coming from the mouth of a bedressed skeleton that towers over her.
She kneels, knowing that she must be very careful if she doesn't want to die without getting what she wants.
"How respectful," the Skeleton Queen calls. "Tell me, can you hear what the men on the trees are singing?"
A strange question. She listens carefully but hears only the wind whistling through the branches. She tries to rise but finds that she cannot move from her prone possession, the Skeleton Queen holding her in place as she waits for an answer.
"N— o," she chokes out. "Wh— at are they saying?"
"They tell stories of dead gods coming back to life, of empresses falling, of rips and tears in the fabric that connects our world with the next. And the previous. They speak of a new era. An extinction and a rebirth, but you don't care about any of that, do you?"
She nods silently, finally allowed to stand.
"Then what are you here for?" the Queen enquires.
"I want to make a trade. For the life of another."
The Queen laughs.
"And what, pray tell, do you have to barter with?"
"My own life. No— Not just my life, but my soul."
"I'm listening."
"If you bring my love back to life, I will give you both my life and my soul, and I will serve you in this life and the next."
"Love. Of course. Love makes us do foolish things, doesn't it? And yet, I was in your place once, so very long ago. A distant memory. So, I will grant your request."
"Thank you."
And as the roots rise from the ground to pull her under, worlds way, another claws his way out of a shallow grave. A candle, one extinguished, is re-lit as her soul is bound to the gnarled mass of soil and roots that make up this plane. Entombing her in the infinitude darkness.
And for the first time since his passing, she is happy.