Entity 59 - "Snagsturts"

Folklorecon 2025 » Entity 59 - "Snagsturts"

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Inspired by the Fearsome Critters of the Great Lakes Region, as well as a healthy amount of worldbuilding obsession.

If you’ve ever wandered the halls of Level 4, you’ve probably seen some patterns. A piece of carpet torn for seemingly no reason. An office chair bent backwards just enough to be noticeable. A gash on a ceiling tile. Back home, these sorts of blemishes are commonplace – barely worth noting, even – but the Backrooms are so sprawling, so pristine, filled with such identicality, that an astute wanderer will pick up on even the most innocuous deviations. Everything happens for a reason, after all.

So that’s why I’m here. Whilst on a morning stroll I encountered one such glitch. A square piece of carpet, removed from the exact center of a room. There were no frayed edges, no sign of human activity to speak of, just perfectly precise cuts giving way to the creaky floorboards beneath. Back at the camp, I brought up the anomaly in passing conversation, and it seemed to instantly spark something in everyone around the room. Everyone seemed to know what this meant. Everyone except me, that is. I was new to Camp Iverness, and as such not familiar with the ecosystem of this particular level. I was directed – in a roundabout way, of course – to one Miguel Omiras, an elderly gentleman who apparently had experience with the kind of thing I witnessed. He told me that what I’d seen was a snagsturt bunk.

He told me that snagsturts were rare, and that if I were the first person to photograph one, I’d be legendary. And wouldn’t you know, I took the bait. So now I’m chasing a carpet snake around the endless maze of old 90’s offices, a camera in my hands and regrets in my head. I’m no fool. I know I won’t find anything. But somehow, beyond all hope, a part of me wants to believe I will.

Entity Number: 59

Habitat: Level 4

Rough Sketch of a Snagsturt by a Wanderer

Description:

Snagsturts are a hypothesized entity said to inhabit level 4. Exact descriptions vary greatly between individuals, but generally characterize snagsturts as having a long, serpentine body made of tightly rolled carpet. One end of the carpet – the snagsturt’s head – features 2 large yellow eyes, a forked tongue made of frayed carpet fibers, and 2 fangs resembling Frontrooms box cutters or kitchen knives.

Snagsturts are primarily passive entities. Whilst their fangs are more than capable of puncturing human skin, they generally flee from direct confrontation, only attacking to defend either themselves or their eggs. Although numerous individuals have claimed to see a snagsturt, these sightings are so brief that no video or photographic evidence of snagsturts has been recorded.

Biology:

Due to the lack of data, the exact biology of snagsturts is unknown. Two competing hypotheses currently exist: either snagsturts are a form of snake with highly specific camouflage, or snagsturts are an animated carpet fragment. No conclusive data has been discovered favoring either hypothesis.

Snagsturt urine is said to be nearly indistinguishable from the fluid found in large portions of the Backrooms' carpets (colloquially called carpet juice). Snagsturt believers generally hold that large patches or thin trails of carpet juice are indicative of snagsturt presence.

Behaviors:

Key to the snagsturt’s survival is its unique form of camouflage. Snagsturts are said to unroll themselves when predators approach, closing their eyes and retracting their fangs simultaneously. In this state a snagsturt is purportedly visually identical to a typical carpet of level 4. A snagsturt may also further this camouflage by way of its fangs, carving out a section of carpet in which it may lie. Using this method, a snagsturt may lie flush against the surrounding carpet, becoming completely undetectable. The carved-up carpet is typically eaten, which makes up the bulk of the snagsturt’s diet. As snagsturts do not have mouths, the method by which feeding occurs is unclear.

Living a nomadic lifestyle, snagsturts can roam for weeks at a time in search of almond water to supplement their diet. Similarly, snagsturts may sleep for days continuously when in the carpet holes they carve. These holes, referred to as snagsturt bunks, are considered signs of either good or bad fortune by different factions in level 4.

M.E.G. anthropologist Rachel Pengelly is currently conducting a series of surveys and research expeditions into snagsturts, the question of their existence, and the culture surrounding them.

I’ve been searching for 4 hours now, traveling further into the endless bowels of the offices than I’ve ever done before. It’s miserable. I feel no closer to my goal and have found nothing of interest. That’s something the M.E.G. documents tend to omit. Just how much nothing there is in the Backrooms. Oh sure there’s a lot of entities, in fact I’d wager there’s more animals here than back home, but they’re all so sparsely distributed. You wouldn’t get that impression from all the guides that get put out though. They tend to focus on what to do when you encounter something, not what to do in the vast downtime between. Probably because there’s not much to do but walk. Still, it ends up making the Backrooms seem much more alive than it actually is.

My almond water supplies are dwindling. That seems almost absurd. 4 hours, and no almond water? No potable almond water at least. Come to think of it, maybe that’s why the Backrooms are so empty. Limited food breeds limited life. There are places on earth like that, right? The Sahara Desert, for instance. Lots of life, limited food, sparsely spread. Are the Backrooms an extradimensional desert? Does that mean 9 is some kind of oasis? No, that doesn’t make sense, it’s got less almond water than 4 by miles. Wait, what was I doing again?

Oh right, I was rambling to myself because this trek is more boring than that time I had to walk down a dirt road for 4 days straight. Never thought my old college hiking experience would be so useful. Ah, those were the days. When – wait hold on.

The square room I’m standing in has about 4 doors: the one I’m entering, 2 very close to each other, and 1 directly opposite the pair. Nothing special. What is special, however, is what I see in the corner of the room: a puddle of carpet juice. The moist circle has a thin trail leading from the circumference towards the door pair, before petering off and becoming invisible. Now, if we suspend our disbelief and trust Omiras, we can assume that a snagsturt had a little accident here and proceeded to slither its piss-drenched body away from the scene of the crime out of one of the 2 doors. But which one? A wise man may have chosen to bring something that is able to detect moisture, so he could follow the pee trail further, but I am not a wise man. That, paired with the visible stream tapering out, leaves me at a fifty-fifty. Now if I were a snagsturt, what would I choose? Right is always right, but I also really don’t trust my instincts, so let’s go left. Call it a biblical reference because snakes and devilishness and left-handedness and what have you. Yeah, that makes me sound smart.

Excerpts from Pengelly et al’s M.E.G. report “Survey Analysis on Snagsturt Beliefs across Level 4”

Beliefs in Snagsturts across Base Omega

The largest settlement surveyed in level 4, Base Omega features a prominent set of beliefs and superstitions surrounding snagsturts. These beliefs include:

That snagsturts are snakes with highly adapted mimicry, rather than animated carpets.
That snagsturt bunks are a sign of good luck.
That snagsturt urine can be distinguished from carpet juice via scent.
That snagsturts reproduce sexually, with females laying a clutch of 6 perfectly spherical eggs.
That snagsturts may scratch or ‘mark’ walls with their fangs as a method of mapping territory.
That an individual can only ever see 1 snagsturt a lifetime; trying to find a snagsturt after the first sighting always results in failure.

In the survey questions, over 97% of snagsturt believers were convinced of at least one of the preceding traits, and 68% were convinced of all of them. 22% of responders reported having attempted to find or ‘hunt’ a snagsturt, with the most commonly listed reason for doing so being a dare or ‘challenge’ by friends.

Full tables of statistics for Base Omega are available in appendix I.

I kind of feel like those people who see Jesus in their toast. I’m following vague hints based off the moisture of the carpets, hoping that a hypothetical hardware store viper happened to have a full bladder this morning, all while leaving kindergarten-style arrows on the walls to mark my path back to base. This is just a joke, isn’t it? I think I always knew that. “Oh, get the new guy to wander around the endless halls for hours until he gets gored by a hound. It’ll be so funny!”. God, why didn’t I turn back sooner? Why aren’t I turning back now? Sunk cost fallacy, I guess. Just ignore the fallacy part and it makes perfect sense! I spent all this time coming here, so I must keep going, right? I don’t want to return with my head held in shame, after all. That would be a bruise to the ego, wouldn’t it?

Recovered Materials from M.E.G. Interactions with Camp Iverness

Beliefs in Snagsturts across Camp Iverness

As was discovered in the more general survey, Camp Iverness showed a 97.7% belief rate in snagsturts. Beliefs showed a moderate amount of variability, with common beliefs including snagsturt eggs resembling scrunched-up paper, snagsturts being an animal species, and snagsturt bunks being a sign of good luck.

Peculiarly, the response rate for the survey was lower than expected, with deliberate violation of the survey rules being especially common. These violations typically took the form of overly long-winded responses in open-ended sections, ticking too many or too few boxes on multiple choice questions, and drawing or ‘doodling’ on the response forms.

Foreword: In light of Pengelly et al.’s report, the M.E.G. scheduled an interview between Pengelly and Omiras. Miguel Omiras, a 73-year-old man, had been a resident of Camp Iverness since its inception in 1991, and has permanently lived on level 4 since 1985. He is purportedly an expert on snagsturts, claims to have seen one personally, and has recorded hundreds of reports of sightings.

Arriving at Camp Iverness, Pengelly was initially unable to locate Omiras. When conversing with a resident of the camp, she was directed to an address on the opposite side of Iverness. Upon reaching said address, it was found to not be occupied by Omiras, and Pengelly was again directed to a location on the other side of the camp. This process continued another 3 times before the correct residence was ascertained.

<Began Recording at: 08:21AM>

Date: 03/03/23
Location: Camp Iverness, Level 4
Participants: Miguel Omiras (Interviewee), Rachel Pengelly (Interviewer)

Pengelly: Right, before we begin, do you have any idea what that was all about?

Omiras: [Chuckles] Did the boys give you the old runaround?

Pengelly: If by ‘runaround’, you mean getting sent on a wild goose chase, then yes.

Omiras: Don’t think too much of it. Pranks of that variety are just part of the culture here. Never liked groups that take themselves too seriously anyway.

Pengelly: I see. Well, no point wasting anymore time. What can you tell me about snagsturts?

Omiras: Not much more than you already know, factually speaking. Carpet-body, box-cutter-fangs, carpet-juice-urine, the works.

Pengelly: Are you implying you’ve read my research?

Omiras: Of course. It’s been on the database file for more than a week now, and I’ve been watching it with great interest.

Pengelly: Ok, well what about your sightings? Reportedly, you have seen a snagsturt. Can you recount this information to me?

Omiras: Well, to tell you the truth, it’s an open secret that’s a bit of a fib. But the records I keep are 100% genuine. When I first joined this camp, before everyone had cameras in their pockets, there were sightings on the regular. There were so many it’s hard to pick one to choose, so I’ll tell my favorite. Hutchinson, that was his name. Died in ’07, I believe. Told me this tale on a particularly cold day¹, when we all had to be bundled up ‘round a pyroil fire. Went something like this.

He was walking back to camp down the crooked hall. You know the one I’m talking about. The one not too far east of here, where you can take 4 right turns and not end up back where you started. Well, he was carrying a large supply of almond water down this hall. And it was getting late, you see, so he was rather tired. He kept plodding ahead – one footstep after the other. Each step more tired than the last. And wouldn’t you know it, in his absent-mined stupor, he tripped. He goes down on the ground – hard – and the cooler of almond water on his back presses its full weight on him, completely knocking the wind out his lungs. So there he is, on the floor, struggling for breath, not realizing the sound of his fall attracted unwanted attention. As he’s trying to get up, he hears the growl of a hound, coming from directly behind him. He tries to run, but just as he’s getting his footing, the floor below him begins to shift. He slips, going down a second time, and at this point probably thinks it’s curtains for him. However, instead of hearing the bone-crunching jaws of a hound descending on him, he hears a hiss, a bite, and a whimper. He wheels round to see the carpet below him is gone, and the hound – oozing blood – is being chased off. Turns out, the floor he landed on was a sleeping snagsturt, which woke up and attacked the hound in a blind rage, sparing his life. If not for that good fortune, he would’ve been killed.

I’ve got plenty of records like this, if you’re interested in them. Testimonies from all ages and backgrounds, all touched up and filed by me. They fascinate me, they really do; have done all my life. We still get new ones coming through now and then.

Pengelly: So you’re saying you haven’t actually seen a snagsturt?

Omiras: I suppose if that’s your takeaway, then yes.

Pengelly: My takeaway?! I came all the way out to this camp, got bounced between a dozen different people, listened to a story you don’t even know is true, and finally got told that the one reason I came here was entirely fictitious, and you expect me to take away anything other than this was a waste of time?!

Omiras: I expected you to take away the atmosphere. Not the facts, but the experiences.

Pengelly: The experience of being pranked by a whole colony?

Omiras: Exactly.

Pengelly: What? Experiences like this don’t contribute to anything other than ruining my day. They don’t help keep people safe, they don’t help me separate fact from fiction, and they definitely don’t help me write a database entry.

Omiras: [Sighs] Never mind, you still don’t understand.

Pengelly: I don’t get what more there is to understand.

Omiras: Look, I said I’ve read your studies, and I find them interesting. I do, but I also find them… soulless.

Pengelly: Clinical tone tends to do that.

Omiras: No, it’s not the tone. It’s your approach. It’s all backward. You think your very inhuman charts and statistics and processes will say something about a very human thing.

Pengelly: Mathematics and science can be applied to anything. If it exists, we can study it.

Omiras: But is that really true here? By focusing on the concrete, the facts and numbers, you miss the why.

Pengelly: The why of what?

Omiras: The why of snagsturts, of course! You endlessly quibble over whether they’re animals or carpets, whether their eggs are spherical or like crinkled paper, whether snagsturt bunks are good or bad luck, but snagsturts are none of these things. They’re little bundles of stories, of culture, and they mean a whole lot more than truth or falsehood. When I think of snagsturts, I don’t think about their biology, their behavior, I think of people, Rachel. I think about the M.E.G. agent who was dared to sniff the carpet juice by his friends to tell if it was made by a snagsturt. I think of the Incrementum folks forcing smiles as they try desperately to not attract too much attention. I think of all the times I’ve seen a bunk and got to tell all the fantastical stories I have all over again to the next generation. I think of all my records of young lads who go off wandering and come back with amazing tales. I think of Hutchinson. I think of all of this and more.

Pengelly: But that’s not my focus, Omiras. I understand that snagsturts are a big part of the culture here, but my job is to identify whether there is any truth to the claims surrounding them, something you have failed to provide.

Omiras: But what purpose does that knowledge serve? If snagsturts are real, they are likely so rare you’ll never see one. If snagsturts are fake, then the myth will continue regardless. You’re concerned about the wrong thing.

Pengelly: Truth is nothing to ignore. It is our most valuable weapon here. Right now, you sit upon a throne of truths, a lucky few to live this long in the Backrooms, and that luck is born from the knowledge that those before us forged. Someone had to map this level, catalogue the entities, deduce what is and isn’t edible. Without this knowledge, we are hopelessly lost. Maybe whether snagsturts are real might not affect me, but someone far in the future may benefit from my studies, and live in a safer, better world.

Omiras: But they will also suffer, and in a non-obvious way. By dispelling the fantasy, telling them brute facts, you deplete the whimsy from them. Now this world has taken many things from me, but that kind of childlike awe is something I refuse to give up. Not knowing the answers to things is part of the fun, the simple joys and excitements of living. Didn’t rainbows become more drab once you realized they were just refracted light?

Pengelly: No, in fact it became more exciting. Knowledge of that form always adds to the beauty of our world to me: Saturn through a telescope is more remarkable than with the naked eye. Besides, you miss the point. Admiring how you don’t know how a hound’s jaws work won’t help you when you’re stuck between them. Our scientific advancement has always led to safer, more prosperous lives than the generations before.

Omiras: There’s that word again – safe. You people are obsessed with safety. The modern world is. Back home, do kids even climb trees anymore? Are all our playgrounds astro turf? Do the troops even do hazing nowadays? What good is a bubble-wrap-world like that? So you can sacrifice experience for the illusion of safety?

Pengelly: I think this interview’s over. This is all very easy for you to say, considering you aren’t one of the ones who died in an unsafe world.

Omiras: Ah, but that’s the difference between you and me.

Pengelly: What?

Omiras: You don’t want people to die. I want people to live.

I think I’ve figured out why I’m still walking, despite everything screaming at me to stop. It’s not because of my ego, or my stubbornness, or my stupidity – well, maybe a little of that last one – it’s about my beliefs. Did you ever reach an age where you – at least on some level – realized Santa wasn’t real, yet still acted as if he was? When you had enough reason to spot all the logical flaws, but didn’t seem to mind? You still laid out the milk and cookies, played along with the games, completed the rituals, all of that. Why did you do that? I think the reason is that a part of you still wants to believe, and in stopping those traditions you starve that part of yourself. The only thing it has to cling hold of, once all evidence is gone, is your actions. How you reaffirm it year after year, by doing illogical things you know don’t really do anything.

I don’t think that part of us ever really goes away. We have fantasies in our mind that our logic says can’t happen, but we still dwell on them. Reaffirm them from time to time. That part of me that wants, beyond all reason, to find a snagsturt, keeps me moving. Keeps me suspending my disbelief for one more hallway. Blurs the lines between truth and falsehood. Maybe snagsturts aren’t real, but at the end of the day, I still want them to be.

Maybe that’s what this was all about from the start.

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Wait, hang on?