I dreamt I was standing in a room with no exit. The bricks moved back and forth as if they were breathing. They pulsed like living flesh, vibrating in sync with the heavy breath of an unseen creature. The walls weren’t walls—they were watching me. They knew I could see them. I woke up and realized the dream hadn’t ended. The room around me was still breathing. Somewhere beyond the wall, someone whispered words in a foreign, raspy, stretched-out tongue. Something like “Good morning,” or maybe something similar… I couldn’t understand exactly, but I knew—they were speaking to me. Everything here is just like in the dream. Here, the walls are alive. They feed on those who breathe this air, absorb fear, remember footsteps. And us? We’re just bricks in this endless masonry.
Every day begins the same. We wake in the dark, inhale the scent of brick dust and rot, stretched in the air like sticky fog. Rows of beds stand side by side, exactly 1,627 of them; soon, the pale faces will bring one more… They are made from a mix of bricks and scavenged fabric. The mattresses—if you can even call those dirty rags mattresses—have been pressed for years by the sweat and tears of those who came before us. Someone coughs nearby; someone tosses and turns, but most silently get up and walk down the brick corridors toward the lineup.
We line up in a wide, chipped square, as dust rises from our steps, sticking to torn clothes and clinging to our cheeks. There aren’t many pale faces. They can be counted on one hand, but their presence is felt everywhere like shadows looming over slaves, like unseen masters whose commands are never spoken yet always obeyed. They don’t watch us. There’s no need; the order sustains itself, built into us as something self-evident. We don’t obey out of fear; we obey because there is no other way. Here, there are no overseers, no chains; order keeps itself. Herd instinct and complete absence of will replace the whip; discipline isn’t taught through words, but through years of monotonous existence. We are afraid to break rank; we tremble at the mere thought of stepping outside the rules. No one commands us to stay silent, but we don’t speak. No one watches us dig, but we dig. No one forces us to die at the right moment; we die ourselves.
The pale faces stand opposite; their faces are cold, empty, and indifferent. Their gazes sweep the ranks, looking for the weak, the sick, the slow, and the disobedient. The one shouting, standing on a tall concrete pedestal, calls out numbers, his voice sharp like a hammer strike to the skull:
— Five hundred three! Eight hundred twenty-one! One thousand forty-four!
Those whose bed numbers match the called numbers step forward. Without resistance. Like shadows. We know what it means.
Liquidation.
The bodies of the dead are not immediately removed. They remain where they fell. Eyes frozen in silent terror gradually cover with a gray film. Blood seeps into the dust, mixing with the brick crumbs, turning the ground into a sticky mass. Some are thrown into deep pits or embedded in walls, compacted with feet until the bodies become part of the masonry. Sometimes, a hand or a piece of face remains on the surface, sealed in the solution, a reminder to us all.
Those deemed unnecessary are quickly destroyed, but in different ways. Some are lowered to their knees, and their heads are crushed with cobblestones. Others are pressed against the wall, and a rusty rebar is driven into their skulls. Sometimes, they are just… bricked up. Brick by brick. We stand and watch. We don’t look away. We know: any movement is an excuse to become the next.
Then we are released. We go for our portion of food. A gray mass, resembling swollen bread but tasteless. Sometimes, there are fibers of something meaty, but no one asks what it is. One yellow-faced man once asked, and they slit his belly open for it. The water is murky, with a taste of rust.
The local workers, simply put, the "Yellow Faces," are slowly rotting from the inside. Their bodies are falling apart, joints swelling, dark liquid collecting in the cracks of their skin. They cough up clumps of black mucus, smelling of something rancid. Some scrape their skin at night with their nails, tearing it off in chunks, as if hoping to reach something beneath it. They don’t scream; they don’t ask for help. They just decay, turning into empty shells and moving by inertia. Their skin is covered with patches, peeling like a layered cake that the pale faces chew on; through their skin, sometimes oozes pus. Their liver weakens, bloating their stomach into a gray, swollen sack. Their eyes cloud over, becoming glassy with a yellowish film, as if covered with mold. They live and walk, but as soon as they arrive here, they immediately smell of death. The pale faces eat separately, and it's said they have canned food, soups, and even bread with butter. Their rooms are spacious and lit, without the stench and dust.
After breakfast, digging begins. We go to the far tunnels, grab picks and crowbars under our beds; some of the newcomers work with their hands. The bricks are dense, as if glued together not with cement but with reality itself. Narrow passages, damp walls, the air thick and dusty. It is always dark here, the flashlights work intermittently, and if you don’t have your own, you dig blindly, by feel. The tunnels are endless, fading into darkness, sometimes narrowing so much that you have to crawl on all fours. In the narrowest spots, you can see nail marks left by those who got stuck and tried to escape. The tunnels change daily, so we didn’t even dare to ask when this will end… We just dig, even when we hear faint, almost childish sobs from the depths. They come from somewhere deep within, muffled, like smothered by layers of brick, strained, unnatural. Sometimes someone stops and listens, but only for a moment. Then the sound fades into silence, and we keep digging, pretending nothing happened. Because if you hear too much, if you ask the wrong question, the walls will hear you. The walls will swallow you. And someone, just for a second, slowing down, gets stuck… someone stays in these brick catacombs forever.
I remember the day the brick fell on me. A dull sound, like something slimy hitting the ground. I didn’t understand what happened at first. It just fell; I squinted, trying not to scream, but the darkness in front of my eyes flashed with bloody spots.
We’ve been digging for many years. How long exactly, we don’t know. There is no sun, no clock, only the flashlights working every now and then. Only the walls, the ceiling, and the floor, all made of red, crumbling brick. We hit them with crowbars, tearing them apart with our hands, searching for an exit. But so far, no one has found it. Sometimes, luck smiles on someone among us; the yellow-faced ones can dig out something from the wall: a can, a flashlight, bandages, even a knife. Some are luckier; they dig out bars of "Chocobyte." But that’s rare. Much more often—nothing. Things are hidden inside the walls, as if someone bricked them up long ago, but speculating on who left them there is too foolish… And why would we even need to know?
No one cares about me. I’m not one of the pale ones. Those who are paler command, give orders, and get the best. Several of the pale faces wear strange masks; this is their sign of authority, their detachment. They don’t work, they don’t participate in the selections, and they don’t touch the bricks. They just watch, without intervening, without speaking a word. Their faces—silent masks. Their gazes slide, catching movements, detecting weakness, even among the pale ones. They don’t move unnecessarily, but when they take a step, the air seems heavier, and we want to become less noticeable. Their higher status is indisputable; it is secured not by orders but by fear and blind submission. The rest, the yellow-faced ones, they are just workers. We dig, sleep, and dig again. No questions, no complaints. This is how this world works.
After the blow to my head, fortunately, I wasn’t taken to the pale ones, but they didn’t give me bandages either. Someone among the yellow-faced ones said, “He’ll survive.” I thought so too. But by evening, dark liquid dripped from the wound behind my ear. By morning, the skin around the wound turned black, and then it started to itch. At the morning lineup, I survived. However, by the afternoon, things had gotten much worse: I felt nauseous, my ears rang, and my legs were buckling. I could feel something moving inside my skull.
The people in the mines started avoiding me. They stopped looking my way and turned their eyes away, as if I were something non-existent. When I approached, they stepped back, gripped the handles of their tools tighter, and whispered to each other, exchanging glances. Some simply stood up and left, without saying a word. I kept digging, but now I did it alone. Every day, my head rotted, oozing stinking sludge. They can be understood… I could infect them with anything. There is practically no treatment here, just soaking the wound with brick mortar and rotten water.
I thought for a long time about why they didn’t kill me right away, why they allowed me to die slowly. Maybe it’s part of the rules? Maybe this is what awaits all of us in the future? Or maybe the exit really exists—but only for the pale ones?
Or maybe there is no exit. Just bricks. Just dig until you rot.
But one day, in the last few days, when my hands trembled with weakness, I saw one of the pale ones disappear behind a brick arch. I had never noticed it before. It didn’t look like the other walls; it had no dust or cracks; it wasn’t part of this world. And then I understood. They all knew from the beginning. They saw, stayed silent, and waited. They didn’t hide the exit. It was always here, in front of us. It’s just that no one looked in the right direction.
I stepped forward, and the world shifted. The space shifted; the walls trembled but didn’t crumble. The arch was no longer just a passage; it was something alive, waiting. The darkness, woven from brick dust and shadows, breathed, pulsed, and drew me in, penetrating deep into my heart like viscous, living flesh.
The hum in my skull merged with the beats of my heart, swelling into a heavy vibration, as if something inside me was cracking into pieces. It wasn’t sound; it was more of a sensation, deep, pressing, like a bell tolling from within, spreading through my bones, shaking the very essence of my body. My legs moved on their own, and I understood there was no turning back. Everything that came before had lost its meaning. The people, the bricks, the order, the pale faces. They remained on the other side.
I entered.
For a moment, it seemed like I could feel the bricks breathing. Not the walls, not the air, but the bricks. They pulsed in time with my heart, from within. Something seeped into me, into my blood, muscles, and bones. I became part of their breath.
The last thing I heard wasn’t the grinding of the closing bricks but a quiet voice coming from everywhere:
"Good morning… again."
Every day begins the same. We wake in the dark, inhale the scent of brick dust and rot, stretched in the air like sticky fog. Rows of beds stand side by side, exactly 1,628 of them; soon, the pale faces will bring one more…
Document No. B-0174: Analysis of the obtained information.
Researcher: Dr. Arnold Shayb, M.E.G.The found diary was discovered on Level 1. It was hidden in a niche between metal shelves. The paper has yellowed, the text is illegible, written with a trembling hand. Ink analysis confirms that it is at least four years old.
Hypothesis: It is presumed that the "pale faces" are underground employees of C.B.S.. They occupied one of the unnumbered levels, which was considered a dead-end. People fall here by accident, with no way to escape, they are turned into workers, puppets, forced to extract resources, materials, and anomalous objects.
Escape attempts from this level have never been documented. It seems to be under strict surveillance. Control over it is absolute.
Conclusion: C.B.S. hides the truth about "resource camps" from the entire Backrooms. The "pale faces" are overseers of wanderers trapped in a labor camp on an unknown level. It thrives with a brutal prison system.