Young Writers Society

based off of this photo :


You don't know how, but you've done it: you've no-clipped out of reality and ended up here. Among campfire tales and paranoid conspiracy theorists, this place is known as "the backrooms."
There is nothing here but moist old carpet, the buzz of faulty fluorecent lights, an endless labrynth of office walls, and the roar of entities in the distance
Oh, you thought you were alone here? No, there are all kinds of creatures living here. Pray if you hear anything moving, because it has surely heard you too.

character format:

@GengarIsBestBoy

Carys gingerly pressed the ice pack to a particularly nasty bruise under her left eye. It had only been a few minutes since her last match, but the thing was already an angry shade of purple. When the cold touched the bruise, Carys flinched, dropping the ice pack. She grumbled angrily to herself as she bent to pick it up.

You can handle punches to the face, but not treating a tiny injury? she chastised herself, scooping the pack off the floor. Only the floor was...different. Instead of the familiar dirty tile of the locker room, it was covered in a sickly yellow carpet that smelled vaguely of mildew. A distant buzzing sounded in Carys' ear, like angry hornets. Looking up, she realized it was coming from the rows of fluorescent lights above her.

Everything was yellow. The lights, the trim, the ugly wallpaper. All a nasty greenish shade of canary. Carys did a double take, stepping backward as she tried to compute what she was seeing.

But I was just in the locker room a second ago, she thought, brow furrowed. How did I end up here?

As she looked around, though, more important questions sprang to mind. Where was here? Why was it so empty? It looked a bit like an office building...where were the employees? And, most importantly...how could she get out?

Carys' thoughts were interrupted by a grunt from the other room. Following the sound, she turned the corner to see a teenage boy lying on the floor. He looked to be around fourteen or fifteen, with red-and-black hair and a blue backpack that had spilled its contents all over the carpet. Pencils, textbooks, and a calculator were strewn across the vomity backdrop like broken toys.

"Oh my," Carys grunted in surprise. "Are you okay, kid?"

Myriad loved the idea of alternate realities.

That's why he was smart. Not because he studied. But because he invested all his time in alternate realities. His desk was cluttered with formula after formula after formula. When he went to school that day, he didn't expect to clip through the floor.

I have... Physics first! thought Myriad. I wonder what theory we're going to learn about today!

He skipped over to the classroom and took his seat. Time passed.

"Please answer the following questions." said his teacher.

He got up and went to the chalkboard, and was about to speak. And that's when it happened. Everything became a blur, and all he could smell was soggy carpet and the yellow hue of the lights.

A younger boy looked up at Carys. "The answer to number 3 is... Ah! Where am I?! Who are you?!

Carys jumped when the boy lifted his head and screamed. She'd gotten so used to the monotonous buzzing already that the sudden change of sound made her brain rattle. Her first instinct was to put her fists up--but that seemed like a bad idea. Punching the first person she came across in here would most definitely lose her a very valuable ally. So she offered him a hand instead.

"My name is Carys Lougher," she told him. "I was hoping you would know where we are, 'cause I certainly don't."

"I'm Myriad Renchett... you can call me Mir! I think we're in a... basement?" Myriad took her hand, and started to put his items in his backpack. his arms reaching out to grab the loose papers and pencils. "Is this perhaps... an alternate reality?"

"An alternate reality?" Carys repeated, kicking the pencils into a pile in a preoccupied attempt to help him while she cast another glance around the room. "No, no I don't think so. It all looks pretty normal to me...I think the basement idea is more feasible."

But as she stood there, trying to fit the pieces together in her mind, none of them would fit. Even if they were in a basement, how did they get here? It didn't seem like someone had brought them here...for Carys it was like she was in the locker room one moment and then in the yellow rooms the next. Looking down, she realized she was still clutching the first-aid kit in her hand. The ice pack was already starting to melt.

"Doesn't matter where we are," Carys decided, shaking some condensation off the pack before shoving it back into the kit. "As long as we can figure out how to leave."

The busy chatter of the forest had lulled Cadence to sleep. She was napping under a tree, her green goblin ears twitching occasionally. She clutched onto a doll made of faded scraps of fabric

Nobody with any ounce of sense would try napping this deep into the forest. The fae in these woods were mischievous at best and malevolent at worst.

However, Cadence was different. No fae would dare to touch her once they saw the stars on her face. She had been “blessed by the stars,” as everyone had told her; she had special markings that indicated some “great power.” Everyone in her village had revered her, and even the most powerful of fae stayed away.

But as she got older, she stopped believing it. If she had some god-like power, she would have known about it by now. And, besides, her markings made everyone treat her differently. Kids on the playground would exclude her. Pets would run the other way when they saw her. And when her own parents began to fear her, she knew she had to run away from home.

So here she was now, trying to survive in this big forest all on her own. And she was doing pretty well.

Slowly, consciousness returned to her. But something was off. The buzz of cicadas had morphed into something unfamiliar—something unnatural. There was a bright light above her head that should have been blocked by the trees.

When her eyes shot open, everything was wrong.

She wasn’t in the forest anymore. She was in an endless stretch of yellow walls and carpet that was alien to her.

Before she could comprehend anything, she screamed.

Carys' head snapped up.

"Did you hear that?" she cried, scanning the walls for the source of the scream. "It sounded like a kid!"

Before he could protest, Carys grabbed Mir by the arm, pulling him with her as she sprinted in the direction of the sound. Whoever it was screamed again, louder this time. Carys could hear her own heartbeat thumping in her ears as she skidded around the corner, raising her fists to face whatever might be waiting for her. But when she finally realized what she was looking at, she stopped.

"What...is that?" she demanded, staring in disbelief at the little green child curled on the floor. She couldn't have been more than twelve years old, and she was tiny. She sat huddled against the wall with her floppy ears pinned back in distress, tears streaming down her starry cheeks. "It doesn't look human. What're those marks all over its face? Are they tattoos?"

Carys took a hesitant step closer, peering at the girl with a mixture of curiosity and apprehension. Upon closer inspection, she realized the kid was holding something.

"It looks like she has a doll," the woman murmured, more to herself than anyone else. She met the girl's eyes, giving her a small, friendly wave. "Uh, hello. Can you understand me? My name is Carys. What's yours?"

Cadence looked up at the woman, too panicked to wipe the tears from her face. The woman looked strange, unlike anything she’d ever seen before. “Where am I? Who are you? What is this place?”

"Oh, so you do speak English! That's good!" Carys pursed her lips, glancing back at Mir for help. Needless to say, this was an all-new situation for her. Turning back to the girl, she tried to be reassuring as well as honest. Honesty was the best policy, right?

"To, um, answer your first question...you're on Earth," Carys tried. "Well...maybe. I think this is still Earth, but I'm really not too sure. It's sort of Earth-like, I guess."

She stood up, moving slowly so she wouldn't frighten the little girl. "Like I said, I'm Carys, and that's Mir. We're probably just as confused as you are, and we're trying to figure out how to leave here. Do you want to come with us?"

Cadence hesitated. She wasn’t sure what Earth was, or even what species these people were. But she supposed she had no other choice. She had survived in a forest full of dangerous fae, so she could probably survive this place as well. Whatever it was

“O-okay,” she said, getting to her feet

"Great!" Carys gave a small, quick smile. "Where do you come from? I've never seen anyone like you before."

"What if she came from an alternate universe!" Mir exclaimed, clearly too excited about that notion.

"I'm from Grottodale, a little west of Foxlore" she said, gesturing outwards with her hands. She looked down and thought for a bit. "But where would 'here' be relative to there?" She asked to herself

"Um, well, I'm from Tacoma, a little west of Seattle," Carys said, scratching her ear. "Judging by the name of your town...I think Mir might be right. I've never heard of a Grottodale. Sounds like something from a storybook."