The Carrier
I sit in the dressing room. It's as cold as night ever was on Earth. I take a breath, in and out, then I start putting on my dress. I've never quite gotten used to our attire, every article is a matte black. With a moments struggle, I tighten it to my waist. It's not comfortable, but it's what I have to wear. I pick up my notebook and take my pen out of it. I carefully slot my notebook into my backpack, and put the pen next to my stick of Babel Balm.
Promptly, I make my way out of the dressing room, grabbing a Hyrum Lantern, then I make my way to the exit of our strongpoint. I feel like a ghost, nobody bats an eye at my passing, no matter how loud the clicking of my shoes are on the ground, no matter how much the Hyrum Lantern shines in their faces. Nobody cares that I leave. The dim lights of our strongpoint begin to brighten, from a constant state of being in shadows to harsh, artificial lights. Blinding and buzzing, the lights rage light the sun above me. I walk briefly through Level 0 until I reach the Merge.
The carpets change from damp and crusty to dry and soft. The Merge always captivates me, the lines of colors and materials stretched out to infinity blending from one soundscape to another. Rain thrums on the blacked out windows of Level 4, a light pitter-patter that's louder than Level 0's lights. The storm is harsh today, yet the few wanderers that I pass by don't seem to notice. Well, they don't even notice me at all, and I'll never get used to it.
The impressions on the carpet of well-walked paths are haunting. They are empty. Nothing surrounds them, no wanderers still walk these trails. No wanderers could even see these flattened portions of carpet, it's not real. Not anymore. I pause, then look around to find a dark hallway to my left, just as expected, it's the entrance to Level 6. I head towards it.
The darkness is welcoming. I may be a ghost, but being one with my surroundings feels only natural. Sounds begin to stop and the light fades to absolutely nothing, not even the Hyrum Lantern can pierce the darkness. Most people in Level 6 would put their hands in front of them, but I don't. Why would I? I know the exact path I need to take.
I could descend through the staircase, but that's not my goal. That's not my mission. I instead take an alternative route to Level 7, the physical barrier between between the ocean and Level 6 is where I've been assigned to go:
The Carrier.
The Merge isn't visible amongst the fading darkness, there's no change from one surface to another just pure nothingness to something. Though, even if I can't see it, I can feel it. The air warms and becomes humid. If anything is right, I'm at the bottom.
Corridors surround me, and in each threshold is a doorway with open doors. They are round, a thick metal, like a vault. The floor feels like some sort of concrete, with white plaster lining the walls. Cascading onto the white plaster is a small amount of natural light from above. If it weren't for the Lantern it'd be like twilight. And everything feels like a monochrome, pale blue, just like moonlight. Gentle thrumming of machinery and hissing of pipe works surround me. Running along the lines of pipes are translucent wires, flashing in some code that I haven't cared enough to learn. The soft movement of lights streaming across the corridors and the slight swaying of the ship does indeed feel like a naval aircraft carrier,. Causality was right. It always is.
I look through the corridors, and I begin checking it. The amount of folded space could be considered a statistical anomaly. Just so, for a transitional space, there is absolutely no compression or looping. Exactly as previously extrapolated. Sometimes it's tiring to check things that we already know will be correct, but this is one of our jobs. The Firekeepers needs everything in their favor for them to stay afloat. My heart aches at the thought. So many people could be killed if even one of them makes a mistake. I'd fold under the pressure.
Loud banging crackles through the corridors like thunder.
Groaning and mumbling comes down from the doorway on the left. I curiously begin walking towards the source of the noise, knowing that the activated Hyrum Lantern would save me from most dangers. I step over the lip of a doorway and wince as I feel water soak into my socks. "Goddamnit," I mutter under my breath as I instinctually retract my foot. "Y'know what? Fuck it." I decide, walking into the few-centimeter-deep water. Down through the corridor, the sounds become louder, almost like screams. I turn the corner, and look to my left.
The thing I see, something barely human, looks almost like a clump. A mass of misfunctioning flesh whispering hollow tones, clothes ripped, barely attached. Oh, the poor soul. I'd pray for its salvation, but here in the Backrooms death often isn't an escape. I look at it, with a fading sense of disgust. Its movements are repetitive, the sounds it makes are in patterns. Whispers, the screams, then groans.
I shake my head. I need to follow my assignment.
I walk pass that thing, and my heart aches for a different reason than usual. Of course it doesn't see me, but I know the pain it faces. The eternal torment of being remembered by only one devolving idea. People tend to be scared of entities for obvious reasons, but one cannot simply label them as "monsters". Can you really call yourself a human if damnation is the only idea you put upon others? Of course not, and I scoff at the thought.
Water squelching out of my socks, I make my way up a staircase, and my mind clouds with equations and predictions. Folded spaces are a nexuses that make causality nauseating to deal with. Two things happen in the same space, but not the same place. Any normal person would refuse to even think of it, let alone solve it. As the natural light grows brighter, I bring myself back to the moment. I continue to go up the flights step by step, until the layout significantly changes.
Rather than empty corridors of the lower flights, heavy machinery goes as far as I can see. The gentle whirring has risen to loud clashes of gears that don't quite mesh together. This floor isn't unlike the Boiler Room of Level 5. I step out of the stairwell into the industrial hell-hole, taking a mental note of where I just came from. I would write it down on my notebook, but the non-Euclidean geometry is nearly impossible to map on paper.
Unlike before, there are no thresholds to stop me from seeing into infinity. There are turns but no twists, each machine works to create an endless grid. Ah, so it's going to be like this. I take each step carefully and as I turn my head, subtle shifts and changes in the environment are made while I'm not directly looking. It's disorienting, but this is what we meant when we heard "perception based shifts in topology". Confusing lingo, and it's even more confusing to experience. I blink back to reality. I get lost in thought too easily, but when nothing even sees me in the first place, why should I even care?
"Goddamnit, I'm doing it again." I whisper under my breath. Movement in my vision jolts my attention off of my reoccurring thoughts. To my right, something resembling a man is on their knees. Tears run down and sink into their face. They look as if they are grabbing onto something in the air. They are mumbling the same few phonemes.
After they do the same motions and say the same words, I make out what they're telling me. "The corn- Please, don't leave me in the maze- Please, please, please-" I walk a step towards them.
And as I take another, they look at me. Above the mumbling and their melting face, all they say as they grasp my hands is, "save me- Please, please, please, kill me." God, just smite me down. Instinctually, I wrap them in a hug, setting my Hyrum Lantern on the ground. Their skin and clothes are all sticky, but I don't care. I hug this man because I know exactly how he feels. His mumbling begins to quiet, and he begins to settle down.
I let go of him, and his body continues melting. The droplets puddle up in the air and slowly fade away, making incandescent droplets from the Hyrum light. It sparkles like a teardrop catching sunlight, glowing in rainbows. I pray that he is at peace, because I'll never be until I know that I'm the last one suffering.
I look up, to distract myself from my heart. I have a mission to do, and it isn't saving lost souls. I pick up the Hyrum Lantern, and each step away from his resting place is heavier than the last.
I pass by many more souls as I continue to check for folded space. Each one leaves me empty, offering me only a small piece of their entire story. One man talked about a person named "Ari", his voice filled with regret, another talked in a hazy voice about a nightclub. A woman begged to not be left alone yet again, and another gave an oddly terrifying complaint about working endless overtime shifts at the M.E.G.. Between her grunts of pain, she told me how she was overworked day by day. How she eventually lost it from being forced to do monotonous tasks. The way her voice broke from recalling the experiences told me that she's lived it for years. She's like me, we'd rather take risks than being driven to all hells by work. She never told me how she died, only that it was too much.
I've begun walking up the staircase again, until I reach the highest flight. The soft ambient blue light contrasts starkly with a harsh, warm, pulsating, yellow light in the distance cascading from above. The light catches shapes and caustics that don't even seem to be there. I've been told to not walk into the light, but it seems impossible, the only room on the other end of the corridor is covered in it.
I step through the threshold into a corridor and it feels like my skin is boiling. Even just a few meters away from the light and I can already feel it's warmth. As I begin to sweat, I attempt to think of a way to combat the light. We don't know why it's bad, only that it is bad. My attire doesn't help. I'm only wearing a thin, flimsy mandated dress and my backpack. I grumble with a small attempt to hide the dread from myself, "fuck me, yet another time to risk my life? Goddamnit, nothing can ever be simple here."
I prepare to run across the room to the shaded corridor on the other end, with the hopes that maybe I won't start burning the moment I step into the light. I check the laces of my shoes, and I clip the Hyrum Lantern to a carabiner on my backpack. I try to steady my breath but the attempt fails, as I know I very well could die here. I just can't believe that I'm risking my life doing something as dumb as this, rather than fighting off entities. Even though it's my mission, I sometimes wonder why I signed up for this.
"Okay, here we go," I mutter, as I begin to sprint. I hop over the small lip of the threshold, and I can feel the light on my skin. It's not hot, and it's not burning.
But what is burning is my lungs. I cough and splutter. Water is filling my lungs, and it burns. I stagger to the ground, sliding a bit. My body wretches, trying to get the water out. It doesn't. I can't breath, I can't breath, I can't breath! Every part of my body is trembling. Darkness begins to vignette as I lose focus on reality. My mind is fluttering, my consciousness is fading.
A rush of footsteps, a movement in the shadows, a man yells, "当心1!" He pulls his cloak over my body, and grabs it with a hand I can swear I can see through. Without protest, the man drags me out of the room, my feet hitting the lip. His voice grows softer an more concerned, "你还好吧2?"
I cough my lungs out, wheezing each breath as the feeling of water stops, even if the burning doesn't. I very well could have drowned, even though there was no water. As I slowly regain my awareness, I can see his face. He's concerned to a fault, but I feel like I can see the wall through him.
"你还好吗3?"
"What?" I ask, as exasperated as confused.
"哦4," he gasps. I wonder what language he's speaking, but as my mind fog from the excruciating pain, I begin to recall. Not just the language he's speaking, but a deep, lost memory. I learned Chinese in middle school. "你说英文5?"
I try to recall what I learned, "对不起6…" I pause, and continue while taking off my backpack, "我的中文不好7."
"没事8!" He replies, with a light voice, almost laughing.
I take out the Babel Balm from my backpack, and quickly apply some to my lips. "Can you understand me?" I ask. He nods, and I offer the Babel Balm, "Put it on your lips, and I'll be able to understand you." I inform, still hackling from the perceived water that really isn't there.
He takes the Babel Balm, and applies it, before murmuring, "hello?" He speaks louder, "Can you understand me?"
I answer and nod, "yes I can." For a moment, I look up at him from the ground. I swiftly get up with a heave of effort, despite the aching in my lungs. "Oh, by the way, I'm Mira. Nice to meet you." I put my hand out to offer a handshake.
He grabs my hand politely but firmly, "A pleasure. I'm Li Chengfeng." A slight smile is brought to his face, and he picks up my backpack and hands it to me. I give a quick nod of thanks before he adds, "what brings you here? I haven't seen a wanderer up here in years."
Years. Jesus Christ. I shake my head and tell him, "I'm here on a mission." My voice is bitter, "My job is to check all of our predictions about Level 17." I sigh, "so far, all have been correct." I pause, rolling my eyes as I continue "Lucky me, I suppose." Immediately after saying, I fluster from how unprofessional I just was.
"Oh, that seems awful." Li responds, his understanding voice washed by a layer of pain that I can't quite pinpoint. "Why don't you should rest. Your mind thinks you nearly died, after all." My mind? What does he mean by that?
I decide not to question it, "Y'know what?" My voice trails in slight slur, "That'd be nice. I-" I bite my tongue as I begin to say more needless personal details. It shouldn't be so hard to stay professional. I shouldn't be having this much Goddamn trouble.
"Follow me," Li starts, grabbing onto my hand. His grip is soft, and I can barely feel his touch. It reminds me once again that he's not alive. He looks at me, and I can tell that he feels my weariness. "Oh, do you not want this?" He asks, nodding at my hand.
"It's… fine." I say, wanting to prove to myself that I'm fine. Because I'm not, and it's hard to be.
Li begins to walk, and I follow closely behind. We make our way through a few dark corridors in shadow before we come to another room cast with the ethereal yellow light. Li lets go of my hand to take off his cloak, and cover me in it. As I look up to him in questioning, he interrupts my thoughts, "Don't worry about me." The moment Li takes my hand, he starts sprinting across the room, and I follow, stumbling after him. "I can tell you already know, Mira."
"Know what?" I ask, wheezing as we pause in the shade.
"That I'm not human."
"You are human, Li." He pauses, and looks at me with a confused gaze.
"I'm an imprint. An entity." Li emphasizes 'entity', "Mira, entities aren't human."
This goes against my morals. Your actions decide who you are; not your fate. But how do I put it to words? "Clearly you don't understand." I take a deep breath. "You saved my life."
"Whatever." Li responds, averting his gaze with a hint of annoyance. "We're almost there." His grasp on my hand grows stronger. We walk through another set of dark corridors in awkward silence, only the sound of our footsteps and the thrumming of machinery from far below can be heard. We come up to a closed door, one that almost looks like a vault.
Li lets go of my hand to unlock it. I watch from a few steps behind, silently.
"Here it is," Li announces as he slowly opens the door, "This is the place."
The room is like that of the other lit rooms in the upper layer, but it's dark. Blue tarps cover the windows that would normally cast that deadly yellow light, instead only leaving a calm blue. Stacks of books line the sides of the room, with some papers scattered across the floor. A variety of papers are taped to the walls by their corners with masking tape.
"Come on in," He says, waving me in. I hesitate; not from fear but from an odd awe that I shouldn't be feeling. "It's okay, it's safe in here." Li almost sounds like he's talking to a young child. His voice is soft and welcoming. I shake my head, and take the step into the room. My breath quickens as Li closes the door behind me.
I unclip the Hyrum lantern from my backpack and set it down on the ground, it's long since turned off. "So," I start with a shaky voice, "What is this place?" I ask, as I continue to look around the room. On one corner is a few blankets stacked on top of each other, probably being the place Li sleeps. I walk over to one of the stacks of books that has a paper on top.
As I pick up the paper to see a serene pencil sketch of a grassy landscape, Li takes it from my hand quickly, then answers, "This is my home." He picks up a book titled 红楼梦9, and hands it to me. "Read this. Don't waste your time looking at my drawings." At this moment I see things that I glossed over before: pencils, some broken and some not are scattered along the floor; erasers, some black from use and others barely touched; and drawings, each one a beautiful picture into Li's life. I notice Li's hands are metallic black with graphite. Li's an artist, even after he became an imprint.
"If this doesn't prove my point, then I'm not sure what does." I say with a hushed voice.
"What point?"
"You're human."
"I'm not."
"You live here, Li. And you are an artist." I pause, and look him in the eyes, "But what else are you?"
"What else…?" His voice trails off.
I lightly 'punch' him on the chest. More of a tap than anything. "You idiot," I say sarcastically. I reach down and grab my notebook out of my backpack, slotting the book Li gave me in its stead. As I flip my notebook open to the next blank page, I look at Li, "I'm an author, so tell me your story."
We sit down on Li's makeshift bed, and he begins.