chapter 25: Outside?

Sia and I slowly entered the hallway. We had barely escaped the previous crisis, and we were still wearing the masks.

The dark hallway stretched out long, and faintly glowing patterns were engraved on the walls.

Sia sighed, fiddling with the mask. “Phew… I almost died back there. It’s been a long time since I felt this kind of thrill.” She spoke in a voice tinged with annoyance.

“Yeah. That was the scariest thing I’ve experienced so far.”

I nodded in agreement. “If you hadn’t been there, I might have really died. Thank you, Sia.”

“What, so formal.”

“Thank you.”

“Yeah.”

I chuckled and turned on my flashlight, then turned it off again. It was flickering, as if the battery was dying.

“But still, how did you know the mask would work?”

“Well… just a hunch?” Sia shrugged and continued, “It seemed like the mask they were wearing was the key.

So, I just picked up a mask I found nearby and put it on. And then, bam. It worked!”

“You’re… amazing. To figure that out by intuition.”

I shook my head, looking at her. She smiled, urging us to move forward.

As we walked, I suddenly stopped, a strange thought popping into my head.

“By the way,” I began, slowly looking around, “the rooms we’ve been through, didn’t something feel off?”

Sia tilted her head at my words. “Off? What do you mean?”

“Well, I just suddenly thought of it. It feels like we’re missing something.”

“Missing something?” Sia repeated my words, approaching me.

“Yeah. The paths, the gimmicks, everything feels strange.” I pointed to the patterns engraved on the wall.

“Look at this. We’ve seen strange patterns like these in the maze and here. But we haven’t properly deciphered or examined them, have we?”

Sia looked at the wall, listening to my words. “That’s true. We haven’t looked closely. But isn’t that overthinking it? They could be meaningless letters.”

I shook my head. “It could be, but. It feels like the rooms are deliberately not showing all the gimmicks.

It feels like the rooms were made not just for the first pass-through, but with the expectation that we would come back someday.”

Sia paused, seeming to chew on my words. Then, she nodded.

“Rooms made with the expectation of being revisited…”

“So, there might be a lot we’ve missed.” I looked at the end of the corridor. “If we get stuck at the end of this path, we might have to go back.”

Sia nodded in agreement with my words. “Then… we should look carefully so we don’t miss anything this time.”

We looked at each other, took a short breath, and began to walk slowly. The dimly lit hallway stretched endlessly, and we didn’t know what monsters might be waiting at the end.

Sia and I walked cautiously along the corridor. And finally, we reached the end of the corridor. There was a large door there.

The door was still decorated with gold, and antique patterns were carved on it.

I paused in front of the door, took a breath, and looked back at Sia. “I hope there’s nothing strange this time, right?”

Sia chuckled and nodded. “Still, aren’t you a little excited? Maybe it’s the real exit.”

I grabbed the doorknob, tense, and slowly pushed. The door opened smoothly, neither creaking harshly nor closing heavily.

And beyond the door, a sunny exterior unfolded. A clear blue sky, bright sunshine, and a green field were visible.

The grass was green, and the trees swaying in the wind seemed to whisper in the distance.

In the very center was a beautiful fountain with a stream of water shooting up into the sky.

Around the fountain, flowers of various colors were in full bloom.

It was a scene like a spring garden.

“Is it… really outside?”

I whispered, holding my breath, standing at the threshold. Sia looked at this sight beside me and murmured in disbelief.

“Is it really…?”

We slowly crossed the threshold and stepped into the garden. The soft grass felt crushed under our feet, and the clear air filled our lungs.

The water droplets splashing from the fountain sparkled, reflecting the light, and we just stared blankly at the spectacle.

“Is it over?”

Sia said with a faint smile.

I looked up at the sky, pondering her words for a moment. But I felt a strange sensation.

The sky was too perfect.

Even the clouds were arranged like a picture.

And the horizon… the horizon visible in the distance felt somehow unnatural.

It looked like an endlessly stretching landscape, but the boundary line felt like something firmly closed.

I stopped walking and narrowed my eyes, staring into the distance.

“Something’s strange.”

Sia turned her head to follow my gaze. “What?”

“There… the horizon. Doesn’t it feel awkward?”

I pointed to the distant horizon with my hand.

Sia squinted and stared for a long time, then tilted her head. “Yeah… It looks like a natural landscape, but something is strangely unnatural.”

We slowly approached the horizon.

The closer we got, the stronger that unnatural feeling became.

And finally, when we reached right in front of the horizon, we learned its identity.

It was a huge door.

The place that looked like the horizon was actually a huge door attached to the outer wall.

The door was perfectly disguised, made to look like the boundary between the wall and the sky.

Sia turned her head and looked around.

“This… wasn’t outside.”

I slowly nodded and said, “Yeah. This is another room decorated to look like the outside.”

We looked at each other once again, taking a deep breath. We thought we had escaped the crisis a moment ago, but this place was also designed to trap us.

Sia and I stared at the huge door that looked like the horizon for a long time, then turned our gaze back.

We couldn’t be sure what that door meant, but it was clear that this place we were in wasn’t the real outside.

“What is this place… Is it really another room?”

Sia asked in a small voice.

Instead of answering, I slowly walked around, looking around.

The fountain caught our attention.

Clear water was spouting up into the sky, sparkling in the sunlight.

But suddenly, a strange vibration was felt from the fountain.

“What… what’s happening?”

Sia said, pointing at the fountain.

I also stared at the fountain, frozen.

The vibrations grew stronger, and the stream of water shook and bent irregularly.

I slowly approached the fountain.

And the moment I looked up at the top of the fountain, I swallowed my breath.

“What is that…?”

There were three angels standing on top of the fountain.

Each angel was spouting water towards the sky, and the figures looked like living statues.

But one spot was empty.

There was nothing in the fourth spot where an angel should have been standing.

Only in that spot, water was not coming out.

And, soon, from that spot…

Day one in an outside-like next room.

After leaving the womb, we racked our brains.

It felt like the rooms were not showing all their gimmicks.

It felt like we were missing something.

It felt like the rooms were made not just to be passed through once, but with the expectation that we would come back someday.

For now, pushing that speculation aside, we opened the door at the end of the hallway and came outside.

At that time, I thought it was finally an escape.

The blue sky, bright sunshine, and beautiful garden spread out before my eyes.

I believed this was the end.

But I had forgotten that hope always collapses in an instant.

When I realized that the horizon, which I believed to be the end of the Backrooms, was actually another huge door, I felt an indescribable emptiness in my chest.

All of this was another test, another fake.

We were still trapped, and we had to accept the fact that there were still many monsters left to escape from this place.

The stranger thing started at the fountain.

Three angels were spouting water, but for some reason, the last spot. The fourth spot was empty.

The fountain was unbalanced because of that.

As soon as we looked at that figure, the fountain shook violently as if it had been waiting.

And soon, from the last spot where the water was not coming out, something indescribable popped out.

I need to write information about the fountain in the next diary.

I don’t have enough information right now.