It was a beautiful day.
Celestia had just finished breakfast and was heading to the throne room with Raven for another day of court. While she was not very fond of listening to the nobles complain about taxes, she had to do it. Raven was the one of the few who helped her with her job. She was always there for her like a true friend.
"Wha-", she heard Raven say before being cut off. She looked to her side to see why Raven was suddenly cut off to find nothing. She looked around the hall to see where she had gone. No traces of Raven. It was as if she was never here.
The first thing Raven noticed after tripping was the overwhelming stench of moist carpet suddenly in her face. She quickly got up and looked around. Instead of the pristine walls of the castle around her, the walls were covered in gross tan patterned wallpaper. The buzzing of the fluorescent lights overhead was too loud to be normal. Her first thought was that this was a prank that Princess Celestia had played on her.
"Princess, if you can hear me then this is not funny. We are getting late for day court and you know how the nobles are.", she said.
No response. Just the buzzing of the lights.
"Princess, can you please stop this? This is not funny.", she said a bit less calm. She walked to the wall in front of her to test if this was just an illusion the princess had casted. She touched the wall with her hoof and to her horror, it was real. There were only two explanations for what was happening. Either the princess had this place built a while back and teleported her in it or this place was not in Equestria and she had gotten here somehow.
As much as Raven wanted it to be the first option, it could not be. Firstly, this place had to be built not even a century ago judging from the fluorescent lights and the state of the wallpaper and she had went through all the the documents from at least 100 years ago to present a few days back. Secondly, nopony would have wasted so much money on building this place.
The fact that she was probably stuck here sunk in and she started walking around hoping to find some exit.
This place was endless. No matter which way she took, she could not find any exits. Each room was just like the last. She felt as if she was walking in circles. The feeling of being watched didn't help either. She guessed that she was walking around for a few hours.
Right now she was walking down a hallway looking for anything that wasn't the floor or walls. She walked past another room and paused. There was a desk in that room. She immediately ran to it to find anything that could inform her of her situation. On the desk there was just a pen. She opened the top drawer and found a small, empty notepad. The middle drawer was empty. The bottom drawer had a water bottle and a note.
She picked up the note in her magic and read aloud,
"If you are reading this note, then god save you. If you didn't know, you are stuck in 'the backrooms' which is this place's name. I never thought this place was real until I no-clipped into here. If you are trying to find an exit, please stop. This place is infinite and the only exit would be death. You may think you are alone but you are not. Don't make the mistake of being too loud 'cause if you hear them that means that they have heard you. I'm leaving this bottle here because I don't need it anymore. They heard me. I can hear them getting closer. I guess this is the end."
"At least I know where I am...", she whispered to herself thinking about what could 'they' be. She took the the bottle, the notepad and the pen and quickly exited the room and quickly resumed her journey down the seemingly infinite hall.
Tap
She froze at the sound of somepony stepping. She turned her head around to see nothing. She continued walking down the hall.
Tap
She looked back to check and saw nothing. She walked faster now.
Tap
The steps were following her and getting closer. She started running when she heard a snarl behind her. No matter how fast she ran, 'it' only got closer. She looked back and wished she didn't. A dark, dog-like creature was chasing her. She didn't look forward in time to see a fungus in her path. Raven tripped on the fungus and that was all it took for the thing to catch her. It bit down on her left hindleg. Raven screamed in pain as she felt her hindleg being bitten and tugged violently. She charged up her horn and shot a blast at the thing.
It let out a howl of pain before running away. Raven lay there for a few seconds hoping this was just a nightmare. She looked back at her hindleg to check how damaged it was. Her leg was a mess of blood, fur, and exposed muscle tissue bent at an angle it wasn't supposed to. She slowly got up and started hobbling down the hall, leaving a trail of blood. If she didn't get help then she would surely die.
Tap Tap Tap
It was coming back and it wasn't alone. She started moving faster even though her broken leg protested.
Tap Tap Tap
She started looking into rooms for a hiding place.
Tap Tap Tap
Just as she was about to give up all hope, she spotted a wardrobe in a room. She quickly hobbled to it and opened it.
Tap Tap Tap
She closed the door just as she heard something slam into the wardrobe. She shrieked as the wardrobe rocked, causing her leg to pain. The wardrobe suddenly fell forward, trapping her in. The things were trying to break through the back wall now. Raven was now shedding tears as she wondered about what she had done to deserve this. Blood was pooling underneath her as her leg bled more. She wiped her eyes and opened the notepad. She wrote down her experience of this place and drew a sketch of the thing through her blurry vision, hoping that if somepony found it, they would know what happened to her.
She prepared herself for the pain as the wall was getting weaker. She thought about her life, her friends and everything she would never be able to experience.
Then the wall broke.
Why dislike?
10848006
It's not from me, but it might be due to association with the other Backrooms stories. As you said, there are a few others, and one of them I recall really blew up with a lot of backlash and angry words flying. Whoever disliked might have just assumed this was more of the same without reading, since it has almost the same cover. I'll give a positive like to counter it.
10848045
Can you send a link to the story?
The one with negative reviews. (and the other backroom stories as well)
10848055
Looks like it got taken down and/or deleted. I recall it was one of the big name authors, maybe 2019 or so.
They were trying to be really meta. Every couple hours adding new chapters, removing old one, rearranging them. A chapter of nothing but "run" repeated 5000 times. Hints and clues in chapter titles that, if you missed them, future chapters made no sense. That sort of thing.
And assuming that readers would be refreshing the page constantly to track every new change. Played havoc with people's notifications.
10848078
I was there for that one, it was a very odd story but untracked it due to the notification spam. Form what you have said about it it sounds like a cool idea if it had been slowed down and not spammed the notifications.
10848078
That almost sounds like it's trying to be its own ARG or something. It seems like a cool concept but it must've had some pretty poor execution
10848055
10848078
The story (though heavily edited and nowhere close to its original form) is here:
- MLP: FiM
- Horror
- Random
Nothing belongs here unless it's meant to be fixed, Twilight Sparkle.The author (SS&E) has written a bit about the piece in this blog post, which might help to understand why it received such a backlash. It was more or less one of those things that was confusing and experimental, and a lot of people thought it cheated its way to the feature box. Nothing to do with the quality, really. If you'd like to distance yourself from the SS&E story, putting a little note in your long description about it might be a good way to go.
You have a really interesting start, here! I've never really heard of the backrooms outside of the SS&E story, so it's super fun to find out that it's a bit of an external canon! I think you could take this in an interesting direction. I'll be keeping an eye on this one!
10848890
You want an aftermath chapter?
'Cause I can do it.
Just for you.
I wonder if more people see Raven as a Unicorn or as an Earth Pony. At leas in this situation it fits to help her out.
10851094
I see her as unicorn.
So this is way Raven never showed up again after Season 5... She died offscreen... *sounds of a grown ass man crying*
I'm starting a fundraising to have a statue in her memory placed where Discord's statue used to be!
10851744
Me too.
10851094
I, personally, see Raven more as unicorn.
So what’s with the Morse code?
10894724
You are not safe.
10894725
I know what it says, what I want to know is why you used Morse code for the chapter title.
10894728
Look closer.
Ask again and I'll pull a Picasso on you.
10894732
Okay then.
10894733
Remember to not question why I made the title the way it is because I don't know either.
How was the story?
10894736
I liked it.