I turned, trying to figure out where the voice had come from. After a moment, I saw a figure step out from behind a nearby corner. This creature had a human body wearing a nice suit, but strangely, its head looked more like some kind of green squid or cuttlefish. “Nice to meet you, good sir. I am the owner of this hotel.” This time he spoke out loud in a cheery tone, but his voice still made my skin crawl. “You seem like a nice man, and if you’ve made it this far through this place, you must be quite good at taking care of yourself. I don’t suppose you would like to make a deal? Running this entire hotel on my own is difficult, and I could always use a business partner.” he held out his hand, seemingly waiting for me to shake it. Though there was something about this thing I didn’t trust, I had to admit, settling down and running a business, even this business, didn’t seem so bad. Plus, maybe he could help me get home. I slowly began to reach out to shake his hand. “So, you want to work together? Fantastic! Most folks call me the gentleman of level 5, by the way.” I stopped moving as he said this, remembering what the cat had said: beware the beast of level 5. I slowly lowered my hand back down. When the beast noticed this, he once again spoke to me telepathically, this time his voice much deeper. “Think very carefully about what you are doing. Don’t do anything you might regret.” Before he could do anything else, I turned around and bolted. “How rude. You really think you can outrun me in my own hotel? You have no idea who you are messing with, mortal.”
ignoring the voices, I didn’t stop, even as I heard the beast running after me and even as I saw many other creatures spot me and give chase. I felt them breathing down my neck and needed to act quickly. Up ahead, I saw a door labeled ‘boiler room.’ I yanked it open and ran through, slamming it behind me and putting the weight of my entire body against it. Fortunately, I was strong enough to hold the creatures off, and after around twenty minutes, I heard the noises of the creatures stop. Assuming this meant I was safe, I got up but as I slowly pulled open the door, something pushed it open and entered the room. This was far more disturbing than any of the creatures I had seen so far. It looked like it was human, but its flesh was red and melted, blood dripping off of it, making it look like some form of zombie. it lunged at me and knocked me down, trying to crush me. I reached into my pockets for something I could use as a weapon, but the only things I had were a bottle of almond water and a few energy bars. Deciding the bottle may be heavy enough to use as a weapon, I pulled it out and began to wack it against the monster’s head. After I hit it a few times, the bottle broke. I thought I was doomed at first, but something strange happened when the water hit the monster’s skin: it began to sizzle. The monster screeched and got up, clawing at its own skin. I crawled away while it was distracted, walking deeper into the boiler room.
After walking for a long time, looking over my shoulder in case that thing came after me, the entire room began to go dark. Eventually it got so dark I couldn’t see anything in front of me or the boiler room behind me. I walked for hours but fortunately, I didn’t encounter anything, though I could have sworn I heard noises coming from every direction. I was already on edge when I suddenly felt a drop and fell down a flight of stairs and landed face down on a soaking wet blue carpet. After the pain went away, I got up and surveyed my surroundings. I was in a small room with a closed door on the wall opposite of me, though I strangely could not see the staircase I had fallen down. Also in the room with me were a bookshelf filled with books, most of which written in languages I didn’t understand as well as a coffee table, two chairs and a set of diving gear with an oxygen tank. I slowly walked towards the door but as I got closer to the wall, I felt something strange. Suddenly, I fell over, but I didn’t hit the floor. When I got up, I was standing on the wall. It was as if the gravity in the room had shifted, but the furniture was unaffected. I walked next to the door and opened it, being careful to not fall through and when I looked down, I saw a massive ocean expanding further than I could see.
I closed the door and carefully stepped off the wall. I once again looked around the room and grabbed the diving gear, putting it on. I then emptied the bookcase and pushed it through the door then took two of the legs off the table and jumped into the ocean. Once I hit the water, I climbed on top of the bookcase and began using the table legs as oars to try and row to land. But after hours of rowing, I saw bubbles in the water. I at first assumed it was just a fish and ignored it, but then I heard a loud crack and felt a spray of water. I turned around to see a black spear made from what looked like a massive fang had penetrated the bookcase I was sitting on. The spear retracted only to pierce the wood again in a different spot, this time a little closer to me. Panicking, I jumped overboard after putting the scuba mask over my face. When I broke through the surface, I turned and saw what had attacked me. Floating before me, still tearing apart my makeshift raft, was a small humanoid creature. It was around four feet tall, its entire body dark gray, besides its face which was yellow with glowing blue, blank eyes. Over its head it wore the corpse of a strange shark-like creature. It seemed luck was on my side, as it was still focused on my raft and had not noticed my presence.
“Surrender now and I shall reward thee with a swift death, foul mammal.” it said, apparently convinced someone was still up there. As quietly as I could, I swam away. I continued to swim for hours, not seeing anything else besides a lot of bones. Some of them seemed to be from fish and other aquatic creatures I did not recognize, but I was horrified to see there were a great quantity of human skeletons as well. But after swimming for a very long time, my arms and legs sore and tired, I saw something up ahead, floating above the water. As I got closer, I was overjoyed to see a massive collection of rafts tied together, but more importantly, other people! Using the last bit of strength I had left, I propelled myself to the raft and climbed up. By the time I was onboard, there were many people watching me, around 20 by my guess. One of them, a woman who seemed to be in her mid thirties, stepped up to me.
“Welcome, explorer, to the floater colony.” she said. “I am the leader of this village. You may call me Carol. I understand you have been through a lot to get here, wandering through many levels of the backrooms and fighting through many vicious creatures so you may stay here if you would like.” I quickly accepted, and Carol showed me to a small hut built on one of the rafts. “You may stay here. I am impressed you have made it to our colony on your own and without any form of transportation, especially with Tiny around. It usually stays near the level’s entrance.” she noticed my confused expression and quickly explained. “This level is completely devoid of life, besides two creatures, one of whom is a small aquatic warrior known as Tiny. he usually attacks anyone he sees. The other creature is known as the thing on level seven and it… well, you don’t need to worry about that thing. It usually resides in the deeper parts of the level.” I was curious about the thing, but I was too tired to question it. “I suggest you rest. You seem like you have been through a lot.” I wearily nodded to her as she left. I lay down on a small bed made from crumpled paper, scraps of carpet and energy bar wrappers. (which was surprisingly comfortable) and quickly dozed off. I didn’t sleep long though. I woke up not long after screaming and loud crashing and splashing.
“What is the thing doing so close to the surface?” I heard someone yell. I jumped up and stepped out of my hut to see what was attacking and was horrified at the sight in front of me. The rafts were slowly sinking into the water, some had already been submerged and people were panicking and running around. At the center of all of it, halfway out of the water, I saw it: the thing on level seven. It looked like a massive eel- like monstrosity. Its elongated body was only partly out of the water, though it was still large enough to tower over the colony. Unfortunately, when I saw it, it saw me too.