Level 1 "Elevator" (Riding down)

Aeri was sitting cross-legged on the bed, surrounded by flying papers with screenshots of abandoned places, malls, empty offices and endless yellow hallways. Her notebook filled with notes and observations sat on her lap. She had been talking about the backrooms for the past fifteen minutes, gesturing widely as she tried to explain the concept to Jimin, though her girlfriend had of course already heard of it through her. 

“So the thing is,” Aeri brought her notes closer, skimming through reported experiences, “the backrooms aren’t just an internet creepypasta to me, I think there’s something real behind it. It’s just so weird not to be right? There must be some kind of reality that exists parallel to ours.” She pressed her lips together, deep in thought. “And when there's a glitch in reality.. people can end up stuck there you know?” 

She glanced over at Jimin, who was supposedly reading a book but had now lowered it to look at her instead. Aeri frowned slightly when she caught the intensity in her eyes, not quite understanding why her girlfriend was staring at her like that. 

“Am I being weird again?” Aeri rubbed the back of her neck. 

“Keep going,” Jimin smiled. “I’m listening.” 

“Okay, so–” Aeri turned back to her notes. “I think there’s something about consciousness that is very interesting. Have you ever wondered what happens when someone dies suddenly? One second they’re alive and the next they’re dead, somewhere else but they don’t realize what happened and think they’re still alive, just stuck in this weird parallel reality.” She pressed her lips together, nodding to herself. “But take what I say with a grain of salt, I’ve got several beliefs and theories that sometimes contradict one another.” 

Jimin let out a soft laugh and nodded, prompting her to keep talking. 

“Right, so–” Aeri fixed her glasses, trying to think of a simple way to explain it and without going in multiple directions at the same time. “Level 0 is the level most people know about. It’s like an endless office with yellow wallpaper, fluorescent lights, the hum of electricity and a carpet that is slightly damp and brown. It’s called the lobby. People have reported this overwhelming sense of wrongness when they were there.” 

She pulled up an image, a long corridor stretching into what seemed to be infinity, every wall painted with the same yellow. “And here’s what gets me.. people have described the same exact space, the same wallpaper pattern, the same carpet and the same smell. How can people who know nothing of each other describe the same exact place that supposedly doesn’t exist?” 

She felt the bed shift and looked up with an arched brow. Jimin had moved closer. 

“What are you doing?” Aeri asked. 

“Nothing,” Jimin rested her hand on her knee. “It’s very interesting.” 

“Is it? I’ve been ranting for the past twenty minutes.” 

Jimin hummed and moved her fingers slightly higher up her thigh. “It’s very hot, actually.” 

Aeri blinked several times and looked down at her fingers. “Me talking about liminal spaces is hot?” 

“You being passionate about things is hot.” Jimin’s fingers traced slow patterns on Aeri’s thigh. “Tell me more about the levels, keep going.” 

“Hm,” Aeri tried to remember where she had stopped and tried to ignore Jimin’s hand. “So beyond Level 0, there are supposedly hundreds of levels. Each one is different, though sometimes intimately linked. Level 1 is an endless parking garage, Level 2 is maintenance tunnels, and Level 3 is an electrical station. They’re all liminal spaces, places of transition. Hallways, waiting rooms, stairwells, basically spaces humans pass through but never stay in.” 

Jimin’s hand traveled higher. “Why does that matter? That they’re transitional spaces?” 

“Because–” Aeri swallowed hard, glancing down at her girlfriend’s hand. “Because liminal spaces already feel wrong to us, they’re not meant to be empty. Think of a mall without shoppers, of an office after working hours, of a highway rest stop at 3 AM. We aren’t used to it, our brain instantly categorizes it as wrong. There’s a sense of displacement that we feel when we encounter one. It’s a place where the veil between dimensions is thin.” 

“Dimensions?” Jimin’s fingers reached the edge of her sleep shorts, lingering there. 

“Parallel realities,” Aeri said, her breath stuttering slightly. “I think the backrooms exist in the space between dimensional layers like–okay let’s take an example.” She gulped, feeling Jimin’s fingertips. “Imagine our reality is a page in a book, the backrooms are the thin spaces between pages. Usually, you can’t access it, but sometimes there are breaches, and people slip through it.” 

Jimin’s fingers slipped underneath the fabric of her shorts, a small smirk curving on her lips. “How do they slip through?” 

Aeri’s breath hitched. “N–no one knows for sure. Sometimes it’s during moments of transitions; walking through a doorway, going upstairs, turning a corner. Or sometimes it’s in places that are already liminal and sometimes–” Her words cut off as Jimin cupped her over her boxers. “Sometimes it just happens.. Reality glitches and boom, you’re somewhere else.” 

Jimin hummed and slowly started rubbing her length through the fabric of her underwear, leaning closer to press a kiss to her jaw. “What happens to people who get stuck there?” 

“Th–that’s the terrifying part–” Aeri tilted head to lean into her touch, her eyes fluttering shut. “Some people report wandering for days, weeks, trying to find an exit. Hm–the levels, they go on forever. There’s no food nor water in most levels, just emptiness and that constant and annoying noise. Lots of them report experiencing intense migraines.”