⚠️ Content Warnings ⤴
Info
Original concept and article written by Reddit user u/Nerdykiddo4844. Rewritten by Praetor3005 (author page) and
Nikuchan (author page).
CW: Overall gruesome and graphic images. Don't unblur them if you don't want to see that.
Chapter 1 - The Faithful
The rot.
That was the first sensation Justin felt as he exited the dark labyrinth of the Cave System, stepping into the Hive for the first time in years of explorating the Backrooms. The surrounding smell wasn't only a curse for the nose. Like a malevolent wind, the stench irritated his eyes, skin, even leaving a rancid aftertaste on his mouth.
The overseer expected this welcome gift, yet he didn't feel thrilled about it.
For an instant, the feeling of the environment made him forget the presence of Olivia's corpse on his shoulders, whose smell was surprisingly dull for a body dead for months. The aggressiveness of the level's rot covered what was left of her cadaver scent so well that the thorns of the roses blooming from her skin were the only thing reminding him of his quest.
He sighed, walking with difficulty across the putrid fields. He knew Kat was most certainly raging at his decision to sneak out right now. Perhaps she would come here with the entire Compass Point team to try to get him back.
She had known about his plan for ages, after all.
Even the pleas of his sister failed in convincing him to let the love of his life down. The books were correct, he knew it deep down. This place was a link between the two realms. A physical threshold between body and mind, as the curator called it.
But something went wrong. The Hive was far from the paradise the scriptures mentioned. Looking around, Justin could only witness decay and pestilence, far from the rebirth realm he had read about just some weeks ago. It was an unholy landscape, one he could only describe as if he was walking in the stomach of a giant long dead. All was flesh, from floor to ceiling, a red plague only broken by the occasional bones sticking out.
The database entry was clearly nothing like the testomonies of old. Despite being the same level, there was a clear point in history where the stories of a lush, verdant surreal forest faded to be replaced by cautionary tales and reports about a biological hell where the most evil, twisted beings were hatched and let free on the world.
Justin had been wandering the Backrooms for years, but this was by far the most unsettling landscape he had ever seen.
Despite this, despite whatever change that occurred, the scriptures of old kept a glimmer of hope inside him. Despite how barren the place became, there was still a possibility its link with the Grave remained, a point of passage for souls to reincarnate in this endless nursery.
Getting the body was not the hard part. Compass Point quickly found her remnants months ago, when she left Base Alpha for the last time, following an argument with the overseer. Rather, the esoteric process was what Justin was fearing. Leo remained unclear about how the threshold between the soul and the physical realm worked, whether by choice or by lack of knowledge. Unfortunately, this meant Justin would have to improvise, something he had gradually came to hate as he led the M.E.G. against many disasters.
An unexpected slip made Justin come back to reality. Barely managing to stand up, the overseer noticed the floor moving.
No, breathing.
Justin wrinkled his eyes. The whole floor was pulsating, from huge veins to what looked like organs, all growing and contracting. None of them looked remotely useful, bringing blood to more veins that felt like they were going nowhere.
Despite its "natural" look, this was still the Backrooms. For a moment, Justin almost had forgotten how strange this whole situation was. A rotten carcass as a level wasn't that surprising to him at this point, but one still moving was something else.
There was no concrete, no landmark, not even any rocky formation. This entire place was biologically unsettling. The overseer wasn’t a stranger to brutalist spaces, artificial worlds without sense that slowly broke the minds of the people expecting logic, yet there was something different about walking around in a liminal body. The flesh squelched under his feet, sometimes spurting out blood on his pants and shoes. The ceiling regularly ejected fragments of guts he had to avoid, as if this whole place was constantly replacing itself, barely holding itself together. The whole environment felt wrong. Not because it was too man-made, but because it looked far too natural.
Much like in artificial-looking levels, Justin could see no-clipping spots inside some of the membranes of the place. The Hive was like any other level, a thought that only made Justin grew more anxious, imaginating all the phenomena and creatures he could jump into.
Justin gulped, adjusting the corpse on his back. One step after the other, the overseer kept walking, dreading the thought of falling headfirst into the gruesome, fleshy floor.
. . .
As he wandered around, the overseer started to notice eggs in the landscape, gradually becoming more common. Each had varying sizes, randing from pet-sized to big enough to host Reviooks or Bone Thieves, if not even taller creatures.
Moved by curiosity, Justin approached a batch of them slowly. Some looked unbroken, allowing him to see them through their translucent shell. Discening the forms of the creatures growing inside, Justin took a step away out of fear. These were entities, this was undeniable, but they looked twisted, incomplete, almost unnatural —whatever this could mean within the Backrooms—. The ovsersse could recognize one of them as a Hound fetus, but most of them were unlike anything he'd seen before.
This whole spectacle made Justin grow uneasy. Archivists described most of these entities as mammals, yet here they were, floating within eggs the size of a human, as if they were into a stasis. Their scent wasn't any sweeter than anything else hereh, the scent of rotten fish making his nose twitch in disgust.
As he kept inspecting them, Justin almost let out a scream when he saw what looked like a human fetus within one of the eggs. Covering his mouth, the overseer approached it. Its absence of face features made its nature clear. Despite the distasteful situation, he smiled. The scriptures were right. This place was a birthing pod. Whether it was meant to grow the banes of mankind wasn't important for now.
Whether its properties could still be used by humans was the real question.
Distant howlings pierced the silence of the hive, making justin jump in surprise, almost dropping the corpse on his back.
The overseer frantically looked around. A pack of hounds was approaching.
He was not alone.
Coming back to his senses, the overseer started to run. To his horror, however, the uneven floor, coupled with the heavy charge he was lifting, severely slowed the overseer down.
The pack was closing up quickly.
His heart pumping harder and harder, Justin looked around, desperately trying to find a hiding spot. Yet, in the fleshy plains he found himself in, there was nothing to cover him up.
The vicious growling painfully grew back memories from deep within his mind. That fateful day where Melody Parker brought back the Olivia's death, ambushed by hounds.
Justin tried to keep his breathing in check. He couldn’t let Olivia die a second time.
The wall.
The overseer closed his eyes, concentrating on the fleshy lining. Much like some surfaces he saw earlier, this one look out of place, darker, unmoving.
This was his only chance to lose them.
Justin took a deep breath, kept his eyes closed, before running towards the rotten surface.
He felt the cold embrace of the organs penetrating his body— no, fusing with it for an instant.
The rot was unbearable. The smell of centuries of carrion penetrated his nostrils. The overseer reprimed a scream, fearing the flesh would enter his mouth.
Then in an instant, it was gone. Justin collapsed onto the soft floor, Olivia’s corpse falling from his back. Feeling the muscles below him contract and the veins pulsate, the overseer quickly jumped in disgust, screaming, before finally puking.
Justin remembered how much he disliked the endless daylight on Level 11, the sun reflecting onto the tarmac and the concrete to create an unholy heat at all times of the year. Yet, right now, he missed the Infinite City. He missed the artificial so much.
Struggling to stay up, he looked at the dead body in front of him, now covered in fluids and guts he did not wish to identify. Glancing at himself, he realized he also was covered in whatever biological parts the Hive was made of.
More than ever, Justin wished he had taken his time before coming here. The absence of spare clothes would haunt him for the rest of the trip.
Or forever, if he stumbled upon yet another pack of entities without any way to escape.
Taking the body of Olivia with difficulty, Justin resorted to walking, or at least staggering, trying to find an empty egg as soon as possible.
. . .
After what felt like hours, the overseer stumbled upon what he was looking for: a gigantic open egg, wide enough to hold a human body. Despite the birthed entity being long gone, the flesh coffin smelled horrible, its putrid form almost melting away.
Thanksful at the fact the Hive wasn't as remotely as populated as the stories led him to think, Justin exhaled shakingly. Despite its uninviting nature, the imposing egg remnant drew him forward slowly. His limbs moved on their own, slowly walking forward before gently placing Olivia against the surface of its exterior. Immediately, the corpse started to get absorbed by the insides of the egg, the rotten skin merging with the translucid shell that was slowly darkening. Justin moved away, briefly panicking.
Was he doing the right thing?
For a second, the overseer considered breaking the egg, to try to find another solution. Before he could make a move, however, the egg began pulsating loudly, the nearby environment shaking in response.
Justin held onto the nearby wall, some debris collapsing from the fleshy ceiling. Movement could be perceived from inside the egg, although the falling debris quickly made him understand he shouldn't come close.
After painfully long minutes, the egg began cracking and splitting open, before liquid began gushing out. A fragment of the shell fell down, dropping Olivia's body onto the ground
her muscles were twitching.
She was alive.
That light… That bright light at the end of the tunnel. When Olivia reached out for it, it was as if her heart began beating anew. She felt herself pulled down, lower and lower into flesh. Her soul became caged into something vaguely resembling a body, until she became one with it.
When she opened her eyes, her mindscape was gone, and she was… somewhere else. A dark, putrid place… Yet, her surprise was swiftly replaced by pain.
Agony, absolutely agony, ran through her body. Thorns in her flesh, fangs piercing her lip, flower petals coughing out of her mouth, and a bitter, reddish substance dripping from her nose. She looked down at her hands, or rather, something vaguely hand-shaped. Her skin had turned rather pale, with some green markings across her arms. She let out a shaky gasp before something warm pulled her close.
A familiar scent, a figure she knew very well.
. . .
Chapter 2 - The Reborn
“Justin?” The man heard Olivia spit weakly, as if she was feeling herself breathing for the first time in forever. “Where… ? What… What happened?” She muttered, still disoriented.
Finally letting her go, Justin stuttered: “You… It’s really you…”
As he started stepping away, the overseer noticed the aftermath.
Olivia looked like a living corpse. The plants around her did not wilt away. Instead, they fused with the body of his loved one, pulsating like veins. Her skin stayed washed out, as if her entire self wasn’t reborn, merely controlled by a partially stitched soul. Her face was missing an eye, replaced by two roses which grew out of her eye socket. her finger shifted into brown claws, growing out of the skin as if they weren't supposed to be there.
Only her hair was bringing some colors to her otherwise pale tone, going from black to pink, clashing with everything around.
“You do not… look alive.” He whispered, trying to recover the contents of the scriptures in his mind. Was this the consequence of the Hive’s withered state?
So many questions flooded his mind. How did she die, how did the afterlife look, why was her body like this… Yet one of them felt more pressing than any other.
“Are… are you okay? Is this really you?”
“I'm… I'm alive?” Olivia questioned out loud, her breathing growing even more ragged than before. “What did you do?… Why- I was… trapped and then- I got dragged here…” She muttered as her eyes widen suddenly. “My lady…” Olivia abruptly tries to get up. “I have to find… I have to find her…” She slumped back down, finding herself weakened.
Justin looked up to her, realizing how much she had grown up, now easily surpassing his height. Despite this, he held onto her, trying to keep her still.
“She kept me alive all this time! Philia! I have to find my goddess!” The woman shouted, confusing the overseer further. “Please… You have to help me. How long have I been gone for? Tell me it's not too late…”
“The Lost goddess?” Justin asked, the name of the old god of love obviously clashing with the withered state of this fleshy prison. “Well- I- I used liminal Lost magic or whatever it’s called. We’re in the Hive. It’s connected to the Grave or something.” the overseer tried to explain to both Olivia and himself, struggling to understand the situation.
The overseer tried desperately to remember any detail about this Philia, attempting to link everything together. He knew about the Daethos1 of the Lost, of course. Liminal Echo copied more from Earth than office rooms and twisted animals. Yet, the clear nature of Hoofstad’s patron was unknown to him, despite how much he had studied Backrooms civilization for M.E.G. diplomacy.
He sighed. “I… I’m sorry, I don’t know who she is, let alone what her deal with you or with this whole place is. I revived you, that part is true, but… I have no idea how any of this works.” He finally conceded.
“I need you to bring me out of here. I need to recover and try to contact her again.” Olivia let Justin help her up. “Tell me more about whatever you've done there. This clearly isn't just Liminal Echo manipulation… I heard a voice when I woke up, there's no way it happened just like that. What exactly did YOU read?”
As she was talking, the reborn woman frantically looked around, gauging the environment in all its gruesome, horrific splendor. “Let's try to find a safer area to talk in here… If there's something I remember from the database, it's that this place is already dangerous to begin with, and staying out in the open isn't gonna make it any better. Maybe we'll find things to help us as we walk?”
A growl resounded in the distance, further incentivizing both of them to run away from the egg remnants. As they tried to get as far from the noise as possible, Justin tried to respond to the reborn agent as well as he could:
“It was scriptures about the Lost’s cosmology. What they understood of this whole reality, the place of the soul, body, what’s in between, that sort of stuff. I borrowed the book from Castellos' Museum."
Justin cut briefly, avoiding a close flesh stalactite before continuing. “This place is supposed to be a liminal limbo between the earthly world and the Grave. But something's wrong. It- it wasn’t supposed to be rotten like this. I don’t know if it has anything to do with the god kille-”
Justin grew petrified, suddenly shaking. “What’s the matter?” Olivia asked, surprised, to which the overseer simply pointed to something behind her.
The same growl pierced the obscurity again, making the duo jump. They watched watched in horror as a female Wrangler slowly crawled out of the ceiling, a dozen of meters away from them.
“We need to leave now!” Justin shouted to the woman as the creature drew closer.
“We don’t have time Justin! We need to fight!” She eagerly responded, putting herself in front of the beast who was now crawling on the floor. Olivia looked around for anything to use as an improvized weapon. Yet, all she could see was rotten flesh all around her.
“Justin! Give me something to fight, anything!” She shouted to the overseer, still shaking.
“I… I don’t think we should fight it.” He simply responded, barely moving. “She’s… not moving anymore.”
Turning back to face the creature, Olivia was surprised to see the creature standing still, very much alive, yet not advancing near them anymore.
“Maybe it thinks you’re an entity too?” Justin whispered, unsure of what to do. “I don’t think any operative ever reported a female Wrangler acting like this.”
“What do I do?” The botanist responded, distraught.
“I- I don’t know! I don’t know what’s happening I don’t know what I’m doing” Justin exploded, the anxiety getting the better of him.
Olivia took a deep breath, before taking a step towards the female Wrangler.
The creature did not move.
Another step. The entity looked peaceful, almost tame.
“I don’t understand…” Justin whispered. “The hounds from earlier wanted to eat both of our bodies.”
“I can feel her.” Olivia talked to herself. “It’s as if I could talk with her.” She took yet another step forward, cautious. “Good… Wrangler? It’s time to leave us now. You want to leave, right? Plenty of food up there…”
The creature didn’t respond, yet slowly moved away, its body going back into the hole in the ceiling. Just a minute after the encounter, the Wrangler was completely gone, leaving no trace of its presence.
“ It’s like in the scriptures, I think.” Justin tried to rationalize as he walked back to Olivia. “The place was supposed to be supervised by something, a Hive Mind of some sort. Or maybe the entities don’t attack their “siblings”? I’m so confused right now.”
“You’re the one who revived me, Justin, don’t ask me.” Olivia groaned, before taking her head between her hands. “God my head hurts… I think we should leave no-”
The botanist froze in place, tetanized. She started to shake, her head started to hurt further, causing her to stagger for an instant.
“I… I hear something.”
Home…
Helios…
Body split in two…
Where… where are you?
…
You.
I know where you are.
Give him back to me.
GIVE HIM BACK!
Olivia turned paler than she already was. “I hear voices in my head!” She shook her head. “What is this?” She asked herself, almost delirious. “She's coming here right now!” She attempted to force her way into a thin crack in the wall, leading to another path, horrified.
“What’s going on Olivia?” Justin rushed to her. “You said we had to run away-”
“I am!” She shouted, before moving again. “We need to leave. She’s coming.”
“Who’s coming?” The overseer questioned, worried about his friend’s state of mind.”
“The Queen.” Olivia simply whispered, paralyzed.
. . .
Chapter 3 - Salvete regina
The ground shook as loud buzzing sounds echoed all over the Hive. Olivia began to hyperventilate, the headache increasing alongside the loudness of the sounds. “I can't do this-” She clawed at her face. “Please make it stop… Justin, please….” She begged to the overseer.
Betrayed… Forgotten. But now, we will be one again.
Come to me. stop resisting at last.
You're the last piece. Come back to me.
Bring me back what you stole from me.
“I'm not an object!" Olivia shouted into the void. "I have no idea what you're blabbing about, leave me alone!”
The botanist slammed her fist on the fleshy ground. Before she could pull away, the flesh started to engulft her hand, before opening into a malformed jaw which slowly pulled her down.
Justin screamed, running up to her. Before he managed to grab her, however, the rotten maw ate her whole, before closing and disappearing, leaving the overseer behind.
. . .
“No… No! No! NO!” Justin punched the floor, spilling blood and gut pieces around. The overseer looked around, desperately trying to find an entrance.
Yet, there was no hole to be found in the fleshy landscape.
"It’s my fault… It’s my fucking fault, I should have left her in the Grave, or wherever she was. I made her die twice…” He lamented on the floor, letting the rot further taint his clothes.
He should have moved on. He shouldn’t have tried to defy the Backrooms, attempting to use its tools against its fate. He cheated death, and now Olivia would suffer the consequences of his mistakes.
No.
He was Overseer A. More than a decade ago, he kept trying day after day because he still held the hope of finding Kat and Andrew back. Together, they created the M.E.G. because they kept the hope they could find an exit.
If anything, he needed that hope more than ever now. His reasons to come here were selfish. He missed Olivia more than he ever missed anyone. But now, he had to find her back and fight whatever this Hive Queen was. Not for him, but for her, so that she could live the life she got spoiled out six months ago.
Justin stood up, breathing heavily.
This place was a biological mess, a twisted place which shifted from an ancient paradise to a rotten hell. It was a mockery of the hope the Backrooms could create. It was a challenge to overcome.
He had to stay faithful and find Olivia as soon as possible. For her sake.
. . .
Olivia opened her eyes, slowly glazing at her surroundings. The rotten environment was the same as before, but enclosed this time, now more akin to a flesh cavern.
Immediately, the same voice as earlier came back to torment her, as a blue light from afar appeared in the distance, slowly getting closer.
Why are you fighting it?
Everything I ever did was for mankind. Every corner of this place I shifted, every child I birthed, all of this was for humanity.
Yet you refuse it, I feel it inside me. You stole part of me, yet you refuse to give back.
It’s her, isn’t it? She corrupted you, she made you forget your past.
“What are you talking about?” Olivia inquired out loud, tetanized. “I don't understand you. I don't know what you want from me! Just… what are you? I didn’t steal anything from you!”
Back when I fused with this place, I made sure no human soul could disrupt my work, yet you came.
That’s what she wants, doesn’t she? She wants to shift this place to what it used to be, removing me and my work, stopping me from destroying her and all the other gods who took everything I had.
They broke me, don't you see it? They broke everything I held dear. They broke mankind for their entertainment. And there was nothing we could do about it, until I found this place.
I shaped it as I wanted. I created my perfect linneage. I did all I could as the last hope humanity holds againt their reign. To allow for the age of man to unfold.
And yet, you refuse to let me fulfill my mission. You refuse to surrender your mind back to me.
Olivia looked around, only to glance at the rotten walls of the cave gallery she found herself in, clashing with the speech of the being approaching.
“You… It was you all along.” She started to breathe more heavily, the light still approaching. “This… This isn't right. This rot, this hatred within you. You disrupted this place’s cycle of life because you can't move on! You destroyed the Hive! Look at it!” Olivia hit the ground with her fists in frustration. “I've moved on! I don't carry that guilt and despair or that hunger for revenge anymore! I'm not like you! I won't let your hatred keep hurting others!”
Can't you see the paradise I created? The birthplace of my children against the omnipotent monsters who broke us?
Of course you cannot. Unlike me, you've been corrupted.
Something in you is holding you back. Something putrid, vile. The essence of the gods.
She saved you, did she not? You were dying, and she put a part of herself into you.
What a pathetic, selfish act. She condemned you to immortality, and you're telling me you this made you forget all the pain you went through?
A claw reached out from the dark, pressing against Olivia's exposed ribcage and tracing the bones. Olivia shivered, attempting to squirm away. “How do you know all this stuff about me?! We never even met— I've never been here!”
Because we are two, don’t you get it?
By being reborn here, you stole a part of me. You have the power to lead a new age alongside me, yet you refuse to.
I can see your past just as much as you can see mine. Perhaps what I need to do is show you what I went through.
Do you want to see my pain, wretched half?
The environment around the botanist suddenly brightened, a flash of memories that weren't hers running through her mind. A child’s face, a kind man, a destroyed city. Bloodshed, war, the face of the traitor. Who is he? She doesn't know him, but she hates him. She felt emotions that weren't hers. Guilt, hatred, remorse, grief, all towards people she had never met.
And then… then him, a young man, smiling, innocent and loving. Helios…
“PLEASE STOP!” Olivia begged on her knees, crying her heart out. “Please- don't make me see these things- Don't make me see him… Please… It was my fault…”
Was it? She doesn't know him.
Who?…
“Helios…”
My dearest… Helios…
For a moment, only for a brief second, the beast’s voice shook, as if uttering the name of this man caused her unbearable pain.
Olivia came back to her senses, pleading.
This past is yours as much as it is mine, Olivia Bellerose.
Just like you, I used to be a human. Just like me, you are no longer one.
We have so much in common. We both lost so many people we cared about. We both hold the same grief and desire for vengeance. Yet I see you refuse to accept my grasp onto this paraside. I see you refuse you accept my grasp onto you.
I must fix that. I must fix you.
The creature’s claw pierced through the flesh under her ribcage, slowly digging in her body.
I'll get rid of her influence. All you have to do is sit still and give up. It'll hurt much less like that, Olivia.
You'll do that for a grieving mother and wife, won't you?
The woman wailed, her hair glowing unnaturally. “No… No… I won't let you- I won't let you control me!” She yelled, the adrenaline flowing. Olivia closed her eyes, reaching into herself. Slowly, with an inhuman strength, the botanist forced the claw outside of herself, repressing cries of pain.
AGH! WRETCHED THING! THIS ESSENCE- IT BURNS! HER ESSENCE!
Olivia started to stagger, then run, desperately looking for Justin. Tournesol, her parents, nobody she ever lost would have wanted her to partake in something so monstrous. The Hive Queen was trying to manipulate her grief, to reopen old wounds. It wanted to reshape her future just like it reshaped the Hive into this nightmare.
Olivia slowly forgot the pain flowing in her body. Many died for her, and many more were ready to endanger themselve to aid her. She needed to fight for them just as much.
“Come at me, beast, catch me if you can!”, she defied with the newfound energy of a zealous woman, running away within the cave galleries as fast as she could.
. . .
As he wandered around, trying to find a way down, Justin tried to focus on other memories, driving his senses away from the rotten smell. Yet, everything he could think of was just as stressful as the situation he was currently in.
His work at the M.E.G hasn’t been thrilling him for a while, so much duller that good recent memories were few.
The coalition has never felt so threatened. Between the accusations of hiding data, the oversight council clashing on the group’s own ethics, and Andrew progressively growing more reckless, the faction centered around hope and collaboration never felt so dull.
Andrew… Justin wished he could put the deaths of Tournesol and Olivia on him. Yet, he knew that Donovan wasn’t the only person to progressively lose touch on their initial goal. The overseer felt it, the lack of ethics of his old friend was slowly influencing him. As the years passed, his decisions became harsher, riskier.
It had been more than eight years since they started searching for a Backrooms exit, yet to no avail. No matter how many levels they discovered, no matter how many entities they recorded, no matter how many phenomena they researched, nothing seemed to give them any lead on how to exit this place.
Was the glimmer of hope fading?
The overseer looked around. Despite looking far more organic than the liminal halls he was used to, the Hive was still an enclosed space, a twisted trap where only chaos and pain existed.
Had it always been like this? The Lost assured this place was a paradise, yet it was hard not to view it as a fleshy hell. Ironically, Justin found it to be a fitting representation of the Backrooms. chaotic, illogical, and everlastingly aggressive. This place was deeply wrong, yet it wasn’t supposed to be.
What happened here? What kind of choices led to it becoming a husk of its former self? Was wa everything around him the incarnation of helplessness and hopelessness?
The overseer sighed at the thought. Eight years ago, he was the kind of person to see the glass half-full, holding on to his optimism to keep moving forward.
But it was hard to keep hope in a place that looked so hateful everywhere. And now, alone, the love of his life taken from him once more, the doubt was as invasive as ever.
Was he making the right choice?
Should he keep tiring himself down, aimlessly looking at something that hasn’t been found in millennia?
Or was he, just like the Hive, slowly turning into a living corpse, driven down by his zeal and tiredness?
Questions kept flowing into his mind as he continued to wander alone within the flesh plains and gut hills.
His zeal to find a way out created something big, something he built with many other people, a group that documented hundreds of levels and saved thousands of wanderers. Then why wasn’t this working? If the refusal to let go led to something so great, why wasn’t it yielding any results? Why did it look like the M.E.G had never been so corrupted, so useless, so far from its initial values?
Was his attempt at reviving Olivia yet another proof he, the glimmer of hope, was unable to move on from the obstacles the Backrooms set against him? Was it yet another proof that the Backrooms were corrupting him?
Despite eight years of M.E.G. breakthroughs and development, Justin River, the hopeful man who led it. to keep fighting, to keep exploring, felt like someone else. He was Overseer A, getting closer each day to a copy of Andrew, ready to resort to the most vile of solutions to deal with something he could not move on from.
He thought of Olivia. Her skin, her eyes, her voice, they all felt twisted now. As if she were now part of this rotten level. How did she feel in her new body? Was she happy to be back? Or did Justin put her in yet another endless suffering? Was she different than the Hounds and Facelings who were born here?
What would happen to everything he cherished if he kept tiring himself in the wrong direction?
Justin suddenly tripped, having missed an exposed bone shard emerging from the floor. Standing back up with difficulty, he noticed its form: it was a vertebra, next to an abrupt hole. The spinal column was going down with it, offering Justin a gruesome yet efficient ladder.
He shook his head, trying to focus back on finding Olivia. Whatever his emotions and aspirations were, whatever all of this was trying to tell him, it would be useless if his foolishness caused yet another loved one to perish.
Carefully, the overseer started going down, vertebra by vertebra, hoping Olivia was safe and well down there, whatever happened to her.
. . .
Chapter 4 - Move On
Olivia couldn’t figure out how long she'd been running. The beast was tireless, mercilessly chasing her with its eight spider legs. The Queen’s appendages were moving all over the place, trying to pierce and impale Olivia like an ant.
The entire flesh labyrinth was constantly shifting, creating holes and obstacles Olivia had to jump or crawl over.
The Queen didn't lie when she mentionned her control of the Hive was absolute. She was getting closer and closer to Olivia, making fighting slowly become the only option.
Do you really think you can lose me inside a place I control?
Every muscle, every bone, I can bend it to my will. All you can do is surrender your soul back to me, or die trying.
You're just one other human out of the many who have to die for the cause. Once I will be whole again, the great work will continue until there is no god left. My children will avenge me and everyone I loved.
Olivia got tossed at a wall by a sharp smack, leaving her breathless for a moment. She coughed, the pain finally getting up to her.
Suddenly, a familiar soft voice echoed from within her mind. The same voice she heard when she first became eternal matter.
You must focus Olivia… Do not fear. As powerful as the one once called Zephyr may be, your mind and will are stronger. Your peace of mind and care for the future will be your sword and shield.
“My… my goddess…” Olivia communicated through her mind, holding onto her aching chest, hearing the queen getting closer. “How can I do this?” She whispered, barely moving away from an incoming claw. “I can't let her eradicate everything… She's out of control.”
{Zephyr is a stubborn beast, but her endless grief is obfuscating her mind. Her regrets will buy you time. Dig through her mind, Olivia. Use your connection as a weapon… Use her grief against her.}
Olivia rolled to the left, dodging one of Zephyr’s many legs. Closing her eyes, she started to concentrate, trying to focus on the mental bond she shared with the beast. The reborn agent recalled her own grief all too well, a feeling that encompassed Zephyr as a whole. If her own memories could torment her back then, so could the beast’s own demons.
Stop looking into my mind.
There is nothing for you to see other than what I've shown you.
“You won't be so sure once I do the same thing you've done to me.” She spat, forcing a flood of unwanted memories into Zephyr’s mind.
Children crying, the dying body of an elderly man, a beloved man who could never be with her. The traitor once again. all swirling in her mind, reminding her just who she used to be.
Mom… We're scared, mom! Where are you?! Please help us!
No… No. Agnes, Cyrrus, My babies! My babies!
My beautiful baby girl… You're all your mother, you know that? Our little Zephyr wind…
Father…- STOP IT! CEASE THIS FUTILE REBELLION!
Dearest sister… It hurts. I just wanted to help…
I- I-…
The ground began to shake, as Zephyr roared in utter rage. Entities started coming out of the environment, rushing through to come at their Queen's call.
Despite getting slowly corned, the botanist kept the mental bond open, as resolute as ever.
My warrior. I am eternally loyal to you. I love you… I'll love you for eternity, even if it'll tear me apart. I hope one day, I can become yours… even with what I've done.
…
The beast suddenly grew quiet, the room shrouded in darkness. Something about this particular man seems to have hit her deeply.
Why did you force me to suffer like this?
Why leave me with this unbearable guilt? Eternal life… just for revenge. You died to curse me, shackling me whithin this wretched, immortal body.
Are you satisfied?
IT WAS THE ONLY WAY TO DESTROY THEM!!
*It's all your fault.
MAKE IT STOP!”
The queen started crying, before rage took the place of sadness. Zephyr's already monstrous face further twisted, her eyes injecting themselve with blood as her oversized mouth twisted further into a rageous rictus.
TWO CAN PLAY THIS GAME, WRETCHED HELF!
Flashes of old memories started to flow in Olivia's mind. Tournesol’s last words. Her unborn child crying. Her parents searching for her, distressed.
They told her to give up. They told her she was a failure. That she couldn’t save the people she cared about.
Olivia shook her head, pushing forward. The wound of Tournesol's death, the loss of her baby… the death of all her loved ones… Despite the pain, despite the guilt, accepting these events was what led her to come back. It was what made her achieve inner peace, focusing on what she had left, on the future she could have.
She managed to climb out of her grief. She vainquished the deepest parts of her mindscape. She fought against the grief of her past already, and she would not let Zephyr reopen these wonds.
She wouldn't make the same tragic choices the Hive Queen took.
She thought of Kat and what she went through. She thought about Justin and his eternal hope. The glimmer of hope. For those who will come, she must fight for the future.
She thought of her will to protect people, to make the Backrooms a better place. She thought about the breakthrough she made alongside Underseer Cotyledon, the discoveries she made herself. The explorations she took to save the people who couldn't defend themselves.
She thought of the victories of the past, focusing on the good she managed to create and replicate.
The pain wouldn’t bring her down anymore. All of it merely pushed her forward to open Zephyr’s final wound. There was a bigger, grimmer wound in the Queen's heart. That man, that Kushim, the one behind all her pain, all her failures. The only thing she never moved away from. The man Zephyr desperately wished to be loved by, as his pupil and daughter when she'd already lost everything at the fall of Hoofstad.
Zephyr…
I'm disappointed in you.
You're deplorable.
You were so focused on my approval that you lost yourself in the end.
You will never defeat those you seek to destroy, because they are united and fight for love.*
Foolish woman. When will you learn to stop clinging to the past?
*It was all because of you.**
You will never find peace, because I won't let you.
NO! NOOO! NOOOOO!
The Hive Queen let out a final road, so loud that it pierced through the entire Hive. Olivia staggered for an instant, before grabbing onto the wall for support as the floor started shaking. Memories of an era long gone were tearing their minds apart. A plan for glory, for the freedom of all humanity, The Iron Fist’s final solution given by Zephyr’s own hands.
All of it for nothing, only driven by Zephyr's own grief, unable to move on to create the better world she wished.
. . .
As he climbed down the oversized spine, Justin heard sounds of battle echoing from far away in the tunnel down below. Immediately, the overseer started to run within the flesh cavern, fearing Olivia was getting cornered.
Yet what would he, the weaponless overseer, do to overthrow whatever was waiting at the end of the tunnel? Olivia had always been the fighter of the duo. To be fair, Olivia was the fighter of every operative team she had been a part of. She was no ordinary botanist.
And she was no ordinary reborn corpse either.
The tunnel quickly widened, opening to reveal what looked like a medium-sized cavern. Going through the threshold, Justin witnessed a heavily wounded Olivia, with a huge spider-like body on the floor. The monstrous amalgam was slowly merging into the ground, moving down until there was nothing left but the now familiar flesh composing the floor and walls all around.
The overseer quickly ran towards the botanist. “Olivia!” he shouted, both concerned about her safety and relieved the beast was slain, whatever it was. “Are you okay? I’ll get you to Hollow Nest as soon as I can, I’ll take you on my should-”
Olivia groaned as Justin lifted her up. She looked at her heavy burn marks that were slowly resorbing. “I feel… Fine. Numb, tired, but I’m fine.” She glanced the the empty crater near the trio. “I didn't kill her, she only retrated far away. She'll have time to reflect on her own… Until she decides to act once more.”
“We need to get you to a base as soon as possible.” Justin retorted, more concerned for her safety than eager to understand the context.
“I… I think I’m regenerating. Just like the Hive. I’m fine.” She added, pointing at the location where the Queen phased through the flesh.
Justin started to shake. "I'm… I'm so sorry. I shouldn't have come here nor do whatever I did. I'm sorry about your new body. I just—"
“It’s fine. I… I forgive you. About everything, past and present” Olivia cut him. “I need to move on from this just as much as you need to move on as well. I don’t know what year it is but… I assume things didn’t get any easier in the group”
Justin didn’t respond, the thoughts of earlier flowing back in his mind.
“You know that we're going to need to talk about a bunch of things when we’re home, right?” She whispered as she stood up, before walking alongside the overseer.
“I know. But we’ll do it together, okay?” He simply responded, his cheerful side coming back for the first time in months.
Olivia smiled in return. “Together… That will be nice.”
. . .
Epilogue
The Queen retreated into her nest after enduring the injuries, now slumping on the ground as her arachnid body collapsed. She was exhausted, deeply weakened, but a bunch of hearts would be enough to cure her and allow a faster regeneration… Still, she can't help but feel tremendously frustrated. Without Olivia, she feels empty and her power has been halved. Can her plan even be salvaged?
“I can't give up… I'm the Queen of this place… This is just a setback it has to be.., I've sacrificed everything- waited centuries!”
She slammed at the wall as hard as she could, feeling pure rage. “Fuck! Fuck! FUCK!” Her voice broke, before she slumped even further. “I have to… I have to do this… My children, my husband… father…”
“All those centuries didn’t do you well, did they?” A familiar voice erupted into her mind. Zephyr turned around rather quickly, witnessing a human figure below her. How could it be…? Helios?
“… I'm losing my mind.” Zephyr let out a broken laugh. “Have you come to taunt me for my loss? To remind me of my guilt? Is that it?” She let out a hiss, gradually backing away. “Get out of my head!”
“My stance hasn’t changed since all this time.” Helios approached the woman. “You need to move on, Zephyr… It wasn’t your fault”. The man looked at himself before correcting. “Well, some of it was your fault, I can’t really deny that. but… that’s the thing. How many more people will get hurt because you cannot let the past be the past?”
He started walking around. “Look all around you. This place was a verdant paradise, yet you ruined it. The people born here were perfect, yet you twisted them. The Hive was the frontier between mind and body, yet you made it a pure hell to torture humans, in hopes of one day torturing the gods who left us long ago.”
“Don’t you see you’re doing yourself more harm than good?” The weaponsmith kept on talking. “Each human your… “children” kill is yet another weight on your shoulder, another soul you mourn. Because after all these years, after all you went though, all you have to blame for the pain you feel… it’s you.” he concluded, putting his hand on one of her insectoid legs.
“This place was fated for ruin regardless. The real Queen would never be born, don't you understand? Someone was always fated to become its host… Do you really think any other person would have made this better??” Zephyr looked away from him, as she stared at herself in a pond of blood. “I only wanted to save humanity, to make this our Home. These creatures here want to kill us, control us. A few sacrifices… were necessary in the end. Were they?” She doubts herself in the end, because no matter how many humans she had to feast on to survive in this new form, she never managed to create her own version of paradise. Instead, it only caused death.
“A few sacrifices?” Helios laughed. “Zephyr, it’s been more than two thousand years. You have killed more of your kin than even Kushim did.” He marked a pause. “Your kin… Who am I fooling, you’re not even human anymore. Look at yourself, Zephyr. Your body is just as monstrous as what your soul became. Through this hatred, everything you touched became suffering, even yourself. Can’t you see it Zephyr? Can’t you see that all you found here, all you created, is just more suffering for you?”
Helios looked away. “You lost yet another part of yourself today, didn’t you? That woman is just as much of a queen as you are, now. And it’s all because in all your hatred, the corruption you created was your undoing.”
Zephyr trembled, dark tears dripping from her eyes as she remained silent for a few seconds. She no longer recognized herself, that was true. She didn't remember her face, her voice, or even the colour of her eyes. The resentment and grief made her accept this new form until she could no longer go back. Helios was right, but she hated that he was right. She'd prided herself of being the only hope of humanity, someone who defied death just to stop this cycle of suffering, but she only became the perpetrator of it all.
“I only wanted to save them.” Zephyr's voice broke. “I'm a failure of a mother, of a wife…and daughter. My people were exterminated and I couldn't do anything. I only survived by pure chance… Why? Why did it have to be me? I should have just taken their place…”She covered her face. “Helios… I'm sorry.., I'm so sorry… No amount of forgiveness will cleanse my soul… I don't know what to do anymore… I just don't…”
“The change has to come from yourself, sister.” Helios smiled. “Cease this endless pursuit of vengeance. Only through peace will you achieve happiness. You are the Hive just as much as the Hive is you. Shape your mind into the future you wish you had, and your envelope will follow. I cannot say this will be easy. But I can say it’s necessary. For you. For us?” He concluded, looking up to the woman gently.
“I…” Zephyr lowered down her head to his height, curling close around him to hug him. “I don't know if I can. I don't know if this will be enough…” She held him close, her arms wrapped around him. “The other Queen… She will come back. When she does… I… I'll relinquish this body to the Hive… back to the birthing egg. She will be able to consume it and become the only Queen. What will become of me, I'm not sure. But…” She paused. “It doesn't matter anymore. Whatever will happen… I will endure it. If I am going to die and be punished, I will accept death. Even if I won't see you again. It's… the least I can do for you… for Magtanggol…”
The thought of the man forced to be an immortal husk tore at her heart. She'd used his love to curse him and that was the worst of it all. “I will take Magttangol with me. So he will be allowed to rest… Any remnants of the Iron Fist will be burned down, until we will be forgotten and die with our sins.”
As she finished speaking, Helios smiled at her one last time, before vanishing away, as if he was never there. Zephyr let out a quiet sob of desperation, as it was drowned out by the extensive landscape. The last thing she felt was the feeling of a hundreds weights on her chest slipping away. For the first time, the Queen felt peace… And a flower blossomed in the fleshy expanse of wasteland in the Hive.
A Forget me not flower.