Paper Airplanes
Paper airplanes are rare navigational tools found across most levels of the backrooms. These seemingly ordinary 8.5 x 11 sheets of crudely folded printer paper are always found in locations that make retrieval difficult; wedged in gutters or the upper branches of trees, collecting dust under sofas, vending machines, arcade game cabinets, and other such objects, or resting on the other side of tall fences, for example.
Paper airplanes are as fragile as ordinary paper and only retain their anomalous navigational ability when they are not ripped or cut. However, mere dirt and moisture damage does not ruin them, and unfolding them, or folding them into more compact shapes, is likewise inconsequential.
Utility
When thrown, paper airplanes unfailingly lead wanderers to any single level, feature, entity, object, or person in the backrooms (henceforward referred to as ‘targets’), regardless of the distance that must be crossed or the number of levels that must be passed through, and apparently by the safest—and therefore not always by the shortest—route. The targets must first be named or described in writing or represented through illustration on the paper airplanes.
Once launched, paper airplanes stay aloft, bobbing as though buoyed by intermittent updrafts. When they arrive at their targets, a process suggestive of passing through an intangible shredder reduces them to pieces, rendering them useless. When used by children, however, paper airplanes are not destroyed in this manner and can be reused. The age at which this privilege ceases varies across individuals. Adults attempting to exploit this exemption by persuading or threatening children to assign targets against their actual interests invariably lose track of them.
Paper airplanes are seemingly capable of ‘interpreting’ even the poorest handwriting and the clumsiest drawings, invariably leading wanderers to their desired targets. However, they can ‘reject’ certain targets. If the assigned target of a paper airplane is rejected, the writing or illustration of the target will erase itself, allowing the user to assign a different, valid target.
In general, valid targets have three attributes; they exist, they are accessible, and they have previously been encountered or visited by the wanderer using the paper airplane. Rejected targets lack one or more of these attributes. Well-traversed levels and common features, entities, and objects are an exception to the third attribute: they are usually accepted as valid targets even if the user has by some odd chance not encountered or visited them before. Additionally, users have reported successfully assigning people they have never met as targets, provided those people wish to be found.
The useful applications of paper airplanes are numerous and obvious. They facilitate regrouping in dangerous situations, assist in efficiently escaping dangerous levels, and, for the more adventurous, make obtaining necessary supplies in emergencies easier. For parents separated from their children by no-clipping or some other accident, the knowledge that their children possess paper airplanes and know to first assign “safety”, and then “my parents” as targets relieves them of an otherwise unbearable anxiety.
Because they are irreplicable, rare, useful, and nonreusable, paper airplanes are valuable objects, excellent for trading, though finding several can take years of exploration, and keeping the first one obtained or found for use in emergencies is obviously advisable, since paper airplanes are both functionally dependable and easy to carry.
Differentiation
Don’t be scammed! To determine whether a paper airplane is ordinary or anomalous, put it to your ear and listen for the faint, muffled sound of laughing children. If you don’t hear anything, you’re holding mere paper.
Acquisition
Popular opinion and anecdotal evidence suggest that paper airplanes are more frequently found in levels and locations associated with childhood. Many wanderers find paper airplanes on level 18, “Memories”, and some return regularly to search for more due to the appealing survivability and safety of the level. Level 409, “The Paper-Rooms”, which can be accessed directly from level 18, also seems to yield many paper airplanes, though the process of finding them—carefully tearing at the walls—is tedious. Level 409, like level 18, is survivable and safe, contributing to its popularity as a searching site.
Miscellaneous
If an unfolded paper airplane is assigned a target and thrown, it will fold itself into an airplane shape once airborne.
While navigating toward their targets, paper airplanes can be hindered quite easily. If delaying arrival at the target is desirable, the recommended strategy is to grab them and trap them in bags or boxes. When released, they will resume flight. Paper airplanes are also vulnerable to environmental hazards, such as rain and fire. As long as the text or image on the paper remains discernable and their paper remains intact, paper airplanes will continue navigating. The recommended strategy is to avoid falling behind these delicate objects and to remain alert and ready to snatch them from possible danger.
Paper airplanes can be assigned paper airplanes as their targets. Attempts to exploit paper airplanes by assigning “paper airplane stash” or an illustration of a pile of paper airplanes as targets have not succeeded: most often, the reward is a bunch of ordinary paper airplanes, even if anomalous paper airplanes are specified by words or suggested in the illustration. At best, one paper airplane will lead to one more, and that to another, and so on. Some wanderers have followed hundreds of paper airplanes in this manner for various reasons, though doing so is not obviously beneficial.