Level 0 Backrooms Novels & Stories

The "War Room" in the Deep Caves had been replaced by a blueprint spread across a wooden crate. ‎ ‎It wasn't a map of the forest. It was a schematic of a high-rise building in downtown Seattle. ‎ ‎"Blackwood Trust," Vexa said, tapping the paper with her good hand. "Sixty floors of human finance. Boring. But here..." ‎ ‎She pointed to the sub-basement levels, marked in red ink. ‎ ‎"Three levels of underground storage. Level 1 is safety deposit boxes. Level 2 is the gold reserve. And Level 3... is the Private Collection."

Emma’s breath caught. The room stretched wider than any underground facility she had seen—metallic walls lined with dormant servers, stacked in towers that reached the ceiling. Dust coated the consoles. Cables as thick as her arm snaked across the floor like vines, converging at a central pillar of glass and steel. The whole place looked ancient, abandoned… yet waiting. Lira swept her flashlight over a rusted sign bolted to the wall. The letters were faded, half-corroded, but still visible:

The screws were fake—magnetized—and the panel popped open when I pressed the right edge. I slipped inside. The air in the shaft was hot and stale. Metal grates stretched ahead of me like a tunnel to the past. I crawled forward, counting each junction. Five turns. Down two. The bottom floor. Sub-Level X. The vents here smelled wrong. Not just unwashed bodies or old tech. They smelled like death. Synthetic. Flat. Bloodless. I reached the final grate and peered through. The room beyond was massive—circular, sterile, and flooded with white light. Machines lined the walls, humming with artificial life. Tanks filled with clear fluid stood like sarcophagi. And inside those tanks…

It lets hazy and colorful light into the buzzing space. We push through the unmarked wood door at the back, ignoring the curious glances of the patrons around us. The back room is lit by iron lamps and features a single plush booth in the center of the room. It’s low-lit and primal. Jaden is already there, lean like a lion, but more relaxed. He smiles and claps us each on the back. “How was the trip?” Jonathan asks. He’s more talkative than usual today, probably because he senses my black mood.

Jonah takes us to a back office that leads to another back office that opens up to a storage room with a very scary catwalk staircase up to the moment floor. I’m pretty sure we’re about to be killed when Jonah ushers us up it and through a beaded curtain, into a room lit up with black light. The floor is painted black, with sigils and symbols in glowing phosphorescent colors. There are bean bag chairs scattered around the perimeter of the room and an impressively tall hookah in one corner. Shelves hold jars of herbs and dirt and murky liquids I want nothing to do with.

Claire nodded, "what if the exit is there.” Angela and Claire walked over to the room, and when opening the room door, it seemed the same as the other rooms. However, the bed wasn't standing straight. As expected, Angela and Claire moved the bed, and to their surprise, a door opened from the ground. It was securely locked with a password. “This door is like a vault in the bank. Without a code, we won't be able to open it.” Angela tried the six-digit code to be the year she was born, month, and date, the light on the vault flickered twice red, “amount of attempts remaining two,” said an artificially intelligent voice.

She moved to the second slide. “Second, ‘Tiered Legacy Membership’. Instead of standard tiers, we create a ‘Legacy’ level for guests who have stayed with us multiple times. These members get access to unpublished resort locations, private chefs, and even input on future developments. It makes them feel like true stakeholders in the brand.” Finally, she clicked to the third.

"We were students. Real medical students. They stole our lives to make a toy for a child." "Then where are our bodies?" Benson asked. He looked at his hands. His face was full of horror. "Are we just rotting in a box somewhere?" "That's what Level 103 is " the Assistant whispered. He began to disappear. "The basement. The place where the real bodies are kept." The sky turned black. The sun went out. The only light left came from Junes chest and the two glass moons. "I'm just going to delete the save file " the voice from the sky said. It sounded cold. It sounded like a teenager. "This game is garbage anyway."

She was preparing to deliver her final killing blow, urging the courts to make an example of me, the social degenerate. Then it happened. The giant screen behind her flickered. Without warning, the giant LCD screen behind her flickered and changed. Her tear-streaked face disappeared from the screen. A black player interface took its place. Moments later, a crystal-clear audio recording blared through the speakers, reaching every corner of the hall and every livestream. The voices in the recording belonged to two people.

> Searching… > Mapping… > Mapping… > 74%… 88%… 100%. Then everything on the screen froze. I leaned forward. “Lyx?” The AI went still for a beat,long enough to make my heart claw up my throat. Then: > Connection found. My breath stopped. > WARNING: Data bridge locked by external encryption. > Full thread requires infiltration. > Location: Aegis Tower – Sublevel Zero. Sublevel Zero. Michael’s private floor. The place nobody got into.