Listening to the sound of a torrential downpour and faint rumblings of thunder, I was staring out the window, standing in my underwear with my hands on my hips. There I was, proud of myself for the wild pleasure I had brought to Katherine, who was passed out in my bed, wrapped in a cocoon of navy blue Egyptian cotton sheets.
As I stood there scratching my left butt cheek, I thought about the mysterious events of the previous day. Katherine and I had been lost for - what felt like - days in the Lostrooms Apartments, but we eventually escaped with her two sisters. I had so many questions about the mysterious experience.
I had been invited there via email after inquiring about an egg hunt event that had been listed on Craigslist. The email had been signed "D.A.R.B.", and I wanted to know about who had lured me there, why Katherine and her sisters had been imprisoned there, and exactly what the Lostrooms Apartments actually were.
Needing answers, I decided to return to the Lostrooms Apartments. I was obsessed with exploring liminal and abandoned spaces, and the Lostrooms Apartments had given me that vibe.
I packed some supplies into a red and black backpack, including a flashlight, a can of cat food, a camera, and a first aid kit. Katherine was still a passed out blue burrito on my bed, and I didn't want to wake her up, so I left without a word.
Remembering where the apartment building was, I drove to it and parked in the vast parking lot that surrounded it. There had been cars parked there before, but now the entire lot was vacant.
I got my camera out and began photographing the property exterior. I walked around the building, and found that it was completely windowless. It resembled a warehouse, standing around 4 stories tall, monolithic and ominous. There was no landscaping anywhere on the property, and the asphalt parking lot went right up to the building's walls. The only door I could find was a plain metal door that was near a concrete sign that read "Lostrooms Apartments".
I entered the door, and I found myself in a commons area that had a skylight high above it that allowed natural light to illuminate the corridor of inward-facing apartments. The floor was solid oak wood, but unlike my previous experience here, there were no eggs to be found.
The apartments were all identical, each standing three stories high with balconies on the upper levels. Their walls were a dark turquoise color, and they seemed to be in the early stages of deterioration.
As I wandered the corridor, all the apartments seemed unoccupied, and I could not find any office or signage that might point me to finding answers. Then, I spotted a strange turquoise-colored cat with enlarged eyes and round ears watching me from the top of one of the apartments. It paced back and forth on the apartment's top ledge, then it turned and disappeared. I took this as a sign, so I entered the apartment that the cat had been perched atop of.
The interior of the apartment was empty and devoid of any decor or furniture. All the walls were turquoise with dark oak wood trimming. The entire apartment had a musty odor with worn turquoise carpet and an off-white ceiling which had fluorescent lights every six feet. The lights were off initially, but I found that I could turn them on as I found a light switch for each room.
The kitchen had outdated appliances that worked perfectly fine, although the cabinets were all empty. The first level of the apartment had the kitchen, a bathroom with just a toilet and sink, a small dining room, and a living room. The only window was in the living room which looked out into the corridor. The living room had a staircase leading up the second floor, which had two large bedrooms and a spacious bathroom with a walk-in shower. One of the bedrooms had a sliding glass door which led to a small balcony that overlooked the corridor.
The staircase, which was also carpeted, went up to the third level, which had a large master bedroom and bathroom. The bedroom had a large sliding glass door with a small balcony that overlooked the corridor.
The rooms on the upper levels were all completely empty and devoid of any decor. Each bedroom had a small walk-in closet, all of which were also empty. As I was about to descend the stairs from the third level, I thought I saw a movement out of the corner of my eye. The turquoise cat disappeared into the master bedroom closet.
I quickly moved to look into the closet, but the creature had vanished. As I peered into the closet, something seemed off about the back corner of it. As I stepped into the closet for a closer look, I found that the closet turned a corner. The closet actually turned out to be a passageway into another identical master bedroom, at the center of which was the turquoise cat.
As I stepped into the room, the cat descended the stairs to the second level, and I followed. The cat went into the closet of the rear bedroom, and I followed it through another closet passage to another bedroom.
And then another. And another. And another. I was now following a turquoise cat through a labyrinthine hodge-podge of interconnected apartment bedrooms, going up and down levels, through countless identical empty apartments.
Where was I being led? My instincts told me that the turquoise cat would lead me to an answer, as it had done when Katherine and I had been here previously.
After having gone through what may have been several hundred apartments, the turquoise cat suddenly went to the ground level. Instead of a living room, kitchen, and dining room, the whole first level of this apartment was a large empty office. In the center was a single oak desk with a vintage laptop connected to a single ethernet cable that was plugged into the wall.
The turquoise cat vanished under the desk. The laptop was open, and the screen was black with beige pixelated text that read "Property of D.A.R.B., enter passcode to access." Next to the laptop was a folder with a plain text label that read "Department of Anomalous Research of Backrooms".
So that's what "D.A.R.B." meant. What were "Backrooms"? Who was "D.A.R.B."? I opened the folder, and it's contents seemed to provide answers, including a passcode for the laptop. The folder contents were too overwhelming to process at the moment, as I wanted to get back home. I put the folder and laptop in my backpack.
Looking around the apartment office, I did not find a clear way out, and I had no idea how to get back to where I had entered this labyrinth. I found a small door under the stairwell, and looked inside the closet. Inside, there was a ladder attached to a concrete wall that stretched upwards into a black void. Next to it mounted on the wall was an illuminated green sign that read "EXIT", with an arrow pointing upward.
I went into the closet and climbed the ladder up into the void. I used my flashlight to see, and I climbed and climbed and climbed through the seemingly endless darkness.
As soon as my legs and arms began to cramp from the endless climbing, I finally saw a faint light at the top. My head hit what felt like the underside of carpet. In one corner was a square hole, around six by six inches. Peering through it, I could see above me was a small closet.
Pushing the carpet upwards, I managed to lift it up like a trap door, and climbed out of the pit and found that I had ended up in a closet in my own home!
I laid the carpet back down, and went into my bedroom where I found Katherine still cocooned on my bed.
It had felt like I had been gone the whole day, so how much time had really elapsed since I had left? Something didn't feel right. My home felt... wrong. The silence felt sinister and unnatural.
I slowly pulled the sheets away from Katherine, and what I saw laying in my bed was NOT Katherine. It was a distorted and frighteningly grotesque imitation of her. The imposter remained asleep, and I quietly grabbed my backpack and went to the closet I had come out of.
To my horror, I found that the void that I had crawled out of had vanished, and there was only a concrete slab under the carpet.
I was now trapped in an alternate reality that I was unfamiliar with. I was lost and had no hope of returning to my real home. Perhaps it was time to consult my newly discovered information about this purgatory I had found myself in.