The Backrooms Pt 1: Three friends go for a hike. What they find should not exist. A pristine marble staircase standing alone in the middle of the woods.
Transcript
Host:
Tonight, on the midnight drive, three friends go for a walk in the woods and discover something
that shouldn’t exist.
A pristine marble staircase, standing alone among the trees.
No railings, no signs, no explanation.
Just sixteen spotless steps leading nowhere.
What begins is curiosity quickly becomes confusion when a strange fog rolls in and the staircase
no longer seems to obey the rules it did just moments before.
Tonight marks the beginning
of a very different journey.
A found journal, a shared memory, a place where distance behaves
strangely.
Time becomes uncertain and familiar things slowly lose their meaning.
No monsters,
just an impossible place, and three people trying to find their way home.
This is The Backrooms.
Now, I don’t know exactly what day it was when this happened.
I only know that it
started as a completely ordinary hike.
The kind of hike you don’t really remember afterward.
The
kind where you’re more interested in the conversation than the trail itself.
It was me, Joe,
and Samantha.
The three of us had done enough hiking together that nobody felt the need to
over plan anything.
Just pick a trail, bring water, see where the day takes you.
Joe was
leading the way.
Naturally, Joe always walked slightly ahead of everyone else.
Not because he
was trying to lead necessarily.
He just had longer legs and walked faster than normal people.
Samantha
was talking about some influencer she’d been watching.
Something about morning routines or
skincare or both.
I wasn’t really paying close attention.
Not because I wasn’t interested.
I
was just enjoying being outside.
There are moments in life where everything feels correctly
calibrated.
The temperature, the sunlight, the smell of pine needles, the crunch of the dirt
beneath your boots, the absence of notifications, the absence of urgency, the absence of obligation.
That’s where we were.
Just existing.
The trail itself wasn’t anything remarkable.
Trees, underbrush,
a few birds.
Nothing unusual.
At least not at first.
I remember Joe stopping.
Not suddenly.
It
was kind of a gradual stop.
Like something had caught his attention and he wasn’t entirely sure
what he was looking at.
What is that? Samantha looked up.
What’s what? Joe pointed.
The three
of us stood there for a moment trying to process what it was that we were looking at.
Because
standing among the trees was a staircase.
Not wooden.
Not metal.
Marble.
Bright white marble.
Pristine marble.
The kind of marble you’d expect to find in a courthouse or a museum or some
absurdly expensive mansion.
Not in the middle of the woods.
Not miles from any road.
Not surrounded
by trees.
The staircase rose maybe 16 steps into the air.
No railing.
No platform.
No structure
attached to it.
Just stairs.
Standing by themselves.
The strangest part wasn’t that the staircase
existed.
The strangest part was how normal it seemed.
As though it had just always been there.
As though we should have expected to find it.
Joe laughed at first.
Well, that’s weird.
Samantha
smiled.
That’s incredibly weird.
I walked around it.
The thing was solid.
Not a facade.
Not a movie
prop.
Not some kind of art installation.
The marble continued all the way through.
Heavy.
Permanent.
Real.
Joe tapped one of the steps with his boot.
The sound echoed softly.
Solid stone.
Who in the world carried marble into the woods? He asked.
Nobody had an answer.
We looked around
for signs.
Nothing.
Plaques.
Nothing.
Trail markers.
Nothing.
Just trees.
And now stairs.
I remember standing there thinking that the staircase felt less like an object and more
like a mistake.
Like something had been placed in the wrong location.
A copy and paste error in
reality.
Samantha laughed.
Well, Joe grand.
Oh no.
What? I kind of want to climb it.
Of course he did.
I should probably tell you now that curiosity is responsible for most bad decisions.
The three of
us stood there for another minute looking, thinking, trying to come up with reasons not to.
And failing.
Because what exactly was the danger? They were stairs.
That’s all.
Just stairs.
So we climbed it.
The marble felt surprisingly cool beneath my boots.
Each step was wider than normal.
More
deliberate somehow.
Built to last.
Built by somebody who cared.
We climbed slowly.
One,
two, three, four.
The forest continued around us.
Five, six, seven, eight.
Everything still
felt normal.
Nine, ten, eleven, twelve.
Samantha was laughing behind me.
Joe had already reached
the top.
Thirteen, fourteen, fifteen, sixteen.
The top.
And that’s when something happened.
It wasn’t something that was necessarily visible.
It just felt wrong.
Suddenly a chill passed through
me.
Not cold exactly.
More like standing up too quickly.
The world tilted.
My stomach dropped.
I grabbed my knee instinctively.
Joe sat down immediately.
Hard.
Like his legs had given out.
What was that? Samantha was already sitting.
Eyes closed.
Taking slow breaths.
The dizziness hit all three of us at exactly the same time.
That’s the part that bothered me.
If it had only happened to one of us, fine.
People get lightheaded.
People get dizzy.
People skip breakfast.
People get dehydrated.
But all three of us, at the same moment, on the top step, nobody spoke for a while.
We just sat there.
Breathing.
Waiting.
The sensation gradually faded.
After maybe 20 seconds.
Maybe 30.
Then everything felt normal again.
My pulse slowed.
The nausea disappeared.
The strange weight in my chest had lifted.
I opened my eyes and immediately knew something was wrong.
The forest was gone.
Not disappeared.
It was just hidden.
Fog had rolled in.
Dense fog.
Everywhere.
White.
Thick.
Impossible to see through.
The trees had vanished.
Behind the fog.
Completely.
Joe stood up slowly.
What the hell? Nobody answered.
Because nobody had one.
The fog wasn’t rolling in.
It wasn’t moving.
It was just there.
As though it had always been there, the three of us exchanged a look.
The same thought passing silently between us.
Let’s go back down.
Immediately.
No discussion.
No debate.
Just agreement.
We turned around and started descending the staircase.
The fog made visibility very difficult.
So it was so difficult that Joe began counting the steps out loud.
Mostly to keep track of where we were.
One.
Two.
Three.
Four.
Five.
The fog swallowed everything.
Six.
Seven.
Eight.
Nine.
Ten.
The staircase seemed steeper somehow.
11, 12, 13, 14, 15, 16, 17.
Joe stopped.
Nobody spoke.
18, 19, 20.
The three of us looked at each other.
21, 22, 23.
The fog remained unchanged.
24, 25, 26, 27.
Joe’s voice finally cracked.
Just a little.
But just enough.
Because all three of us were thinking the exact same thing.
There had only been 16 steps.
Going up.
Nobody moved.
Not immediately.
Because what exactly do you do with information like that?
27 steps.
We all heard it.
We all counted it.
There wasn’t any disagreement.
There wasn’t any confusion.
The staircase had 16 steps when we climbed it.
Now we descended 27.
And we still hadn’t reached the bottom.
The fog pressed against us from every direction.
Dense.
Featureless.
Silent.
Joe looked upward.
Then downward.
Then upward again.
As if seeing the staircase from a different angle somehow might fix the problem.
It just doesn’t make sense.
I remembered nodding.
Not because I agreed.
But because there wasn’t anything else to do.
Samantha folded her arms.
This is stupid.
Yeah.
No, I mean literally stupid.
Joe laughed nervously.
Excellent observation.
I’m serious.
She gestured toward the stairs.
There aren’t more stairs.
But there are.
But there aren’t.
The conversation hung there for a moment.
Because she was absolutely right.
And Joe was absolutely right.
The staircase somehow contained more stairs than it physically should have.
Which wasn’t a sentence I ever expected to think.
Let alone say out loud.
The fog remained perfectly still.
No breeze.
No movement.
No sound.
Nothing.
I looked upward again.
The top of the staircase was gone.
Completely hidden.
Not faded.
Gone.
The fog swallowed it entirely.
Joe rubbed the back of his neck.
Okay.
Nobody liked the way he said that.
Because Joe only talked like that when he was trying to convince himself that he wasn’t worried.
Okay, what? We need information.
Information will be nice.
I’m serious.
He pointed upward.
We know going down isn’t working.
We don’t know that.
Joe looked at me.
Dude.
Fair point.
We’ve gone down 27 stairs.
27 so far.
Exactly.
He pointed upward again.
I’m gonna go back up.
No!
That came from Samantha immediately.
No.
No.
Joe smiled.
Why?
Because that’s how horror movies start.
This isn’t a horror movie.
That’s exactly what somebody says before disappearing.
In a horror movie.
I laughed.
I laughed.
Even Samantha laughed.
The laughter felt good.
Necessary.
The kind of laughter that people use when something doesn’t make sense.
Unfortunately, the laughter didn’t solve anything.
Joe looked upward again.
I’ll count.
No.
I’ll go 20 stairs.
No.
30.
No.
40.
No.
He sighed dramatically.
I appreciate the concern.
We’re not splitting up.
I’m not splitting up.
You literally just suggested splitting up.
I’m walking up some stairs.
By yourself.
For two minutes.
The debate continued for another minute or two.
Eventually, Joe won.
Not because he was persuasive.
He had a better idea.
I’ll count the entire way.
Joe.
If anything weird happens, I come back.
Joe.
If I stop counting, come get me.
Joe.
What?
Samantha stared at him.
Long enough that even Joe got uncomfortable.
And she said, come back.
The joke vanished from his face immediately.
Yeah.
Seriously.
I know.
No.
Seriously.
The fog somehow felt thicker.
The silence somehow felt heavier.
Joe nodded.
Then turned.
And started climbing.
One.
Two.
Three.
Four.
Five.
His voice echoed strangely.
Not loudly.
Just enough to feel wrong.
Six.
Seven.
Eight.
Nine.
Ten.
The fog swallowed him.
Gradually.
Not all at once.
Piece by piece.
His shoulders disappeared first.
Then his torso.
Then only his head remained visible.
11.
12.
13.
14.
15.
The numbers became quieter.
More distant.
16.
17.
18.
19.
20.
Then silence.
Samantha looked at me.
I looked at her.
Neither of us said anything.
Because both of us were listening.
Waiting.
Trying to hear the next number.
Nothing.
Five seconds.
10.
15.
20.
Still nothing.
Then.
Hey!
It was Joe’s voice.
Far away.
Much farther away than it should have been.
Then.
A string of numbers.
Rapid.
Almost frantic.
Too distant to make out clearly.
And then.
Silence.
Again.
Samantha took a step forward.
Joe?
Another step.
Joe?
Nothing.
I felt my stomach tighten.
Not panic.
Not yet.
Just the first tiny crack in the assumption
that everything was going to be okay.
Then suddenly.
Footsteps.
Fast.
Running.
The sound bounced strangely through the fog.
Getting louder.
Closer.
Closer.
Then.
Joe emerged.
Practically stumbling down the stairs.
Breathing hard.
Eyes wide.
Not injured.
Not bleeding.
Not anything
dramatic or anything like that.
He was just scared.
Genuinely scared.
The kind of scared that strips away all humor.
He stopped in front of us.
Bent over.
Hands on his knees.
The nervous spoke.
Eventually he looked up.
The stairs just keep going.
Silence.
I know.
No.
He shook his head.
No.
You don’t.
Another breath.
I got past 40.
Another breath.
Then 50.
Another breath.
Then 60.
Nobody spoke.
The stairs just keep going.
The way he said that made my skin crawl.
Not because of the words.
Because of the certainty.
Joe was not speculating here.
He wasn’t theorizing.
He wasn’t exaggerating.
He was reporting.
Like somebody describing the weather.
The stairs just keep going.
A long silence followed.
Then Samantha finally asked.
What did you see?
Joe looked upward.
Into the fog.
Then back at us.
And for the first time since we’d found the staircase.
He looked genuinely confused.
Not frightened.
Just confused.
I don’t know.
What do you mean?
You don’t know.
I mean.
He hesitated.
Then pointed upward.
The ceiling.
Both of us froze.
The what?
The ceiling.
The ceiling.
Nobody said anything.
Joe looked at us.
Then back upward.
The ceiling.
Then we lifted our heads.
Past the fog.
Past the lights.
Toward whatever existed above us.
And for the first time I noticed something I should have seen much earlier.
Something that absolutely should not have been there.
Rectangular acoustic ceiling tiles.
The kind you’d find in an office building.
Stretching endlessly overhead.
Midnight flickered to life below us.
You’re listening to the Midnight Drive.
Nobody spoke.
Not for several seconds.
Because there are moments when the brain refuses to process what the eyes are actually seeing.
This was one of them.
Office ceiling tiles.
Not above a staircase in a building.
Not above a hallway.
Not above a room.
Above us.
Stretching endlessly into the distance.
I blinked.
Then blinked again.
Nothing changed.
The fog shifted slightly.
Or maybe it didn’t.
At that point I wasn’t entirely sure
what was moving anymore.
Joe looked relieved.
Which was strange.
Terrified.
Confused.
Exhausted.
But also relieved.
I thought I was losing my mind.
Samantha laughed once.
A short nervous laugh.
So that’s your takeaway.
Yeah.
Joe.
What?
There’s an office ceiling above a staircase
in the middle of nowhere.
I know.
And you’re relieved?
Joe pointed upward.
You see it too.
Nobody had a response for that.
Because he was right.
Whatever was happening it wasn’t happening to one person.
We were all seeing it.
And somehow that made it a little bit better.
And quite a bit worse.
The yellow glow below us brightened slightly.
Just enough that we became aware of it.
The staircase continued downward.
Still disappearing into the fog.
Still impossible.
Still wrong.
But now there was something else.
Light.
Warm.
Yellow.
The kind of light you’d expect from an old office building.
Incandescent.
Soft.
Unsettling.
We stood there for a while.
Looking down.
Nobody wanted to say it.
But eventually Samantha did.
We have to keep going.
Joe nodded immediately.
Of course he did.
Joe always wanted movement.
Action.
A direction.
Anything except standing still.
I looked upward one last time.
Fog.
Ceiling tiles.
Nothing else.
No explanation.
Just fog.
So we went down.
The three of us moved carefully.
The yellow light grew brighter with every step.
The fog slowly thinned.
Not disappearing.
Just becoming less dense.
Enough to reveal more of the staircase.
Enough to reveal walls.
The first wall appeared on the left.
Then another on the right.
The staircase no longer felt suspended in emptiness.
Now it felt enclosed.
Contained.
As though the space itself was gradually assembling around us.
Joe stopped counting.
None of us noticed immediately.
At some point the numbers simply disappeared.
Nobody mentioned it.
The stairs had already stopped making noise.
Counting felt irrelevant.
The yellow walls continued.
The lights continued.
The ceiling tiles continued.
Then finally after what felt like another 15 or 20 minutes
the staircase ended.
Not at a door.
Not at a landing.
Not at an exit.
A hallway.
Just a hallway.
The carpet was yellow.
The walls were yellow.
The lighting was yellow.
Everything was yellow.
Not bright yellow.
Old yellow.
Faded yellow.
The color of paper left sitting in sunlight
too long.
The color of nicotine stained office walls.
The color of old photographs.
And there was a smell.
I remember that smell more clearly than almost
anything else.
Damp carpet.
Warm dust.
Stale air.
The smell of a room that hadn’t been occupied
or even opened up in years.
Samantha covered her nose.
Oh my god.
I looked around.
What is this place?
Nobody answered.
Because nobody knew.
The hallway stretched in both directions.
Farther than it should have.
Long enough the distance became difficult
to judge.
And every few yards
another hallway branched away.
Then another.
Then another.
Immediately.
Not because it was complicated
but because it felt repetitive.
Like the same section had been copied and pasted.
Endlessly.
The same wallpaper.
The same carpet.
The same lighting.
The same corners.
Again.
And again.
And again.
I remembered turning around
looking back toward the staircase and stopping.
Because the staircase was gone.
Not hidden.
Just gone.
The hallway behind us looked
exactly like every other hallway.
Joe walked back ten steps.
Then twenty.
Then thirty.
Then returned.
What happened? What do you mean? The stairs.
They’re gone.
Nobody laughed.
Indeed.
Gone.
The staircase had simply ceased to exist.
As though we’d never come down
that staircase at all.
As though the only thing that existed now
was the hallway.
An endless hallway.
Samantha sat down heavily against the wall.
This isn’t possible.
I was amazed.
I stared.
The buzzing became noticeable.
Not loud but constant.
A low electrical hum hiding inside the lighting.
Once I noticed it
I couldn’t stop noticing it.
The lights were not
silent.
They buzzed.
Every single one of them.
Thousands of tiny electrical sounds
blending together.
A background noise
so constant it almost became part
of the air itself.
Joe eventually stopped pacing.
Okay.
I hated it when he said, okay.
Okay what?
We need a plan.
Samantha laughed.
A plan!
Yes.
For what?
Joe looked around.
The yellow hallways stretched endlessly.
In every direction.
The lights buzzed overhead.
We absorbed every sound.
And for the first time since we climbed
the staircase nobody
had a good answer.
Because the question wasn’t
how do we get out?
Not anymore.
The question had suddenly become
where are we?
None of us had the slightest idea.
The first few hours weren’t actually that bad.
I know that’s probably not what you were
expecting me to say but it’s true.
At first the three of us still believed
this was a problem.
Problems have solutions.
Problems can be solved.
Problems end.
So we treated the situation like a problem.
Simple.
At least in theory.
Joe wanted to leave markers.
That felt reasonable.
So every few intersections we’d tear
a small piece of paper from a receipt
in Joe’s wallet.
Or leave an empty water bottle.
Or scratch a mark into the wallpaper.
Anything to create reference points.
Anything to establish some kind of order.
At first it worked.
Or at least we thought it did.
The first marker appeared exactly where we’d left it.
The second one too.
The third, the fourth.
Everything seemed encouraging.
Then we found the fifth marker.
The problem was it wasn’t where we’d left it.
They couldn’t explain it that fifth marker was there
It wasn’t where we’d left it.
Joe stopped immediately.
No.
What? No.
The torn receipt was hanging from the corner
of a hallway.
Except we’d left it at a four way intersection.
Not a corner.
Joe walked up to it, removed it, examined it
and looked at us.
It’s the same one.
Samantha folded her arms.
Are you sure?
Joe held up the receipt.
Part of a faded logo remained visible.
A local gas station.
The same one.
Nobody said anything because none of us wanted to discuss
the obvious possibility.
Either Joe was mistaken
or the hallways weren’t behaving consistently.
So we kept moving.
Hours passed.
Or what felt like hours.
Time started getting strange almost immediately.
No sunlight.
No shadows.
No windows.
No clocks.
The lighting never changed.
The temperature never changed.
The buzzing never changed.
Everything remained exactly the same.
Eventually, Joe checked his phone.
Of course.
That wasn’t surprising.
The surprising part was the battery.
Still 93%.
That’s weird.
What?
It should be lower, right? I checked mine.
96.
Samantha checked hers.
94.
We’d been using flashlights.
Checking maps.
Checking messages.
Checking signal.
Hours of use.
Battery loss.
None of us knew what to do with that information.
So we ignored it.
Which became a pattern.
Things would happen.
Strange things.
Impossible things.
And after a while, we’d simply continue walking.
Not because we accepted them.
Because we had absolutely no framework
for understanding them.
The alternative was standing still and arguing.
And none of us wanted that.
At some point, we stopped talking as much.
Not intentionally.
Conversation just became harder.
There wasn’t much to discuss.
The hallways looked identical.
The intersections looked identical.
The rooms looked identical.
Another hallway.
Another corner.
Another room.
Another buzzing light.
Eventually, Samantha stopped.
Just stopped.
No warning.
No announcement.
She sat down against a wall.
Cross-legged.
Looking exhausted.
Joe turned around.
What are you doing?
Resting.
We just rested.
I know.
Joe sighed.
We should keep moving.
Why?
That question landed harder than
either of us expected.
Joe frowned.
What do you mean, why?
Why should we keep moving?
To find a way out.
Samantha looked around.
At the yellow walls.
The yellow carpet.
The endless intersections.
Then back at Joe.
Have you found anything yet?
Joe did not answer.
Not immediately.
Because the truthful answer
was painfully obvious.
No.
We hadn’t found anything.
No doors.
No windows.
No signs.
No people.
Nothing.
More back rooms.
Joe sat down too.
For the first time all day.
Nobody moved.
The buzzing filled the silence.
A low electrical drone.
Constant.
Unchanging.
I remember realizing
right then that I’d stopped
hearing it.
Not because it was gone but because my brain
had adapted.
The sound had become normal.
That realization unsettled me
more than I’d like to admit.
Because if that could become normal
what else could?
Nobody spoke for several minutes.
Eventually Samantha looked upward at the fluorescent lights.
You built this?
Joe laughed once.
A humorless laugh.
I hope so.
Why?
Because the other options are worse.
Nobody asked what the other options were.
Nobody needed to.
The three of us sat there.
Listening.
Thinking.
Waiting.
For what? I couldn’t tell you.
Nothing came.
Just the lights.
Just the buzzing.
Just the endless yellow hallways.
Stretching beyond sight.
Eventually I checked my phone again.
Still no signal.
Still almost full battery.
The lock screen
displayed the same photo it always had.
A completely ordinary moment from a completely
ordinary life.
And for the first time since entering the staircase
I felt something I hadn’t allowed myself
to feel yet.
Homesickness.
Not panic.
Not fear.
Just homesickness.
A longing for things I’d never appreciated properly.
Traffic.
Coffee shops.
Rain.
My own bed.
A front door that locked.
A ceiling
that belonged to a house.
Instead of whatever this place is.
I looked at Joe.
Then I looked at Samantha.
They looked exhausted.
Not physically.
It was something else.
Like all three of us
were just carrying
a question.
A heavy question.
That nobody wanted
to ask.
And eventually it was Joe.
Joe broke the silence.
He was quiet.
But he wasn’t hopeless.
He was just honest.
I don’t think
that we are getting out today.
Nobody argued
with him.
Nobody reassured him.
Nobody offered optimism.
The sentence echoed in all of our minds.
I don’t think we’re getting out today.
The three of us simply said
sat beneath the buzzing lights
and listened.
I don’t think
we’re getting out today.
The endless yellow hallways
stretched away
in every direction.
Waiting for morning.
A morning
that never
ever came.