Whumptober Day 2: Trust Issues (Romance The Backrooms)
Look, in case you couldn’t figure it out from June Of Doom & Whumptember, I like whump. So I’ll be participating in @whumptober when I have the time/energy to. I may use all of the day’s prompts, or I may use some of them. We’ll see what happens.
Like usual, I will be doing these for the characters of my story Romance The Backrooms, a liminal space otome with 5 main love interests. This is an original work, not fanfiction.
Enjoy!
(I also included the @fictober-event prompt today!)
Today’s Prompts: Trust Issues, amusement park, “it’s been a long time”
Characters: Glarence & Adiel
Other Info: When I saw the amusement park prompt, I looked into amusement park backrooms levels and found two interesting ones: Level 345, “Liminal Forest”, on the official backrooms wiki, and Level 999, “Karmaland Amusement Park”, on the unofficial one. In the end, I decided to go with Level 345 for this story.
The idea behind this is that it takes place during Glarence & Adiel’s early days of travelling together. They don’t fully trust each other yet, and it’s a little bit tense.
_________
“Where are we?” Adiel asked, looking around in confusion.
“Oh, great,” Glarence muttered, seeing the dilapidated amusement park up ahead. “We’re in ‘Happy Land’.”
“What’s that?” Adiel asked him.
“It resembles a human amusement park, but all of the staff, rides, and attractions are made up of things from your memories—the place creeps me out,” Glarence said. “Maybe we should go back, try to find a way to a different level—”
“Wait!” Adiel exclaimed. “Are there any attractions that have exits to the frontrooms?”
Glarence thought for a minute. “I think if you guess your weight correctly, you win an exit there—”
“Then we have to check it out!” Adiel exclaimed. “Come on!” He ran towards the entrance to the park.
“Exits don’t apply to entities, you moron!” Glarence shouted as he followed him. “They only apply to humans!”
“Well, it’s worth checking it out to see if that’s true or not, right?” Adiel replied with a laugh.
Glarence sighed and shook his head, even as he followed the other entity into the park. The stupid guy was going to get himself killed with that reckless attitude. . . Idiot.
Adiel found himself in the main area of the park, with a large ticket booth in front of him. To his surprise, a passive Smiler was manning the desk—and specifically, if was the first Smiler he’d met in the backrooms, the being that confirmed to him that he wasn’t the only person here! Right, Glarence did say this place was made up from your memories. . .
“Excuse me, but where is the attraction where I can guess my weight?” he asked the Smiler.
“If you want to participate in that attraction, you need tickets,” the Smiler told him, in a surprisingly human voice.
“How do I get tickets?”
The Smiler grinned. “One memory is enough to pay for ten tickets. What memory do you want to ante up?”
Before Adiel could reply, a rough hand grabbed his shoulder, and he turned around to see Glarence there. “We don’t need more tickets, thanks,” Glarence snapped. “Where’s the attraction? I know the location changes for every person.”
The Smiler pointed to his right. “Go all the way down that way until you see the ‘Weigh Or Pay’ sign. It’s pretty big; you can’t miss it.”
“Thanks.” Glarence put his arm around Adiel and led him in that direction.
“Do you have some extra tickets or something?” Adiel asked him curiously.
“Of course I do, idiot,” Glarence snapped.
“. . . What memory did you use to pay for them?
A pause. And then: “Things I knew I wanted to forget. Now come on. I don’t trust you to go wandering on your own. You’ll find trouble.”
As they walked through the park, Adiel passed by various entities he had met before, all passive and not hostile: hounds, clumps, wretches. There were also some he didn’t recognize—perhaps they were from Glarence’s memories?
Finally, they reached the “Weigh Or Pay” sign. There was a strange figure standing next to a scale, an anthropomorphic deer with a strange screen instead of a head. The screens showed the moon blocking the sun in a solar eclipse, the rays of the sun tracing around the moon in an eerie light. In addition, their antlers, ears, and screen head weren’t attached to the body or to each other, but were floating independently in place, separated and detached.
Adiel tried to give the creature a smile. “You’re the Weigh Or Pay person?” he asked.
The creature didn’t respond to him. It stared at Glarence, and when Adiel turned around, he saw that Glarence was staring back at the figure with a look of fear and surprise.
“Hello, Glarence,” the creature said. “It’s been a long time.”
Glarence didn’t respond. The creature laughed. “So, you’re here to play my game,” it said, gesturing to the scale. “I’ll let you play for a ticket. If you win, an exit to the frontrooms is generated. If you lose, you pay the price. Understand?”
“What does ‘pay the price’ mean exactly?” Adiel asked hesitantly.
The creature laughed. “You’ll find out if you lose. Now, your ticket?”
Glarence muttered something to himself, then pulled a strange, blue-gray ticket from his pocket. He handed it to the creature, who nodded in approval. “Good. Now, player, step up on the scale.”
Adiel walked forward, but turned around to look at Glarence. The other entity was staring at the creature, but his gaze was now cold, detached. When he saw Adiel staring at him, he folded his arms. “Go on, play the game,” Glarence grunted. “I’ll be here.”
“Ok,” Adiel said. He stepped up onto the scale.
“Now, since this is a game for humans, we use human systems of weight measurement for this game,” the creature said to Adiel. “Pounds or kilograms?”
“Um, pounds I guess?” Adiel replied.
“Very well.” There was a pause. Then, the moon on the creature’s screen moved, and a blinding sun looked straight at Adiel. “Guess your weight, then.”
Adiel winced, shielding his eyes. The creature continued, “You are allowed to be 10 pounds off, bur that’s it. So, go on. Guess.”
The moon went back in front of the sun. Adiel scrounge up the little he knew about weight from the humans & entities he’d met. “120 pounds?” He guessed.
To his dismay, the creature responded with a laugh. “Incorrect!” it exclaimed. “So very incorrect.”
Claws grew from the creature’s furry hands. “And now, I get to hurt you.”
Adiel stepped off of the scale, backing away. “Come on, that’s not necessary, right?” he whimpered fearfully. “Surely we can talk this out—”
The creature pounding on him, sending both of them to the ground. There, Adiel was pinned, and the creature revealed it’s sun, shining down on Adiel as it raised its hand to strike him. Adiel winced, turning away and closing his eyes as he prepared for the pain.
But instead, the creature was pushed off of him. Adiel opened his eyes to see Glarence standing there, kicking the creature in the ribs. Shrieks of pain left the creature’s mouth. “You get the fuck away from him,” Glarence snapped, “or I’ll kill you.”
The creature looked up at Glarence and tilted its head. “You can’t kill a memory, Glarence,” it said, sounding gleeful, “no matter how much your try to forget me.”
“Shut UP!” Glarence exclaimed. He kicked the creature’s screen, and it went black. The creature went limp on the ground.
Glarence turned to Adiel. “Let’s go,” he snapped. “Now.”
Adiel reluctantly followed his friend, but not before taking one last look at the creature.
