Seed Of Darkness

rating: +22+x

Duty was boring for Josef Gardiner. Every once in a while, some M.E.G. higher-up would send him on some stupid ‘mission’ to scout random levels in the backrooms that they probably already knew shitloads about. And it was never any interesting levels either, always some stupid Class 1 wasteland with absolutely nothing in it save for the occasional entity if he was lucky. Sometimes he wondered if they did it on purpose just to patronize him.

This time they’d sent him to that one with the yellow walls that reminded him of his Grandma’s living room to do some checking up on some ‘Manila room’. This level was always an absolute joy to be in, as there was just so much to do in it. He sighed as he took what may as well have been the millionth step of the day and continued his trek through the level.

At some point, he encountered a large, gaping room with a Skin-Stealer in it. The big, bumbling mess walked around aimlessly, paying absolutely no attention to him. He waited to see if it would react to him if he walked into the room, but it ignored him, meaning it was docile for now.

“Some poor sod probably got caught by it” he mumbled to no one in particular, as he walked past it into yet another corridor.

His trek continued through a dozen other rooms and corridors. Boredom got to him eventually, so he started randomly saying the name of whatever thing he’d see at the moment. It helped keep his mind off the mind-numbing walk and helped drown out the annoying hum-buzz of the fluorescent lights that were riddled throughout the level.

"Tear in the wallpaper, check" he murmured.

"Stain on the carpet that smells like sewage, check".

"Patch of black, che- wait, what?"

He almost didn’t notice the plate-sized patch of black on the ground smack in the middle of the room as he passed by it. He halted his march and stared at it, surveying each and every inch of it and checking what exactly it was. The area encompassed by the black patch seemed hazy around the edges. The air around the patch seemed colder than the rest of the air in the room, like it was getting sucked into it. His interest in the object had peaked at this point.

“What the hell are you supposed to be?” He voiced out loud, as if expecting an answer from it.
The patch replied by staring back at him, unmoving and unchanging. The strong and silent type as it seems…

Perhaps, just perhaps, this was something interesting and worthwhile he could salvage from this boring expedition? Maybe he’d just made a discovery that he could show the overseers to prove his worth to get ahead in the M.E.G.'s ranks? Whatever the outcome would be, he had to document this.

He took out his phone to take a picture of it, but saw that he had no charge in it at all. He sighed. “Damn it, my one time to shine and I don’t even have a way to account for my discovery. Why’d I have to get carried away with playing those games earlier on!” he remarked angrily.

He thought of other things he could do in the meantime to preserve this encounter, and eventually came up with the idea of running some impromptu tests to see what he could come up with. He took out a notepad and pen and began writing a short description of the object.

Looks like a patch of black on the ground, kinda like someone spilled ink on the ground. Area around it is hazy, but it emits no heat at all sucks in heat from the area around it as well. It doesn't make any sound, and it doesn't move either. Doesn't seem to be alive.

He scrawled on the paper hurriedly, his hands already shaking with the excitement of the prospect of presenting a useful discovery to everyone. He could already picture himself getting noticed for his own discovery for once!

His next course of action would be a small test to see what would happen when it made contact with something. He took out a used tissue he had in his pocket and dropped it into the hole. Swallowed up instantly, without a trace.

Good thing he wasn’t fond of that tissue.

Test 1: Dropped a tissue into it, and it disappeared swallowed it up. Nothing left of it. Could be a sort of space void-like entity or object?

He looked back at it. He could’ve sworn it’d grown a bit.

Next, he decided he was going to see if it just swallowed up the entirety anything it touched or just the part that was dipped into it. He took out a piece of his broken army knife’s blade and dipped it into the patch, then took it back out.

A clean cut. The place where the knife was cut off at was now even sharper than before.

Test 2: Dipped a broken blade part of my army knife into it. Clean cut at the part where the void and the rest of the blade met.

He looked at it once again. Ok, it had definitely grown now.

Also seems to be growing expanding periodically, not sure how I feel about that.

Unnerved, he moved a bit further back, as if scared it would spread to the area he was on and eat him up next. He decided he’d do one last thing, and then continue onto the room he was supposed to be going to before he encountered this… thing…

He started sketching an image of what the void looked like on his notepad. Standing a bit further back, he started hastily drawing the room and the patch, occasionally glancing at it to make sure it hadn't grown any further.

He sketched, and sketched, and sketched. and sketched, and then, he was done. As he put the notepad back into his bag, he took one last glare at the pat- Was that thing growing right in front of him?

More nervous than ever before, he carefully made his way around it and continued onwards to his objective. Throughout the rest of the trek, he thought of nothing but the strange patch of black he'd seen earlier.

Soon enough he'd made it to his objective, and after he'd done his documentation in the Manila room he prepared himself to leave the wretched place and head back to Base Alpha, in Level 1.

At least this time, he had something interesting to report on.


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