"Minions" are consumables. In the cold calculus of the multiverse, they are the vanguard—disposable assets used to map the lethal geography of the Backrooms, buying discovery with the currency of their lives.
Inside the pocket dimension, Sylas and Eri stood before a wooden door anchored to the edge of the void. It was an ordinary Minecraft door: two meters high, one meter wide, composed of finger-sized pixelated oak blocks. Four small windows sat at eye level. Looking through them from the inside revealed nothing but the swirling, oppressive gray mist of the boundary.
"You. Open the door," Sylas commanded, his voice devoid of warmth.
Sylas didn't need to eat or rest; his constitution was tied to the digital logic of the game. He could stand in this silent void until his mind fractured, but Eri was different. The rhythmic growl of the survivor's stomach had already betrayed his human fragility.
"There's a monster behind that door," Eri whispered, his hand trembling. "I don't know if it's still out there..."
Based on Eri's frantic descriptions, Sylas had already identified the pursuer.
Bacteria.
It was a nightmare unique to certain interpretations of the Backrooms—often mockingly called the "Wire-Puller" or "Electric Wire Twitcher" by those safely behind computer screens. The name came from its skeletal, wire-like frame and the glitchy, frame-dropping way it moved when hunting its prey.
"Don't worry," Sylas said, his face a mask of manufactured confidence. "I'm here." To punctuate his "reliability," he reached into his Inventory and manifested a heavy Stone Axe.
You're here? Then why aren't you the one opening it? Eri screamed internally. But under Sylas's icy, calculating gaze, he had no choice. He approached the door and gripped the pixelated handle.
Click.
The door swung inward. The windows, which had shown only mist seconds ago, instantly flickered into a view of Level 0. No black tentacles lunged through the gap; Eri hadn't been sacrificed just yet.
Outside, the only sound was the omnipresent, soul-sucking hum of the fluorescent lights. Sylas stepped past Eri, his boots thudding onto the damp, putrid-smelling carpet.
While Level 0 was a monotonous hell of yellow wallpaper, Sylas found it preferable to his own "starter zone." His hundred-square-meter pocket of mist was a solitary confinement cell that would have broken a lesser man. He felt the weight of his own isolation—a psychological tax he was beginning to pay for his new-found power.
The moment his foot touched the carpet of Level 0, a prompt flickered in the "Chat Log" at the bottom-left of his vision.
[Warning!]
[You have entered the Backrooms Proper. You are now a beacon for all hostile Entities. Encounter rate increased by 10,000%.]
[Be careful!]
[Tell them... you have arrived!]
[Exploration Progress: 0.0000001%]
Sylas's eyes twitched. "A hundredfold increase in Entity aggro? This isn't exploration; it's a death sentence."
Level 0 was notorious for being mostly empty. For Eri to have encountered "Bacteria" earlier was a statistical fluke. But for Sylas, the rules of reality were bending to ensure conflict.
"It's back! The monster!" Eri's voice cracked with terror from behind him.
Sylas looked up. A hundred meters down the zigzagging corridor, a Bacteria entity had manifested.
SKREEEE!
A piercing, metallic shriek tore through the air. The "Wire-Puller" began its approach, its spindly legs moving with a distorted, stop-motion gait that was both comical and terrifying. Sylas didn't move. He didn't feel fear; he felt a cold, methodical hunger for resources.
The three-meter-tall creature loomed, its head a mass of tangled, necrotic wires. But as it closed the distance, Sylas saw something that confirmed his mastery over this world: a floating green health bar.
[Bacterial Aggregate]
[HP: 40 / 40]
So, you're just a tall, hungry Enderman? Sylas thought, a grim smile touching his lips. Slender body, wide maw, 40 HP—the similarities were too great to ignore.
He gripped his Stone Axe. Upon his arrival in this world, his "System" had gifted him a basic kit: a Stone Sword, Pickaxe, Axe, and Shovel.
The Bacteria lunged, its wire tentacles stretching out not for a hug, but to shred his flesh. Sylas timed the swing perfectly. He brought the axe down in a heavy vertical arc.
Thwack!
An invisible force—the game's Knockback mechanic—halted the monster's momentum. The creature was shoved back half a step, its wires sparking.
- 8
A red number, visible only to Sylas, drifted upward from the monster's torso.
SKREEEE! The shriek became more frantic.
"Too quiet," Sylas muttered, his voice cold and rhythmic. "Louder. I want to hear the price you pay for standing in my way."
He swung again.
- 8
The legendary Knockback of a Minecraft avatar was a death sentence in a one-on-one fight. Every time the Bacteria tried to strike, the axe sent it reeling backward, resetting its attack animation.
- 8
- 8
The health bar flashed from green to a desperate, bleeding red. Only 8 HP remained. Sensing its imminent "deletion," the Bacteria did something unexpected: it turned to flee, its glitchy limbs flailing as it tried to retreat into the yellow gloom.
"You think you can just leave?" Sylas whispered. "Nothing in this world is free. You owe me your experience."
He shifted his grip and performed a Power Throw. The Stone Axe spun through the air, hummed with kinetic energy, and buried itself deep in the monster's wire-mesh head.
The HP bar hit zero. The three-meter-tall frame collapsed, the "head" hitting the rotting carpet with a dull thud.
Green and yellow Experience Orbs erupted from the corpse, swirling in the air like fireflies before being magnetically drawn into Sylas's chest.
"Impressive," Sylas noted, checking his stats. "A single kill took me straight to Level 3."
In the game, experience was a currency for Enchanting—the process of turning mundane tools into weapons of fate. He could already imagine the power of Sharpness or Unbreaking applied to his gear.
Eri stood by the wooden door, paralyzed. He had watched Sylas dismantle a high-threat Entity like a butcher skinning a carcass. He remembered his two former teammates—strong men who had been torn apart like wet paper by that same creature.
He reached up, touching the camera clipped to his hazmat suit, and swallowed hard. He realized then that he wasn't being rescued by a hero; he had been picked up by something far more dangerous.