Anxiety.

Bennett looked above his drawer at his Nirvana poster. He didn’t have many posters, but this was his favorite band after all. He then diverted his attention to atop his drawer. A badge lied there, with an eye carved into it. He says to himself, “Did mom come home and leave me this?” Regardless of it’s origin, he puts it into his pocket so that he could ask his mother, if she’s home that is. He rushes downstairs and moves quickly into the already lit kitchen, the place his mother usually had been. Unable to remember if he turned off the light or not, he ignores the thought and focuses on his parents. Upon entering the kitchen, no one is there, yet there atop the counter lies papers contained in a file.

Bennett walked towards the counter and looked upon the file. From a single part of the paper peaking from the file, Bennett saw a logo similar to the eye upon the badge that mysteriously appeared atop his dresser. Above this symbol, Bennett read out loud, “Prototype.” Before he could open it and continue reading, a news report urgently made itself apparent on the TV that was mounted above the wall in the living room. A news reporter exclaimed about an incident involving a tower in New York. Bennett brushed this off, and focused again on where his parents were. The search continued from his living room to the garage. Even searching in his parents' rooms, he found nothing.

Bennett then moved to his room and looked out the window to see both his mother and his father’s cars parked in the driveway, lying as empty vessels. Across the street were also two distinct black cars with tinted windows, not parked in any driveway but instead on the curb. He paid no mind to it and instead focused on his parents once more. “That doesn’t make sense…” he quietly whispered under his breath. Fear sank in, “Where? Why? How? This shouldn’t be,” he thought to himself. He was dead focused on them being gone, without any word of where they were. He checks his phone, no texts and no missed calls. Bennett desired nothing more than to calm himself down. He reached without looking for his electric guitar in the stand, only to find that it was gone. “What the fuck?” he exclaimed with urgency. He went on another expedition throughout the house. “Nothing there….nothing there either, come on man…” he said to himself whilst looking desperately.

There was still no results. Eventually, Bennett came face-to-face with the door to the attic. How had he forgotten this door so easily? A simple brown door leading to his attic, how could he have forgotten the room entirely? Throughout his mind, he ponders if he has any memories regarding the attic. Nothing. Nothing comes up in his head. The whole idea of an attic being in his own house was blank to him, foreign even. “Did we even have an attic…?” he says as his voice reflects in the well lit hallway leading up to the attic door. He opens the door and climbs the steps. Bennett looks upon his surroundings, boxes and cobwebs. The boxes have more of this eye symbol upon it is as well.

The young man exclaims in frustration, “What the fuck does this even mean?” As soon as he opens the box, the insides are easily understood. It was a full box of plastic bottled almond milk. “Why…” he thinks. “Why almond milk?” He takes a bottle and then looks up to the middle of the wall across the attic. The window shines a light perfectly onto his guitar, lying in a new stand. “Finally!” Bennett shouts before approaching the much sought after electric guitar. Yet, when he approaches Bennett sees something. A slight movement. The guitar had almost moved in an indescribable way. Almost like a part of it had pushed its own material outwards before moving back in the shortest window of time possible.

“Huh…?” Bennett says after noticing this. “No matter, I finally found this fucker and that’s what matters right now,” he thinks to himself. Bennett reaches for the guitar and upon the meeting of his calloused fingers with the base of the guitar, it changes. The guitar molds in shape, deforming itself, pushing itself out and in until it’s an unrecognizable shape. Bennett soon realizes he’s completely unable to take his fingers off the base of it. He panics and shouts desperately, “What the fuck is going on?!” Bennett pulls and pushes on the demented object, soon causing his balance to be unsteady. After all this struggling, he falls into the floor, yet Bennett feels no landing, feels no painful impact from the hard wood floor of the basement. He continues to fall, melding into the floor and even falling past it. Around him whilst he falls he views the surroundings, a recognizable void.

Bennett falls further and further, yet when he reaches an ending to this descension he notices how short it really felt. Bennett reaches this ground with his face staring towards it, sweat dripping onto it. His eyes stare desperately at this ground, old moist carpet. Bennett gets up and lifts his head. He adjusts his hair out of his eyes to see hallways and rooms with a distinct yet basic wallpaper. Above these rooms were bright yellow lights, humming just loud enough to be a permanent disturbance to those who roam the place it’s located in. Bennett got up and grabbed his now perfectly formed guitar. These were The Backrooms.