Our First Sight

We were meant to look for ████████████████, but this is much more interesting.
I remember ████████████████. He was a fine fellow, alright! He was the greatest contributor to my colony, he indirectly kept us alive! Everyone there held him to high esteem, so it was a really dreadful evening to find out that he went missing. He had connections to the higher-ups, so it was no wonder that they immediately wanted him back. I was 1 of 5 people to be picked to find him, along with who I will just name A, B, C, and D, for privacy's sake. However, things quickly turned awry when we discovered something that probably shouldn't exist. I've turned this experience into a little story. Do you wish to hear it?
Yes? No? Doesn't matter. I'll tell you regardless. Oh, and if you wondered, the name's Gabe. My privacy shouldn't matter to anyone anyway.
----
Pensively, we searched and searched throughout the level for where he could be, but to no avail; the man had seemingly disappeared, and traces were nonexistent. Angrily, B shouted. "Alright, I've had enough of this! We've searched for 5 days, our resources are starting to dwindle, and still no sign of that ██████! Let's just call it quits, we can survive on our own without him anyway."
"Dude, shut up!" A spoke. "If we don't find this lad soon, all the colonies here will be on lockdown! You won't be able to leave until the higher-ups are convinced we can't find him, and you know how stubborn they get. Don't you want to see your-"
"Don't speak of them, A. Not now." said B poignantly.
"Well why the hell not?"
"You know goddamn well why!"
It devolved into an argument. Not the first time that has happened. After a few seconds of listening to the back-and-forth, C exclaimed to me and D. "Look, them lot are gonna continue arguing for about 20 more minutes, so let's cut our losses and walk about a little bit more. We know this place is linear so we won't get lost. D, you stay here and try to appease them."
"Come on, why do I have to do it?" D complained.
"Because you are the best at coming up with a compromise, and I and Gabe are better at not getting lost than you are."
"Whatever." retorted D, with annoyance.
"Alright, Gabe. You will go with me, we will explore a bit that way." C pointed at a wall. It had a question mark on it. Odd. I don't remember that being there before. I stood there, frozen for whatever reason, staring at it, until C told me. "Hey, what the hell are you looking at? Did you blank out or something?"
"Do you... remember seeing a question mark on that wall over there?"
"What on earth are you talking about?" responded C, confused. He slowly turned around, and it wasn't long before he spotted that very same symbol. Shortly after that, C spoke. "Oh. Yeah... that definitely wasn't there before." I told him. "I can see 2 thin lines on the left and right of it. I think it's hiding something. Let's see what it is."
"No, Gabe. We need to focus on finding him, and fast."
"Mate, let's be honest. Have we had any success as of late?"
"Well, no, but-"
"Exactly. What's gonna happen if we spend like 10 minutes on this? Hell, this could be a deeper rabbit hole for others to explore! Wouldn't you want to contribute to that?"
"But..."
"No buts this time." I sternly told him. "Let's go, it will be some fun in this hell of boredom."
"...Screw it. Fine, let's go."
I and C began walking towards the question mark, and as I neared it, I began to second-guess myself. Should we have really done this? What if there is nothing of value, or worse, what if it is a trap? There's no turning back now, I guess...
We reached the wall, and, with a count of 3, C ran through it after some coercion. In all honesty, I was expecting it to just be a regular wall, and that he would have struck it at full force before tumbling to the ground (everyone would have gotten a laugh out of that), but to my surprise, the wall tore itself and he ran right through. C ended up tumbling to the ground anyway, so I ended up getting a laugh anyway.
"Stop chuckling there and get over here! There seems to be a room full of books and paper and crap like that!" yelled C. I walked in quietly before saying, "So, it was just a piece of paper covering a hole, huh? I can see that your eyes haven't been deceived, either." I went up to a bookshelf within the room and picked a book up.
"This one has a hammer and sickle on it... It appears to contain documents made by the commies from 1979. I bet the second half of the book is filled with propaganda..." C spoke up. "What? Is the rest of the room also communist rhetoric?"
"Let me see... Ah! An American document. The best type of document there is."
"Your biases are starting to show, Gabe."
"Yeah yeah... Let me read this now." It actually took a while to read the first page, and I will admit I was kind of rude to C, but he was annoying beforehand, so it's fairly justified in my eyes. Anyways, after I was done reading the first page, I closed the book up, and then said, "Yeah, there's also documents dating to 1979, but it seems to be a different past to our own."
"An alternate timeline, perhaps?"
"In any other scenario I would have called you crazy, C, but in this case, I feel like that's the most likely answer. You should probably go and get the others."
"Alright, I'll go get them."
They all came back a few minutes later. A haughtily spoke up. "Now who here needs my help?" I said, "Uh, me, I guess. I and C found this whole damn chamber, and there's books everywhere! I could get a helping hand. D, you get in contact with the colony."
"Alright."
"Everyone else, help me with bringing this stuff to the colony."
"Oh come on!" Spoke up B. "Do I have to work with A?"
"I have the same question regarding B!" Said A.
"Oh for god's-" I was cut off by C.
"Come on you guys! Just put your differences aside and work with us here!"
"Goddammit... Fine!"
And that was that. D made the call to the colony and everyone else carried all the books, papers, and everything else out. There were some people already waiting once we got to the outpost. Of course, the colony was put on lockdown and us 5 would have to look for ████████████████ once again, because we failed to find him. However, as I went to bed, preparing for the next day, my mind conjured up an interesting thought.
Was that the right thing to do, Gabe?
Have you thought about what they will do with these books? Of course you haven't, you are nothing but a pawn to these people.
They aren't Americans, or commies, or oligarchs, or fascists.
They are beyond ideology, they are only power hungry.
There is one thing most people here fail to understand:
You can't control the superliminal...
...No matter how authoritarian you are.
----
So, how did you like it? As you can see, I'm starting to question the M.E.G.'s true motives here. I don't like what I'm thinking about. Maybe something is wrong with me? Again, you really shouldn't care. I'm just as irrelevant to the Backrooms as you are.
?
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Author: Gooby2 (Check out my other pages there, or don't, I don't care).
Critiqued by Pexy0.
Category:Tales
Category:Fracti Re