Backrooms Decrypted: The Carrier (Level 17)

The Carrier is another name for The Backrooms Level 17. It has a CLASS 1 survival difficulty rating. It is SAFE and SECURE, with a LOW ENTITY COUNT. Level 17 looks to be an unending maze of a navy aircraft carrier's inside construction. The level is comprised of corridors and stairwells similar to those seen aboard an Essex-class ship. A flooded corridor may occasionally be encountered. These halls are one-way exits that link directly to Level 7's surface rooms. Level 17 is mainly barren of creatures, with only one entity that is unique to it. These beings, called as Imprints, are alter egos of previous Level 17 adventurers. 😣

• Hey there, Explorer. On today's story, we're heading to the open seas, or at least the Backrooms equivalent, for Level 17. We hope you have your sea legs. Now, don't worry; we're not going to drop you back into Level 7's murky depths, where you'll have to fight Tiny and the enormous beast there. Instead, you will become the newest inhabitant of The Carrier, the Backrooms' largest naval vessel, which would be inhumane and who could accuse us of that? We sincerely hope you enjoy your stay. You've thankfully no clipped out of Level 16 before being frozen, burned, melted with lava, and dehydrated in the desert all on the same unpleasant afternoon. Steel is creaking and pipes gurgling all around you.
• A powerful aircraft carrier in the middle of nowhere can be heard lapping at its sides in the distance. You nevertheless feel optimistic. A seemingly abandoned naval asset is preferable to the harsh surroundings of an endless open landscape. After all, inside the ship's walls, you might find some MREs, meet some other Backrooms Wanderers, or even have access to some new equipment and weapons. After all, your supply gathering efforts haven't received much relief in the last few Backrooms levels. Nobody promised a picnic-like experience, Explorer. But despite cringing at each audible clank your steps seem to make, you continue to walk down the cramped hallways of the Carriers' lower levels.
• What a terrible idea it is to draw attention to yourself in the backrooms; you've learned on so many levels by this point. The fox, according to an old proverb, rushes to the scene when he hears a rabbit scream, but not to assist. You make maneuvers, squeezing through a number of reinforced doors and bulkheads. The carrier's interior appears to have the same labyrinthine internals as many other levels, but what's particularly frustrating about a backroom's labyrinth is that they have no obligation to be fair or make sense. When you have to let go of your more traditional sense of reality, things become much less predictable. Anything can happen in the backrooms. But it's not always a bad thing.
• The fact that you soon encounter what appears to be an armory concealed behind yet another reinforced door gives you firsthand knowledge of this. You turn the valve until you hear the satisfying pop of the door locks disengaging and the scrape off its hinges opening. Racks upon racks of weapons and ballistic vests are visible inside, making for a truly magnificent sight. You get the same feeling Neo did in that one scene from the first Matrix movie as you enter. You realize how many options you have, but you decide to keep things straightforward. You take out what you believe to be a pump-action shotgun, a handgun, a ballistic vest, and a shotgun.
• You decide not to play around with the grenades because, with your luck, you'll probably mess up and blow yourself to smithereens, you clumsy hairless ape. You make the decision to set out once more with your newly discovered weapons to see what you can discover. Aside from the occasional bout of seasickness, Level 17 has been good to you so far; perhaps there are more treats in store. Who knows, this might even be one of those exceptionally low chill levels that occasionally appear and always feel like a wonderful treat. When you suddenly take a gunshot to the back, these are the warm, comforting thoughts going through your head. But hey, you're not completely out of luck.
• Thanks to the ballistic vest you had the foresight to steal, the shot really only feels like someone whacking a baseball bat into your back with great force, cracking a few ribs and laying you out against the cold, metal ground. At that point, voices in the distance began to sound. One of them asks, "Why the hell did you shoot him, Jonesy," while the other responds, "He was an imprint. I just know it." He gave me the feeling Imprints "That's a new one," he or she says, trembling in a way that suggests strained paranoia and panic. I hope that whoever these two are, they don't enjoy using the traditional double tap. You can hear a pair of footsteps approaching.
• When you hear the distinctive click of a gun being loaded, you immediately get a rush of adrenaline that makes you jump to your feet as if you've just received an electric shock. You turn around to see two strangers, both in shock, carrying rifles, coming down the hallway next to your own. You leap out of the way and run down the hallway so that no one can see you as the two instinctively raise their weapons, assuming that you are whatever an imprint is. The loud ting, ting, ting sounds of the two strangers' bullets ricocheting off the walls and the immediate reports of their rifles' shots are deafening in these small metal hallways. Get out of here before these two paranoid weirdoes turn you into a ballistic piece of Swiss cheese.
• You abruptly turn through a door at the end of the hallway and find yourself staring up the shaft of a tall metal stairway. Now, turning around would be too late. The footsteps of the pair approaching from a distance can be heard. The only thing left to do is to begin running up the stairs in the hopes that they won't catch you. We only have one question for you, Explorer. We won't load the question, but your two new friends are loading their rifles, so you start running up the stairs as quickly as you can. Halfway up the stairs, two strangers enter the stairwell below you and start shooting, shooting a hail of bullets up the stairs below you. Fortunately, since neither of these two is a skilled shooter, none of the shots connecting, even though some, you must admit, come in much too close for comfort.
• Explorer, just keep running and do what you do best. You have the impression that you are likely past the point where you could simply stop and talk to the people pursuing you. They genuinely think you're an imprint, whatever that means, and being an imprint seems to be a crime with the death penalty. You do, of course, have the handgun and the shotgun you grabbed, but even in a life-or-death situation, the thought of using those weapons against actual people makes you queasy.