Temporary Spaces

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⧉⠀Temporary Spaces - and - Transient Entities

UNCB DATABASE

Level Element Record
▸⠀Frontier Phenomena & Theories

The notion of "Temporary Spaces" has been a confusing subject for UNCB field analysts for some time. The ambiguity of their existence has been put to rest — they have been reliably cross-referenced over a multitude of random encounters — yet the nature of their workings and the nature of how they exist are still a terrible enigma. Temporary spaces (or "Wandering Rooms" as they have become colloquially known) play hide and seek within the Frontier as fleetingly accessible locations which can be entered and explored but disappear entirely once egressed. By whatever means, the closing of a door or even the crossing of a threshold out of a temporary space seems to make them vanish into thin air, sometimes leaving nothing but a solid wall in their place.

It's entirely possible that temporary spaces simply cease to exist once exited, chalked up as nothing more than inexplainable and fleeting experiences. While some may behave in this way, not all do: some wandering rooms choose instead to relocate when departed. Such is the behaviour of the Mahogany Study: it appears to travel great distances instantaneously when it disappears to far corners of the Halls, waiting to be discovered again somewhere new.

▸⠀ There are dozens of wandering rooms rumoured within the Backrooms whose existence cannot be confirmed. Temporary rifts to places come and go fairly commonly — but until they can be encountered more than once to correlate experiences, official documentation of them is impossible. One temporary space that has been seen by many wanderers throughout the UNCB, and even encountered by strays of the deep Halls, is the Study.

Cognitive & Survivorship Bias

It should be made clear: there is no evidence proving temporary spaces are sentient or benevolent, nor that they relocate by willingness or purpose. The appealing nature of applying meaning or personification to anomalies within Limspace is the natural side-effect of pattern recognition in our very human minds. To consider the wandering rooms as "alive" may extrapolate into the Backrooms itself having a degree of sentience. That exercise of thought goes beyond what this article intends to detail.

However, it cannot be ignored that many occurrences of the Mahogany Study's appearance have coincided with exceptionally good luck to those wanderers who have encountered it. On more than one occasion wanderers claimed the study's happenstance emergence saved their life from pursuing entities or from the brink of starvation. Bear in mind that the correlation between wanderers who feel personally saved by temporary spaces may simply be a survivor bias. After all, dead men tell no tales.

Regardless of what the truth is, an air of fate has arisen around the topic of wandering rooms with many wanderers entertaining superstition and suggesting temporary spaces appear through a form of providence. Some believe encountering a wandering room is such a statistically rare event that they may feel destined to have found it, and must enter it, for it was their fate to do so.

Although a very human reaction, be cautious, and question if such superstitions act in our favour. While people have lived to tell about the Mahogany Study, there could be many other rooms from which there is no coming back once its door is closed behind you. Should the temporary space you enter wander away, or the door you entered open to somewhere else entirely after you've crossed its threshold then you may never be found again. Unlike the Study, some of these temporary spaces may vanish from existence entirely, sealing anyone inside to an indissoluble void of obscurity.

"Oh, it's an extremely relevant question. Example: what do you do when you find a new level conjunction? Inexperienced field surveyors just wander through the threshold without testing the waters, and I've seen it happen where a door slams shut and that's that. They're just gone. You open it back up and suddenly that conjunction has fucked off along with a member of your recon party. You always test the waters if you want to come home. This place is the most unforgiving when you're at your most confident."

— Anica Bojanic, Parologic Surveyor, when interviewed about temporary spaces.

Unconfirmed Theories

In a similar vein of providence, collective imagination speculates temporary spaces may lead to anywhere — from paradise to Baseline, or simply certain death. We cannot know what fate befalls those once the door is closed behind them and the room disappears forever.

One theory states temporary spaces are not restricted to a single level or even a single limspace system. If understood better, they may be used for intentional travel across great distances. The Promethean may be one such soul who used a wandering room to travel a great distance in a few footsteps. Another theory posits that temporary spaces are pockets of Baseline reality — an enticing anomaly to search for. While not impossible to rule out, no archivist has ever been known to return home and contact us to confirm it.

Diligent enough extrapolation to explain what temporary spaces are will eventually lead to a single inescapable hurdle: the nature of splicing. As long as we lack a complete understanding of what the phenomena of splicing is or how it works, we will also lack an understanding of the nature of temporary spaces. There is hope, though, in lifting the veil of our ignorance through more easily encountered and reliably studied anomalies which we will refer to within this article as "Transient Entities."

Transient Entities

There exists a certain category of living anomalies that harbour a natural control over splicing: who can perform it at will, coming and going as they please, who at times appear to "blip" in and out of reality. There may be a fundamental link between splicing displayed by transient entities and the sudden vanishing or relocating of a temporary space. Indeed the answers may lie deeper, behind the elemental forces that drive splicing and the school of physics (or chaos) that promote its occurrence.

Some rarely encountered but very tangible examples of splicing performed casually can be seen in Ghost Jellies, most commonly spotted in the Frontier. Records of these phantomlike creatures describe free-floating gelatinous domes trailing long, wispy tendrils and translucent tentacles — who pass through solid materials with carefree nonchalance. They float on currents we cannot perceive, and if aggravated, disappear entirely.

▸⠀Some transient entities are even within a class of their own, such as the highly intelligent and cryptic Nowhere Traveller. Ever an enigmatic friend of the UNCB but never a reliable creature, the fleeting appearances of the Nowhere Traveller in archival records are commonly equated with breakthroughs in our understanding of the Backrooms. An in-depth account of the Nowhere Man can be found here.

The existence of Ghost Jellies may suggest a multitude of truths hidden beyond our understanding of the physicality of the Backrooms.¹ A common suggestion posits the existence of intersecting parallel realities that overlap our own. When conjunctions between these realities occur by whatever means, a splice is formed. Alternatively, higher unseen dimensions may be the cause of a transient entity's ability to phase out of existence. We may be glimpsing the shadows of extra-dimensional anomalies. Combined with the existence of stable and collapsing rifts between levels, as well as the fleeting nature of temporary spaces, observing transient entities and their ability to splice at will may one day help us concretely discern some truths about splicing and where we fit within the liminal spaces of the Backrooms.

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Confirmed Spaces and Entities*

The Mahogany Study

The Nowhere Man has been courteous enough to allow photography of his study.

The Mahogany Study

Despite the prodigious nature of temporary spaces, the physicality of the Mahogany Study itself is of no particular notoriety. Photographs show it to be reminiscent of a posh Victorian estate, certainly more comfortable than the desert of the Frontier, and devoid of non-euclidean surprises or chaotic elements — a strong zero on the BFI. However, its contents contain more intrigue.

The parlour's 11ft vaulting ceiling is held up by hand-carved rosewood pillars along the walls, themselves which are decorated with ornate baroque wallpaper. Between the pillars stand shelves and tables holding leather-bound books and frosted glass decanters of special reserve whisky. Inviting leather seating accents the layout. An entire wall of this office is dedicated to displaying an impressive collection of vinyl records - one of which has always been claimed to be spinning along a vintage phonograph; its melodies warm, relaxing and crackly. In fact, many wanderers claim to have found the Study by hearing it first: lured by inviting tones of ballroom waltz and classical.

From this entry parlour, the Study extends deeper into a small blueprint including a kitchen and a handful of furnished living quarters and cellars. On a more intimate note, the Study has been described as quite inviting and lived in, with details of loose papers and the occasional stack of used dishes strewn about — it's widely accepted that the Nowhere Traveller may call the Study his home; and can access it regardless of its location within the Backrooms. Encounters with the emergence of the Study often come with the Nowhere Traveller in tow, who has been known to offer guests a host of comforts. With his permission, members of the UNCB have been shown "a veritable museum of relics from countless worlds" within the deeper, locked rooms of the space that only the Nowhere Man can access. The actual size of the entire complex is unknown.

The Mahogany Study is an example of the strange and unexpected that can be encountered within the endless hallways of the Frontier and proves that not all temporary spaces are dangerous. Yet despite being encountered many times it still raises more questions than answers.

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The Red Rooms

Knocking and muffled speech have lured people into this hellish temporary space.

The Red Rooms

On more than one occasion stories of the Frontier's "Red Rooms" have reached the far-flung colonies of the UNCB. While some details of the rooms vary, a host of unsettling descriptions have been correlated between accounts. They tell of sections of the Halls that are streaked blood-red in hue, with the carpeted flooring gushing underfoot in sickly puddles of violent gore and effluence. Blood not only soaks up the walls through the wallpaper but apparently even drips down from the ceiling tiles. It's been hypothesized the Red Rooms manifest where the Halls physically conjoin with the Bloodpool Catwalks, and the pools seep in from above.

The air here is completely silent — broken only by the occasional sound of three consecutive knocks coming from inside the walls, and hushed whispers with no apparent source. Something lurks in this temporary space, just underneath the drywall. Those who have been there cannot explain why but know that whatever calls the Red Rooms home "wants" you to go deeper inside the space.

These sections of the Frontier have been said to happen upon wanderers quite suddenly, and when left, disappear just as abruptly — as if the bloodstained halls had never even been there. It is believed that some who enter the Red Rooms become lost within its maze, victims to a very unfortunate fate. Beyond this, not much is known about the temporary hellscape that is the Red Rooms.

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Slice of the Sea

The luminous viewing.

Slice of the Sea

Whispers of a tranquil and timeless viewing inside the horrifying Disrepair Aquarium pass off the tongues of the few fortunate. They tell of a place called Slice of the Sea… a grandiose but humble room lit only by a vast aquarium tank’s lapis waters. The tables and chairs invite company, but the only life within the Slice of the Sea lies beyond the glass in the tank. The ethereal music hums ceaselessly but never encroaching. Time flows slowly, like a gentle walk along the beach at night—the sea breeze guiding each step upon the sand. The perfect place for reflection.

Sitting by the glass, the fish pass along in a rhythmic and slow dance. Their brilliant colors like paint strokes upon the canvas. Their eyes harbor no ill will like the Swimmers of the much deadlier aquarium. Rather, they look content as they are precisely where they should be.

As time passes and wanderers look upon the glass at their reflection, a figure materializes beside them. Echo, as she has been called, is only seen through the reflection of the glass. She usually sits across from wanderers or stands beside them, watching the fish pass by. With her dress moving and shifting like tides upon a coast and her head of water harboring a lone pearl like an eye, she would seem quite the spectacle, but in the moment, the wanderers only see her as someone else partaking in reflection.

As the lights dim into shadows, currents guide occupants out of the space where they find themselves at the moment before they opened the glass door. However, the door is gone… replaced with a note simply reading, “The mind is naturally cluttered. Take the time to clear it every now and then. Let the torrent of thoughts ease into a serene stream. Sincerely, Echo.”

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* This list is Incomplete, you can help by expanding it.²
▸⠀As additional wandering rooms and transient entities are correlated by more than a single first-hand account for proper documentation they will be added to this list.

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Open the door?

Written by Knafflad ʕ•ᴥ• ʔ

This article was improved by BanachTarskiPdx,
Atom_Rutherford,
Nautilus98,
moist bread,
scutoid studios,
and Mctoran, in no particular order.
Thank you for your critique and thoughts!

Footnotes

1. A field of study commonly referred to as "Parology": geologic/scientific accounts of the physicality of parallel realities. An area we are frustratingly unlearned in, full of questions that evade empirical answers.

2. The Temporary Space collaborative thread can be found here .