The Backrooms Empty Nightmare Story

Table of Contents

A Horror Tale Inside Endless Backrooms

May had always believed that night shifts revealed the true personality of a place. During the day, everything wore a mask. Shelves smiled with bright packaging, radios hummed politely with repetitive songs, and customers filled the air with harmless chatter that made the hours pass quickly. But at night, when the city exhaled and the streets outside grew quiet, shadows stretched freely across the floor, and buildings whispered what they truly were beneath years of paint and routine.

She worked at a modest retail store on the edge of the city, a place that sold a little of everything and mastered nothing. Cleaning supplies shared space with snacks, cheap electronics sat beside greeting cards, and seasonal decorations never fully disappeared. The fluorescent lights buzzed like tired insects trapped inside glass, and the aisles formed long, straight corridors that seemed to repeat themselves when no one was looking. May had been hired because she was reliable, punctual, and calm under pressure. Her blonde hair was always tied neatly, her smile professional, her voice steady even when customers argued loudly over small discounts.

At least, that was how she appeared during the day.

At night, May felt watched.

It began subtly, almost gently, like a suggestion rather than a threat. A sound that did not belong to any machine she recognized. A shopping cart rolling softly across the floor when no one had touched it. The intercom clicking on and off without any announcement, releasing only a brief hiss of static before falling silent again. She told herself it was exhaustion. Working late shifts after long days was enough to confuse anyone, especially when the store was quiet enough to amplify every creak and hum.

But the feeling did not fade with time. It sharpened, growing clearer and more intentional, as if something inside the store was learning how to get her attention.

One night, while restocking canned goods near closing time, May froze in place. The store was empty. The doors were locked, the lights dimmed to their nighttime setting. Yet she heard breathing.

Slow. Patient. Close enough that she could feel it more than hear it.

"Hello?" she called, hating how small and uncertain her voice sounded as it echoed weakly between the shelves.

No answer came.

The breathing stopped abruptly. The silence that followed felt heavier than any noise, pressing against her ears until she swallowed hard just to remind herself she was still in control of her body. She finished her task quickly, hands shaking as she stacked the last cans, and avoided the darkened aisles on her way back to the counter.

The next morning, she mentioned it to the manager, Mr. Collins, while signing out.

"Old buildings make noises," he said with a dismissive laugh, not even looking up from his clipboard. "Air vents. Pipes. You get used to it eventually."

May wanted to believe him. She truly did. The alternative was too unsettling to consider.

But the disturbances grew bolder, as if encouraged by her silence.

Lights flickered in patterns that felt deliberate rather than random. Security monitors sometimes showed aisles that looked longer than they should have been, stretching far beyond their physical limits, disappearing into shadows that the real store did not contain. Once, during a quiet hour near midnight, May swore she saw herself on the screen, an experience disturbingly similar to The Hallucinations, Seeing the Unseen, standing at the end of an aisle she was not in, facing the camera and smiling without blinking.

She did not tell anyone about that.

Instead, May began to explore.

She memorized the store layout with obsessive attention, counting steps between shelves, noting emergency exits, mapping blind spots the cameras never quite covered, her thoughts slowly fracturing into something that felt disturbingly familiar to The Broken Mind, Shattered Thoughts. The building had been renovated many times over the decades, layers of change stacked like forgotten memories beneath new paint and rearranged walls. And then there was the door.

It was hidden behind the employee-only area, half-concealed by stacked boxes and a faded safety poster curling at the edges. The sign above it read BACKROOM in chipped black letters.

May was certain she had never noticed it before.

"Have you ever been in the backroom?" she asked a coworker named Jenna during a slow afternoon shift, trying to sound casual.

Jenna frowned slightly. "The stockroom? Yeah, all the time."

"No," May said quietly. "The backroom."

Jenna stared at her for a moment, confusion turning into mild irritation. "That is the stockroom, May."

May said nothing more, but the unease settled deeper in her chest.

That night, after the doors were locked and the city lights dimmed outside the glass entrance, May stood before the door. The air around it felt colder, heavier, as if the space beyond rejected warmth itself. Even the hum of the lights seemed quieter there.

Her hand trembled as she turned the knob.

The backroom was small. Too small to justify the dread flooding her senses. Yellowed walls, a low ceiling, fluorescent lights identical to the ones outside. No shelves. No boxes. Just a square room with stained carpet and the faint smell of damp paper and old electricity.

She stepped inside.

The door closed behind her without a sound.

The humming grew louder, vibrating through her bones.

May turned slowly, heart pounding. The room was the same, yet it was not. The walls seemed farther apart than before. The corners blurred slightly when she focused on them. The air itself felt stretched thin, like fabric pulled too tight.

"This is stupid," she muttered, reaching for the door.

It was gone.

In its place was a blank wall, seamless and pale, as if the door had never existed.

"No," May whispered, panic rising. "No, no, no."

She backed away, her heel catching on the carpet. When she looked up again, the room had changed.

It was no longer a room.

It was a corridor.

Long. Endless. Yellow walls stretching forward and backward, ceiling lights repeating in a hypnotic pattern that made her dizzy. The carpet beneath her feet felt damp, squelching faintly with every step.

The backrooms.

May did not know the term yet, but her instincts screamed one undeniable truth.

She was not supposed to be here.

She walked because standing still felt far worse. Each step echoed softly, swallowed by the vast emptiness ahead. The lights flickered intermittently, casting shadows that moved a fraction of a second too late, as if they were trying to catch up with reality.

"Hello?" she called again, desperation creeping into her voice.

This time, something answered.

"May."

Her blood ran cold.

The voice was her own.

"Who are you?" she shouted, spinning around.

"You already know," the voice replied calmly. "You come here every night."

"That is not true," she insisted.

Laughter rippled through the corridors, echoing endlessly, overlapping itself until it felt like the walls were laughing too.

She ran.

The backrooms unfolded like a living maze. Hallways bent subtly, leading her in circles without obvious turns. Identical stains repeated on walls. The same flickering light appeared again and again. Time dissolved, minutes stretching into something shapeless.

She found rooms within rooms. Office spaces without furniture. Bathrooms without mirrors. Doors that opened into more yellow corridors. No matter how far she went, the environment remained unnervingly consistent.

And always, the feeling of being observed.

At some point, May realized she was no longer afraid of getting lost.

She was afraid of being found.

"May," the voice called again, closer now.

She pressed herself against a wall, holding her breath as footsteps echoed nearby, slow and deliberate.

Someone stepped into view.

It looked exactly like her.

The same blonde hair. The same uniform. The same face. But the eyes were hollow, empty, reflecting nothing. The smile was too wide, stretched unnaturally.

"You should not have opened the door," it said.

"What is this place?" May asked, tears welling.

"This is where the store remembers," the thing replied. "Every night. Every closing. Every forgotten moment."

"That makes no sense," she whispered.

"It does," it insisted softly. "You felt it too. The watching. The stretching. The emptiness between shelves."

The walls pulsed faintly, as if breathing.

May backed away. "I want to go home."

The thing tilted its head. "Home is a door you already passed."

The lights went out.

Darkness swallowed everything, thick and absolute. May screamed, but the sound felt distant, absorbed by the endless space.

When the lights returned, she was alone.

But something had changed.

The corridors were narrower. The ceiling lower. The air warmer, heavy with the scent of old paper and electricity. The humming had become a constant drone, like a massive machine operating far away.

She walked until her legs burned and her thoughts blurred. Eventually, she found a desk with a single sheet of paper.

It was a work schedule.

Her name filled every line.

Every shift was night.

"No," she whispered.

Behind her, the intercom crackled.

"Attention employees," a familiar voice announced calmly. "The store is now closing."

May turned slowly.

The aisles had returned.

The store looked perfectly normal. Too normal.

Customers stood frozen mid-motion, eyes blank, bodies stiff like mannequins. The exit doors were sealed, glowing faintly.

Mr. Collins stood at the counter, smiling.

"You found the backroom," he said gently. "Most do not make it that far."

"Survive what?" May demanded.

"Realization," he replied. "This store exists between places. Between moments. It needs someone to keep it stable."

May laughed hysterically. "You are insane."

"You already accepted the job," he said calmly. "Every night you stayed. Every time you ignored the feeling."

The customers vanished. The aisles stretched unnaturally.

May felt the walls closing in, the store folding inward like a collapsing thought.

"What happens if I refuse?" she asked.

Mr. Collins smiled wider. "Then you become another voice."

She remembered the breathing. The whispers. Her own voice calling her name.

May straightened her posture.

"I will work," she said.

The store sighed.

The lights stabilized. The humming softened. The backroom door reappeared, closed and harmless.

Mr. Collins nodded. "Good. We open in five minutes."

Years passed.

May never aged.

New employees arrived, complained of strange noises and uneasy feelings. May listened patiently, smiling kindly.

Sometimes, late at night, she stood near the backroom door and heard knocking from the other side.

A voice whispered her name.

She never answered.

Because the store was empty.

And it needed her to stay that way.