CHAPTER 19: THE SURVIVOR’S ACCOUNT & THE CRACKED TRUTH

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The cafeteria of the royal palace in Mewni was still bustling with the remnants of diplomatic dinner etiquette… if "etiquette" meant cosmic royalty exchanging passive-aggressive barbs over fine silver and dimensional merchants complaining about cafeteria rations like seasoned veterans of a galactic bureaucracy. The clink of silverware and idle chatter still echoed in the high vaulted halls, yet a heavy mood remained after what had just occurred.

Lawrence, the platinum-ranked dimensional merchant and renowned demon bunny, was no longer seated at the table. He had vanished mid-bite, face-planting into a half-eaten roast duck before his body had violently glitched and no-clipped right through the velvet-tiled marble floor. Panic had ensued. Queen Moon had nearly dropped her goblet of stardust wine. N had flipped the entire banquet table. And Charlie? Charlie was still aggressively patting the floor where Lawrence once sat, like her concerned motherly instincts would summon him back by sheer force of affection.

Now, a survivor stood before the gathering, shaking slightly as he clutched a lukewarm cup of interdimensional cocoa offered by Gilbert, who was doing his best not to accidentally terrify anyone with his writhing tentacles and perpetual smell of ozone.

"My name is Connor," the survivor began, looking around the room, eyes wide with that post-Backrooms thousand-yard stare. "I… I was in Level 1. I had just escaped the fluorescent purgatory of Level 0 after—after days of being hunted by something that didn't have a face. I no-clipped through a glitched elevator shaft trying to escape a moving vending machine, and then…"

"Let me guess," Lawrence cut in, voice bored and eyes half-lidded. He stood by the dimensional whiteboard that had somehow followed him from the Backrooms. "You landed in Level 94. Creepy suburbia but with the lighting of a horror film and all the emotional warmth of a rusted crowbar."

Connor blinked. "Y-yeah, exactly."

"Fascinating," Lawrence drawled, sarcasm hanging off every syllable. "Tell me more about how you wandered into a back alley full of mannequin entities and cried until a rusty toaster spat out a VHS tape."

Charlie gasped slightly, still clinging to his arm, patting it like she was comforting a scared puppy. "Lawrence, please! You've been through so much. We all saw it. When you no-clipped, we thought we lost you—again!"

Lawrence gave her a blank look. "Charlie. I've been stabbed by a Tier 10 seraph made of antimatter before breakfast. Falling into a glitchy infinite office complex is a Tuesday."

Charlie didn't respond. Instead, she hugged him tightly, her arms nearly forming a vice around his waist. "Still. You were gone. And I—I was worried. Everyone was."

From the corner, Alastor chuckled darkly. "Ah, the infamous Lawrence. Escapes the Backrooms and still finds himself being suffocated by affection. A poetic end if there ever was one."

"I didn't die," Lawrence muttered. "Yet."

Connor looked back and forth between them all, confused. "Is—Is he always like this?"

"Welcome to the circus," Angel Dust quipped, entering the room dramatically with Lawrence's heavily enchanted merchant bag slung over one shoulder. "Was organizing your interdimensional coupons and accidentally found a soul-storing pocket dimension. Cleaned it out for you, boss."

Lawrence raised an eyebrow. "No screaming?"

"I hum show tunes while doing it. Keeps the trauma fresh."

With a perfectly executed flick of his clawed fingers, Lawrence tossed a shimmering diamond the size of a golf ball at Angel Dust. "Good work. You're still my favorite bag-handler. Don't let that inflate your ego."

Angel Dust caught the diamond midair and grinned. "No promises, fluffy."

Charlie, still not letting go, patted Lawrence again. This time on the ears. "You're such a good boy."

Lawrence blinked slowly, deeply unimpressed. "Charlie."

"Yes?"

"I'm not an emotional support animal."

"Oh?"

"I'm a traumatized support animal. Huge difference."

Alastor snorted so hard his radio static glitched. N burst out laughing, leaning into Lawrence and slapping his back.

"I missed you, man!"

"You saw me two hours ago," Lawrence said.

"Still counts."

As this strange reunion unfolded, Connor—the survivor—stood nervously in the center, holding his cocoa like it was the last tether to sanity he had. "So uh… back to the part where we talk about how I got out?"

"Fine," Lawrence groaned and pointed at the magical whiteboard which, somehow, had diagrams now. "Tell the class what happened, survivor boy."

Connor nodded, standing straight. "After I reached Level 94, I wandered into a weird suburban house with lights flickering constantly. I went into the attic and saw… a crack. Like a literal jagged crack in the floor. It was glowing."

Lawrence nodded. "Cracks in spatial topology. Classic unstable Backroom fractures."

"I no-clipped through it and—saw you."

"Yep," Lawrence sighed. "And I was eating void-flavored pudding in a lawn chair, minding my business."

"You—You saved me."

"Only because you tripped and nearly headbutted a glitched lamp entity," Lawrence said dryly.

"You threw a vending machine at it."

"I know my angles."

Gilbert entered the room now, scanning the whiteboard with interest. "Lawrence. You said earlier that your dining chair in Mewni had a hairline spatial fracture?"

Lawrence nodded, pulling out a sample he'd kept from his boot. A shard of reflective wood, humming faintly. "This is from the chair. Slight Backroom resonance. That dinner? Rigged. Not intentionally—probably just a ripple caused by too many interdimensional signatures in one place."

"Like an unstable multiversal conference?" Gilbert asked.

"Exactly. The spatial equivalent of mixing Mentos and soda."

Charlie looked confused. "So the dinner… sent you into the Backrooms?"

Lawrence nodded. "Accidental no-clip trigger."

Connor was still wide-eyed. "And you just… live like this?"

"I thrive like this," Lawrence corrected, then added under his breath, "barely."

Charlie hugged him tighter again.

"Stop patting me like I'm dying," Lawrence said.

"You're emotionally dying."

Lawrence didn't respond.

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FLASHBACK - SURVIVOR'S PERSPECTIVE

The lights never turned off in Level 0. Fluorescent buzzing had become Connor's lullaby and his scream. Days passed like static. When he reached Level 94 and saw the clone-like houses, he knew something was wrong. The grass never moved. The sky never changed. The sun was painted.

He found the attic by accident—drawn by faint humming. There, the crack was waiting. Pulsing. Like a heartbeat in drywall.

He jumped through.

And landed face-first in Level 4.

That's when he saw him.

A bunny. A demon bunny. Lounging.

Eating pudding.

Holding a shotgun in one hand and a newspaper in the other.

"'Bout time," Lawrence had muttered. "You brought snacks?"

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BACK TO THE PRESENT

Connor sat down again. "He saved me. And led me through four different levels before punching a hole back into reality with something called a dimensional detonator. He said he keeps one in his sock."

Gilbert raised an eyebrow at Lawrence. "Your socks?"

"Don't judge my loadout."

Charlie leaned against him. "We should probably check the entire palace for other spatial fractures."

Lawrence finally shrugged her off gently and stood. "Already did. With N. He broke seventeen royal chairs by accident. I think your furniture is allergic to robots."

"You know," Charlie began, "if you ever feel like talking about—"

"Charlie."

"Yes?"

"No therapy arc."

Charlie pouted.

"Maybe later."

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TO BE CONTINUED