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| Object 79: One-Way Walls |
| Class: Lethal | Exclusively found on Level 6. | To be avoided unless properly mapped. |
| ↓Object 78 | ↑Object 80 |
Description
Object 79 refers to a type of wall only found in Level 6: the one-way wall. Ubiquitous across the level, one-way walls are one of the foremost threats to any wanderer attempting to safely travel the Dark Highway1.
Partial map of Level 6; lengths and angles distorted for readability. Note the abundance of one-way walls.
No light can exist in Level 6, so the exact appearance of the object is unknown. But what is known, is how one-way walls function.
Every one-way wall has a preferred direction, represented on the map above as the direction the chevron points. When moving into a one-way wall in its preferred direction, an object or wanderer will pass through as if nothing is there. But when attempting to travel in the reverse direction, a solid barrier will be encountered, which resembles the rest of Level 6's walls in terms of texture.
There is currently no known way to travel through a one-way wall against its preferred direction; even objects partially intersecting with a one-way wall are irretrievable, as no amount of force can move the object against the preferred direction.
Varieties
Whilst all one-way walls function the same, they are not all created equal. By virtue of their position in Level 6, one-way walls can be loosely divided into 2 categories: safe and unsafe.
- Safe one-way walls lead to explored and well-understood areas of Level 6. These can be crossed without issue, as there is always a path a wanderer may take to exit Level 6 after passing through the one-way wall. They are represented on the map above by unfilled chevrons, and are typically not much more than a minor nuisance.
- Unsafe one-way walls lead to dead ends, unexplored areas, or inescapable regions. These should not be passed through under any circumstance, as there is no way to return to the main part of Level 6 after crossing. They are represented on the map above by filled chevrons, and are one of the most pressing threats to anyone who enters Level 6. Many recorded disappearances — and even more unrecorded ones — have came as a result of wanderers becoming trapped behind one-way walls in the expansive complexes of Level 6. Nobody knows for certain what lies beyond most one-way walls, but it is presumed victims eventually perish via dehydration.
Minimizing Risks of One-Way Walls
One-way walls have seemingly always posed a danger to human habitation of the Backrooms. Level 6 is a low-numbered, commonly-encountered level, and it is key in many trade routes such as the Dark Highway. For this reason, many groups have developed techniques to deal with unsafe one-way walls. The 4 most frequently used methods are detailed below.
Method 1: Total Avoidance
The oldest method is to simply avoid unsafe one-way walls altogether. Due to Level 6 having no landmarks with which to gauge motion, this can prove difficult. Historically, various Venosha clans have had rhymes and mnemonics to help them remember safe paths through Level 6. Some of these are still used to this day. Other approaches involve traveling in groups, each member focusing on one part of the route being taken, and guiding the others by hand at their designated section. This method is still reliably used by a wide variety of peoples in modern times, but it has several flaws. Chief among them is that has a very thin margin of error, as every member of the group is a possible point of failure. If an individual were to spontaneously no-clip out of Level 6, the rest of the company would likely be trapped.
Method 2: Barricading
Another method is to block access to any corridor which contains an unsafe one-way wall. This has also been a widely used method across history, with the ages of barricades in Level 6 varying wildly. Some are new installations by the M.E.G., some date back to the Leaders, and others still are hundreds of years old. This method has limited success, as newly-created barricades or recently disturbed barricades are prone to vanishing without a trace.
Empirical results indicate that the odds of disappearance are unaffected by barricade volume, weight, and material composition. The odds are — however — affected by the corridor the barrier is placed in: some, more "stable", areas, are measurably easier to block off than others.
The probability that a newly-installed barricade disappears is also unaffected by the number of preceding barricades placed. Hypothetically, any one-way wall can be sealed away, if enough attempts are made to do so. Indeed, this fact has allowed the M.E.G. to successfully "plug" most unsafe one-way walls along reliably used routes, and demarcate those that haven't been blocked with easier to place items, such as ropes stretched across tunnel entrances. Efforts to make these and other, further afield, one-way walls completely inaccessible are still ongoing, even if progress is slow.2
No vanished barricades have ever been recovered, with one exception: in 1983 a barricade of Leaders origin was found on a staircase in Level 208. An investigation by the Leaders found that the barricade's construction, installation, and disappearance all occurred on the same day: January 10th, 1978, almost 6 years prior to recovery. It is unclear whether all barricades disappear to other levels in this fashion, or whether this was an isolated incident.
Method 3: Wall Scanning
As one-way walls do not distinguish between animate and inanimate matter, it is possible to identify their location using various objects as a kind of "bait". This process is called wall scanning. Rope is the oldest and still most common bait, but nearly any tool can be used if care is taken.
Rope-based wall scanning works by first casting the rope ahead of oneself, then attempting to reel it in. If it returns easily, no one-way wall is present. If instead the rope catches on seemingly nothing, then a one-way wall must be ahead, and the rope has become embedded in it. Due to now being irrecoverable, the end of the rope is cut off, leaving a portion of it in the one-way wall. The wall is now properly identified, and so can be avoided.
This method, whilst low risk, is very slow. Since one-way walls may appear anywhere, the rope needs to be cast and reeled in constantly, ideally after every few steps. It is also extremely unfocused: whilst it keeps wanderers safe, it does not guide them towards an exit. For this reason, it is primarily used in conjunction with method 1.
Method 4: Mapping
This is the most resource intense, but most thorough method of all. It is to map a majority of Level 6, so that the positions of one-way walls can be precisely known, and safe routes can be developed. This method — whilst extremely valuable — comes with a crucial catch: the map cannot be seen in Level 6, as there is no light. All planning must therefore be done outside the level; wanderers are limited to only their memory and sense of touch when in the passages.3
At first, it seems the only way to use these maps is to simply memorize them to an extreme degree of precision, which just reduces us back to method 1, albeit with slight improvements. This, however, overlooks a crucial weakness of Level 6 that can be exploited: it does not hinder the sense of touch. By sewing a copy of the map into felt using thick thread, the map can be turned tactile, and becomes readable using the hand-feel alone. As long as a wanderer keeps track of their position in the level using grooves and markings cut into the felt, they can follow the route much more consistently than any other known method. Thread maps, as they are now known, are accessible at most entry points of Level 6, in boxes left by the M.E.G. These boxes also contain rope or other materials for use in wall scanning, as a supplementary defensive measure.
Whilst limited mapping of Level 6 was undertaken by the M.E.G. during its infancy, a great many of the routes and features of the level were discovered by the Leaders, and their records were in turn rediscovered by M.E.G. agents - partially from the remnants of their old database, partially from Base Omicron in Level 11.2. These maps have been mounted outside every stable exit of Level 6 in the form of plaques, directly above the boxes of thread maps. The discovery of Leaders maps of Level 6 has improved safe traversal of the level tremendously, and is widely regarded as one of the most important events of the Main 12 mapping project4. It is believed the Leaders created these maps via an extensive wall scanning operation, a process which must have required thousands of man-hours to complete. Levels 5, 7, 8, and 98 were likely all used as base camps for this.5