Category Archives: Weirdness

The Backrooms — A Surreal Alternate Reality

Arkane Curiosities

The Backrooms are not for the faint of heart. This is a place both alluring and dangerous, a surreal alternate reality that exists just beyond the walls of our everyday world. No one should ever seek out the backrooms. The risk is too great. Both to your life and also your sanity.

No Ordinary Place

Identical yellow-tinted walls. Flickering fluorescent lighting. At first glance, the Backrooms seem utterly mundane. Yet the more you explore, you realize the truly bizarre place you’ve stumbled into. 

There are no windows, no doors, and no clear sense of direction or purpose. The rooms seem to stretch on forever, each one identical to the last. You may feel disoriented or confused — overwhelmed by the relentless hum that permeates the air. Strange entities inhabit these rooms, creatures that exist outside of our normal understanding of reality.

Gaining Entry

But for those who are brave enough to seek out the Backrooms, there are a few things you should know. Firstl, the Backrooms occupy a kind of liminal space between the digital and the physical. Some have reported finding portals to the Backrooms in video games, while others claim to have stumbled upon them in abandoned buildings or other forgotten places.

These entrances, or glitches in reality, have subtle signs. 

  • Doors that appear suddenly
  • Walls a shade darker than those around it
  • Locations with a sense of unease

When you are ready, simply step through to enter the backrooms.

A Different Kind of Time

Time behaves differently within the walls of the Backrooms. Some have reported losing hours or even days while exploring the endless rooms. Others reported feeling as though they have been trapped in the Backrooms for weeks or months, only to emerge and find that only hours have passed.

This temporal strangeness is often compounded by the endless sameness of the rooms themselves. With no discernible landmarks or signs of change, it can be difficult to gauge how much time has passed or how far you have traveled.

Backrooms Origin

It all started with a picture titled “unsettling room” on a 4chan forum about cursed images. A year later, on May 12th, a user replied to the odd yellow room by saying: 

If you’re not careful and you noclip out of reality in the wrong areas, you’ll end up in the Backrooms, where it’s nothing but the stink of old moist carpet, the madness of mono-yellow, the endless background noise of fluorescent lights at maximum hum-buzz, and approximately six hundred million square miles of randomly segmented empty rooms to be trapped in
God save you if you hear something wandering around nearby, because it sure as hell has heard you

This snowballed into more comments and posts. Eventually “found footage” made its way onto social media — people exploring the Backrooms. 

A Final Warning

In the end, entering the Backrooms is not something to be taken lightly. It is a place of great danger and mystery, and those who enter may never return to the world they once knew. Yet… for those who are willing to take the risk… the Backrooms offer a glimpse into a world of endless possibility and unbridled imagination.

Tim Kane

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Flying Head Vampire: The Penanggalan

Arkane Curiosities

In Malaysia the Penanggalan detaches its head, leaving its body behind as an empty husk. This flying head vampire seeks out pregnant women to drain their blood. In fact, “Penanggal” or “Penanggalan” in Malay literally means “to detach” or “to remove”. But it’s not just the head. The internal organs dangle below, twinkling like fireflies.

Invisible Tongues

The Penanggalan, who always appears as a woman, looks completely normal during the day. She’ll avoid eye contact and smell strongly of vinegar (a tool of the vampire trade). Typically, Penanggalans take jobs as midwives. 

At night, it twists its head off and soars through the air, intestines and organs dangling below it. The Penanggalan perches on the roof and waits for the woman to go into labor. Then it wriggles an invisible tongue into the house to drain the blood from the mother. 

Legend has it, the tongue can pass through walls or slither through floorboards to reach its victim. Alternately, it will entwine the victim in its long intestines. 

Vinegar Bath

Upon reaching home again, the Penanggalan takes a quick dip in a tub of vinegar. Why, you ask? The vinegar shrinks the organs so it can squirm back into the body suit and pretend to be a person again. 

Snag Those Intestines

Want to keep yourself safe from this horrific creature? Your best bet is to snag those dangling intestines. Often people will scatter thorny leaves on roof or windows. Additionally, they might plant a pineapple tree under their house (Malaysian houses are built on stilts).

Still want a little more protection? Slide a pair of scissors under your pillow.

Mess With the Body

If your intent is to stop the Penanggalan for good, you’ll need to track the vampire to its lair (possibly by following anyone with the strong scent of vinegar). When the head detaches for the nightly peregrinations, you go to work. 

Fill the empty body with shards of broken glass. Then, when the creature returns to crawl into its body, the glass will shred the vampire’s organs. 

If you simply want to mess with the Penanggalan, just flip the body over. These creatures don’t really understand how human bodies work. It will reattach backward. Then the head will be facing in the wrong direction (an easy way to spot the vampire). 

Tim Kane

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The Kyorinrin: Words Given Life

Arkane Curiosities

Writers, how many times have you started a new story or novel, only to jump ship for a new, shinier idea? Well, your written work might have some feelings about being abandoned. The Kyorinrin is literally words given life.

An Animated Spirit

In Japan, the tradition of the tsukumogami yokai allows tools and objects to acquire a spirit. Common examples of objects that can become tsukumogami include tools such as umbrellas, sandals, or teapots, as well as household items like lamps or futons. Once the object becomes a tsukumogami, it gains the ability to move and act on its own, often with mischievous or malevolent intent.

In Japanese folklore, tsukumogami are often depicted as small, furry creatures with big eyes and mischievous personalities. They are said to appear on the night of Setsubun, the day before the start of spring, and cause chaos and mischief in homes and businesses. However, some tsukumogami are more benevolent and may even bring good luck to those who keep them in their homes.

Forgotten Writing

The Kyōrinrin is a special type of tsukumogami formed when a scroll or book has lain forgotten for many years. After gathering a layer of dust, the writing gains a spirit. The Kyōrinrin decorate themselves with extravagant kimonos and ornate details, perhaps because they want to be noticed by their creator. They also develop bird-like qualities: beaks and long expandable wings. 

The Kyōrinrin shake off their dust and seek out their owners who have forgotten them. They only want to spread their knowledge and if it has to be by force, then so be it. 

So before your own writing grabs you by the throat and forces you to read it, perhaps you should dust off your own forgotten treasures and take a peek.

Tim Kane

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Shirime: the Eyeball Butt Yokai

Arkane Curiosities

To the Western mind, images of ghosts and the supernatural conjures up amorphous spirits or tall creepy slender men. But in Japan, the supernatural takes a hilarious and often creepy twist. The word Yokai can be translated as monster, demon, spirit, or goblin and the come in many strange and bizarre forms. Yet, perhaps none more peculiar than the Shirime or eyeball butt yokai.

It’s Looking at You

The word “shirime” translates literally to “butt eye” but it also has the meaning of a “backward glance”, which is quite literal to how this yokai looks at you. The shirime has the body of a man or woman, but instead of a face, it has a single large eyeball where its butthole should be. Other meanings for “shirime” have qualities of distress, which seems to be the motivation for this prankster creature. 

A Supernatural Flasher

The shirime approaches you looking, in all respects, like a normal person. It wears a kimono and asks you for a moment to spare. Once it has your attention, the kimono drops away. You see that this person has no facial features. It bends over, spreading its butt cheeks, to reveal a single eyeball, shining like lightning. 

And that’s it. It doesn’t do anything else to you. Shock seems to be this creature’s only purpose. 

Origin

Little is known about this yokai. A Japanese poet, Yosa no Buson, wrote the first and only encounter with this supernatural being. Some believe that shirime’s true form is just an animal, shapeshifting into a disturbing form in order to play a practical joke on us humans.

Tim Kane

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Ashiarai Yashiki: Giant Ghostly Foot

Arkane Curiosities

Sometimes ghosts are missing body parts. Headless specters abound (looking at you Nearly-Headless Nick). There are even ghosts with several arms or legs. Yet in Japan, we have a ghost who is only a foot. A giant ghostly foot that desires you to clean it — the Ashiarai Yashiki.

Nocturnal Foot Washing

The Ashiarai Yashiki appeared suddenly in front of the door of a house. The occupants heard a booming voice shout out:

“WAAAASH MY FOOOOT!”

The ceiling splintered as a gigantic foot smashed though. This massive foot was covered in bristly thick hair and terribly filthy.

If the people refused to wash the foot, the yokai would stomp around, causing earthquakes and other natural disasters until its demands were met.

A Deceased Merchant

According to some variations of the legend, the Ashiarai Yashiki is actually the spirit of a wealthy merchant who was so obsessed with cleanliness, he would force his servants to wash his feet every night. When he died, his spirit was unable to rest and took on the form of the giant foot, continuing to demand that people wash it.

Maybe You’re Guilty of Something

The Ashiarai Yashiki could also be a play on words. In ancient times, “to wash one’s feet” meant to be cleared of crimes and allegations. This would suggest that a visitation by the Ashiarai Yashiki meant the occupant was guilty of some crime. The yokai came to punish the criminal for their misdeeds. 

Tim Kane

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