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SECTION 1 — ENTITY SUMMARY

Designation: Entity 0

Colloquial Name(s): "Better Bobby," "The First," "It" (field teams), ██████████████ (designation rescinded, see Incident Report 0-14) Primary Domain: Level 0 (unconfirmed territorial claim over full sublevel network) Secondary Sightings: Levels 1, 2, 3, 4, 6, 14, ████, ██████, and the Poolrooms (unverified) Threat Classification: APEX-UNDEFINED Containment Status: UNCONTAINED — ALL CONTAINMENT ATTEMPTS SUSPENDED INDEFINITELY Behavioural Profile: UNPREDICTABLE / ADAPTIVE / SAPIENT (CONFIRMED) Entity Kill Count (Est.): Unknown. See Section 5. Human Kill Count (Conf.): █████ Human Kill Count (Est.): ███████ [DISPUTED — SEE ADDENDUM C]

NOTE FROM DR. ██████, ENTITY RESEARCH LEAD:

It should be on record that the designation 'Entity 0' was not chosen for taxonomic reasons. It was assigned because this entity predates our cataloguing system. We did not discover it. It was already here in what we class as the Backrooms. It may have always been here . The number is not a ranking. It's an admission that we do not know where to place it.

SECTION 2 — PHYSICAL DESCRIPTION

2.1 — Primary Manifestation

Entity 0 presents as a young Caucasian male, early-to-mid twenties, consistent with the physical appearance of one Robert "Bobby" Franklin (see Personnel File MEG-P-██████, Status: ACTIVE/DISPLACED). The resemblance is exact in approximately 94% of documented sightings. Remaining sightings note minor deviations: incorrect eye colour under different lighting, subtle asymmetries in facial structure that do not correspond to Franklin's known features, and—in three separate reports—a "wrongness in the joints" that observers struggled to articulate.

Franklin himself has been interviewed extensively regarding Entity 0's use of his likeness. His testimony is included in Addendum A (SEALED). He has requested, on multiple occasions, that M.E.G. ██████████████████████████████████. This request has been denied.

2.2 — Secondary Characteristics

Entity 0 bleeds a black, viscous fluid when injured. Lab analysis of recovered samples has returned ████████████████. A second analysis returned entirely different results. A third analysis caused the spectrometer to ██████████████████████████████████. Testing has been suspended.

Entity 0's body temperature registers approximately 4.2°C below ambient room temperature at all times, regardless of environmental conditions. This remains consistent even in the Poolrooms (if sightings there are verified) and the thermally unstable zones of Level 5.

When Entity 0 believes it is unobserved, field teams have reported the following:

a) Complete cessation of respiration for periods exceeding 45 minutes.

b) Head rotation beyond normal cervical range (estimated 190° in Sighting 0-22).

c) Standing perfectly motionless in a posture that does not account for gravity. One researcher described it as "standing the way a photograph of a person stands. Not wrong. Just not alive."

d) Brief episodes of what appears to be the entity's eyes changing colour—from the documented blue to solid black. Duration: 1-5 seconds. No agent has been close enough to confirm ████████████████.

e) ██████████████████████████████████ ██████████████████████████████████ for approximately nine hours. When Agent ██████ attempted to approach, ██████████████████████████████████. Agent ██████ has requested a transfer. Request granted.

2.3 — True Form

Unknown.

We do not know what Entity 0 looks like. We know what Bobby Franklin looks like. Entity 0 has never been observed without this disguise. Whether the Franklin appearance constitutes a "disguise" or has become the entity's actual physical structure is a matter of ongoing—and increasingly heated—debate within the department.

Dr. ██████ has proposed that Entity 0 may not have a "true form." That it may be, at a fundamental level, a thing that IS other things. This hypothesis is ████████████████.

SECTION 3 — BEHAVIOURAL ANALYSIS

3.1 — Unpredictability Index

Entity 0 has been assigned a Behavioural Unpredictability Index (BUI) of 9.7 out of 10. For context, most Backrooms entities operate between 2 and 6 on this scale. The Skin-Stealers register at 5.1. The Hounds at 3.8. A completely random number generator would score 10.0.

Entity 0 scores a 9.7 because it is not random. It is making decisions. We simply cannot determine the framework.

Documented behavioural range includes:

Allowing a wanderer to pass through Level 0 entirely unmolested, even appearing to clear a path by relocating other entities beforehand (Sighting 0-09).

Killing a wanderer. Method: ██████████████████████████████████. No apparent provocation. (Incident 0-03).

Sitting cross-legged in a hallway for an estimated 72 hours, staring at a wall. (Sighting 0-15). Purpose: unknown.

Engaging a Class 5 entity in what can only be described as combat. Entity 0 won. ██████████████████████████████████. The Class 5 entity has not been sighted since.

Humming. (Multiple sightings.) The melody does not correspond to any known song. ████████████████ has suggested it may be original composition. This is ██████.

Laughing at nothing. (Sighting 0-19.) Duration: four minutes. Laughter matched audio profile of Robert Franklin exactly.

██████████████████████████████████ ██████████████████████████████████ ████████████████. All seven members of Exploration Team Kilo were recovered alive. None will discuss what happened.

3.2 — Evasion Capabilities

Entity 0 does not want to be found. When it is found, it is because it has chosen to be.

M.E.G. has deployed tracking teams on fourteen separate occasions. Results were as follows:

Operation: LAMPLIGHTER Duration: 6 days Result: Entity evaded all contact. Team reported hallways "rearranging" around them.

Operation: NIGHTJAR Duration: 11 days Result: Entity sighted once. Made direct eye contact with lead tracker from end of hallway (est. 200m). Smiled. Vanished.

Operation: FOXGLOVE Duration: 2 hours Result: Entity approached team voluntarily. ██████████████████████████████████. Operation terminated.

Operation: SILKWORM Duration: 9 days Result: No contact. Post-operation analysis revealed entity had been following the tracking team for the final four days.

Operation: TIDEPOOL Duration: ██ days Result: ██████████████████████████████████ ██████████████████████████████████ ████████████████ ██████ ██████████████████████████████████ ████████████████. All further tracking operations suspended by order of ██████.

3.3 — Intelligence

Entity 0 is sapient. This is no longer debated.

It understands English. It understands Mandarin, Spanish, Arabic, and—following an incident with Exploration Team Foxtrot—fluent conversational Japanese, despite never having been observed in the presence of a Japanese-speaking wanderer. A comprehensive linguistic audit conducted in 198█ was abandoned after Entity 0 responded to a deliberately obscure dialectal prompt in ██████████████████████████████████. The full list of confirmed languages is maintained in Addendum B. It is not short.

It also understands tactical positioning. It understands, based on Operations NIGHTJAR and SILKWORM, the concept of irony.

What must be emphasised—and what continues to unsettle the department—is how dramatically Entity 0's cognitive profile diverges from every other catalogued entity. Most Backrooms entities operate on recognisable behavioural loops. The Smilers hunt. The Skin-Stealers mimic. The ██████ feed. Even the more complex entities can be understood as sophisticated biological (or pseudo-biological) systems responding to stimuli: hunger, territorial instinct, predatory drive. They do what they do because something in their construction compels them to do it.

Entity 0 does not appear to be compelled to do anything.

It does not hunt for sustenance. It does not hunt for pleasure. It does not, as far as we can determine, hunt at all. Its kills appear to be decisions, made for reasons that change depending on context and that we have failed to model despite years of behavioural data. Other entities are, for lack of a better term, animals. Complex animals. Dangerous animals. But animals still.

Entity 0 operates with what can only be described as intentionality. It makes choices. It weighs outcomes. It has, on at least two documented occasions, changed its mind mid-action, which implies an internal deliberative process that no other entity has demonstrated.

This is what makes it dangerous. Not the strength—though the strength is considerable. Not the evasion capabilities—though those are unmatched. The danger is that Entity 0's internal workings appear to be orders of magnitude more complex than anything else in the Backrooms, and we do not understand them. A Wretch is dangerous the way a bear is dangerous: powerful, aggressive, but ultimately predictable. Entity 0 is dangerous the way a person is dangerous. It thinks. It plans, adapts, and learns. And it does all of this inside a body that can tear a Class 5 entity apart in ninety seconds.

The obvious question—and the one this department has been circling for the better part of two years without satisfactory resolution—is why. Why is Entity 0 so far beyond its peers? Two hypotheses currently hold majority support:

Hypothesis A (Dr. ██████): Entity 0's cognitive superiority is a function of age. It was here first. It has had longer to develop, to complexify, to evolve whatever passes for intelligence in Backrooms entities. Under this model, Entity 0 is not fundamentally different from other entities, it is simply older. The designation "Entity 0" is, in this reading, more literal than intended. It is t he first. Everything else came after. Everything else is younger, simpler, less finished.

Hypothesis B (Dr. ████████): Entity 0 is not smarter because it is older. It is smarter because it wanted to be. Something in its composition—its origin, its structure, whatever animates it—possesses a drive toward learning that other entities lack. It doesn't just react to its environment. It studies it. It chose to wear a human face. It chose to learn human language. Not one. Dozens. It chose to understand tactical positioning and irony and the specific way Robert Franklin leans against walls. Other entities absorb. Entity 0 pursues. If this hypothesis is correct, the follow-up question becomes deeply uncomfortable: what is it learning toward? What is the curriculum building to? What does an entity that has spent ██████████████ years teaching itself to be more look like when it decides it has learned enough?

Neither hypothesis has been confirmed. Both are ███████████████.

Researcher's note: I have been asked, off the record, which hypothesis I find more frightening. The answer is (B). It's always (B).

SECTION 4 — TERRITORIAL BEHAVIOUR & DOMAIN

Level 0 (otherwise known as "The Threshold") is, by consensus, Entity 0's domain.

This is not an official M.E.G. designation but a practical observation. Entity 0 moves through Level 0 with a freedom and familiarity that no other entity displays. It does not navigate the space. It inhabits it. Hallways that shift and reconfigure for wanderers appear to remain static in Entity 0's presence, or, more disturbingly, reconfigure according to its preference.

There is a growing body of evidence—currently classified under Review Protocol ██████—suggesting that Level 0 may not simply be Entity 0's territory. It may be its ████████████. This hypothesis was first proposed by Dr. ██████ in 198█ and was initially dismissed. Following Incident 0-11, in which Entity 0 appeared to ██████████████████████████████████ ████████████████ an entire corridor, the hypothesis has been upgraded to "under active consideration."

Entity 0 has been sighted on other levels, but these incursions appear purposeful and temporary. It always returns to Level 0. One researcher described this pattern as "a predator checking its territory lines," though others have noted the behaviour more closely resembles ████████████████.

SECTION 5 — INTER-ENTITY BEHAVIOUR

Entity 0 kills other entities.

This requires emphasis because it is, within the context of Backrooms ecology, abnormal. Entities compete for territory aggressively. Entities avoid each other. Entities engage in dominance displays. Sometimes they have been observed working together to hunt and kill wanderers. Entities do not, as a rule, destroy each other with the kind of systematic, almost casual efficiency that Entity 0 demonstrates.

Confirmed Entity 0 kills:

1x Class 5 Entity (undesignated). Method: ██████████████████████████. Duration of engagement: approx. 90 seconds.

5x Hounds. Simultaneous. Entity 0 did not appear injured afterward.

17x Skin-Stealer. Entity 0 appeared to take particular ██████ with this kill. Duration: ██████. Research team observing from concealment requested psychological support afterward.

██████x ████████████████. Circumstances: ██████████████████████████████████ ██████████████████████████████████. See Section 6.

1x entity of unknown classification. Entity 0 was observed speaking to it before killing it. Words were inaudible. Lip-reading analysis suggested ██████████████████████████████████. Lip-reading analyst has since resigned.

Few entities engage in aggression toward Entity 0. The implication of such is clear: within the Backrooms ecosystem, Entity 0 is an apex predator. Other entities tend to avoid it. Some—including the Hounds, which fear nothing else in our catalogue—have been documented actively fleeing its approach.

There are, however, notable exceptions.

The Howlers appear to be, at minimum, a genuine physical threat. They have engaged Entity 0 on at least three documented occasions. The encounters were violent and protracted in a way that Entity 0's other kills are not. During Incident 0-09, Entity 0 was observed sustaining visible damage. The first and only confirmed instance of an entity injuring it in combat. The black fluid was extensive. Entity 0 killed two Howlers, but it took ██ minutes, and afterward it remained stationary in the corridor for nearly two hours. Whether this constituted recovery, pain, or something else, we cannot say. But it did not move, and field team noted it was not humming.

More concerning is the entity's documented behaviour regarding ████████████████████████████, tentatively catalogued as Entity ██████, sighted exclusively on Levels ██████ and ██████. We have very little data on this entity—three sightings total, all partial, all from significant distance—but what we do have is this: during Sighting 0-46, Entity 0 was transiting a hallway on Level ██████ when it stopped. Abruptly. The tracking team reported that it stood perfectly still for approximately ninety seconds, head tilted, and then turned around and walked the other way.

Entity 0 has never, in our observational history, retreated from anything.

What Entity 0 is protecting, or hunting, or maintaining through this behaviour remains unknown.

SECTION 6 — THE COMPANION

⚠ CLASSIFICATION: LEVEL 4 EYES ONLY — SUBSECTION RESTRICTED TO SENIOR RESEARCH PERSONNEL ⚠

6.1 — Initial Sighting

During Operation SILKWORM, tracking team reported an anomalous observation that did not pertain to the primary mission objective. Entity 0 was sighted in a hallway junction on Level 0, sublevel ██████. It was not alone.

A human female was observed walking alongside Entity 0.

Estimated age: ███. Physical description: ██████████████████████████████████. She was wearing ████████████████ and appeared to be in good physical health. She was not restrained, and was not visibly distressed. She was, by all observable measures, walking with Entity 0 voluntarily.

Entity 0 was walking between the female and the nearest dark hallway.

The tracking team leader noted this detail three times in her field report, underlining it twice. I am including it here because the behavioural implication is significant: Entity 0 was positioning itself as a barrier between the female and potential threats. This is protective behaviour. This is not something Entity 0 has ever displayed toward any other human in our records.

6.2 — Subsequent Sightings

Ref: S-31 Level: 0 Observation: Entity 0 and Companion seated against wall. Entity 0 appeared to be keeping watch while Companion slept. Entity 0 was humming.

Ref: S-34 Level: 2 Observation: Companion observed navigating. Entity 0 following. Unusual. Entity 0 does not typically follow. It leads or it ██████.

Ref: S-37 Level: 0 Observation: Entity 0 observed retrieving ██████ and presenting them to Companion. Companion laughed. Entity 0 displayed what appeared to be satisfaction.

Ref: S-41 Level: 3 Observation: Two Hounds approached Companion's position. Entity 0 intercepted. █████████████████████████████. Companion did not appear surprised by the violence. She waited. When Entity 0 returned, she handed it ██████ and they continued walking.

Ref: S-44 Level: ██████ Observation: ████████████████████████████████ █████████████████████████ ████████████████. Observation team was withdrawn immediately. Dr. ██████████ has classified this sighting at Level 5. I have not been told why.

6.3 — Identity of the Companion

The Companion has been tentatively identified as █████████████████████████, a civilian reported missing on ██████████. Missing persons report was filed by Robert Franklin. Notably, █████████████████████████ was in a relationship with Robert Franklin at the time of disappearance.

The implications of this connection—that Entity 0 selected a companion who was romantically involved with the individual whose appearance it wears—are not lost on this department. Theories range from predatory luring strategy (see Dr. ██████'s analysis, Addendum D) to ██████████████████████████████████ to something far more ████████████████ that several senior researchers have declined to put in writing.

6.3.1 — Anomaly: Erasure of Civilian Records

During routine cross-referencing with surface-level contacts, research staff discovered that the Companion's missing persons file had been closed. Not resolved. Closed. Reason listed: ████████████████. The filing officer has no memory of processing the closure.

Subsequent investigation revealed a broader pattern. The Companion's lease has been reassigned. Her workplace has no record of employment. Her university transcript exists but is flagged as a clerical duplicate with no corresponding student ID. Photographs in which she appears have not been removed: she is simply no longer in them. The physical prints are unaltered. The space where she stood is just empty. As though no one was there to begin with.

This is not normal. Wanderers who enter the Backrooms leave gaps. Families search. Records persist. Missing persons cases go cold but they do not evaporate. In ██████ years of documented Backrooms disappearances, we have never seen evidence of a wanderer being actively erased from the surface world.

Something is removing her. Not killing her. She is alive and accounted for in the Backrooms. Removing the idea of her. The evidence that she existed at all.

The obvious question is whether Entity 0 is capable of exerting influence beyond the Backrooms. The less obvious and considerably more unsettling question is why it would want to. If Entity 0 is erasing the Companion's surface existence, the implication is not destruction. It is permanence. You do not erase someone's way back unless you intend for them to stay.

This has been flagged as a Priority 1 concern. Dr. ██████ has requested that Robert Franklin be monitored for signs of ████████████████. Request granted.

6.4 — Behavioural Implications

Entity 0, in the presence of the Companion, behaves differently than in any other documented context. Specifically:

a) Aggression toward other entities increases by an estimated 300%. Entity 0's territory, already dangerous, becomes functionally impassable when the Companion is present.

b) Unpredictability decreases. Entity 0''s movements become more structured, more purposeful, more oriented around the Companion's location. For the first time in our observational history, Entity 0 is behaving in a way that can be partially predicted.

c) The entity has been observed performing behaviours with no survival utility: adjusting the Companion's blanket, standing in specific positions to block fluorescent light while she sleeps, █████████████████████████████████. These behaviours have no precedent in our entity catalogue.

d) Entity 0 has not killed a human since the Companion was first sighted. Correlation is not causation. But the correlation is ██████.

SECTION 7 — RESEARCH & CONTAINMENT PROPOSALS

7.1 — Proposal: Use the Companion to Study Entity 0

STATUS: UNDER REVIEW

The Companion represents an unprecedented opportunity. Entity 0, which has evaded every tracking operation, every surveillance deployment, and every research team we have sent into Level 0, has voluntarily anchored itself to a single human being. Its movements are, for the first time ever, partially predictable. Its behaviour, for the first time, has an identifiable variable: her.

Proposal 7.1-A (Dr. ██████████): Establish covert observation posts along confirmed Companion travel routes. Do nott engage. Do not approach. Observe only. Use the Companion's presence to map Entity 0's behavioural patterns, territorial boundaries, and, if possible, communication methods.

Proposal 7.1-B (Dr. ██████): Make contact with the Companion. Offer extraction. If she accepts, observe Entity 0's response. If she declines—and this is the part of the proposal that generated significant debate in committee—ask her to serve as a voluntary research asset. She has closer access to Entity 0 than any M.E.G. (or outside) operative has ever achieved. She is, in effect, already conducting the field study we have failed to execute fourteen times.

Proposal 7.1-C: ██████████████████████████████████ ██████████████████████████████████ ████████████████. This proposal was submitted anonymously. It has been rejected. The author is encouraged to identify themselves to their supervisor immediately.

7.2 — Proposal: Use the Companion to Contain Entity 0

STATUS: REJECTED (SEE BELOW)

If Entity 0 will not leave the Companion, then controlling the Companion's location is, theoretically, controlling Entity 0's location.

This proposal was rejected for the following reasons:

We do not know whether Entity 0's attachment to the Companion represents affection, possession, predation, or something outside human behavioural pattern. Assuming it is exploitable is assuming we understand it. We do not.

If Entity 0 perceives the Companion's removal as a threat, its response is unpredictable and potentially catastrophic. Given its documented combat capabilities—including the destruction of a Class 5 entity in under two minutes—the risk to extraction personnel is classified as ██████.

The Companion may not be a hostage. She may be there voluntarily. If so, forcible extraction raises ethical concerns that this department is not equipped to adjudicate.

██████████████████████████████████ ██████████████████████████████████ ████████████████. If this turns out to be accurate, containment is not merely inadvisable. It is ███████████████.

NOTE FROM OPERATIONS DIRECTOR ██████:

I'm going to be blunt. We have spent years and ██████ operatives trying to understand Entity 0. We've tried to catalogue its kills, map its territory and even document its evasion capabilities. And in all that time, the single greatest advance in our understanding of this entity has come from a civilian girl who, as far as we can tell, wandered in through a door that shouldn't exist and started treating an apex predator like a stray cat.

She has learned more about Entity 0 by being near it than we have learned in fourteen operations. I'm not comfortable with what that implies about our methodology. I'm even less comfortable with what it implies about Entity 0's capacity for selective trust.

Recommendation (to be forwarded to every agency looking into this Entity): observe. Do not intervene. Do not extract. Do not, under any circumstances, threaten the Companion's safety within Entity 0's perceptual range.

I've seen what it does to things that threaten what belongs to it.

I don't want to see what it would do to us.

SECTION 8 — OPEN QUESTIONS

The following questions remain unanswered. They are listed in order of departmental priority. Personnel with relevant information are instructed to report to Dr. ██████ immediately.

What is Entity 0? Not what does it look like. Not how does it behave. What IS it?

What does it want with the Companion? Protection implies investment. What is the return?

What is the entity's relationship to Level 0 itself? Is it an inhabitant, a guardian, a ██████, or something we do not have terminology for?

Why Bobby Franklin? Of all possible appearances, why this specific individual? Is is merely due to Companion's prior history with Franklin or █████████████?

The Companion has been in the Backrooms for an estimated ██████. Standard survival expectancy for an unaffiliated civilian without supplies is 1-3 days. She is alive and healthy. How? And more importantly, why?

██████████████████████████████████?

During Sighting S-44, observation team reported ██████████████████████████████████ ██████████████████████████████████. If this is accurate, does Entity 0 possess ████████████████? And if so, has the Companion been ██████?

Is Entity 0 capable of love? (This question was submitted by Junior Researcher ██████ and was initially struck from the record. It has been reinstated by order of Dr. ██████, who noted, and I quote: "It's the only question that actually matters.")

END OF DOSSIER

File Status: OPEN — NEVER CLOSED Next Mandatory Review: ████████████████

"We have been studying Entity 0 for years. I am no longer certain it has not been studying us for longer."

— Dr. ██████, final departmental memo before ████████████████