"Alright, time to see if any of you are Shroud Takers."

A man, around 6 feet tall and visibly malnourished, aimed a gun at the other twenty people in the cramped warehouse room. Pacing throughout the chamber, his hand shook with anxiety even with the powerful firearm he wielded. For many here, the tension was suffocating.

For McNamera, the man holding the gun, it was the weekly check.

Walking slowly towards a young boy, he brandished a makeshift knife made of rusty metal. Throwing him on to the floor, McNamera put his boot on the kid's arm to restrain him, inching closer towards his hand with the knife. Raising his hand to make a swing, he slashed at the boy's hand, causing it to bleed out.

Red blood. The child would live today.

McNamera repeated the process with the others. Ten people in, and all were still human so far. The next one up was a woman, around 50 years old. She had arrived at the colony a couple of weeks back. Apparently, she'd been part of some big group out there in the Backrooms, until one day she returned to her colony after a resource gathering mission and everyone had disappeared.

Repeating the process once more with the others, McNamera noticed a beige shape moving towards him in a flash, along with a sharp pain in his back. In an instant, he turned around and shot at the attacker-

BANG! BANG! BANG!

Three bodies lay on the floor, along with the corpse of his attacker: another frail man not much unlike him, armed with yet another makeshift knife. The others must've caught a stray bullet. McNamera checked the bullet wound on the person who had assaulted him. Red blood; he was still a human.

"Looks like Shroud Takers aren't the only traitors around here", McNamera said with a smirk on his face, turning around to the young boy from before. "You were his kid, right? Now, all of you remember, these rules are all to keep us safe and happy. You like being safe and happy, right?"

Raising his pistol towards the dying parent, McNamera continued.

"Now let this be an example of what happens when someone gets the idea that they're above our rules."

BANG

One last shot rang through the room.

Red blood.

≪ Survival Guide ≫

• Examine the blood of your companions at least once per day. If it appears translucent, take the appropriate measures.
• Check regularly for any differences in the appearances or behavior of your companions.
• If you come across a colony that seems to be overly generous, do not trust them. Whether they are still human or not, good intentions are unlikely.
• Show no mercy. They are not your friends or your family anymore. Do not hesitate to kill them.
• If you are cornered, do not be taken alive.

≪ Overview ≫

Shroud Taker warning posters hung up in various colonies.

Shroud Takers, bearing the scientific name Homo capgras and classified as Entity 10.1, are a species of predatory beings with polymorphic capabilities. Common in levels with significant human and/or other sapient presence, they have posed a notable threat to human civilization within the Backrooms.

Shroud Takers are solo hunters, often employing regular use of suggestion and shapeshifting to lure out prey or groups of prey for consumption/assimilation. The population of Shroud Takers remains unknown, though efforts from The U.E.C. have consistently thinned down the population.

Each Shroud Taker possesses two forms in question: their disguise and their true form. Due to the preservation of much of the host's skin during the reproduction process, their disguise takes the appearance of their deceased host, albeit with some minor differences. Proportions are often changed slightly due to the consumption of all internal organs, and although they inherit the memories of their victim, behavioral patterns can often seem visibly "off".

In contrast, their "true" form¹ appears as a dark beige-colored, vaguely humanoid being with varying appearance. Often, instances of the entity form sharp appendages or claws to inflict severe harm on any victim; however this comes with a disadvantage: any newly shifted body mass is unstable and fragile for a period of time, allowing any attacker to cause a significant injury while aiming at these body parts.

Shroud Takers are stealthy and cunning predators. Although humans and Facelings are notable prey to them, they most commonly turn to other entities as a form of sustenance, due to their much greater frequency. Conversely, a Shroud Taker's interactions with sapients tend to be much more varied; some prefer to kill a wanderer quickly while their guard is lowered, while some prefer to follow them to a settlement and look for more suitable prey there. Shroud Takers have been reported to linger inside colonies for years on end, often picking off each member one by one and using their victims to assuage suspicion by other members of the colony.

Besides that, their hunting patterns do not vary from those of Skin-Stealers.

≪ Reproduction & Virology ≫

In order to successfully hunt and posses, Shroud Takers produce cells to pass on to others. These cells atomically provide information on how to convert wanderers into Shroud Takers, and if enough are pushed into the wanderer, the turning process happens within hours. Spread of Shroud Takers' cells typically only happens through contact with internal systems; obtaining these cells is commonly done through the sharing of saliva from either spit, vomit, or sexual contact. A Shroud Taker, when engaging in one of these ways, will produce saliva and atack cells via glands in their oral cavity and pharynx, delivering them into the other’s mouth, blood, or any open orifice. During the turning process, the newly produced cells will essentially eat the wanderer alive from the inside in a quite painful manner, preserving only two organs: the skin² and the brain³.

≪ History ≫

Over the course of years, various tales about Shroud Takers have come to the U.E.C.'s database. They help better understand these beings and the dangers they pose to human society. While first recorded in the 1600s, many have claimed to see individuals possessed by demons across the backrooms, with oral reports first surfacing hundreds of years prior. The earliest document was discovered in Level 11 and was dated to be written in 1609, and has been translated to fit within modern language:

“Charles came back to me after several weeks of silence. I reasonably assumed him to be dead or otherwise disgraced by our populous. His return was met initially with concern, as he had left with two friends and returned alone. Many suspected him to have cannibalized them, though as I was able to find him traveling through the complex, I initiated conversation.

What started as surprise seemed to brush away quickly as he realized it was me talking to him. Though the moments still were odd, as he stared at me very intently. Then his attention went to my features, trying to find anything strange. Yet he relaxed, satisfied without confirmation, and finally spoke to me. We talked for mixed moments about by business, and then his plans to move to one of the other camps. We did get to the topic of his friends, more or less by my own force. I don't recall what I asked him, but he did give a response.

Charles told me that one of his friends was cursed by some sort of spirit. Passed to Charles' friend by another host; none of them knew who passed it to… Ivan. I think that's Charles' friend. Anyway, he didn't know how Ivan got possessed, but the next time he and Patrick⁴ found Ivan, he looked like he got into a fight. Ivan brushed it off, so they kept going. Charles went into a lot about how he was able to tell it wasn't Ivan, but I can't remember any of it.

But his friend, Patrick, didn't see the issues and brushed Charles off. So when Ivan and Patrick suddenly separated from Charles, he figured out Patrick was attacked by this demon too, and ran. Charles told me that both chased after him, though when I asked him later, it was only Ivan with blood on his lips. He started breaking down after that, reciting some old Latin prayers. I stopped asking him after that. ”

— Suez, David. "The Story of Charles." Alters of the Sapiens, 1609, p. 114.

≪ The Fool, the Farce, and the Traitor ≫

Throughout my travels in the Backrooms, there has been one subject which continues to fascinate me, despite the wonders and horrors I have borne witness to in this purgatory: namely, Shroud Takers. Beasts that take the shape of man, stripping all that we are bare, and replacing it with a hollow facsimile.

In the Frontrooms, I remember hearing about a sort of mental disease where a person would begin to believe their loved one had been replaced by an outside force.

Take, for example, a famous case told throughout the halls of the Backrooms: the colony of New Doria, located in Level 1 and led by a single man named McNamera along with his clique of armed guards from Homeland Defence Force. The colony had a rule in place to check the blood of each wanderer on a weekly basis, in order to ensure that they were not a Shroud Taker.

At first things went well, but eventually the man in charge got power hungry. Started to lose his grip on himself. As the stories say, McNamera soon started killing people who weren't Shroud Takers during the weekly checks, just to assert his power. After a couple of years, once someone finally figured out how to pick the lock of his private bedroom, they cut his throat open and left him to die, silently fighting the waning air. While many knew of his injuries, it seemed none were willing to help.

For many, he had become an imposter of himself, rendered a husk of the intelligent leader he once was. And when dawn rose, they checked McNamera's corpse. The residents saw blood that ran clear. He had become his greatest enemy, and the surviving men and women, who knew their blood to be of crimson stain, chose to act. McNamera's guards were jumps, their throats slit and left blood to pour. Stricken by their fear, the residents watched as each of them did not soak the blade in red, but in the translucent fluid of the Shroud Takers.

When I arrived at New Doria, it was a ghost town. The wanderers once filling the settlement with life lay on the floor with their corpses. Some surrounded in a pool of red, but many, no color at all. Every step I took, I felt a shiver down my spine. My body warning me that someone was still out there.

Watching and waiting to see if my blood was crimson too.