The Pulse · Underwanderer Archive

Testimony

“A long empty corridor is the Pulse's doing too, careful. When everything's quiet, that's when I trust it least.”

The Pulse is the name wanderers give to the rhythm of Level 0. Nobody has seen it and everybody has felt it, as if the place were breathing. There are long stretches where nothing happens, others where something draws near, a moment when everything happens at once and then a lull. Then it starts over.

Four phases

Phase	You notice it by...
Calm	A long empty corridor
Stalking	A moved chair
Peak	A blackout with creatures
Rest	A room without hum

The detail of each phase, with its timings, is in The Phases of the Pulse.

How it feels

There is no on-screen indicator and no change of music to warn you. You perceive it only because the air changes and what used to be normal no longer is. A corridor that had been silent for a while. A chair that used to face the table and now faces the door. Fluorescents that cut out all at once and come back with something at the far end of the corridor.

Who follows the rhythm

The Pulse doesn't attack, it gives permission. Mobile creatures appear or withdraw depending on which phase each survivor is in, and the Smiler, the Skinstealer, the Watcher, the Prowler and the Grille respond to it. The environmental events, such as blackouts, are its most visible peaks. To see how chairs move when nobody is looking, read Chairs That Fill Themselves.

How to survive

A long calm is not a good sign. Use it to stabilize and restock, not to relax.
If a chair has changed place and you didn't touch it, you're in the stalking phase: keep the exit in sight.
A blackout with noise in the distance is a peak. Stay in a known zone and don't run toward the dark.
In the rest phase the room goes quiet, and it's the best time to heal and recover sanity.

What people report

I heard this from a woman who went down with her brother: the Pulse differs from one person to the next, so two wanderers together can be in different phases.
A blackout can draw a Watcher, and more than one report mentions it.
Nobody has found the source of the rhythm. The oldest veterans say the building knows how much fear you're carrying and deals out the rest in its own way.

Sub-entries

P-005 · PhenomenaThe Phases of the PulseThe cycle of the Pulse (calm, stalking, peak and rest), with its measured times and how it hardens the longer you have been down there.P-006 · PhenomenaChairs That Fill ThemselvesYou go back to an empty room and someone is sitting there. Some chairs in Level 0 fill themselves when you aren’t looking.

Mentioned in

E-016 · EntitiesSkinstealerIt imitates a survivor: a believable name, a pose, an object in hand. It lives alongside you as one of your own, it is avoided by looking at it, and it never speaks.P-017 · PhenomenaThe Wanderer’s GlossaryThe words wanderers repeat until they stop explaining them, with the entry where each one is told.P-003 · PhenomenaSanityIt drains on its own, faster with creatures nearby, when you're alone or in an unstabilized chunk. Only Almond Water restores it.E-010 · EntitiesChildrenSmall silhouettes that move in a pack. Still if you look at them, fast if you turn your back, and their touch stuns.E-009 · EntitiesProwler, Grille and StalkerThree stalking creatures that make no noise. One charges, one hangs from the ceiling, and the third has barely been seen.E-008 · EntitiesProwlerA silhouette that goes back and forth along the same stretch of corridor. It doesn’t chase you, but if it sees you on its patrol it lunges at you.E-015 · EntitiesGrilleA bundle hanging from the ceiling bars or a service staircase. Still while you look at it, and a step lower when you look away.E-011 · EntitiesChildren: Stalking Along RoutesHow the pack of children hems you in. One takes your back, the others look for other ways to wait for you, and they only run if you can’t see them.E-002 · EntitiesHow Creatures SoundAlmost no creature in Level 0 makes a noise, so silence is the warning, and what makes no sound is usually what is closest.E-001 · EntitiesStalkerThe third patrol creature, silent, with no fixed habitat and no reliable witnesses. The archive records it so the gap doesn’t look like an oversight.P-015 · PhenomenaEnvironmental EventsA lamp that bursts, a zone blackout, fuses that come back. Level 0 changes even if nobody touches it.P-026 · PhenomenaManila RoomA small room of manila damask and dim orange light, with an entrance gap of barely 0.6 m. A place where tension drops.