the School District of the Mutant Universe in 2029

1. The Librarian - Mutant/female

2. The Illustrators - Mutants/females

3. The Screamer - Mutant/female

4. The Painters - Mutant/female

5. The Superhero - Mutant/male

6. The Muppeteer and Sheldon the Seagull - Mutants

7. The Wranglers - Mutants

8. The Handies - Mutants

9. The Dancers - Mutants/girls

10. The Students, AKA: The Bad Eggs

11. The Torrid One - Arnold “Chunks” Belvedere

12. The Troublemaker - Regina “Raze” Caldwell

13. The Nerdy One - Clarabelle Dimm

14. The Shy One - Marcus “Mouse” Keeley

15. The Know-it-all - Bradley Mortwick III

16. The Athletic One - Deon “Dunk” Malone

17. The Cool One - Jesse “J-Man” Flint

18. The Students, aka: The Bad Eggs - Mutants

19. The Substitute - Mutant/female

20. The Math Teacher - Mutant/male

21. The English Teacher - Mutant/female

22. The Reading Teacher - Mutant/female

23. The History Teacher - Mutant/male

24. The Science Teacher - Mutant/male

25. The Astronaut - Mutant/male

26. The Musicians - Mutants

27. The Nun - Mutant/female

28. The Coach - Mutant/female

29. The Wrestler - Mutant/female

30. The Fireman - Mutant/male

31. The Construction Worker - Mutant/male

32. The Lunch Lady - Mutant/female

33. The School Nurse, aka: The Pale Lady - Mutant/female

34. The Principal - Mutant/female

35. The Security Guards - Mutants

36. The Assistant Principal - Mutant/male

37. The Administrators - Mutants/females

38. The Counselor - Guide/female

39. The Superintendents - Mutants/females

Let's start with the title. In the first three chapters of the podcast, the remaining visitors to the Mutant Universe each recount an equal number of dreams to their therapists. As doctors, they try to psychoanalyze their patients' experiences as normal dreams. But something takes a turn during the podcast: The patients report that these dreams all feel like part of the same world, a place that is nowhere, that doesn't even exist. The doctors are very interested in this confession for several reasons.

📻

EDIE: Well, you can't even get there!

THERAPIST: Why not?!

EDIE: It's Nowhere.

THERAPIST: Nowhere? What do you mean?

EDIE: Its a place that is... and isn't.

THERAPIST: An old professor of mine thought he “knew the answer”. He believed dreams came from an ever shifting plane, a quiddity of consciousness.

EDIE: Quidd-i-ty....

THERAPIST: Quiddity. The essence of a thing. In this case, a semi-tangible plane outside the mind.

📑

THERAPIST: Ah, I found it. The paper that stained my professor's career. Kept it all these years, hoping and dreading there was truth in these words... If geocentrism took centuries to disprove, the question is not if but when the same will happen to reality itself. That which we are equipped to perceive may not be the only world. Let alone the predominant one.

📻

THERAPIST: Edie vanished last night... As I was about to wake her, Edie’s body evanesceo. For a split instant - then returned, calm as can be. Lacking sleep, I can't be sure I wasn't hallucinating. Yet the image of her sheets deflating... is imprinted upon my mind.

EDIE: Behind me, I was glad to see a building! A shopping mall, so large I felt half my normal size. Its doors opened, and I ran to them. Inside the promenade, the lights flicked on, one by one, greeting me as the PA speakers came alive with music.

THERAPIST: Was the boy expressing knowledge of a world beyond this carnival?

EDIE: I hadn't thought about it until now, but I guess so. And, I felt that too.

THERAPIST: That - All the places you've been are one and the same?

EDIE: Sort of. It's like how this basement is connected to the upper floors, but don't work together. Jester pulled my arm. "Look", he said, pointing me to long planks of wood laid down like bridges between the rooftops. Other children had traveled this path before.

THERAPIST: Other children?

EDIE: The walkways had been placed there. They were too narrow for those swollen adults below...

📻

We must admit that this is not fact, but merely the own theory of professors and doctors. We actually do this quite often in this podcast. We present information as the opinion and perception of the patient, leaving room to interpret things from a different perspective if we wish. However, it soon becomes clear that this "nowhere" is a place that actually exists, as the bodies of the patients start to disappear during the night and reappear after some time.

This is a major revelation and forms the basis of the story told in the podcast. The knowledge that there is not one but two worlds to consider - the Waking World of "County" and the Hidden World of "The Nowhere" - significantly changes the way we approach the lore and helps us understand how it all works.

This is essentially a psychological model that organizes human needs into five general levels, ranging from basic needs like food and water to higher-level needs like accomplishment and self-esteem. The model has since been expanded to eight levels to take into account more abstract needs like cognitive growth and creative expression. The basic idea is that lower-level needs must be satisfied before higher-level needs can be satisfied, and the pursuit of satisfying these needs is what drives human nature.

📻

EDIE: This huge man wore a long coat and fishing hat. His face kind of dripped as he watched me. Then he was gone. He was an... I can't remember. It's the only thing I can't remember.

THERAPIST: Could it have been someone you know, your father perhaps?

EDIE: No. This man doesn't belong to our world.

EDIE: But I could tell he was not always that way. He'd changed, somehow become one with the sewers.

THERAPIST: (more distant) I don’t understand. You believe this place transformed him?

EDIE: Aren’t you meant to be drifting into hypergocklia, or whatever? Seeing, smelling, hearing as I did?

THERAPIST: I can’t seem… to let go. I want to, more than anything I--

EDIE: [Imitating the therapist] Try! That’s what you always tell me. If I’m trying my hardest, you have to as well.

[Sound of Balloon-headed man continuing to rummage through various items]

[Nome chitters]

• EDIE, narrating: From the corner of my eye, I noticed the little cone sneaking away. The balloon-headed man was inches away, and in that moment, I thought of Jester. of the Child with Gooey Hair, of Rusty. I couldn’t do nothing, not again!

EDIE: Thankfully, that rumbling from earlier returned in that moment, stronger than before!

[Sounds of rumble. Various piles of items crash to the floor]

[ Balloon-headed man notices piles falling and panics]

EDIE: The shaking destroyed the man’s piles, startling him into… an odd anger. So, I stumbled out from hiding, and bolted for my mushroom fairy, and out the door!

[Dream Edie Running]

[Nome sounds]

[Metal door creaking. Sound of balloon-headed man yelling as he notices Dream Edie exiting]

[Dream Edie running and panting]

EDIE: I ran and ran, and-and though the man, he wasn’t very fast, that didn’t matter.

[Buzzing & squeaking]

EDIE: He had his gadget, and that buzz followed wherever I went!

[Dream Edie wading through water]

EDIE: Any sense of direction washed away with the sludge that was now up to my knees!

[Dream Edie running and panting. Sound of sewer waters wading]

EDIE: Turning down tunnel after tunnel, I stopped, hoping I’d lost him.

[Ambience calms down. Distant squeaking and beeping from metal detector]

[clicks]

EDIE: All at once, those lanterns shone from above. The naughty kids had spotted us! Wildly they sang, “Snatch a gift! Snatch a gift! Before they’re all sent adrift!”

[Numerous kids singing simultaneously: Snatch a gift! Snatch a gift! Before they’re all sent adrift!]

[Kids continue singing and start clapping along, ambience picks up]

EDIE: Their cheers grew and... I saw why.

[Squeak sound. Dream Edie gasps]

[Electric buzzing, beeping and squeaking]

EDIE: A bag-headed shadow appeared at the tunnel’s far end, cutting me off. The man and his machine used the tunnels as if- as if the sewers had leaked into his thoughts!

[Sound of Dream Edie running again. Sound of sloshing water]

EDIE: I tried to backtrack, but must have taken a wrong turn and found myself at a dead end, a wall of bricks!

[Nome struggles]

EDIE: The mushroom fairy squirmed hard, begging to be freed! So… [plop] I let go, and the grey cone climbed up a pile of fallen rubble and slipped through a crack without hesitation to abandon me, (Saddened) despite saving its life.

[Sound of water leaking]

EDIE: The crack the fairy squeezed through began spouting water from the other side.

[Squeaking and buzzing start up again]

EDIE: I pulled at the bricks as the man stepped closer.

[Sewer Man approaching. Bricks shifting as Dream Edie rushes to move them]

EDIE: One brick loose. Then another. His gadget buzzed and buzzed, when I ripped a final brick loose, leaving a hole large enough to creep through.

[Sewer Man yells and hits the wall, buzzing and squeaking continue]

EDIE: He bated at the wall, grabbing at me, but I was too far gone. His small milky eye peeked through at me, until the walls rumbled, more fiercely than ever! The man backed away, overcome with horror.

[Sewer Man yells in horror. Naughty kids cheers continue in the background]

[Sound of walls rumbling]

EDIE: The rumbling didn’t stop after that. And neither did the kids cheering from above.

[Ambience rising. Sound of water rushing]

EDIE: Whatever they had waited for…

[All ambience stops]

EDIE: It was time.

COUNSELLOR: I shouldn’t have told you--

EDIE: You don’t believe that. I know your lies well enough by now... My mother once said that keeping the truth from others can’t change it.

COUNSELLOR: Even if it spares unnecessary pain? The growth is likely benign, harmless-

EDIE: No! No! Not knowing hurt her more! We didn’t know a tumor was growing in her brain, but she felt it this whole time. You’re fibbing again! It’s not "benign" at all, is it?

COUNSELLOR: I don’t know. What I do know is that the body often knows something’s wrong before the mind. The key is learning how to tune into its station. To listen.

EDIE: That’s your specialty, Counsellor.

COUNSELLOR: And now is the time to open our eyes and ears to your body. The time to let me in.

EDIE: No! I’m rather done with machines. With tests. And with you.

COUNSELLOR: It will work, this Apparatus. Finishing it has stretched the bounds of my knowledge. Which I vowed from day one. It holds the capacity to connect our brains so that I may see through you into the Nowhere! I can help you like I’ve always promised, but only if I can speak to the Ferryman!

EDIE: Who?

COUNSELLOR: The Candleman.

EDIE: No, you said "Ferryman". Why did you call him "Ferryman"?

😳

COUNSELLOR: ...

EDIE: Ha. That’s what she called him, isn’t it? Cici? She saw him too...

COUNSELLOR: That’s why he’s the only one who can help me understand-

EDIE: Understand what?!

COUNSELLOR: Everything!

EDIE: Noone’s been poked at, studied, talked at, and hooked up to medical machines and for what?! For-

💥

EDIE: What is it?

NOONE: My head! A fire burns in there! And I want to sleep, but I’m afraid at the same time, and that nurse is always interrupting!

COUNSELLOR: My machine requires you to be asleep, Noone! The dormant brain generates theta waves, patterns, which the device uses to align neural pathways through a computer interface. Once our brainwaves are tuned,.. well, do you remember when we considered mutual-dreaming? This facilitates that experience!

NOONE: I don’t understand anything you just said!

COUNSELLOR: We can face your monsters together!

📻

COUNSELLOR: Don’t let the door close! Leave the girl. Please, leave him with me...

🗒️📝

THERAPIST: You were there?

EDIE: Yes. And the Counsellor… he wanted to come.

📻

THE FERRYMAN: Too long in the tooth. I feed the spectrum’s other end.

EDIE: I don’t understand...Oh. He’s been talking to you this whole time.

COUNSELLOR: I've earned this! All my life, I’ve waited! Let me cross, Ferryman! You hear me?! Invite me to your world!

😕

EDIE: Then, the Ferryman said--

📻

THE FERRYMAN: [Chuckles] A toe dipped, but to plunge you must be pushed.

[Sound of various whispers remain ongoing]

EDIE: (gasp) The door’s changing now. Thumping. No, it’s the image in the frame that’s changing. A blur of faces. Children. And-- I’m sorry, Counsellor. The door’s drifting away from us.

📻

COUNSELLOR: How do I enter?! I need to know! Tell me how to cross! Tell me!

THE FERRYMAN: A quarter will be granted. The toll set in torments, not yet paid.

COUNSELLOR: I--I have nothing more to give! What else do you want?!

THE FERRYMAN: Sleep. Sleep now, Ruth. Sleep into Nowhere.

😳

EDIE: Here, hold her hand again.

COUNSELLOR: I'm holding it, Edith. I have you-

EDIE: Not you. The Candleman. Noone will be lost without him.

COUNSELLOR: What?

[Sound of Noone's body disappearing from the session room]

COUNSELLOR: Wh-Where are you!? Please! I need to see my Cici again!

NOONE: Smokey fingers are mixing with the blinking eye...and the moon is opening up, (NOONE'S voice overlapping with a second, distorted, voice) swirling all around. I feel like...me again.

COUNSELLOR: Give her back! Give her back! Do not! Do not go without me! Give her back! Damn you! No. Noone! No!

[Complete Silence]

NOONE: (NOONE'S voice overlapping with a second, distorted, voice) But it’s still there...Why is it still here?... That darkness...That’s the secret..."It" hides in this place...My body knew all along...

[Sound of a door creaking, whooshing sounds, then the door slams shut]

[audio cuts]

[Sound of the tape starting again]

[Apparatus beeping]

COUNSELLOR: Where- Where are you?! Noone! Please! (The Counsellor distressed) Not again...

[THE COUNSELLOR screams and lashes out, destroying equipment in the room. Sound of furniture breaking, glass shattering. Apparatus beeps louder. Sound of a Blip, a break in the recording]

EDIE: So, she turned away from the window, which was only a hole in the stone wall of the curved passageway that stretched on a long ways. This odd feeling told Noone to get up, but she couldn’t stand because the ceiling was so low. She crawled ahead, and... another passageway appeared on the floor, its edges throbbing in the dark. That same feeling told her that she was lost inside a giant. A huge one made out of stone, and the only way out was to keep going through its veins. The room over was bigger... All over the walls and floors, were more pulsing passages. Like living ant tunnels. A tall woman bent over a new project, wearing a familiar dress... Her presence alone told that she was the keeper of this stone giant. Of the world beyond the walls. And immediately began sliding down, the icy wetness going and going faster and faster. Noone thought the slide would never end, and just then...

[Dream Noone grunts as she hits the ground. The sliding stops]

EDIE: It shot me out.

THERAPIST: Did it hurt?

EDIE: Not like when you fall for real.

[Footsteps]

EDIE: I can see what it is now. The painting. A tiger and two moons.

THERAPIST: That’s not quite right.

[Edie walks back]

EDIE: (with interest) I’ve never seen a tiger before.

THERAPIST: Keep trying. Remember to unfocus. Continue as you wish.

SCIENTIST: Dreams. They are nothing more than external stimuli acting in the theater of the sleeping mind. Philosopher Friedrich Nietzsche believed so. Or, as Freud believed, dreams are the transmission of our will, our desires, the manifestation of our deep subconscious.

But what about nightmares? Some might think they serve an evolutionary purpose. A survival mechanism. A mind plotting to escape from everyday worries.

But maybe not. Maybe nightmares are the influence of external, malevolent forces. Timeless, ageless.

Imagine being chased. Is it really your subconscious telling you to run from your problems? Or is it the nightmare itself that preys on you, drawing strength from your weakness? And in an instant you are trapped. The nightmare has captured you, preventing you from finding the solution that evolution intended. And suddenly you fall. Because nightmares never work alone. Fear hits you, and you speed up and… in the blink of an eye, you’re back in your childhood classroom. It feels familiar, yet distorted. Like a childhood memory reflected in a mirror at an amusement park. And you feel a knot in your stomach, an uneasy feeling. Something feels wrong, yet real.

You wake up out of breath and in a cold sweat, but the feeling doesn’t go away.

Nightmares are real too. Every time we turn a dark corner or reach under our bed, we ask ourselves… is there someone, something behind us?

Nightmares affect us in ways we can’t explain. And… maybe we don’t remember them. But they remember you. And they come back.

SCIENTIST: So tell me; what or where, may I ask, is the Edie? What’s in it?

EDIE: Well first, there’s the Nowhere - the realm of dreams. A place that is or isn't; a manifestation between dreams and nightmares; a realm where Visitors of the Hidden World go through their journey; where every door exists in the land of Treachery was ruled by a frozen keeper of realm and its governor of the Nowhere himself… Sandman.

It has been said that magic faded away from our realm years and years ago; imprisoned by a greedy man who studied magic by unleashing the dead back to life. Now, they are forever banished from the Waking World; along with every mythical beings amongst the mortals; dragged into darkness forever; never to be heard from again.

There are tales and lores about people who were truly born with the talent to play music... It can penetrate a hidden cloak between life and death. By invoking the spirits of the past, present and future. In ancient Ireland, they were called Fili; In Choctaw land, they are called Firekeepers; and in West Africa, they are called Griots.

This gift can bring healing to the entire world... And their communities. But it can also lure terrible evil to them.

Fables tell of the workings of haints, and they are said to exchange places with human souls. But with Vampires, it's different... or worse. The soul is enclosed in the body and cannot be reunited with its ancestors after death. They are cursed to live in this land with so much hatred.

Though it may have vanished, but there is nothing more magical left in this world than the power of wishes and imagination.

Though it may have vanished, but there is nothing more magical left in this world than the power of wishes and imagination… from children. That the monsters and the entire universe that inhabit it are also born or created from children's dreams and nightmares. This is a world that takes real experiences and distorts them into unfamiliar shapes.

But it has been said that the first inhabitant of this realm was this eldritch Entity - a being like the Old Gods of Lovecraftian mythology. We have no idea what these creatures are, but we know what they want... It was the Lord who created humans and animals first, and their fears and beliefs nurtured the Keepers and their realms immortality.

But somewhere in the Mutant Universe is totally different - it is a realm where newly Arrivals may enter after their departure; where the Citizens were either summoned to the Hidden World or born there from the bowls of the earth; where they were simply grotesque reflections of themselves.

While the Residents are merely manifestations of children's nightmares and were summoned in the Nowhere. There are Mutants and there are Guides; the Guides that protected the Visitors from the monsters, like a Guardian Angel or an Imaginary Friend. Those who are free from the Entity's corruption with their goodwill and kindness.

The Keepers of the realm used to be normal children who became living vessels of dark power; seizing it when they had the chance, and then growing into adults over time with enormous control over vast geographical areas in the Hidden World and all other mutants within them. Another defining feature of the Mutants is that many of them seem to acquire unique abilities from other worlds. Perhaps this is also how all adults get there and these humanoid creatures and places exist for reason.

The Maw exists because it has hunger; the Pale City exists because it has a desire for escape and greed; the Necropolis exists because it has fear; the Metronome exists because it has pride; the Nowhere exists because it has guilt and trauma; the Wilderness exists because it has safety and peace; Carnevale exists because it has violence; the Shopping Mall exists because it has paraphilia; and the Nest exists because it has laziness and luxury. For the Servants of the Hidden World not only ferries the Visitors, but also the Arrivals.

✏️🗒️

SCIENTIST: And you…? Your closest friends? Do you believe in all this?

😔 😌

EDIE: I didn’t. Not until I died.

[A low hum of static, then the creak of an old microphone. The Therapist’s voice comes in slow, deliberate, almost like they’re reading from a forbidden archive.]

📻

EDIE: The Nowhere… is a realm of Dreams and Nightmares. A place where the impossible is ordinary, and the ordinary is deadly.

Its world is vast—its buildings, its objects, even its food—colossal, as though built for giants. And perhaps… in a way, it was.

The Nowhere is home to the Residents—gigantic, human-like predators. They hunt without mercy, abducting children who are foolish… or unlucky… enough to stray across the boundary.

Their shapes are grotesque—bodies warped by desire, instinct, and hunger. They have strength beyond anything human. Even the animals here are large enough to crush a child underfoot—and some enjoy doing so.

Despite their savagery, the Residents cling to a crude, functioning society… even a language of their own. And time here is treacherous. It flows differently than in the Waking World, bending and twisting until children from centuries apart might meet in the same street.

To reach the Nowhere… you must first dream. Dream without rest, day and night, until you reach the Threshold. The Threshold is the space between worlds.

At its heart stands a door without a doorknob. And there, always waiting, is the Ferryman.

If he allows you passage, he will guide you across the Boundary—past the door’s countless stairs and up to the gaze of a giant, blood-red eye the size of the moon. Around it, hundreds of other eyes—blinking, glowing, watching.

Only then will you step through… and vanish from the Waking World forever.

🌊🌊⛵️🌊🌊🌊

The Ferryman says there is another way in… but that road is darker still.

THERAPIST: Yesterday evening marked my first true session with a strange woman. Signs of significant disorder are greater than I initially thought. Her imagination is vast, but one phrase in particular has become an earworm of sorts.

[Click. Separate tape is being played]

• Recording of Edith: “I was 8 years old when it happened; the night I lost my… He was right in front of me breathing hard… That’s what I remember most. The awful smell, like when sausage goes bad.”

[Click, the tape stops]

THERAPIST: Scent while dreaming is a rarity. An indication of sensory transcendence. She may be a fine candidate for a oneirological study, but her health must come first. [Sigh] There are undoubtedly other details I missed in her recount.

🚪

THERAPIST: [Deep breath] From the top, then. [The tape begins to rewind] Sleep be damned tonight.

[Intro plays]

[Click]

THERAPIST: This is Julia Winters. Here in my preliminary case notes for tape #54, Session #1, Patient #1220… [mumbling] referring to children by numbers… [deep breath, normal] Our relationship goes beyond mere ethics, so I can leave that practice to the heartless quacks on the upper floors. But to remain professional, I’ll use a moniker the woman has given herself, Edith.

[Quiet tapping as a drink is poured]

THERAPIST: Edith has been in CPI care for a fortnight. Given her rather remarkable medical history, her mental state seems relatively unremarkable. [stirring his drink] She finds herself in my ward due to worsening. Though not recurring, nightly afflictions. Parasomnia isn’t uncommon among patients. Not to imply she’s unworthy of treatment, only that there are others worse off.

[The therapist shifts in his seat and sips his drink before setting it down]

THERAPIST: Edith also displays signs of mild trauma. As such, Nightmare Disorder is possible. Given her diffidence, the focus for this session is to build rapport. I’m hopeful she will open up and we’ll learn what lies inside that little head.

[Ceramic clinking. Spills coffee.]

THERAPIST: “Oh, damn!”

[The sound of papers being set aside. More ceramic clinking. Sound of the recording device stopping]

[A door closes]

THERAPIST: Take the big chair, Edith. Sit, lie, saddle it like a horse, whatever you please.

EDIE: You can call me Edie.

[The therapist pulls out paper as Edith sits down. The chair creaks]

[Quiet jazz starts to play]

THERAPIST: How’s that?

EDIE: …fine I guess.

THERAPIST: [Walking to her chair] That look on your face says there’s more on your mind.

EDIE: It’s… like the music I used to hear through the walls. In our old apartment. Before we moved into the fancy house.

THERAPIST: Would you like to talk about that? Your old apartment?

EDIE: No, Ms. Winters.

THERAPIST: Alright. An easier question to start. How are you feeling today?

EDIE: …Bit sad.

THERAPIST: For any reason in particular?

EDIE: …Um… the red flower… my mom and dad left. It went all wrinkled. I tried lifting a petal and… it broke off. But, then I saw why- little crawlies, everywhere underneath the dirt.

THERAPIST: Aphids?... How unpleasant... [shift] Must be hard, here all alone. That wasn’t just a flower to you, was it?

EDIE: No, Ms. Winters.

THERAPIST: Your parents only want you to feel like you again. And we’ll see to that! One day at a time.

[The therapist writes something]

THERAPIST: Have you been sleeping?

EDIE: Yes, Ms. Winters.

THERAPIST: Call me Julia. Sleeping well?

EDIE: …Yes.

THERAPIST: Agnes? This is a place of honesty. The truth, please.

EDIE: …Fine. Middle of the night. I keep waking.

THERAPIST: And are you perspiring?

EDIE: …Hmm?…

THERAPIST: Sweating?

EDIE: Oh. Uh, yes. And my heart beats like there’s a pecking bird in my chest.

THERAPIST: Did these nightmares coincide with the onset of your sickness?

EDIE: No, only after.

THERAPIST: And do you remember your nightmares, or do they disappear come morning?

EDIE: I remember...everything.

THERAPIST: [pause, shifting] Would you be alright to tell me about them, now or later?

EDIE: Yes. Um… The one I had last night. It’s still here. The feeling. But may I have some juice? My head’s light and mum says it helps.

THERAPIST: I’m not sure that’s true. Regardless, you may.

[Audio cuts]

[Audio resumes. Edith is sipping juice.]

THERAPIST: I see you eyeing my painting... I’ve had it since I was a child. “The Zahir’s Gaze”, it’s titled.

EDIE: Why is it so blurry?

THERAPIST: It’s a hidden image. The trick is to unfocus your eyes. Try it,

[Short pause]

THERAPIST: There, can you make it out now?

EDIE: …no.

THERAPIST: I’ve got an idea. Keep your eyes on the painting. Let your mind wander. Meanwhile, you can tell me your dream. If you’ve finished your juice.

EDIE: [sipping] I have.

THERAPIST: From the beginning, then.

[Pause]

EDIE: …It started 8 years old, when I woke up somewhere I didn’t belong; in a place no one was allowed to go.

THERAPIST: Describe this place, please.

EDIE: Everything was white.

🌫️🌫️🌫️🌫️🌫️🏃‍♀️🌫️🚶🌫️🧍‍♀️🧍🧍🧍‍♀️🧍‍♀️👭🧍🧍🧍‍♀️🧍‍♀️🌫️🌫️🌫️🌫️🌫️🌫️

EDIE: Only slowly I realized snow was falling on a field. The view was peaceful, looking out from so high up like I was… one with the cold.

THERAPIST: You felt this cold?

EDIE: Not like the Counties in winter, but more like watching someone who is chilled. Around me but not… in me.

THERAPIST: I’m sorry, the Who?

EDIE: The Counties… us? At least that’s what those things called us.

THERAPIST: What things?

😤

EDIE: The Residents, we they called them. Threatening creatures warped by the nightmarish dimension far from ours.

THERAPIST: Interesting. And where is this… dimension?

EDIE: That… dimension isn’t really somewhere to be found.

A Psychological Horror Podcast / Hybrid Film Experience

Inspired by: Little Nightmares
Creative Direction: Tim Burton & Ace of Clay

🕯️ Core Premise

This is a story told through recordings—therapy sessions, fragmented memories, and audio logs that feel… slightly tampered with.

Everything you hear is filtered through the minds of children.

And children, as history has always proven, tell the truth…

…but never the whole of it.

🧠 The Setting — “Nowhere”

There exists a place called Nowhere.

It is not on any map.
It cannot be reached intentionally.
And yet… children find themselves there.

It is a liminal seam between two worlds:

• The Waking World → sterile, clinical, filmed in cold live-action

• The Hidden World → warped, symbolic, rendered in animation and stop-motion

Nowhere is both.

And neither.

A place where fear takes shape—not metaphorically, but physically.

👁️ Main Characters

Edith “Edie”

• A fragile thing, 30 years old, voice barely above a whisper.

• She suffers from a worsening nightmare disorder—episodes so vivid they leave marks. Not emotional ones… physicalones.

• She does not call them dreams.

• She calls them visits.

Dr. Julia Winters

• A therapist with a voice like calm water over stone.

• Played with quiet intensity, reminiscent of Eva Green—measured, observant, but carrying something buried.

• Julia specializes in childhood trauma.

• Because she survived it.

• Or perhaps… never quite left it.

🧵 Structure — The Unraveling

Each episode/session begins grounded in reality:

A recorder clicks on.
A question is asked.
A story begins.

But as Edie speaks…

Reality starts to slip.

🕰️ Act I — The First Session

Edie describes a place she calls The Maw—though she never learned the name.

Her voice trembles as she recounts other children:

• A boy who never spoke, only watched

• A girl who hummed to keep the dark away

• Shadows that moved even when no one did

As she speaks, the film shifts:

• Live-action therapy room dissolves into

• Stop-motion corridors crafted in the style of Ace of Clay

• Sound design carries over—her voice echoing in spaces she should not remember so clearly

🪡 Act II — The Disappearances

Other patients begin to report similar dreams.

Different places.

Same feeling.

Then it happens.

One patient vanishes overnight.

No struggle. No trace.

Days later… they return.

But something is wrong:

• Their posture is off

• Their voice is slightly delayed

• They remember things they never lived

The recordings distort when they speak—as if the audio itself refuses to cooperate.

🪞 Act III — The Truth Beneath

Julia begins reviewing old case files.

Children, decades apart, describing the same places:

• Endless kitchens

• Watching eyes

• Hunger that cannot be satisfied

And one word appears again and again:

Nowhere

🩸 The Reveal

Edie finally confesses:

“We didn’t escape.
We were let go.”

Her nightmares are not memories.

They are ongoing.

Each time she sleeps, she returns.

Each time she wakes… something follows.

🎭 The Twist (Soft, Lingering, Unkind)

Julia listens to the final recording alone.

Edie’s voice is calm now. Too calm.

“You’ve been there too… haven’t you?”

Silence.

Then—faintly—

A second voice on the tape.

Not Agnes’.

Not recorded intentionally.

But present.

🎨 Visual & Audio Language

• Podcast Layer → raw, intimate, unreliable

• Live-Action → grounded but increasingly distorted

• Stop Motion → creatures, environments, physical horror

• Animation → memories that refuse to stay still

The transitions are never clean.

Like stepping through a mirror that hasn’t decided what it reflects.

🕯️ Themes (Etched in Bone and Thread)

• Trauma does not stay buried—it builds worlds

• Childhood fears are not imagined—they are translated

• Escape is a comforting lie

🎬 Final Note

This is not a story you watch.

It is one you listen to… until it starts listening back.

And if, one night, you wake up somewhere unfamiliar—
dim halls, soft humming, something breathing just out of sight—

Don’t panic.

You’re not lost.

You’re simply…

somewhere in Nowhere.

🕯️ The Waking World (Counties)

• Edie “The Moose Girl” — Sophia Lillis
  A fragile storyteller with eyes too old for her years. She does not lead the tale—she survives it.

• Julia Winters — Ali Wong
  A steady voice in a crumbling world. Compassion wrapped tightly around something… unresolved.

👁️ The Hidden World (Nowhere)

(Where faces are masks, and masks are truths)

🪞 The Lady — Eva Green

Graceful as a swan… and just as capable of drowning you. Her stillness is more terrifying than any scream.

🧥 Six — Amelie Bea Smith (voice & motion reference)

Small. Silent. Watching.
Like a candle flame—you don’t notice how dangerous it is until everything’s already burning.

📺 Mono — Roman Griffin Davis

A boy with a paper-thin grip on reality. The world bends around him… or perhaps he bends it first.

📡 The Broadcaster — Cillian Murphy (voice & motion capture)

A voice that crawls through static and settles behind your eyes. Calm. Persuasive. Inescapable.

🕳️ Low & Alone — Noah Jupe & Brooklynn Prince

Two children lost between moments. One clings to hope. The other knows better.

🔐 The Supervisor — Tilda Swinton

All angles and silence. A presence that watches without blinking—authority made flesh.

🩺 The Doctor — Ralph Fiennes

A man who fixes what should not be fixed. Calm hands. Unforgivable intentions.

🍖 The Twin Chefs — Nick Frost & Simon Pegg

A grotesque echo of comedy—timing perfect, morality absent. Their kitchen is a stage… and you are the meal.

🪝 Roger the Janitor — Doug Jones

All limbs and listening. He does not see you.
He does not need to.

📚 The Teacher — Anya Taylor-Joy

Precision incarnate. Her patience stretches… farther than it should.

🍲 The Lunch Lady — Kathy Bates

Warmth turned rancid. She feeds you kindly… until you realize what you’re eating.

🤫 Hush — Millie Bobby Brown

A girl who chose silence—and now silence has chosen her back.

🎀 The Girl with Braids — Mckenna Grace

Still as a doll until she isn’t. Childhood innocence, wound too tight.

🍰 The Fat Kid — Julian Hilliard

A boy defined by hunger—not his own, but everyone else’s.

🟡 The Girl in the Yellow Raincoat — Amelie Bea Smith

A memory. A symbol. A warning that came too late.

🏃 The Runaway Kid — Iain Armitage

Hope with scraped knees. Always running… never quite escaping.

🧵 Final Stitch

This cast is not meant to comfort.

Each face is chosen not for beauty—but for presence—that uncanny ability to feel slightly out of place, like a painting hung just a little crooked.

Because in Nowhere, no one fits.

And those who do…

belong there.

📻 “A place that is… and isn’t.”

[BLACK SCREEN]

A soft click.

A tape begins to spin.

AGNES (V.O.): Well, you can't even get there…

THERAPIST (O.S.): Why not?!

EDIE (V.O., almost amused) : It's Nowhere.

[TITLE CARD — faint, flickering]
FROM THE TWISTED MIND OF Tim Burton
AND THE HANDS THAT SHAPE NIGHTMARES Ace of Clay

• 📝 [STATIC CUT — THERAPY ROOM]

• Dim light. A recorder sits between them.

THERAPIST: Nowhere? What do you mean?

EDIE (leaning forward, whispering): It’s a place that is… and isn’t.

🪡 [SMASH CUT — THE WALKWAYS]

• Children walking across impossibly thin beams over a writhing mass of grotesque adults below.

EDIE (V.O.): There are other children who had traveled this path before…

THERAPIST (V.O.): Other children?

EDIE (V.O.): The walkways had been placed there… too narrow for those swollen adults below…

🏫 [FLOATING HIGH SCHOOL — THE NOWHERE]

• A school drifts in a void, suspended by nothing.

• Lockers slam themselves.

• A bell rings… though no one pulls it.

EDIE (V.O.): At 16, I never fit in at school… (beat) Never quite fit in around here, either.

🚪 [THE JANITOR EMERGES]

A towering figure—coat dragging, face sagging like melting wax.

• Hands too long.

• Steps too quiet.

EDIE (V.O., shaken): This huge man wore a long coat and fishing hat…

[QUICK CUTS]

• Fingers scraping walls

• A door creaking open on its own

• A child holding their breath

EDIE (V.O.): His face kind of… dripped…

THERAPIST (O.S.): Could it have been someone you know? Your father perhaps?

EDIE (firm, immediate): No.

[CUT TO BLACK — SILENCE]

EDIE (V.O., cold now): This man doesn’t belong to our world.

⛵ [THE FERRYMAN — FOGGY WATERS]

• A long, narrow boat glides across black water.

• The Ferryman stands, unmoving.

THERAPIST (V.O.): The Counsellor… he wanted to come.

COUNSELLOR (desperate, shouting): Sir, please! I wanna help them! I’ve waited for this my whole life! Invite me to your world!

[The Ferryman slowly turns…]

FERRYMAN (low, ancient): Too long in the tooth… (pause) I feed the spectrum’s other end.

[He leans closer—voice like water filling lungs]

To plunge… you must be pushed.

🌊 [MONTAGE — THE WORLDS COLLIDE]

THE MAW — children running through iron corridors
THE PALE CITY — screens flicker, faces distort
THE METRONOME — ticking… louder… louder…
🚕🚕🚕 — taxis loop endlessly, drivers faceless
THE NECROPOLIS — towering graves under a dead sky
🏜️ — a desert of broken things

🩸 [RAPID CUTS — SOUND DISTORTS]

• Six turning slowly in her yellow raincoat

• Mono reaching toward a flickering TV

• The Lady raising her hand

• The Doctor crawling across the ceiling

• A child whispering: “Don’t fall…”

📻 [BACK TO THE TAPE RECORDER]

It begins to warp.

Voices overlap.

THERAPIST (distorted): Edith… where are you right now?

[LONG PAUSE]

EDIE (V.O., calm… too calm): I’m not in the room anymore.

🎬 [FINAL SHOTS]

A hallway stretches endlessly.

A door creaks open.

Inside—

darkness.

🔊 [WHISPER — NOT EDIE]

You’ve been here before…

🕯️ [TITLE CARD]

LITTLE NIGHTMARES: The Movie

📼 [FINAL STING]

The tape stops.

Click.

Then—

It rewinds on its own.

The Hidden World was once dark asteroid - Asteroid 328, an unnamed asteroid, lived an unnamed race of strange humanoids. They lived monotonous lives under the rule of the Entity. It ruled the entire asteroid, including its City and Woods. It was a place between existence and non-existence. Between dream and nightmare; Life and Death. A realm where Visitors to the Hidden World must journey, a world where Arrivals go after their dreams and souls are shattered and destroyed, their second chances dashed from the get-go.

It was the people from Earth who first created this place, and their emotions and choices that conjured the Mutant Universe and the immortality of their realms into being. Though, it is said that the entire Mutant Universe was created by children, but that is not true. The first inhabitants of this realm were the King and Queen - omnipresent beings with ancient magic and this eldritch Entity - a being like the Old Gods of Lovecraftian mythology. We have no idea what these creatures are, but we know what they want. It's to get food.

And there is a strong implication that the mutants in the City feed on fear. And what better way to exploit fear than to trap the vulnerable children of humanity in their own nightmares, sending randomly selected victims to the world of the dead? Citizens are nearly grotesque and horrific versions of their mirrored selves as they are summoned into Hidden Worlds or born from clay vessels where they were merely grotesque reflections of themselves. The Residents are manifestations, that is, the distorted perceptions children have of adults and other abusers made real.

In this case, the Hidden World is a Dark Realm that traps children and murders random victims in the Waking World in nightmares and death. The children are called "Visitors" because, given their sheer numbers or random letter, they don't belong here. Victims who are captured or killed in the mutant world are called either “Victims; Travelers; or Arrivals” because once they’ve entered the Mutant Universe, there is no going back. This is the oldest and most basic answer. Because the Mutant Universe is a place where children’s dreams and nightmares merge with reality, where the dead morph into mutants or guides, a Grimmworld that exists as a dark reflection of our own.

It makes a lot of sense, too. Because the monsters that inhabit it are also born or created from children’s trauma and fear… in which the Mother feeds on to give birth to them underground. This is a world that takes real experiences and distorts them into unfamiliar shapes, so what they are here is just as important as what they were before.

What could be worse than a strict, uncompromising teacher who seems to have eyes in the back of his head and watches everything you do? What about a teacher who you can literally walk across the room to? What could be worse than dealing with school bullies? What about attending a school full of bullies? We also need to take into account kids who are scared of doctors in cold, sterile exam rooms, or who have had traumatic experiences with hospital treatment. Kids who are left alone indefinitely while desperately seeking the attention of distracted and uninterested parents. Kids who are horrified by the lifeless, glassy eyes of taxidermy victims. Or the kids who worry that the mannequins will move when they're not looking. These are all reasonable, relatable fears, and looking at the world through the lens of dream logic is a pretty intuitive way to make sense.

The inhabitants may be monsters, but they're still alive and have some degree of intelligence. They may even have a sort of soul or life essence that can be sucked out of their bodies. They feel like people, with their own desires, fears, and general self-awareness. All of this suggests that they're not just figments of a dream. It also raises the question of why the children collectively fear a Geisha, a Broadcaster, a Butler, a Granny, a Teacher, a Janitor, a Doctor, a Hunter, a Chef, an Ice Cream Man, a Photographer, a Nurse, a Seamstress, a Farmer, a Ferryman, a Fisherman, an Electrician, a Mailman, an Innkeeper, a Bellhop, a Nanny, a Barber, a Sculptor, a Headmaster, a Collector, a Gravedigger, a Pastor, a Librarian, an Author, a General, a Tattoo Artist, a Zookeeper, group of bullies, a Gardener, a Policeman, a Clown, a Taxi Driver, a Firefighter, a Construction Worker, a Policeman, a Principal, and even their parents. The inhabitants are actually children and regular humans who have survived to grow up and become adults due to the mutant population and time dilation occurring in the environment. The mutants are randomly selected by the Entity and trapped in the City.

Think of the Hidden World as a giant cosmic skeleton, and the dreams of the children within it, like flesh filling the gaps between the bones; and the struggles and structures of people, forming a living hellscape darker than Oblivion.

Places like the Web City, Blurry Town, Metronome, and the Din City were not actually built, but were dreamed a manifested into this vast world of the Hidden World.

This is how the Hidden World differs from the Real World. It's no surprise that everything seems distorted and large, for example the scale. Seen through the eyes of a small, frightened child, the child does not seem to belong in this world at all; neither does otherworldly victims who were dragged into the Mutant Universe.

The world exists the way it does because no one other human created it alone, but a collective experience where countless children's nightmares and people’s stress and greed combine and blend to create the horror we see.

How the Nowhere works is that it allows a child with unmet needs, a child with a gifted imagination, or an adult, resulting trauma begin to dream these dreams pass through the veil between Realms and become a part of the Hidden World. There, they manifest in a form that addresses the specific need in question. Eventually, these children will begin to visit these places while they dream with at least some degree of correlation between the defining dreams need and their own currently unmet needs. And how the Hidden World works is that it has been written and came to be by teenagers or other anxious people with obsessions and unbuilt structures in the Real World.

Perhaps this is also how all adults get there: Sadistic teachers who terrorize their students, practicing doctors who experiment and exploit patients in dangerous ways, overweight guests who prioritize food over everything else they care about, or thoughtless, indifferent parents who neglect their children for their own selfish gain.

These adults who have caused great suffering to their children; their friends, who knowingly or unwittingly sent them into the clutches of the Hidden World, are themselves entitled to a one-way ticket there. And the plunge that the Ferryman speaks of is death. In other words, the Ferryman cannot accompany them because they are too old and he only deals with children. At the brink of death, the souls of these people are dragged across the threshold and reincarnated as Residents and Citizens of that realm, existing in a kind of purgatory

AGNES: An orange glowing came from a candle, but the light didn’t reach the room’s corners. A tiny hole had been cut out of the stone beside Noone. “The snow,” she thought, how nice it would be to watch fall again. She looked through, but there was no snow. [ambience picks up] Only a room, brimming with glass jars. Light danced through them, coming from a doorway on the opposite side... until the same figure stepped through it.

THERAPIST: Wait, who’s Noone?

AGNES: One of the visitors.

🙄

THERAPIST: I don’t quite follow what you mean.

AGNES: That’s just the feeling he gave.

THERAPIST: You keep mentioning this “feeling”. Can you try to explain?

AGNES: You can’t understand! Not unless you were there. You just can’t!

THERAPIST: It’s alright, Adnes. We don’t have to talk about him. Relax. Breathe.

[The sound of Edith taking three expiring and inspiring breaths]

AGNES: Turning from the hole, Noone spotted an exit on the far wall. That’s where the clinking was the loudest. She started towards it when a shadow ran out from the corner. That of a child… she was me.

🏃‍♀️‍➡️

AGNES: She shouted, “Hey, where are we?!”

[Dream Noone: Hey, where are we?!]

AGNES: But quiet as a mouse, I climbed through the pulsing exit. Carelessly she followed me.

[Dream Noone grunts as she hops through the exit]

[Machinery gets louder]

AGNES: The room over was bigger and the child was gone. All over the walls and floors, were more pulsing passages, like living ant tunnels. All kinds of springs laid about, and little oil cans and strange tools.

[Dream Noone gasps]

AGNES: Suddenly, footsteps approaching, matching the rhythm of the clinking. [sound of a wooden crate] Knowing Noone didn’t belong, she hid behind a wooden box.

[A hoard of small footsteps alongside the machinery]

AGNES: Peeking up, she saw other small shadows entering the room. They stepped by each other silently. Most passed into different doors, but two stayed behind, searching through the springs. They were not children, not at all. Even in dim light they remain shadows, things not quite there, as if forgotten, not wanting to be seen.

[Things clicking, cracking, and moving around]

AGNES: They held nasty tools, and their empty faces showed they weren’t very bright. Both stood, looked down a passageway and jumped.

[Dream Noone gets up and follows them]

AGNES: With nowhere to go she did the same, climbing to the platform below.

[Dream Noone lands. The machinery is even louder now]

AGNES: She finally saw was making all that noise. Golden, spinning wheels, fat ones, small ones, skinny ones. And they went down so deep she couldn’t see the end! Noone didn’t know what they were until that faraway feeling came back and told her.

⚙️ ⚙️⚙️⚙️⚙️⚙️⚙️⚙️⚙️

AGNES: They were gears with teeth which locked perfectly into one another, clicking on and on the song. That never stopped. There were hundred hundred of the dull little shadows working to keep the mechanisms going. It Felt, without their doing the gears would surely stop and the giant would break apart stone-by-stone. But as Noone leaned over the edge, distracted, her foot must’ve knocked a wrench.

[A quick clink sound. Dream Noone gasps]

[The wrench falls a long way down]

AGNES: All the shadows stared up and a few began climbing my way. They move separately, but… as one. [Dream Noone breathing quickly] I panicked and tucked between a set of levers, in the tight space my dress got caught [Dream Noone grunts] on the tooth of a massive gear, pulled me up and around until my dress tore [tearing fabric, Dream Noone yelping] shooting me onto a pipe below, where I lost my grip only to hit another platform.

[Dream Noone lands, breathing heavily]

AGNES: The shadows stopped chasing her, working again as they yanked at the piece of her dress, now stuck between two gears, causing all the others to slow.

⚙️⚙️⚙️🤾‍♀️⚙️⚙️

AGNES: While they were bothered, she took the chance to escape.

[Dream Noone running, machinery fades out]

AGNES: The wall in front of her went, went down and around, f-forever and ever, along with the mechanisms. Noone grabbed onto a rod, sliding on, when a big creak [metal groan] groaned above, and the gears went right back to singing their song.

[Machinery starts again]

AGNES: The ripped fabric floated down before her, passing by a tiny crack in the stone. Painful cries came through it. [faint echoey scream] She shouldn’t have wanted to know what was on the other side, but… she did.

[More screaming]

AGNES: A small room with chains covering the floor and three identical nun-like dresses, freshly pressed, hanging by a bed. Then, the chains jangled [Chains jingling, man gasping], and her heart stopped. [Man groans] A frail body slumped against the wall, a chain around his neck. He was right in front of her breathing hard. That’s what I remember most, the awful smell, like when sausage goes bad.

THERAPIST: Hold on a minute, Agnes.

[Edith gasps. Ambience suddenly stops]

THERAPIST: You distinctly smelt his breath?

AGNES: Not his breath. Him. So rotten, it still stings my nose now.

THERAPIST: How certain are you?

AGNES: You told me to tell the truth, no? I am.

[The therapist quickly writing]

AGNES: Do you still want to hear the rest of my nightmare?

[The therapist still writing]

AGNES: Uh… Julia?

THERAPIST: Hm?! O-oh, apologies. My mind was divided and that’s not fair to you.

AGNES: [quiet sigh] Anyways.

🕳️🕳️

AGNES: Looking through that crack, I realized something. (whisper) I was inside the walls like a rat. On the other side was an entire world, (normal) and everything got… w-worse from there.

[Very quiet ticking sound]

AGNES: Lower and lower I climbed until I had gone down so deep that there was nothing but steam and darkness. And louder ticking, back and forth, back and forth. Wanting to give up, I sat listening.

[ticking is more noticeable]

AGNES: Noone had nearly fallen asleep, when suddenly a small shape crawled out from inside the wall below. “Another Worker came for me,” she thought. But… when they looked up… she saw mu eyes. A stranger. For certain this time, I was that same stranger. And… my hair was covered in goo, which made it hard to tell if they were a boy or a girl. Still, Noone climbed down full of energy.

[Dream Noone climbing down]

AGNES: Nearly the amount I used to have.

🙄

AGNES: We stood in silence, a moment. Stuck in their hair was… black liquid moving like smoke.

💨

AGNES: “What’s in your-” [Dream Noone overlapping: What's in your ] she started, [Agnes shushing] but I put a hand over her mouth. Not until I pointed at the wall, did she understand why. It's another crack, led to yet another chamber.

[Dream Noone and Agnes walking over. Metallic hammering starts up]

AGNES: It was a hideous workshop. All around were… half-made… projects? Built from wood and metal, with all kinds of straps and cranks. Their shapes made her chest tighten. A collection of… masks-was on the shelves with screws and spikes on them, positioned to fit perfectly into a mouth!

🧵 🪡

AGNES: A tall woman bent over a new project, [faint humming] wearing a familiar dress. Long heavy chains coming out under its tail. [Chains scraping, more humming] She moaned, enjoying herself. We could feel she’d been at it for hours. Her presence alone told that she was the keeper of the stone giant. Of the world beyond the walls.

🧗‍♀️

AGNES: Turning to a pile of scraps… Noone saw her face. Equally… old and young, and her s-skin stretched back so tight that… only her eyes seemed human. She wanted so badly to know what she was building and to scream all the same…

🏃‍♀️‍➡️🏃‍♀️‍➡️

AGNES: But before she could do either, I pulled Noone away. I pointed up.

🆙

AGNES: From between the planks, a shadow studied us. The child pulled my arm but it was already too late. The Worker leapt down besides me, inspecting my body like a tool, reaching out with its wrench. The child pushed me away, [the sound of burning] letting a sliver of light shine out from the workshop to hit the shadow. Faster than fast, it tucked back into darkness, [sound stops] desperate to keep hidden.

[Pause]

THERAPIST: Agnes, why have you stopped?

AGNES: I’m thinking. …The next bit is hard to describe. The nightmare. It shifted.

[Ambience picks up, earlier sound of machinery]

AGNES: Steam reached around us, and we came to a place at the bottom of the gears, between the walls.

[Whoosh, tick]

[Whoosh, tock]

[Whoosh, tick]

AGNES: In front of us, a long pendulum whooshed back and forth.

[Whoosh, tick]

[Whoosh, tock]

AGNES: Noone grabbed hold as it swung by. She let it go past one, [tick], two, [tock], three times before finding the courage to do the same. We climbed as the pendulum rocked left and right, making her head dizzy. “Just a little more,” Noone repeated to herself, until she reached out a hand to pull her up.

[Both Dream Noone and child grunt as she’s pulled up]

AGNES: We’d made it. Finally, the center of the clock. The room was round with a spiral staircase, and the machine made of little metallic fingers, tapping a violent rhythm.

🙄🙄

AGNES: The ceiling was a white clock face, but… all the numbers were wrong.

😑

AGNES: We immediately ran up the stairs [footsteps] and at the top, we stepped out into a courtyard.

[Dream Noone and Agnes breathing, stepping on grass. Machinery and ticking fades out]

AGNES: Noone’s body began shaking as she heard them. [Faint screaming] Shouts and shrieks of pain. All we could do was stare up at the circular walls, which she had just been inside. This was the true building. There were a million rooms like the second one she peered into, all the way up with hands and limbs reaching out from between the bars that kept them locked in. Her heart pounded like one of them, a Prisoner trying to get free.

[Screaming and shrieking continues]

AGNES: She shouted “Wait, please!”.

[Dream Noone: Wait! Please!]

AGNES: But I was across the courtyard. Then, a jingling. The Tall Woman jumped down from above [jingling, thump] and with thumping steps, she went after me. A chain leapt out beneath her dress, like a snake. It caught their leg and the woman dragged me through the snow, kicking and yelling.

👉

TALL WOMAN: (YELLS!)

💥

[Agnes struggling]

NOONE: No!

🚶🧎‍♀️🚶🚶‍♀️

NOONE: Get away from her!!

🧟‍♂️🧟‍♀️🧟‍♀️🧟🚶‍♀️🧟‍♀️🧟🧟‍♀️

NOONE: Agnes!

🚶🧎‍♀️🚶

AGNES: I wasn’t afraid that much, but Noone… she was scared to tears [Noone: Help!] yelled for help, and the woman spotted her. She began plodding her way and fear froze her feet. Getting closer and closer and all she could think was “Who brought me here, and why was I made to know these secrets?!” [chains jangling]

⛓️⛓️⛓️

AGNES: With skin so tight her mouth opened only a sliver with blackened teeth inside, hungry for something! …Something that swelled inside me.

[All ambience cuts off]

AGNES: …Then I woke up… and never saw Noone again.

😳

THERAPIST: …That’s… awful. Agnes, I am very sorry. The woman in particular sounds… disturbing.

AGNES: Yes, but she didn’t scare me most, not after I woke up, It just… happened.

THERAPIST: Who or what was she?

AGNES: She was a Keeper.

THERAPIST: A Keeper?

AGNES: Wicked creatures who’s in charge of that terrible world; most of them used to be children, until…

😔

THERAPIST: Hm… because they were mindless?

AGNES: No. Because they were hidden. Nobody knew they existed. That’s how I feel sometimes since getting the water sickness, (increasing distress) as if things are in my body. But instead of making me tick they’re killing me, like the bugs in the flower pot- Ugh, I can feel them in my head… and Noone’s head!!!

THERAPIST: Agnes. Listen to me. I’ll do everything within the limits of my command to help you. But there’s nothing bad inside you. Nothing.

AGNES: …um…alright.

THERAPIST: [pause] I have… one more question, and I think it’s enough for your first day, okay?

AGNES: Okay.

THERAPIST: Agnes, have you ever heard of mutual dreaming?

AGNES: Mutual dreaming?

THERAPIST: Sharing the… experience with another person.

AGNES: How could what’s in my head be in someone else’s head? And who would I share it with?

THERAPIST: Questions that have hounded my outer colleagues for years. Your perception of temperature and smell while dreaming is sometimes thought to be an indicator of this transpersonal phenomenon. While I’m not convinced of its ontological validity, I’ve longed to study a case like yours. Unfortunately, I’ve only known one other person to exhibit this building years ago.

AGNES: Who? Were they like me?

THERAPIST: Something like that. This building use to be a facility for children like you; children with a dream disorder… before it became a therapy center.

THERAPIST: You know, they actually have the exact same theory as you. The creatures and places exist for a reason. In places such as the “Nowhere”, the Maw exists because it has hunger; the Pale City exists because it has a desire for escape and greed; the Necropolis exists because it has fear and wrath; the Metronome exists because it has pride; the Wilderness exists because it has safety and peace; Carnevale exists because it has violence; the Nest exists because it has laziness and luxury. Believe it or not, these places are quite similar to the 7 Deadly Sins of… you know. Like Lust, Greed, Sloth, Pride, Gluttony, Envy, and Wrath.

🗒️📝

THERAPIST: Places like the Maw, the Pale City, the Necropolis were not actually built, but were dreamed into this vast world of the Hidden World. This is how the Hidden World differs from the Real World. It's no surprise that everything seems distorted and large, for example the scale. Seen through the eyes of a small, frightened child, the child does not seem to belong in this world at all.

🌃

THERAPIST: The Keepers of the Dark Realm, or Overlords, were children who became living vessels of dark power, seizing it when they had the chance, and then growing into adults with enormous control over vast geographical areas and all other mutants within them. Those below them could also be Keepers; or Greater Residents, as they have their own realm and it seems like that area is pretty vast. Another defining feature of the Residents is that many of them seem to acquire unique abilities such as: Very long or stretchy limbs, telekinesis, levitation, shapeshifting, future prediction, teleportation, telepathy, or more commonly resistance to gravity. However, you will notice that they do not seem to have the same dark powers that the Keepers use.

🧑‍🧑‍🧒🧑‍🧑‍🧒‍🧒🧑‍🧒‍🧒

THERAPIST: These are also children who survived to grow up and be twisted, warped, and changed by the Mutant Universe, but they never joined the biological structure. And so come those who lack power, identity and more importantly, come in very large groups. These groups include: The Guest of the Maw, the Patrons of the Bathhouse, the Citizens of the City, the Viewers of the Pale City, the Spectators of the Carnival, the Subjects of the Wilderness, the Dwellers of Necropolis, the Locals of Metronome, Workers of the Factory, the Students of the School, the Patient of the Hospital, and the Burgher of the Nest.

🗒️

THERAPIST: The Maw, however, actually represents Gluttony - according to my previous customers.

🌉

THERAPIST: Does this seem familiar to you?

🌉

EDIE: I can’t say… that I haven’t. It happened last year.

I visited the ring of Gluttony itself. Of course, it wasn’t much of a ring than I expected it would be… or a city, it was more like a hull submarine of the Maw - a large cruise submarine with a restaurant that floats above the waves. Climbing onto the hull, a little girl in a yellow raincoat sees a procession of plump, suited-up guests entering the Maw from another ship. Where my demon… becomes hungry.

🤤

THERAPIST: I’m sorry, your demon?

📓

They slowly make their way to Japanese-style dining areas, where they savor hearty meals. The banquet is presided over by the Maw's masked hostess, the mysterious woman from a little girl's dream. When she feels hungry again, the gnome offers her a sausage, which she eats.

🚢🌊🌊🌊🌊🌊🚣‍♀️

EDIE (musing to herself): What is this place? A feast... a banquet. But the gluttony here is more than just food—it’s something darker. A hunger for power, for control, for more.

I climbs the steel ladder onto the hull of the Maw, feeling the salty sea breeze against my skin. The ship seems to pulse with life as plump, well-dressed guests, each wearing the same tailored suits, make their way into the Maw.

📻

SCIENTISTS: The Maw functions like a luxury metal cruise ship, but is designed vertically like a skyscraper. This allows it to float like an iceberg, with only the chimney exposed above the waterline and the majority of the ship submerged. However, when passengers need to board, the Maw can rise above the waterline, revealing a shell-like entrance. The Maw can also be partially submerged and anchored. When submerged, it resembles a small rock with a door. At the top is a chimney from which black smoke spews.

Like a real ship, the Maw is tossed about by the waves, sometimes even causing objects to roll across the room. It also has a watertight door at the bottom to prevent water from entering the ship in the event of a flood. The trailer also has a porthole that allows for a view of the outside world. As seen in an unknown film "Hideaway," the Maw is steam-powered and has a powerful coal-fired engine. As seen in concept art, the Maw appears to be self-propelled, driven not by propellers but by black smoke. Any unused smoke is expelled from a single chimney at the top of the Maw. A giant fishing net trails behind the Maw, used to capture large aquatic creatures, as seen in the kitchen. The Maw also houses generators, providing power to various light sources and elevators throughout the area.

Interestingly, while the Maw's main inhabitants are gigantic compared to the missing raincoat-wearing girl, there are numerous structures and areas throughout the Maw that are easily accessible to smaller creatures. This includes padlocks on floor-level doors and small ladders.

The first four areas are separated by large canyons, creating the illusion of a vast city within the Maw. They are connected by rails with hooks for travel between areas. An elevator directly connects the guest area to the Geisha's area, which is directly above the other area and can be viewed from a balcony.

And speaking of the Geisha, she keeps the engine running, hypnotizing with graceful restraint. Amid the chaos of the outside world, the Maw was the only place that made sense. And now, rumors of an escaped child threaten everything. No one must stand in the way. The guests must eat. The Maw must survive.

The Guests, on the other hand, are an essential part of the Maw's life cycle. They are gathered in the great hall, slumped in chairs, and there they eat. There is no taste, no need, no end. And then, one way or another, they leave.

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EDIE (narrating in her journal): As I climbed the hull, I saw them—a parade of indulgence, moving slowly to the entrance. The guests were not hungry in the usual sense. No, their desire was for something deeper, something that could not be fed in ordinary ways. They shuffled with purpose, eager to reach their destination... the feast that awaited inside.

[The guests file into the Maw’s grand dining halls, where the air is rich with the scent of delicious, yet overpowering, food. It’s a scene out of a twisted dream, each guest savoring the meal like a ritual.]

EDIE (writing in her journal): They devour everything. Everything served is sweet, salty, rich, and heavy. Their bodies reflect their indulgence—round, bloated, and barely able to move. But they do not care, because they are being fed in more ways than one. They sit at tables beneath golden chandeliers, their faces masked in pleasure as they consume.

At the head of the table, a masked hostess greets each guest. She is impossibly serene, wearing an elaborate Japanese-style kimono, her face hidden behind a delicate white mask. It is The Geisha—the woman from a little girl's dreams, the one who has haunted her every thought.

EDIE (noticing the Geisha, whispering): It’s her… the woman I’ve seen. The Geisha. She’s the one who presides over this banquet. But why? What is the true nature of the Maw?

The Geisha’s eyes meet mine for a brief, unsettling moment, as if she already knows the girl’s and mine presence is no accident. The guests continue to indulge, ignoring the outside world and the silent tension in the air.

As my stomach churns, I feels a strange pull, a deep hunger that has nothing to do with food. It is the hunger for answers, for the truth behind this twisted universe.

[Suddenly, a small gnome approaches her, holding a steaming sausage in his hand. Agnes’ stomach growls again—she feels the pull of the Maw’s strange energy. Reluctantly, she takes the sausage and begins to eat.]

EDIE (writing in her journal): The sausage tastes like nothing I’ve ever eaten before. It is savory and filling, but there’s something more, something beneath the flavor... a whisper that travels through me with each bite. It’s as if the Maw itself is inside me now. As I eat, I open my journal and begin to write. I must remember everything, even the dark things.

[Edie continues to write in her journal as she watches the banquet unfold, her words flowing with each thought that comes to her.]

📓

[As she writes, the sound of the students laughing and the wailing of the guests blend into the background, the once peaceful feast now a strange carnival of distorted souls. Edie’s gaze drifts once again to the Geisha.]

EDIE (writing in her journal): The Geisha watches me as I write, and I wonder... is she watching everyone, or only those who see through the veil?

The Geisha tilts her head slightly, acknowledging mine presence as though she understands. The air around them is thick with something ancient, something primal. The Maw is more than a ship. It is a mirror to the desires of its passengers, to their hunger for something that will never be fully satisfied.

EDIE (closing her journal): I’m not sure how long I’ll last here. How much of me will be left after I’ve crossed this line. But there’s no turning back now. The Maw is pulling me in, and I must follow it to the end.

SCIENTIST: The first chapter is about a girl in a yellow raincoat awakens inside a horrific nightmare about a woman wearing a kimono and a Noh mask. Armed with only a lighter, she sneaks into the depths of the Maw, a gigantic underwater iron ship. Inside the Maw, she encounters gnomes, small, timid creatures that either run away from her or watch her every move. If she manages to get close to one, she can embrace it. In a prison housing captured children, Six must escape flesh-eating leeches nesting deep within the cell and prosthetic eyes that turn her to stone when exposed to light. She is also periodically overcome by debilitating hunger. A faint, flickering shadow of herself appears every time she eats. After consuming the remaining meat in her cage, Six is captured by a blind, long-armed janitor named Roger; guarding the captive children. She escapes but makes no attempt to save the other children. She falls into a room filled with piles of shoes, escaping an invisible monster lurking beneath them. The janitor finally corners Six, but a collapsing door slices off his arm.

Hunger strikes again, forcing Six to eat a live rat. She heads to the kitchen, where children have been sent in wrapped in paper. Six escapes as grotesque twin chefs prepare a banquet. She makes her way outside and makes her way through the waves to the hull of the Maw. Climbing the hull, Six witnesses a procession of obese, suited guests entering the Maw from another boat. They slowly make their way to Japanese-style seating, where they savor their fill. The banquet is hosted by the masked landlady of the Maw, the mysterious woman from Six's dream. When hunger strikes again, a gnome offers Six a sausage; Six eats the gnome.

Six follows the lady to her room, littered with broken mirrors. Pursued by the Lady, Six finds an unbroken mirror and uses it to fend her off. Seeing her own reflection, the Lady succumbs to pain. As she lies defenseless, Six's final hunger overcomes him. He bites into the Lady's neck, killing her and absorbing her magical powers. Surrounded by an aura of dark magic, Six returns to the guest area. Some guests attempt to eat her, but are instantly killed by her newfound power. Six passes through the door and up the stairs into the sunlight. Meanwhile, all of the gnomes she was holding gather around the open doorway. In the end, Six waits at the entrance to the Maw as the sound of a foghorn can be heard in the distance.

What was Six’s greatest fear? And why was there a Geisha involved?

🗒️

Six’s Greatest Fear

Six’s greatest fear is becoming the thing she hates most — prey turned predator, child turned monster, victim turned abuser.

• Every time hunger gnaws at her, she slips closer to losing her humanity. It begins innocently: scraps of meat. Then vermin. Then a living creature (the rat). Then finally, betrayal: the gnome who offers her food. By the end, she consumes the Lady herself.

• That flickering shadow after every meal? That’s her soul fracturing, her fear made flesh. She dreads what she is becoming, but she keeps feeding.

Her “greatest nightmare” is not the Janitor, the Chefs, or even the Guests. Those are external terrors. The real horror is her own appetite. She fears herself.

Why the Geisha?

The Lady, with her Noh mask and kimono, is no random villain. She is both:

1. The Source of Power in the Maw. She is the one who maintains this cycle of endless hunger and consumption. Her mirror-smashing habit suggests she cannot face herself — a visual metaphor for repression, vanity, and shame.

2. A Reflection of Six’s Future. The Lady is not just a boss; she is what Six risks becoming. Both of them are small compared to the Guests. Both carry elegance amidst horror. Both wield terrible power. When Six devours the Lady and takes her aura, it’s a twisted inheritance — she kills her nightmare, but also embraces it.

And why a Geisha specifically? Because a Geisha is bound by performance, by mask, by servitude disguised as grace. It fits the Maw’s themes: the Guests consume endlessly, and the Lady entertains endlessly. A ritual of indulgence and denial. Her mask denies identity, her kimono imprisons her form, her role is to sustain the Maw’s grotesque life-cycle.

Six, in slaying her, is not escaping. She is claiming the role.

The Terrifying Punchline

Six’s fear is not being eaten. It is that she will eat — and never stop.
The Geisha is her shadow, her warning, her mother-figure, and her destiny. By the end, Six steps into sunlight, but that sunlight is not salvation. It is exposure. She is the new Maw now.

EDIE (thinking to herself): The Pale City... a town so quiet and eerie, it's as if it's been forgotten by time itself. The fog is thick, the air heavy, and the only sound is the relentless drizzle. How did I get here? I had no choice but to keep going, to escape one nightmare only to walk straight into another.

I survey the murky town ahead as the door floats closer to the shore. I pulls myself onto the gravel, now standing in the center of a dilapidated, forgotten town. Everywhere I look, there are old televisions strewn across the streets, their screens flickering with static.

• [She approaches the first TV, placing her hand on the cold glass.]

EDIE: The televisions... I need them. A portal, perhaps? To get to the hallway from the boy's dream. I have to see if this works.

The screen shimmers, the image distorts, and for a moment, I see the faint outline of a hallway. But it disappears just as quickly, leaving behind only static. As I turn, I notice something strange. Ghostly, glitchy figures of children—distorted and broken—stand in the corners of the streets.

EDIE (whispering): Children... ghostly echoes... is this what the Nowhere has done to them?

I move toward one of the figures. As my fingers make contact with the cold air, I feels something shift within me. The glitchy figure begins to melt into me, as though I was absorbing their essence. But the feeling is... unsettling.

EDIE (grimacing): It’s happening again... This place... it makes me part of it, consumes me with each step.

• [FLASHBACK: Edie’s journal entry appears on the screen]

Back in the journal, The Guides of the Wilderness: A Source of Good who spend their lives servicing the Living and navigating the Dark Realms of the Universe. Once targeted by the Entity, the Guide's pure hearts withstand the Evil Unleashed upon them and instead of being Transformed into a Mutant, they are safe and become Guides. They lose their original identities and take on a face of an Animal; possessing one of their dominant traits.

I shake my head, trying to rid myself of the chilling thought as I move deeper into the city.

[Scene: The Hospital]

I finds myself standing in front of an old, abandoned hospital. The air is thick with the smell of decay, and the walls are cracked.

SCIENTIST: Mono, a boy wearing a paper bag on his head, wakes inside a nightmare in which he finds a marked door at the end of a hallway. He travels through the wilderness and enters a dilapidated shack. The hunter pursues him, cornering him and killing him with a shotgun. Using the door as a raft, Mono float across the water and arrive in the Pale City, shrouded in mist and rain and littered with old televisions. During his journey, Mono attempts to use the television as a portal to enter the hallway from his dream, but is pulled back before reaching the door. Mono also encounters the ghostly remains of glitching children, whom he is able to absorb through interaction.

Mono enter the school, lived by the school's violent students, the Ceramic Bullies. Mono escape from the long-necked teacher. Outside the school, Mono arrive at the hospital, where they encounter mannequin-like patients, their severed "living hands," and a bulbous Doctor crawling across the ceiling. The Thing lures the Doctor into an incinerator, offering the option of killing him or imprisoning him. The Thing and Mono escape to the center of Pale City. He discover a signal tower, which emits a wide-ranging radio wave that controls the city's residents, its TV-addicted viewers. The viewers' faces are distorted by prolonged exposure. The Thing finally passes through the television and reaches a door, which opens, revealing a thin-skinned man called the Broadcaster. As the Thing is pulled out of the television, the Broadcaster also appears and captures Mono. The Thing approaches the signal tower and comes face to face with the thin-skinned man. Realizing he possesses similar powers to the Broadcaster, Mono throws off his bag and crushes the Broadcaster in the battle, drawing the Signal Tower toward him.

Mono enters the Signal Tower and finds a twisted giant. When Mono destroys the music box, she turns against the giant, but Mono destroys it, restoring her to normal. As the Signal Tower begins to crumble, Mono are pursued by its core, a gelatinous mass of flesh and eyeballs. He tries to flee, but sending him falling into the valley below, before escaping through a television portal. Surrounded by the mass, Mono sits in a lonely chair and accepts his fate. As time passes, Mono grows taller and gradually corrupted by the Signal Tower's influence, eventually becoming the Broadcaster. In a dream, the adult Mono sits in a room at the end of the hallway and the door closes.

🗒️

Why the Broadcaster?

• The Broadcaster is Mono’s shadow-self, the embodiment of what happens if he loses his fight against the Tower.

• Notice how the Broadcaster doesn’t kill Mono outright when he captures him — he studies him, drags him through televisions, shows him the Tower’s influence. It’s not hatred, it’s recognition: you are me, and I am you.

• When Mono rips off his paper bag to fight him, it’s symbolic. The bag was always a shield, a mask. By discarding it, Mono faces his own reflection head-on. And when he defeats the Broadcaster, he isn’t destroying the threat — he’s assuming the role.

Mono’s Greatest Fear

Beneath the monsters and the darkness, Mono’s nightmare is simple:

• To be powerless, to be consumed by the cycle, to lose himself.

• Every glitching child he absorbs, every shadow he carries, foreshadows his erasure. They are echoes of kids who couldn’t escape. And Mono feels that weight every time.

• The Signal Tower is the ultimate trap — not a place of death, but of transformation. It doesn’t kill children. It recycles them.

For Mono, the true terror isn’t dying. It’s enduring. Surviving long enough to be reshaped into the very monster he feared.

Why the Broadcaster, and not another enemy?

Because the Tower doesn’t need a new villain. It only needs the next one in line.

Mono’s whole story is a cautionary tale about cycles:

• He ran from the Hunter.

• He outwitted the Teacher.

• He incinerated the Doctor.

• He crushed the Broadcaster.

But at the end of every victory, the Tower had only one question for him:
"Will you resist me… or will you become me?"

And in the chair, as time stretches, he becomes.

Entering through an abandoned mirror, A mysterious desert and one of the first dystopian lands encountered in the Spiral - a dark machine engineered by the Natives, dark and ink-filled creatures that help design the Nowhere. To us, most people call them Toons - considering that they’re made of ink. With strong winds blowing sand all around, the area is surrounded by a foggy tint of yellow.

📻

SCIENTIST: While the Necropolis starts off as a seemingly endless desert with various stones and debris scattered about, including numerous suitcases and their contents. The giant ruin is overflowing with windmills, sails, and other wind powered mechanisms that continue to turn under their own power. A stone wall will be met somewhere along the journey through it. The wall depicts window like spaces with fishing nets and equipment hanging from the ledges and corners of the wall. On the other side of the wall, sits the city of Necropolis, now a crumbling and destroyed city with petrified stone bodies inside various homes. Run by a Monster Baby - an enormous lost dolly endlessly searching for another plaything in the ruins of a civilization.

🪞

INT. AN ABANDONED MIRROR — TWILIGHT

A cracked, full-length mirror stands alone in the darkness. It hums. Beckons. Edie touches the glass—And is pulled through.

EXT. THE NECROPOLIS — SANDSTORM

The mirror shatters behind her. Now: sand. Endless, yellow fog-tinted sand. The wind howls like a choir of lost souls. Shattered suitcases litter the terrain. Their contents strewn like confetti at a funeral.

NARRATOR (V.O.): Here lies the Necropolis. A desert not of time, but of memory. Windmills creak without wind. Sails twist without mast. Civilization lies sunken beneath the dust—its bones picked clean by the Spiral’s storms. Towering stone walls rise from the storm. Nets dangle. Rusted tools. Forgotten things. A city waits on the other side. Or its ghost.

INT. CITY OF NECROPOLIS — MIDDAY (ETERNAL)

A dead city, crumbling and gray. Homes sealed like tombs. Inside: stone bodies, petrified in gestures of fear. Mouths agape. Hands clutching rosaries, curtains, one another.

NARRATOR (V.O.): The Dwellers. Giants once. Some still stand, others shattered. Scarves wrap their necks like nooses. The ones in bags did not turn to stone. They were preserved. Perhaps by choice. Perhaps by her. In the streets, a shadow stomps. Gigantic and childish. A towering doll with cracked porcelain cheeks and a hollow laugh. The Monster Baby. She searches, forever, for another playmate. She has outlived her creators. Or devoured them.

EXT. NECROPOLIS RUINS — MOMENTS LATER

Edie crouches beside a dead tree. Her pen dances once again.

EXT. HARBOR – NIGHTFALL

Waves crash against barnacle-eaten docks. Edie’s stands at the foot of a crumbling fishing village. The harbor glows with the light of oil lamps and decay. Buildings lean like tired elders. Water stains mark the walls like flood-borne scars.

🌊🌊🌊🏊‍♀️🌊🌊🌊🌊🌊

Feeling some sense of security, she waits there for the sunrise. Looking outside, I find myself at the Harbor, at the foot of a local fishing village. It is a dilapidated place, old souls decaying, and water marks reveal the traces of floods. Within this harbor, I left the ship and travels deeper inland. There she begins to come into contact with other people: Sorted, manic, but still human. Each time the novelist enters an orderly building, the whole place feels colder.

The inhabitants of this place seem obsessed with teeth, making numerous drawings of perfect teeth. Strange for such a crooked place, some teeth shine even brighter than normal, almost metallic. The further inland he travels, the more alienated I feel. Eyes are everywhere, figuratively and literally. During his journey, I find barnacles staring at her. The further I gets from the ship's influence, the fewer barnacles I encounter.

📓

• MONTAGE – THE LAST CHAPTERS OF THE MUTANTS

INT. EDIE’S NOTEBOOK – VARIOUS

A worn notebook opens. Pen scratches pages. The pages unfurl into vivid scenes…

EXT. FOREST DEPTHS – DUSK

📖

INT. EDGE OF THE HARBOR – NIGHT

A towering bathhouse looms. Crimson eyes peer from its carvings. EDIE hesitates.

The door is a wound. The mouth of the structure grins.

🏨

On the edge of the Harbor, there was a huge building that seemed out of place. It was large and ornate, towering over me, as if taunting me to enter. Its door was crimson, and equally crimson eyes watched it. The door seemed to lift, wriggle, and could not be opened. Even the clock atop the building resembled an eye, and the surrounding bricks, windows, and doors resembled an open mouth. I decided to follow my instinct again and enter through a different entrance.

🚪

INT. ORDERLY BUILDING – NIGHT

Inside, the walls are cold. The furniture is neat — obsessively so. People shuffle about, muttering, smiling wide — teeth too perfect, too polished. Drawings of molars, incisors, and canines hang like saints. Teeth everywhere.

🛁🛀🛀🛁🛀🛀🛀🛁🛀🛀🛁🛀🛁

The Bathhouse becomes home to strangers who entered the port years ago and quickly found their place. Strangers who made their fortunes in sales, boat licenses, and dentistry. Inside the lobby is a hallway. This waiting room has no floor. It was torn away years ago, replaced by a sea of dentist clients. They stand shoulder to shoulder, their faces facing the sky. These very faces create a new floor, stitched together, and even a visit to the dentist requires walking across it. On the first floor, layers of papers and filing cabinets are scattered around a desk like bodyguards.

🚶‍♀️

INT. BATHHOUSE – FIRST FLOOR – NIGHT

A warped waiting room. No floor. Just faces. Upturned. Stitched together. Breathing. Waiting.

The DENTIST’s OFFICE looms ahead, lit by sterile white light.

🚪🚪🚪🚪🚪🚪🚪

INT. BATHHOUSE – SECOND FLOOR – LATER

Clean. Too clean. A museum of obsessive order. Every object sorted, labeled. Portraits show a child, blindfolded, shackled — standing next to the corpse downstairs.

🪜

A dead person hunches over the desk, almost like a desk decoration. The room on the other side is the dentist's area, where the lobby's denizens wait to be admitted. This is where the dentist, the antagonist of the first floor, is located. On this floor, the novelist will see how messy, twisted, and distorted everything is. This will be a shock when they ascend to the second floor, where a clean-freak, family-oriented perfectionist lives. He organizes everything in every conceivable way, including alphabetical order by color. Everything on the shell is arranged with precision and cleanliness in mind.

🧑‍🧒🧑‍🧑‍🧒‍🧒🧑‍🧑‍🧒‍🧒🧑‍🧒‍🧒🧑‍🧑‍🧒‍🧒🧑‍🧑‍🧒‍🧒🧑‍🧑‍🧒🧑‍🧑‍🧒🧑‍🧒‍🧒🧑‍🧑‍🧒‍🧒🧑‍🧑‍🧒‍🧒

INT. BATHHOUSE – SECOND FLOOR – NIGHT

Edie passes between rows of shelves lined with organized chaos: jars labeled with teeth types, bones arranged by density, drawers sorted by scream frequency.

A PORTRAIT stares at her from the wall: a child, bound and blindfolded, forced to smile.

🎞️

INT. SECOND FLOOR – HALLWAY – CONTINUOUS

Edie sees tiny marks — signs of resistance. A desk drawer left ajar. Books slightly out of order. A trail. She follows it to a lift — gilded, glowing faintly.

🚶‍♀️

A NOTE reads: "ONLY PERFECTION ASCENDS."

🗜️🗜️🗜️🗜️🫷

The portraits even reveal his obsessive tendencies from childhood. In the portrait on the first floor, he is blindfolded, his hands bound, and his senses blocked. This allows him to stand next to the dead man's desk from downstairs, demonstrating that he cannot even leave his desk for the family portrait due to his work. To accommodate his perfectionism, I need to keep things messy. Therefore, during her pursuits, she must stop to organize them. Even in places invisible to the perfectionist, there are items organized by size and number. He acts as the guardian of this mysterious elevator, which must be perfect to reach the perfect place. There are other ways to get there, but they require passing through fog and the ocean itself.

EXT. THE CARNEVALE — NIGHTFALL, POURING RAIN

Thunder roars above the sky-bound ship. The rain lashes against wooden planks and torn tents. Lanterns sway from frayed ropes. The air is thick with carnival musk: popcorn, sugar, sweat, and rot.

📻

EDIE: The Carnevale is more than just a town; it’s a fun fair built off of anger itself, filled with stalls and stands alike and wagons, with the Herd crowding the grounds of the establishment in the pouring rain in Wrath. A group of thundering fellows, all the wrong shape, with faces like bad drawings come to life. The Herd trundles endlessly through the Carnevale, always looking for a new bit of fun to snatch up and gobble down. They slowly move from stall to stall in search of distraction and entertainment while chowing down on candy and stale popcorn. Their plump bodies filling entire seats to watch a performance in the tents, all the while crushing and spilling into one another. They may even become the entertainment from time to time. When someone goes missing, few would care to notice. Poles are constructed around the fair, decorated with hanging props and connected with bright string lights. The fair itself is littered with snacks all over the floor.

INSERT: JOURNAL ENTRIES — MUTANT LORE CONTINUES

📖

EXT. THE CARNEVALE — LATER THAT NIGHT

The sky grows darker, more chaotic. Strings of lights blink and fizz. Laughter grows louder—meaner.

NARRATOR (V.O.): She turns another page. The air shifts. The Puppets arrive.

📖

After a few chapters, she encounters the Puppets.

📻

SCIENTIST: The Puppets; child-sized Puppets, wooden creatures with a life of their own, unattached to visible strings or manipulative hands. They are only interested in catering to the Herd, and they will happily tear up your tickets if you get too close. The Puppets don’t much care about the wellbeing of their customers, only that they are kept busy. The Carnevale is a massive ship located high up in the sky, as evident by the clouds seen throughout the Carnevale, the giant wooden masts, the wooden floor, lower decks, and constant swaying of the ship.

💥

OWLLEY CAT: Why you gotta keep ghosting me like that?!

EDIE: Why do you keep chasing me?

OWLLEY CAT: Ain't nobody stickin' 'round for good!

EDIE: And yet, I’m still here. So, technically, that really does make me inhuman.

OWLLEY CAT: What? No! That… Are you…?

🗡️

EDIE: Tatakau? Sōda!

🦉

OWLLEY CAT: "Seigi no tame ni tatakau”? Yo, my dude, you’re killin’ it...

🏘️🏘️🏘️🏘️🏘️🏘️

EDIE: All around the Carnevale, numerous lights can be seen shining. In addition, various wooden caravans with big yellow wheels can be seen all around, along with colorful fabrics. Many different games and booths are spread about, along with a number of attractions, such as a giant Ferris wheel and giant circus tents where performers can perform. One circus tent is referred to as the “Big Top”. A giant circus tent where the Man in the Purple Suit forces children to preform.

The inside is filled with seats for the audience, all of which were too small for their large bodies. Each of the performing children were illuminated by a large spotlight in the room whenever it was their turn. A single tear in the ceiling can be reached if someone climbs up a pole at the center of the stage.

🎪

INT. THE BIG TOP — NIGHT

A monstrously oversized circus tent. A crimson maw beneath the clouds. Inside, the Herd sit crushed into rows of undersized seats, their gluttonous weight overflowing. A child steps forward into the ring. A spotlight crashes down. The child trembles. Music creaks alive from an unseen calliope.

NARRATOR (V.O.): The Man in the Purple Suit watches from the shadows. His cane clicks. His mouth doesn’t smile—but it wants to. Each child is paraded under the lights. Forced to sing, dance, act—whatever the Man demands. When one falters, the Puppets drag them offstage. When one cries, the Herd laughs harder. In the center of the ring, a pole juts skyward. Just above: a tear in the ceiling. Not fabric—but sky. A way out?

EXT. THROUGHOUT THE CARNEVALE — CONTINUOUS

Wooden caravans painted in sickly hues. Yellow wheels turning slowly. Banners flapping like flayed skin. A Ferris wheel groans to life—with no passengers. Booths blink with broken bulbs.

NARRATOR (V.O.): Above the wooden masts, clouds swirl. This is no fairground—it is a flying ark for the forgotten and the grotesque. The sky sways beneath it. The world below no longer matters.

INT. THE FILMMAKER’S CABIN — LATER

The Filmmaker scribbles by candlelight. Her journal damp but legible. She does not tremble. Her eyes blaze with a hunger stronger than fear.

EDIE (V.O.): The Carnevale is not the end. It’s just another chapter. A performance. A warning. Somewhere, there’s still a story to finish.

🎡🎢🎪🎠🤹‍♀️

SCIENTIST: In her dream, the girl in the yellow raincoat runs away from someone and locks herself in a shed, propping up the door with boards. She wakes up to find that the balloon she was riding in has crashed through the roof of a mansion called "The Nest," bursting, trapping her in the rubble. She pulls a lever overhead, causing the balloon's remains to fall to the floor. The girl then continues on foot.

On her way, she encounters a girl in white clothes running through a pipe leading to a ventilation shaft. Running through a cell storeroom, she rescues a child wearing a red scarf. There, she encounters "The Craftsman," an elderly man with long limbs and a disability. Escaping this monster, the girl manages to hide in one of the boxes used to store dolls. The box is then taken by elevator to the building of a butler with telekinetic powers. The heroine manages to escape him and hide in the hallway of "The Pretender," the pampered little mistress who manages The Nest.

The Girl finally reaches the front door of the nest, but the Butler soon spots her and begins to pursue her. She runs out into the garden, where the telekinetic Butler hurls objects at her head and sides for a while. The Girl in White helps her escape the Butler. She and the Girl open the gate and cross a ditch. Her new partner falls behind, and the Heroine, believing she is being pursued by the Butler, locks herself in the barn.

After making her way through a pile of dolls, the Girl accidentally attracts the attention of the Pretender, who is sitting on the edge of a cliff holding a broken doll. Reacting aggressively to the Heroine, she pursues her without regard for her own safety. Undeterred by the danger, the Girl in the Raincoat saves her surviving "partner," the one in white, from falling onto a sharp rock and gratefully hurls a rock at the Pretender. For several seconds, the Girls stare at her. Unharmed, she suddenly stands up and attacks the Heroine. However, both of them lost their balance and fell into the sea, drowning.

In the end, a girl in white (who was actually Six) is shown running up to the raft and floating away.

What was the girl in the yellow raincoat‘s greatest fear? Why the Pretender?

🗒️

The girl’s Greatest Fear 🌧️

The girl fears abandonment more than anything else. The isolation that robs her of self. Every time she reaches out. She does not fear death so much as being left to die alone.

And worse: she fears what she might become in the void of loneliness. Someone who clings to substitutes. Someone who arranges dolls instead of friends. Someone who pretends.

Why the Pretender? 🧑‍🧑‍🧒

The Pretender is a funhouse reflection of the girl herself.

• Both are little girls, trapped in big, broken houses.

• Both are abandoned by parents (or anyone who should protect them).

• Both fill the void with stand-ins: Six clings to fleeting companions, the Pretender to dolls.

• Both are consumed by rage when their fragile illusions are broken.

Where the girl hides her vulnerability under the raincoat, the Pretender hides hers under powder, blush, lipstick — a mask of adulthood on a child’s face. One survives through performance, the other through detachment.

The Pretender is the girl’s warning: “This is what you will become if you surrender to loneliness.” A child still, but monstrous, spoiled, violent, lashing out at anything that threatens the fragile illusion of “family.”

The Drowning 🌊

Notice how it ends: neither defeats the other. Instead, both fall into the sea — swallowed, as if by the unconscious itself. But the girl in white (the true Six) survives, running to the raft. The Nest leaves her with a lesson etched into her bones:

• Do not cling to dolls.

• Do not drown in illusion.

• Better to drift alone on the raft than to rot in the house pretending.

And yet, the tragedy is that the girl will not learn it fully. Her fear of abandonment never leaves her.

After traveling through the screen, I notice that the balloon on which I flew pierced the roof of a mansion called The Nest, bursting and stuck among the wreckage. I then pulls the lever above me, causing the remains of the balloon to crash to the floor. After that, she continues on foot.

🏰

On the way, she comes face to face with a girl in white running through the pipes to the ventilation opening. Having run through the cell warehouse, she rescues a child in a red scarf, thus encountering the Craftsman, an old disabled man with long arms and legs. Running away from this monster, she manages to hide in one of the boxes for dolls, sent by elevator to the buildings of the Butler, who has the gift of telekinesis. I managed to get away from him, hiding in the halls of the Pretender - the little spoiled mistress managing the Nest.

📻

SCIENTIST: The Nest - a tall, narrow mansion stands atop a rocky mountain jutting out of the sea in the Ring of Sloth. Adjacent to it is a vast garden filled with statues and potted plants. The entire garden is surrounded by a gated fence, which itself is surrounded by an electric fence. Given these defenses, the easiest way to infiltrate the mansion is from the air. Beyond the fence is a deep ditch lit by randomly placed streetlights and a shed connected by a suspension bridge.

The mansion is clearly in disrepair, with many holes in the walls and sections of the floor missing. The game begins in the mansion's attic, where pigeons have built a nest. Deep within the mansion is a large dumpster containing objects the size of airplane wreckage. The mansion has its own power source, with numerous electrical appliances plugged into outlets on each floor.

👨‍🦽

SCIENTIST: The Craftsman appears as an elderly man bound to a small purple wheelchair. He has long, light gray hair, long arms and legs (though not as long as the Janitor's), and fingers with long, black nails. His long legs appear to be nonfunctional, with his feet twisted backwards and his toes bent and pointing downwards. He wears a white surgical mask and red goggles, a dark gray-green outfit, and a brown apron.

The Craftsman's long arms allow him to reach high shelves, but being bound to his wheelchair makes it difficult for him to see objects up high. He can use one arm (sometimes one arm) to drag himself, but he cannot avoid obstacles that get in the way of his wheelchair, forcing him to take detours when he hits a dead end. If he manages to reach a prisoner or intruder while she is on the ground, he will run her over with his wheelchair.

🧎‍♀️ 🕴️

SCIENTIST: Here, we have the Butler. The Butler is a tall, slender humanoid, always hunched over, with his arms locked behind his back in gold handcuffs. He has very pale skin, a thinning scalp, and a small patch of hair. He wears a dark gray tuxedo and matching shoes, and is telekinetic, appearing to hover above the ground at all times. He always bows to his mistress, but his patience for the filthy little animals that cross his path is... lacking.

The Butler hates those who are sneaking around the palace. This personality trait is clearly displayed in various scenes throughout the game, where he uses his telekinesis to eliminate intruders at every opportunity. However, contrary to this attitude, the Butler shows a strong loyalty to his mistress, the Pretender. In fact, the Butler always obeys his mistress and carries out her orders.

🧑‍🧑‍🧒

SCIENTIST: The Pretender seems to be a young child, about the height of every young Visitor in the Nowhere. Her white skin contrasts beautifully with the red lipstick on her lips and the pink blush on her cheeks. Her white hair is curled at the ends, with thick bangs covering her eyes, and her short ponytail is tied back with a gray band. She wears a green dress with a white jabot over it, and dark green shoes.

The Pretender is presented as a typical spoiled rich kid. Unlike the mild-mannered noblewoman and the broadcaster, the Pretender is violent and often portrayed screaming in rage. She is obsessed with dolls, and is very particular about the placement of her dolls, using up an entire room to accommodate as many dolls as possible in her daily life. If a doll is out of place, like the one with the red scarf in the dining room, the Pretender will not hesitate to get angry. Contrary to her temperament, the Pretender expresses guilt and sadness as she cries alone on a bench over a broken doll.

Apart from the gnomes, this fake girl seems to be the only resident in the residential area. However, there are frames of other children and (implicitly) frames of the girl's parents displayed all over the place. After her parents’ disappearance, she was left alone in her mansion. So, to compensate for her loneliness, she displays framed dolls of children during every events she planned.

She is strong-willed when she decides to get what she wants. This is best shown where she chases kids. She effortlessly plummets off a cliff to chase the child. Even when she seems defeated, she unexpectedly gets up and finishes what she started.

📻

EDIE: Wait, what?

😶‍🌫️

PRETENDER: (DISTORTED SHRIEKING!!!!)

⚡️⚡️⚡️⚡️⚡️

EDIE: OH MY GOSH! WHAT THE HECK IS THAT?!!

🦎

THE PRETENDER: (LAUGHING!)

🦎 🚶‍♀️

VOCAL: 🎶I hear you coming

Start the running

Or you're dead!

Like a little fly

You'll be terrified

Caught in my web

I will deceive you

Chase and bleed you

And then I'll put you to the test

🕷️ _{🏃‍♀️‍➡️}

Confuse, mislead you

Trick and tease you

For mother knows best!

I watched the children

Made them happy

Let them play

🤸‍♀️ 💥💥💥

But through the years

They disappeared

Now I-can't-behave!

Ohh, I'll give a pinky promise

Pass the test and you can go

Ohh, No use in being cautious

If you really want these codes

I know that mother said

She'd give them up

Oh that was a mistake

Pass my experiments

You have my word

You can escape

💥🤾‍♀️

HOW IS YOUR MEMORY?

HOW IS YOUR SPEED?

MAKE ONE MISTAKE AND KNOW THAT

US GIRLS WILL FEED

Recite the symbol

Hear the cymbal

Know Rabbits will drop

_{🏃‍♀️‍➡️} 🦂

Like a whac-a-mole

You gotta swipe the hole

They'll hug till you pop!

^{🤾‍♀️} 🦂

Have you seen the killer

Caterpillar

Oh when the lights come on you freeze

This game's a thriller

You're the winner

I guess I have to give the keys

I love to watch

I'll even cheer you on

Stood behind the glass

Don't ever cheat

Or we will have a feast

How long will you last?

💥🤛

Ohh, I'll give a pinky promise

Pass the test and you can go

Ohh, No use in being cautious

If you really want these codes

🧎‍♀️‍➡️ 🦂

I know that mother said

She'd give them up

Oh that was a mistake

Pass my experiments

You have my word

You can escape

🕸️🕸️ 🤸‍♀️🕸️

HOW IS YOUR MEMORY?

HOW IS YOUR SPEED?

MAKE ONE MISTAKE AND KNOW THAT

US GIRLS WILL FEED

I am the spider

You are the fly

I know you played well

But you must die

My arm is stretched out

To catch the cheaters

You'll the hider

I'll be the seeker!

🤸‍♀️💥🦂

Ohh, I'll give a pinky promise

Pass the test and you can go

Ohh, No use in being cautious

If you really want these codes

I know that mother said

She'd give them up

Oh that was a mistake

Pass my experiments

You have my word

You can escape

💥🤾‍♀️

HOW IS YOUR MEMORY?

HOW IS YOUR SPEED?

MAKE ONE MISTAKE AND KNOW THAT

US GIRLS WILL FEED

HOW IS YOUR MEMORY?

HOW IS YOUR SPEED?

MAKE ONE MISTAKE AND KNOW THAT

US GIRLS WILL FEED🎶

🦎 🧎‍♀️

Finally, the girl reaches the main entrance to the Nest as she search for a path that could lead her out of Sloth. Landing within the Spiral, a cluster of disturbing places, I will have to survive in a dangerous world full of delusions and escape the grasp of an even greater threat lurking in the shadows.

🦎 _{🧗‍♀️💥}

EDIE: (SCREAMS!)

⛓️⛓️🤾‍♀️⛓️ 🦎

PRETENDER: (SCREECHES!!!)

🪨💥🪨🪨

EDIE: Okay. That’s new.

☁️☁️☁️☁️☁️☁️☁️☁️🚶‍♀️☁️☁️☁️☁️

EDIE: Hmm, this place is… ominously friendly.

(SIGN: WELCOME TO CHERUB TOWNE)

☁️🌳🌳🍭🌳☁️🌳🌳🍬🌳🍭☁️☁️🌳🍬🌳☁️🌳🌳🍭☁️🌳🌳🍬🌳🌳🍭☁️☁️

EDIE: This is like Munchkinland… but different. Where am I?

🧍🧍‍♀️🧍‍♀️🧍🧍‍♀️🧍‍♀️🧍👭🧍‍♀️🧍🧍‍♀️🧍‍♀️👭🧍‍♀️🧍‍♀️🧍🧍‍♀️👭🧍‍♀️🧍🧍‍♀️🧍‍♀️👭🧍‍♀️🧍👭🧍‍♀️🧍‍♀️🧍🧍‍♀️🧍‍♀️🧍🧍‍♀️🧍🧍

ALL: (EXCLAIMING!)

BUNNY GIRL: You’re in Cherub Towne, with an E at the end. The names Bonnie! Welcome to Cherub Towne, Miss Edith. If you’ve done something good to get this far, then good people deserve to receive special blessings for their loved ones.

😒

EDIE: How do you know me?

BEE: We've been waiting for you.

LAMB BOY: You made it all the way here alone, didn't you? Well done.

BUNNY GIRL: Oh! Before we introduce ourselves, I suggest you tidy yourself up a bit. But don't worry, we'll help you as much as we can.

EDIE: It's okay, I won't stay long. But most people would want to stay here, wouldn't they?

BUNNY GIRL: Like… the residents? No.

EDIE: Why not?

BUNNY BOY: Well, they’re grownups. But so were you. Because you are one of the good ones, a child. See, children believe that as long as they believe in themselves and their friends, they can live happily ever after. But the residents… don't.

EDIE: I’ve seen this kind of thing in movies, so I think I know what you mean. But clearly something is very wrong. Because look at me. I don't look like a child. I'm cautious... and naked.

BUNNY BOY: My dear, you can't fool anyone. Deep within this... person, there is an innocent angel who knows that a person's good and evil are measured not only by appearance, but by actions. The fact that you are here means that you must possess great... strength within you.

(THUNDEROUS WINGS FLAPPING!)

EDIE: Uh… what is that?

🕊️

ALL: (GASPS!)

🧍🧍‍♀️🧍‍♀️🧍🧍‍♀️🧍‍♀️🧍👭🧍‍♀️🧍🧍‍♀️🧍‍♀️👭🧍‍♀️🧍‍♀️🧍🧍‍♀️👭🧍‍♀️🧍🧍‍♀️🧍‍♀️👭🧍‍♀️🧍👭🧍‍♀️🧍‍♀️🧍🧍‍♀️🧍‍♀️🧍🧍‍♀️🧍🧍

BOY: It’s Miss Carla!

🚶‍♀️💫🕊️

DOVE WOMAN: Would you happen to be a friend or foe?

EDIE: I’m… what?

LAMB GIRL: She’s asking if you’re an ally or not.

EDIE: Oh, yeah, I guess I am. How...?

DOVE WOMAN: Oh, forgive me for asking that; I was just called here by the Cherubs saying that a new saved human appeared in this area… and here you are.

EDIE: Are you an Angel?

DOVE WOMAN: You could say that. I’m Carla, and I’m also an adult… or as you usually call them “giants”.

😧

EDIE: I’m sorry, I never met a nice giant before… or anyone different.

DOVE WOMAN: Here, we each have a unique role in the Wilderness. Some can be Sculptors, Messengers, or Deliverers here.

🫴

DOVE WOMAN: Come with me.

EDIE: Where are we going?

DOVE WOMAN: To the Hall of Judgment.

EDIE: What?

DOVE WOMAN: Oh, don’t worry. Here, we accept all saved souls no matter what they are.

Inside, I encounter mannequin-like patients whose hands are still alive but detached from their bodies. The strange atmosphere only intensifies as I enter, feeling like I’m stepped into a forgotten nightmare.

📻

SCIENTIST: The hospital extends underground. Like much of Pale City, the hospital appears abandoned and dilapidated. Most rooms lack light sources, save for a few lamps or external sources, barely illuminating a small portion of the room. Patients, or fragments of them, can be seen everywhere, chasing and eliminating troublemakers. There are cells to hold them, but some patients can be found in dark corridors, where creatures ambush them.

The Hospital also contains a storage room and workshop for "modifying" patients, as well as a nursery with toys of unknown purpose. The hospital's basement contains a morgue, where doctors operate on and "care for" patients.

But the only patients left uncorrupted are the Glitching Remains. They appear to be composed of interference waves, possibly harmful signals from communications. They resemble young boys, wearing pants and shirts with ripped suspenders. Glitching Remains do not react to their surroundings and are often depicted performing specific actions. Black, flaky particles are constantly emitted from their bodies. When a child, or in this case, an adult, approaches a Glitching Remains, they disappear, causing the child to crouch and momentarily become motionless.

📺

EDIE: What were they even watching?

📻

SCIENTIST: Televisions function as portals, allowing Visitors to teleport to various locations within the animated world. Visitors in Nowhere use remote controls to control the televisions, turning them on and off to attract or distract Viewers, creating new paths and opportunities for advancement. The televisions are directly linked to the Signal Tower and its far-reaching communications, brainwashing the inhabitants of Pale City, distorting their faces and making them dependent on television's influence. The city’s escapism of Greed is mirrored in the inhabitants' dependence on television, demonstrating their reliance on screens for escapism.

📺⚡️⚡️⚡️🤾‍♀️

EDIE: (SCREAMS!)

📺⚡️⚡️⚡️⚡️

EDIE: (GROANING!)

💥

EDIE: I know you’re in here, show yourself.

CROW: Woah! Are you alright?

EDIE: What the hell just happened?

CROW: Oh, don’t worry about that; you’ll get used to it. Most people do.

🙄

EDIE: (GASPS!)

CROW: Woah! Chill out! We ain’t finna hurt you!

EDIE: I-it’s you! It’s you!

CROW: I know, I escaped… thanks to you.

EDIE: How… did you get in here?

CROW: I had some help from a few friends.

EDIE: What?

💥

CROW: (SCREECHES!)

🧎‍♀️‍➡️ 🐦‍⬛

EDIE: Don’t even try.

😒

CROW: You’re not from around here, are you?

EDIE: No, I’m from the School District. Well, originally, I’m really from somewhere else. Do you work here or something?

CROW: Sometimes. What are you doing down here anyways? Don’t you realize how dangerous this place is?

EDIE: Yeah, but I was sent to see the Entity.

CROW: Really? For what?

EDIE: I actually don’t know, that’s what I came here to find out.

CROW: Hey, what’s your name?

EDIE: Actually, I don’t remember what it was. All I can remember was waking up here. At least, that’s all I-

📺

EDIE: So, how do I get out of this?

CROW: Actually, I’m glad you’re here.

EDIE: Why?

🪑

EDIE: You want me to do what for you?

CROW: We are going to pull off the greatest heist the world has ever known, and we need your help.

EDIE: So, you guys want me to break inside a bank where it’s heavily guarded and secured. But none of you are able to hack the system except me? LIONESS: So, you interested?

EDIE: No.

CROW: Excuse me?

EDIE: I am starting to see why my aunt don’t want me to hang out with you, you’re nuts!

🚶‍♀️‍➡️ 🦩

CROW: Hey, she won’t have to know what happened to you. It’s only for one day.

😒 

EDIE: I don’t believe you.

📺 ⚡️⚡️🫷

CROW: Fine, don’t believe us. But believe this; it would be a real shame if anything happened to your family.

EDIE: Let me guess, you’re going to hurt them?

😐😐😐😐😐

EDIE: I’ve heard it all before, so don’t bother.

📺⚡️🫷

CROW: Look! If you agree to help us, we’ll leave your family alone and you won’t have to deal with me again.

EDIE: Alright! Where’s this thing at?

📺

CROW: Woah! Careful, Edie!

EDIE: What?

CROW: Edie! Carefu-

📺💥💥💥

[In the hospital, she is confronted by the grotesque Doctor, a hunched and twisted mutant, his arms stretched unnaturally long. His fingers are cold, sharp, and inhuman. He still wears his old doctor's cap, a reflection of the man he once was.]

DOCTOR (in a raspy, distorted voice): You shouldn’t have come here... The healing... it’s what we do here... for the broken. But... you’re not broken... are you?

I tried to back away, but the Doctor steps forward, his fingers creeping toward her. Before I can react, I hears the screeching sound of a woman’s voice.

[A Victorian Nurse with stitches across her mouth and face appears. Her eyes are empty, and the air around her crackles with dark energy.]

NURSE (in a low, whispering voice): You’re too late. You’ve crossed into the heart of their suffering. This is no place for the living.

🔪

EDIE (desperately): What are you doing?

NURSE (smiling coldly): We’ve been waiting... for someone like you. Now that you’ve found us, there’s no going back.

INT. CANDY FACTORY — NIGHT (or what passes for night in a place with no sun)

The Filmmaker steps through a set of groaning iron doors. The air inside is syrup-thick with heat and chemicals, like cough syrup and rusted pennies. Steam coils around the ankles. Conveyor belts churn with rainbow rope-candy, licorice veins, and marshmallow tumors. All around her, the machines roar, hiss, grind. Some wear smiling faces painted crudely on steel panels, but their teeth spin like razors. It’s a cathedral of consumption.

📻

THERAPIST: The production lines never sleep. In a metal tomb untouched by daylight, the blind machines of the Candy Factory eternally rumble and growl, mashing ingredients into colorful slurries, then spinning them into glossy, twisted treats. Sticky delights destined for the welcoming lips of a ravenous public. Nestled deep between the conveyor belts and hissing pipes that feed the guts of the factory, there lies a nexus of information. A tangled collection of glassy screens blinking and flickering without end, drawing the watcher’s attention towards anything that might seem out of place. Everything under control. At the helm of the twitching nerve center the Supervisor rules with a piercing gaze. Her grey knuckles grip tight on the controls, searching for any waste to ruthlessly cut from the factory’s expenditures.

🦾⚙️🟣

INT. THE NEXUS — THE SUPERVISOR'S CHAMBER

Wires hang like intestines from the ceiling. A tangled nest of monitors flickers on every wall. Surveillance footage—some real, some old, some showing things not yet happened—plays in a relentless collage.

At the center of it all sits THE SUPERVISOR, her wiry body wired directly into the system. Her arms splinter into six wrists, each with a different device strapped on. Her eyes blink out of sync. Her voice is filtered through tin and grit.

📺👁️💡

SUPERVISOR (cold, clipped): I see you. Slack in Sector 3. Two variables. Juvenile units. Unaccounted for.

• She adjusts a dial. The camera zooms. Two children—muddy, wide-eyed, sneaking between pipes—flicker on screen.

SUPERVISOR: Insubordination. Inefficiency. Inevitability.

• Her knuckles crack like gunshots. She presses a button marked REVIEW.

INT. MACHINE ROOM — LOWER LEVELS

The two children, unaware, crawl through a vent near the foundation. Chocolate dust coats their faces. One drops a gumdrop. The other reaches for it...

CHILD 1 (whispering): Is it watching us?

CHILD 2: I dunno... but we’re not supposed to be down here.

• The pipe above them shudders—like a throat clearing. Somewhere, a fan begins to spin too fast.

In hiding, the Filmmaker writes another chapter of the Innkeeper: He was different from other Mutants as he didn't kill his victims outright; but instead he offered them a deal; they could ask him for anything they wanted and he would Grant it to them. The Mailman: Rumors of the Mailman began to spread; of the ominous letters he delivered; containing a prophecy of how its owner meets their end. His letters inked with prophecy of death; a source of horror for those who find themselves intertwined with his deliveries. As their anxieties and patience started to grow, the arrival of the Mailman letter cast a sinister shadow upon those unfortunate enough to be chosen. The Electrician: He converted through the electrical fields to create a gateway towards his twisted presence. He can emerge from any source of energy; surprising his unexpected victims. The Author: She defined all expectations and concealed all life and depths from her books that were written. The Paperboy: A young boy named Sylvester, who grapple with his new found form; a permit reminder of his existence. Due to his less fortunate demeanor, Sylvester was not transformed into a guide; his essence lacking the strength of his transformation. He recited in a rare dimension between human and mutant. Though, his transformation did not completely corrupted his soul; it did strip away his past; leaving behind the knowledge of his paper route and the grid of the Hidden World. The Butcher, the Baker, & Candlestick Maker: Once ordinary men whose lives took a Sinister turn when the Entity struck merging them into a grotesque three-headed mute mutant. The Tattooist: Who’s ability lies on not only with Brute Force, but in her ability to summon Ink. She can summon Ink from thin air; Shaping them into weird Patterns, Symbols, and Creatures. Her finger tips dance across her own skin and then they come alive; Writing and Pulsing with Energy. Once she Draws upon your Skin, she Imprints her Will upon Others; a Visit from her is a Gamble for your Future. The Designs she made on your Skin are not Mere Sketches, they carry a Purpose. Those who bear her Tattoos are bound to her will; their Loyalty is Unwavering, but so are their Vulnerability. The Tattoo Artist can Manipulate anyone; turning Allies into Pawns.

📖

📓 INT. FILMMAKER’S HIDEOUT — BETWEEN THE WALLS

The Filmmaker scribbles in a threadbare notebook, her face lit by the flicker of stolen monitor feed. As the Factory growls, she catalogues her findings:

FILMMAKER (V.O., writing):

The Innkeeper—makes a bargain, not a kill.
The Mailman—delivers fate, not mercy.
The Electrician—crawls through current like a spider through web.
The Author—writes the world backwards.
The Paperboy, Sylvester—trapped between child and echo.
The Butcher, the Baker, the Candlestick Maker—fused, three heads, no mouths.

The Tattooist—the puppet-mistress of skin and will.

• Today, the screens notify her of an irregularity.

📻

THERAPIST: Two little children, who are certainly intending to eat up her precious profits with inefficiencies. The joints in her wrists – all six of them – crack in annoyance as she turns the cameras to follow her prey. This will not do. Down in the spaces below the rumbling engines of sweets and the dangling feet of the workers, the two children might not feel the Supervisor’s electronic eyes upon them yet. However, it won’t be long before they find themselves under a particularly intense corporate review.

📖

She flips the page. Drawings sketched in urgency—faces, symbols, route maps. She underlines one name twice:

SUPERVISOR
→ Location: Candy Factory Core
→ Threat Level: HIGH

INT. NEXUS — BACK TO SUPERVISOR

The Supervisor doesn’t pace. She rotates in place, metal track spinning beneath her.

🎯 LOCKED ON

SUPERVISOR (monotone): Profit bleed identified. Countermeasures: deployed.

• Mechanical arms spring from the walls. From beneath the floor, three candy-colored automatons rise. Their eyes blink in morse. Their mouths smile in wires.

INT. FACTORY TUNNELS — CONTINUOUS

The children run. The walls close in. The hum of the Factory grows frantic, euphoric. And all the while, the Filmmaker writes—documenting the mythos, one monster at a time.

NARRATOR (V.O.): She rules the lines with a sugar-coated claw. Not for sweetness, but for control. And when her bottom line is threatened… She doesn’t fire employees—She reclaims them.

🏃‍♀️

SCIENTIST: The two children inside a shared-nightmare are named Low and Alone, as they navigate through The Nowhere and escape from a looming threat in the Necropolis to the Candy Factory.

What are their greatest fear

And why the monster baby and the Supervisor?

🗒️

Low

• The Monster Baby (Necropolis) 🍼🪨
  The ruined city was once alive, but now every Dweller is petrified mid-fear, frozen in the act of shielding themselves. And in the middle of this desolation waddles the Monster Baby, a giant dolly demanding playthings.

This is the terror of infantilization:

• Being reduced to a toy, stripped of agency, unable to resist the whims of someone larger, dumber, and crueler.

• The Baby doesn’t want companionship, it wants possession — to clutch, break, and discard.

For Low, the Monster Baby embodies the fear of being powerless in the hands of someone who calls it “love.”
The baby never grows. The baby never learns. It only consumes more toys to soothe its loneliness. Low fears becoming one of those petrified husks — a forgotten plaything, discarded when no longer amusing.

Alone

• The Supervisor (Candy Factory) 📺🍬
  The Supervisor does not play. She calculates. She surveils. She cuts away inefficiencies like mold from bread.
  Her six wrists on the controls make her almost insectile — she doesn’t create candy, she processes profit.

This is the terror of being devalued:

• Every stumble, every weakness, every mistake is observed and noted.

• To the Supervisor, children are not human, but costs. They eat, they rest, they break machines. Waste.

For Alone, she represents the fear of being judged into nothingness.
Not shouted at, not struck — worse: erased, dismissed, optimized away.
Alone dreads the sterile gaze that sees not a child, but a burden.

Their Shared Core Fear 🌑

Both monsters circle around one truth: the erasure of childhood.

• The Baby erases by regression — turning them into dolls, playthings, objects without agency.

• The Supervisor erases by progression — forcing them into the machinery of adulthood, where worth is measured by output.

Low fears being kept small forever.
Alone fears being forced to grow up too fast.

Together, they walk the nightmare because children always exist in that tension:
too young to be free, too old to be safe.

A chamber shaped like a molar. Bleached white. The dentist is here — faceless, with rows of teeth along his neck like medals. He is polishing one… humming.

DENTIST: You’re late. Sit. Let me examine what’s rotting.

EDIE: No thanks.

DENTIST: Do you have something to hide? A crooked heart? An unclean thought?

EDIE: I think you do enough hiding for both of us.

The DENTAL CHAIR snaps toward her with mechanical violence — CRACKING and CLICKING, like a jaw unhinging. Its straps flap wildly, desperate to bind.

EDIE: (backing away) You treat memories like plaque. Scrape ‘em clean and call it healing.

DENTIST: (voice smooth and echoing) No... I preserve. The molars of regret, the canines of guilt, the wisdom teeth of sorrow. You are filthy with experience.

• The lights flicker. The Dentist's tools float — like tiny ghosts, each humming.

DENTIST (CONT'D): Sit, or I’ll extract your truth.

EDIE: (calmly pulling a rusted wrench from her coat) You’ll have to earn it.

She swings. Sparks fly. The wrench strikes one of the mechanical arms, sending it twitching across the floor. Another tool leaps at her. She ducks, rolls under the chair.

FLASH CUT – BRIEF VISIONS – HER MIND'S EYE

A YOUNGER VERSION of EDIE, weeping in a school hallway.
A teacher whispers cruelly.
A projector burns film.
A face from a photo — eyes gouged out with a pen.

• BACK TO SCENE

The chair clamps down. The Dentist moves closer.

DENTIST: You buried too many pieces. I only want to make you whole again.

EDIE: (eyes wild) Whole? Or obedient?

She grabs a jar of polished teeth from the shelf and SMASHES it to the ground. The sound is shattering and visceral. The Dentist screams — a gurgled, toothy sound like drills boring through bone.

INT. ELEVATOR SHAFT – NIGHT

The door opens. The elevator is filled with fog — but it hums with invitation. A voice whispers…

ELEVATOR: (whispering) Only the broken ascend.

She enters. The doors close behind her. The hum deepens into a choral dirge as the elevator rises into the mist.

EXT. LIMINAL SEA – DREAMSPACE – NIGHT

The elevator deconstructs mid-ascent — wires untangle into fishing lines, walls peel into sea foam. Agnes falls through fog and finds herself standing on the surface of a strange, endless ocean, the color of molasses and mirror.

Above her: stars that seem to blink — not with light, but with awareness.

A boat floats nearby, tethered to nothing. A hooded FISHERMAN casts his net, catching things invisible to the naked eye.

THE FISHERMAN (O.S.): What are you looking to catch?

EDIE: I’m not here to fish.

FISHERMAN: (still casting) Everyone ends up here. Even the ones who don't want to remember what they lost.

EDIE: The Principalities?

🪾🏃‍♀️ 🏃🪾🪾🪾🪾🪾🧑‍🩰🪾🪾🏃‍➡️🪾🪾

EDIE: Power?

🌨️🌨️🌨️🌨️🌨️🧎‍➡️🧎‍♀️‍➡️☃️🧎‍♀️🌨️🌨️🌨️🌨️

EDIE: The Dominion.

👁️

EDIE: And the Throne. They’re all here… but they’re—

DOVE WOMAN: Children?

EDIE: Yeah, I thought…

DOVE WOMAN: We are what is commonly referred to as "Guides." Some people are inhuman, some are not. It is a recessive bloodline that is passed down within mortal families. But sometimes generations pass without a Guide being born. And unfortunately, they have been persecuted for centuries.

AGNES: By people?

DOVE WOMAN: By bad giants. Bad nightmares. We will refer to them here as residents. We have dedicated our whole lives to hunting them. These are the kinds we could never find. It may be helpful to consider that even among the every resident of this land, there were once those who were children too. Those who, despite being loved, were cast out from the world. Then a divided faction appeared among our people. Dissatisfied children who is tired of living in a nightmare—deprived of that sacred power which the Lord had so casually bestowed upon His own saints. And these very victims must surely be their descendants—those scattered across every corner of the globe. When they returned, they changed and became residents. Invisible beast, dangerous, cold-blooded, deadly. They soon realize that it's more than just a bedtime story, it catches the attention of other strange people and the entire house is full of children believed to be dead.

😳

DOVE WOMAN: That's why we live in such a place. All you need to do is choose the right day. As you know, I am a type of guide called the Speaker. That is, our main ability is speech. We chose a safe place and made it our paradise. We don't always live in the sky, we live among the trees; the sea; the desert; and snow. And you can stay there forever, completely safe from the tyranny of adult society. That is why we are tasked with caring for the children.

AGNES: And no one grows old?

DOVE WOMAN: Therefore, it is best for everyone. All Guides are committed to creating and maintaining such places in the forest.

INT. AN ABANDONED MIRROR — TWILIGHT

A cracked, full-length mirror stands alone in the darkness. It hums. Beckons. The Filmmaker touches the glass—And is pulled through.

EXT. THE NECROPOLIS — SANDSTORM

The mirror shatters behind her. Now: sand. Endless, yellow fog-tinted sand. The wind howls like a choir of lost souls. Shattered suitcases litter the terrain. Their contents strewn like confetti at a funeral.

NARRATOR (V.O.): Here lies the Necropolis. A desert not of time, but of memory. Windmills creak without wind. Sails twist without mast. Civilization lies sunken beneath the dust—its bones picked clean by the Spiral’s storms. Towering stone walls rise from the storm. Nets dangle. Rusted tools. Forgotten things. A city waits on the other side. Or its ghost.

INT. CITY OF NECROPOLIS — MIDDAY (ETERNAL)

A dead city, crumbling and gray. Homes sealed like tombs. Inside: stone bodies, petrified in gestures of fear. Mouths agape. Hands clutching rosaries, curtains, one another.

NARRATOR (V.O.): The Dwellers. Giants once. Some still stand, others shattered. Scarves wrap their necks like nooses. The ones in bags did not turn to stone. They were preserved. Perhaps by choice. Perhaps by her. In the streets, a shadow stomps. Gigantic and childish. A towering doll with cracked porcelain cheeks and a hollow laugh. The Monster Baby. She searches, forever, for another playmate. She has outlived her creators. Or devoured them.

EXT. NECROPOLIS RUINS — MOMENTS LATER

Edie crouches beside a dead tree. Her pen dances once again.

🏜️🏜️🏜️🏜️

EDIE: Though it’s uncertain what happened to the original inhabitants of the now destroyed city, the first resident encountered might have played her part in bringing the city to its current state. The Dwellers appear to be an entirely deceased species of imps; if imps look like giant humanoids in torn clothing. Some Dwellers appear to have been turned to stone with chunks of their bodies missing. Dwellers that have been turned to stone appear to be middle aged and bald. They often appear to be wearing long scarves and skirts. Dwellers that have been turned to stone often appear to be cowering in fear, covering parts of their bodies in an attempt to protect themselves. Some Dwellers also appear as corpses wrapped in bags and tied with rope.

EDIE: Wow. These are so... artistic.

😳

EDIE: (GASPS!)

🎎🎎🪆🎎🪆🎎🪆🎎🎎🪆🎎

EDIE: I don't want to hurt you, but you leave me no choice.

🔊

PRETENDER: These are my dolls and they listen to me.

😐

PRETENDER: I'm sorry, but you seem like a very nice lady. It's unlike any other visitor I've had before.

😐

PRETENDER: Get her!!

🪆

EDIE: Please wait! You were a person, you were one of the visitors to the Nest and this girl did this to you. But I can help you. Fear no more.

🎎🪆🪆🪆🎎🪆🪆🎎🎎🪆🎎🎎🪆🎎🪆🪆 🪆🎎🪆🎎🪆🎎🪆🪆🪆🎎🎎🪆🎎🪆🪆🎎🪆

DOLLS: Please help!

🚪💥

PRETENDER: What is everyone doing? Attack her now or I will smash your face.

🎎🪆🪆🪆🎎🪆🪆🎎🎎🪆🎎🎎🪆🎎🪆🪆 🪆🎎🪆🎎🪆🎎🪆🪆🪆🎎🎎🪆🎎🪆🪆🎎🪆

PRETENDER: You. Attack them. Punish all those who disobeyed me!

🪆

PRETENDER: What did you do to my doll?

EDIE: I didn't do anything to them. They never deserved this... and neither do you.

😳

EDIE: These poor dolls.

💥

PRETENDER: No!

😳

PRETENDER: They will be punished.

EDIE: They are just dolls.

PRETENDER: It doesn't matter. They are my dolls and I make the rules.

EDIE: That doesn't mean you can be cruel.

😠

EDIE: You made a mistake... thinking that domination means success and cruelty means power. It's not always about strength. But you are young and can still learn. Please let me help you.

💥👋

PRETENDER: I will make you pay for trying to turn my doll against me!

🎎🪆🪆🪆🎎🪆🪆🎎🎎🪆🎎🎎🪆🎎🪆🪆 🪆🎎🪆🎎🪆🎎🪆🪆🪆🎎🎎🪆🎎🪆🪆🎎🪆

PRETENDER: What is it? Get out of my way! Move now!

🏃‍♀️

PRETENDER: No!

🚪💥

PRETENDER: Please stop and stay away from me!

🎞️ LITTLE NIGHTMARES — THE PALE CITY
Transcript Scene — “The Transmission”
Tim Burton / Little Nightmares Style

🌧️ [Distant thunder. Static crackles through the city. Neon flickers like dying stars.]

📺📡 [THE PALE CITY — NIGHT]

• The streets bend at impossible angles.
  Rain drips from hanging wires.
  Every window glows with the same pale light.

👞

EDIE (quietly, focused) Mono… where are you going…?

👁️

• [Edie pulls her coat tighter and follows Mono through the fog-filled alleyways.]

• 🏙️ Ahead… the SIGNAL TOWER pulses across the skyline like a living organ.

• 📡 BWOOOOOOOMMMMMM.

• 📺 The Transmission hums through every wall.
  Every television.
  Every mind.

• 📺 INSIDE THE APARTMENT

• 🍞👨‍🍳 [A cooking show plays on television. A baker kneads dough with grotesquely long fingers.]

• 👥 Two VIEWERS sit motionless on a stained couch.

• Their faces sag and twist from years of staring into screens.

📺
CHEF: MORE BUTTER… MORE SALT… MORE…

• Neither Viewer notices Edie.

EDIE: (whispering) They don’t even blink…

• 👂 [Wet chewing sounds from the television.]

🍽️📺
CHEF: CONSUME.

• Edie slowly backs toward the door.

• ⚡ CLICK.

• 📺 The television suddenly dies.

• 🔇 Silence.

• 👥 The Viewers stop moving.

• Their heads slowly turn toward Agnes.

• 🫀 THUMP.

• 🫀 THUMP.

🧟‍♂️

VIEWER #1: “…where… did it go…?”

🧟

VIEWER #2: “…bring it back…”

• 😱 The Viewers SCREAM and charge toward the child.

• 👞💨 Edie bolts out the apartment.

👥📺

VIEWERS (distant): DON’T TAKE IT AWAY! WE NEED IT! TURN IT BACK ON!”

• 🧥 THE CLOTHES

• 🌫️ Across the Pale City, abandoned clothes litter the streets.

• 👗 Coats folded neatly in empty chairs.

• 👞 Shoes beside silent televisions.

• 🎩 Hats floating in flooded gutters.

EDIE: Like they vanished… right out of themselves.

• 🏥 AFTER THE HOSPITAL

• 🌧️ Agnes walks near a crooked bus stop.

• 🏢👤 A body suddenly falls from the sky.

💥

• Then another.

💥

• And another.

• 💀 VIEWERS tumble from rooftops like broken marionettes.

• 👁️ Agnes stares upward.

EDIE (flatly): The city is throwing itself away.

• 🏚️ THE FALLEN VIEWER

• 🏢 Inside a crumbling apartment building…

• 💥 A Viewer crashes through the ceiling beside Agnes.

• Dust explodes everywhere.

• 🧟 The Viewer rises instantly.

• Without a word—

• 🏃💨 it runs into the next room.

• 📺 CRRRRRRKKKK.

• Edie cautiously follows.

• 👁️ The Viewer’s head is smashed deep into a television screen.

• ⚡ Static sparks around the corpse.

📺
“PLEASE STAND BY.”

EDIE: Guess he got too close.

• 🚪 THE OTHER APARTMENTS

• 🚪 One Viewer peeks through a cracked door.

• 👁️ Only one eye visible.

• 📺 Another sits in the hallway staring at static.

• 🛁 A third Viewer lies fully clothed in a bathtub watching a tiny television balanced on their stomach.

👥📺

VIEWERS (murmuring): Look… Pretty colors… Don’t think… Just watch…

• 📡 THE REMOTE

• 📺 Edie grabs the remote.

• ⚡ CLICK.

• The television inside shuts off.

• 📺 Outside the apartment, another television turns on.

• 🧟‍♀️ The female Viewer instantly runs to the window.

• Hands pressed against the glass.

• Mesmerized.

• 👦 Mono uses the televisions to teleport across buildings.

• 🌩️ VRRRRMMMM.

• 🏢 THE FALL

• 📺 Edie switches another television.

• 🧟 A Viewer stumbles toward the signal—

• Too close to the ledge.

👤💨 💥

• Long silence.

EDIE: (coldly)One less ghost.

• 🌑 THE ROOFTOPS

• 🌫️ Dozens of Viewers stand atop buildings.

• All staring toward the BLACK TOWER.

• No one speaks.

• No one moves.

• 📡 The Transmission drones endlessly.

📺📡
“STAY.”
“WATCH.”
“OBEY.”

• 👥 Some Viewers slowly step off rooftops.

• Falling without resistance.

• ⚡ THE CHASE

• 🚪 Mono rips boards from a blocked doorway.

• 🧟‍♂️ A male Viewer bursts out screaming.

• 👞💨 He chases Mono through flooded halls.

• ⚡ Mono electrifies the water.

• 💥ZZZZZTTTTT.

• The Viewer convulses violently before collapsing.

• 🛁 THE BATHROOM

• 🧟‍♀️ Another Viewer charges Agnes inside a mold-covered bathroom.

• ⚡ Edie lures her into flooded tiles.

• 📺 The television flickers.

• 💥ZZZZZZT.

• Silence.

• 🛁 Water drips from the ceiling.

EDIE: You should’ve stayed hypnotized.

• 📺 THE ALLEY

• 🌧️ Edie exits the building.

• Ahead—

👥👥👥👥👥👥👥

• A massive crowd of Viewers stand shoulder to shoulder in an alley.

• All staring upward at giant televisions.

• Mouths hanging open.

📺
“YOU ARE SAFE.”
“YOU ARE HAPPY.”
“KEEP WATCHING.”

👥

VIEWERS: Happy… Safe… Watching…

• 👁️ THE BROADCASTER

• 📺 Mono steps through a television doorway.

• 🚪 A shadowy figure appears beyond the screen.

• Tall.

• Distorted.

• Wearing a hat.

• 📡 THE BROADCASTER.

• ⚡ The screen explodes outward.

• 👦 Mono is dragged violently from the television.

• 👤 A glitching shadow remains behind.

🫥

MONO’S SHADOW: …this way…

• Edie follows the flickering silhouette toward the SIGNAL TOWER.

• ⚔️ THE SIGNAL TOWER

• 📡 The city bends around the tower like melting wax.

• Walls breathe.

• Hallways stretch forever.

• ⚡ Mono confronts the Broadcaster.

• 📺 Their powers clash in waves of static.

• 📡 BWOOOOOOOMMMMM.

• 👁️ Agnes watches from below.

EDIE: (quiet awe) He’s becoming something worse.

• ⚡ Mono raises his hand.

• The Broadcaster SCREAMS—

• —and disintegrates into static ash.

💥📺⚡

• Silence.

• Then—

• 🏙️ The SIGNAL TOWER twists toward Mono itself.

• Like it recognizes him.

• Like it belongs to him.

📡
“WELCOME HOME.”

🌑 [The screen cuts to black. Static hums softly.]

📺 END TRANSCRIPT.

Agnes follows Mono then exit into the heart of the Greed Ring - the Pale City. Agnes spot the Signal Tower, which emits a pervasive Transmission that controls the city's inhabitants: the television-addicted Viewers, whose faces have been distorted from prolonged exposure to it. The Viewers live life through the screen and cannot imagine a world without it. All those wonderful colours, sounds and shapes, dancing before their eyes, mesmerising them, pacifying them, fattening them up. The Transmission gives them all they need, and demands only one thing in return...

Agnes confronts two Viewers in the Pale City apartment. At first, the Viewers do not react to her in any way, watching a program on TV in which a baker is preparing food. However, when Agnes almost leaves the apartment, the TV turns off for unknown reasons and the Viewers attack a child.

Throughout the Pale City, Agnes find various bits of clothing, once belonging to the Viewers.

After escaping the Hospital and while walking near what appears to be a bus stop, several Viewers can be seen falling from buildings. Agnes get a more up close encounter with a Viewer after entering an apartment building in the Pale City. The Viewer falls through the ceiling and soon gets up, immediately running into the next room. Agnes find the Viewer with his head smashed into the screen of a television, seemingly dead.

Agnes go outside and into another apartment building. Inside, they find one Viewer peeking through the crack of a door, one watching TV in the hallway, and another watching in the bathtub.

Agnes will use the remote on a female Viewer, turning on a television hanging outside and turning off the one she is watching. The Viewer will run to the window and resumes watching the screen, as Mono uses the televisions to teleport outside. Later, Agnes uses the televisions to make a Viewer fall off a building. On the roofs of the buildings, Agnes will find several Viewers observing the Black Tower from afar, some of whom will fall off the building. After Mono pries off some of boards blocking a door, a male Viewer will come out and chase Mono until he electrocutes the Viewer in water. Agnes does the same thing again to a female Viewer after luring her into the bathroom of another building. After Agnes leaves the building, she passes by a large crowd of Viewers watching TV in an alleyway of the Pale City.

When Mono finally reaches the door through a television set, it opens to reveal the spectral Broadcaster. After Mono is pulled out from the television, the Broadcaster emerges too and captures him, leaving behind a glitching shadow of her. Mono’s shadow remains lead Agnes close to the Signal Tower, where Mono battles the Broadcaster. Discovering he has powers similar to the Broadcaster's, Mono disintegrates him before pulling the Signal Tower towards himself.

UNKNOWN: What do you mean you can’t?

WOMAN: I just can’t do it.

UNKNOWN: You can’t or you won’t?

WOMAN: I just can’t; legally, I can’t just bail you out. Even if I can, why would I help you after what happened?

UNKNOWN: It was an accident.

WOMAN: You tried to kill me. Why?

UNKNOWN: I told you that you shouldn’t have been escaped! Nobody should! That’s the whole point of-

WOMAN: You lied to me; saying that you were my friend, you promised me that you would change.

UNKNOWN: I did!

WOMAN: Yeah, but you didn’t say anything about… this! I just… I don’t wanna go, that’s all I have to say for now.

UNKNOWN: So, that’s it? You’re just not gonna help me?

WOMAN: No. Why don’t you ask one of your friends? Like my aunt?

UNKNOWN: I did! A bunch of times! She didn’t answer!

WOMAN: That’s because she blocked you.

UNKNOWN: She’s still don’t wanna talk to me?

WOMAN: You mean after what you did? No! She even forbade me from talking to you. But, I’m here anyways… I kinda don’t have a choice since you’re the one who brought me here.

UNKNOWN: Because I thought you could help me out. We’re family.

WOMAN: Family don’t try to kill other families like they’re a barbecue! To my aunt, you’re kind of a monster. And she was so right when she suggested I should get rid of you.

💥

UNKNOWN: I AM NOT A MONSTER!!! And you know it! Right?

WOMAN: Y-yeah! Yeah! I do! I do. Look, I can’t help you with this. But I did found some people who can.

📁📂

WOMAN: Their names are… I actually don’t know any of their names, but they are smart; stealthy; and… I can just give it to you and see for yourself.

📁📂

UNKNOWN: Where do I find them?

WOMAN: You don’t…

📁

WOMAN: Just use their phone number.

🚶‍♀️

UNKNOWN: Where are you going?

WOMAN: Out, probably as far away from you as possible!

UNKNOWN: I’m your friend!

WOMAN: You were, now I don’t even know you anymore.

UNKNOWN: You know, nothing lasts forever! It has to be you! You will take my place!

🚪

WOMAN: The last thing I want is to be a killer like you!

💥