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The year is 2021. A 20-year-old youngster, named Charlie (gf), works at CN Studios as an animation intern with her boyfriend Kori (bf), who works as a video editor and visualizer. Despite her overall happy-go-lucky nature, she has a weakness: verzephobia. Since she was a little girl, she has always been afraid of glitches and visual effects/noises, always trying her best to avoid them. Even a decade after the incident years ago where she was locked in her room with a screeching noise coming from her TV and glitchy colors flashing everywhere, she still has those bad memories and the fear of another situation. But as she grew older, she got into animation and music, and saw them as wonderful pastimes, not dangerous like code or video games, or anything digital. Kori loves video games, but makes sure to only play them when Charlie isn’t there.
Working in CN studios, she is tasked with reanimating scenes from older cartoons, such as Adventure Time. But she also has a love for NickToons shows, like The Fairly Oddparents, and frequently draws them for fun as well. She also is a skilled composer, but doesn’t make songs as frequently as she used to, due to animation focus.
While on duty, Kori finds a weird-looking file, and being the gamer extraordinaire, he opens it. Suddenly a wild noise rips through his computer, flashing everywhere, and he quickly tries to shut it off. But by then his senses have been completely drained, and he loses his strength, fainting. In doing so, he accidentally turns on the loudspeaker, and the sounds and sights flash through the whole building. Everyone loses their senses and collapses, but Kori is taken into the computers, as a prisoner of the self-proclaimed “darkness”.
Hours later, Charlie arrives, to start her late shift. Wondering why there are unconscious bodies, she gets to her desk and notices the file. Opening it, the noises and flashes begin again, giving her PTSD of the incident. The people wake up and begin to grin at her, flashes and sludge pouring down their eyes, ears, nose, mouth. Covering her ears, closing her eyes, it's all not enough, it keeps coming. And then she hears a voice, the voice of the “darkness”.
“It seems that you are quite fond of cartoons, and not very into… my type of fun,” it says. “I haven’t had any fun time in such a while… and you're perfect… as a protagonist… for my game.” It laughs. “You’ll have your power of song and art at your disposal, for nobody likes an unfair game. But be aware, if you wish to truly beat me, you’ll have to beat yourself first. And before beating yourself, you have to beat… THEM.”
When she opens her eyes, she finds herself in Timmy’s world. Looking at her hands, she sees her pen, but now doubled as a knife, which she realizes is her only form of defense now. A house is spotted in the distance… Timmy’s house. She recognized it from the cartoon, as she watched it too much as a kid and even today as an adult. Going inside, she sees… Timmy, messed up and completely tormented inside. Good thing Cosmo and Wanda aren’t there, otherwise it’d be a hell of a lot harder. As he approaches, she tries to defend herself with the one digital thing she was good at… music.
