• Zachary Baethan is a 19-year-old high-school dropout still living with his mother in a middle-class apartment in Point Pleasant, West Virginia. Even back when his academics suggested he would grow to be a well-adjusted and successful young man by this time, little attention was ever paid to Zach's mental health. When his parents finally couldn't feign affection anymore, his father finalized divorce papers that would send our young protagonist into a spiral into the murky waters of surreal existentialism.

    Now that Zachary has given up on aspirations and societal expectations, he is left to finally explore the parts of himself he always dreaded having to face: The alien thoughts that separated him socially from the mechanical NPCs swarming the streets like gnats each day. What is it about himself that makes people so unnerved? Why does he radiate such discomfort? Why is he so okay with resigning to a life of being a nobody, rotting away in the music boards of Forechan, or dissolving his skin against the pavement of local skateparks?

    After scabbing a new alcoholic energy drink off of some local college kids, Zack returns home to find his mother and younger sister Muriel discussing the new medical benefits her night shift security job can now provide to their family. For the first time since the divorce, it is viable for Zach to return to therapy. Thrilled, Zach dodges the conversation like the many before regarding his mental state and returns to his room to discuss vintage 90's grindcore bands with 40-year-old men on the internet. As he plops down in the glow of his neon gaming setup he scored by catfishing lonely idiots on Chirpr, he cracks open his can of LocoQuatro and triggers his first heart attack, awakening further medical complications that culminate in the necessity for a medically induced coma.

    Zach ultimately fails to land in an ordinary dreamscape, however. He soon finds his consciousness lost in The Uncanny Valley, a surreal and desolate land populated by the excess of lost souls and useless trash that disappears in the many couch cushions and behind the car seats stretched across our vast multiverse. This land between lands normally is a plane designed for passersby but Zach has found his soul trapped here, manifesting as a small green-skinned alien boy armed only with a portable charger and a nylon fanny pack slung squarely across his shoulder. Dazed and confused, he raises to his feet to hear the electric hum of a misplaced gas station welcome sign, brandishing a cartoon fox that reads "Bizarre Bazaar."