Gardenview wasn't always a graveyard.

Once, it pulsed with color, a bright lobby lined with laughter, every corner full of music, every building painted with the joy of the Toons who lived there now, created by Delilah. Everyone with their unique personalities, lightening the mood with one bad apple. Back then... everything appeared fine, and has always been. Death wasn't such a worry... not for many, with the prospect of being reanimated, back to the beginning, back to the lobby.

...Then came the Leak. Nobody remembers when the crackles first spread, but everyone remembers the sound. A deep groan tears through the foundations, followed by a black tide spilling out. Ichor. The Twisteds that couldn't get past the elevator, the ones that helped them travel down into the foundation... the Ichor Leak helped them breach through, and enter the elevators, climbing up the shafts as the elevators froze and lost power.

Those who survived scrambled to fight back. Shelly lost her legs, replaced with jagged metal braces, just to keep moving. Vee nearly burned out her systems trying to keep the comms alive. Goob... well, Goob was never the same after losing his sister, Scraps, to Twisteds, all of whom became Lethal.

Brightney

Her light cuts through the darkness, small enough that she could see, and enough that they could barely see her. She would occasionally highlight the Twisteds that roamed aimlessly. She carefully predicts them after the highlight disappears. She didn't make a sound, knowing that any mistake is punishable by death. And she wasn't going to come back.

Brightney was the only one who was willing to get out there. They knew she could get caught and killed, but with her stamina and extraction speed? They all prayed for her. For every Machine completed, they change bases, huddling everyone up and moving on the elevator, silently. They were currently on Floor 15, 5 more floors away from freedom... and after that, it'll all be over.

She finishes one Machine after another, quietly getting through... until she hears a noise. It wasn't by a Twisted, so she wasn't too alarmed. She turned her head, tilting her head forward as she looked to her right, around the corner to see who it was... perhaps another surviving Toon?