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I never grew out of my cartoon
phase. From an early age, I

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was drawn into the colorful characters and
upbeat voices. This is what led me

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to deep dive into the creative process
behind them in my teenage years and pursue

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it as a career as an adult. When I landed my first animation job,

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it was a dream come true.
I knew the hours or long the

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time was thankless compared to the more
public names that do the voices and direction,

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but this is what I wanted to
do. However, as my time

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went on with a fresh startup,
I started to notice something strange about my

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coworkers. For starters, the team
was small. You would think this would

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be a bottleneck for output, but
the team was efficient. They'd work late

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into the night and be there for
days that they weren't scheduled. I never

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knew how early they showed up.
All I knew was that it was earlier

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than me, no matter what time
I started. This is often seen as

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a negative in the animation industry.
Overworked and underpaid is a common sentiment.

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However, this wasn't some strong arm
move by management. It was completely voluntary.

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Whenever I asked any of them what
they were working on, they'd be

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vague and quickly changed the subject.
This kind of evasive behavior was from the

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whole team. But the strangest one
of all was the company's founder, a

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man named mister Jones. He was
always in his personal office, door permanently

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closed, besides his goings in and
out, working on some exclusive project.

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No one was allowed to see,
and it seemed it was only me that

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was curious. He was a called
and calculating man, dead eyes, but

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he held himself in a strong manner. No matter how much I tried to

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justify this as him just carrying himself
the way a leader should, I always

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got a strange feeling about him.
As I continued to work with the other

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members, I quickly picked up on
how talented they were. It was how

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we got away with such a small
team despite the heavy amount of projects we

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took on. They were multi specialists
too, colorists doing shading, the sound

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team picking up for the animation,
tweeners pitching in for direction. There was

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never a dropped beat in the flow
of work, which made me feel pale

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in comparison, having only specialized in
animation. Despite their chemistry, everyone seemed

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distant, almost robotic communication was just
one step away from nonverbal. The startup

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was advertised as new, but they
acted like they'd been working together for a

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lifetime. The moment things began to
unravel because when I had a meeting with

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the elusive mister Jones, I was
summoned to his office to discuss a project

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I was working on. As I
entered, I couldn't help but feel a

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sense of a knees. I felt
this was all of a sad to discuss

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my lack of chemistry with the team. This was the first time I'd seen

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anyone besides mister Jones. Enter always
deemed his space, and it was me

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that had the honor of crossing the
threshold. Mister Jones sat behind his desk,

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his eyes cold and calculating as he
looked me up and down. He

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didn't say a word for several moments, and the silent beats were almost suffocating

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if this was some kind of CEO
scare tactic he was working. Finally,

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he spoke, I've been watching your
progress on your project and I must say

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that I'm impressed, he said,
his voice barely above a whisper. Your

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work is truly exceptional, and I
think you have the potential to be one

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of our top animators. I couldn't
help but feel a sense of pride at

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his words. All the extra time
the others put in, yet I was

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the one that stood out. It
was a boost to my ego, to

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say the least. Maybe the others
were spread too thin, covering for each

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other, and I managed to stand
out in my one true field. But

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I couldn't shake the feeling that he
was hiding something from me. Thank you,

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mister Jones, I said, trying
to keep my voice steady yet polite.

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I'm glad you're pleased with my work. Oh I'm more than pleased,

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he replied, his eyes narrowing.
In fact, I think that you're ready

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to take on a special project for
me, a project that will take your

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skills to the next level and truly
showcase your talent. I was about to

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ask him more about the project,
but before he could speak, he stood

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up from his desk and walked over
to me. He placed his hand on

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my shoulder and I could feel his
cold clammy fingers gripping me tightly. You

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will work on this project, and
you will not speak of it to anyone

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outside this company, he said,
his voice low and menacing. Do you

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understand? I nodded, feeling a
sense of fear coursing through my veins.

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I didn't know what he was planning, and he gave no hints to what

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was about to come. Mister Jones
didn't make me sign any NBA's, but

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I still felt the pressure of legal
colmdown if I were to breach this verbal

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agreement. As I worked on the
special project for mister Jones, I couldn't

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help but notice that there was something
strange about the entire situation. For one,

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I was never allowed to see any
other final animations they were created,

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but my new personal team. Whenever
I asked about them, I was met

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with yet more vague answers and quickly
redirected to another task. I tried to

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brush it off as just the way
things were done at the company, but

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as time went on, I couldn't
shake the feeling that there was something more

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sinister at play. I started to
notice that the other members outside my team

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were acting strange as well. They
were even more secretive than usual, and

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they always seemed to be on edge
around me. I tried to talk to

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some of my co workers about it, but they all shut me down.

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They told me that I just needed
to focus on my work in a manner

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that was the closest human from any
of my interactions. I couldn't shake the

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feeling that something was off. I
knew that I needed to find out what

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was really going on, but I
didn't know how. I was already making

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myself a target with my questions.
I was stuck working on these special projects

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for mister Jones, and I was
afraid of what would happen if I tried

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to dig too deep. Something I
picked up after a few projects was that

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I never knew who the clients were
that commissioned the animations or where they were

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going once they were finished. Whenever
I asked, I was yet again met

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with more avoidance. I added it
to yet more things I'll never get to

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know, But I couldn't shake the
growing curiosity behind this company. The questions

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that true to the forefront of my
thoughts was what were these animations being used

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for? One day, while working
on a project, I stumbled across a

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stack of papers on mister Jones's desk. It was a rare time I was

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permitted to enter a space since there
were some machines in there that had niche

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uses and was tasked to get one. The papers were all in voices and

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receipts, and they were addressed to
various government agencies from around the world.

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I was stunned. I knew the
clients must have been high profile for the

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boss to make us churn them out
with such an urgency, but I didn't

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know it went this deep. With
this snippet of an answer, a flood

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of more questions rushed at me,
and it got to Wrenchel. When I

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looked closer. The specific agencies listed
were from branches I'd never heard of,

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acronyms that weren't the obvious culprits to
common online conspiracy theories, names that sounded

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like something from a sci fi movie. I quickly left with the equipment I

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needed and hushed up about it,
having learned to start asking questions at the

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workplace. When I got home,
I searched all the names I could remember

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online, but nothing showed. I
tried pairing it with the respective countries and

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it still came up blank. I
knew they must be real, because the

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animations had to be going somewhere,
so I tried the most direct answer I

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could think of. I made sure
to remember her specific branch, one based

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in my own country. My plan
was to call the public government number and

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asked to be put through to the
specific branch. I dialed the number,

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my heart pounding in my chest.
I was nervous as the phone rang.

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I waited anxiously for someone to answer. When someone picked up, it was

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a polite woman asking how she could
help me, and I nervously asked to

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be put through. Without a response, I was met with a strange clicking

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sound and a high pitch tone.
I was terrified, in a panic,

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I hung up the phone immediately.
I didn't know what was going on,

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but I knew that I needed to
be careful. I didn't want to put

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myself in any real danger. I
tried to think of more ideas and left

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it for the night. The next
day, as soon as I showed up

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for work, mister Jones called me
into his office. He straightway let me

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know that I was fired. He
gave some vague reasons about my performance not

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being up to par, which I
felt couldn't be true. I'd been praised

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not too long ago about my outstanding
performance, and my workflow hadn't declined since

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working the new position in fact,
it might have improved. I immediately knew

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it was connected to the phone call
i'd made. I was angry and upset

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at having lost my first animation job, but I knew there was nothing I

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could do. I backed to my
things and left the office, feeling a

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sense of dread. As I left, I was watched by the others in

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a cold silence. They were emotionless, stairs piercing through me, though not

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with inflictions of embarrassment, but rather
a sense of malice. After being let

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go, I continued to look for
a new job, but I struggled.

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I tried to use the old company
as a reference, but quickly learned that

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it was impossible. When I called
the company for a referral, the calls

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never went through. I went back
to the office, but he was vacated.

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Not even a drop of ink was
left. I searched online for more

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information, but the sites were now
blank. It was as if the team

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never existed. I didn't know what
was going on, so I tried to

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dig deeper and look for the clients
that I remembered from the papers, but

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it was impossible. I tried to
do research about my old animation company,

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trying to uncover what was really going
on. But the more I looked,

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the more frustrated I became. They
covered their tracks well. If I couldn't

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find anything out while working there,
being this distant made everything much harder.

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Meanwhile, I was still on the
hunt for a new job. I struggled

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to explain the gap in my work
history between now and my education. Whenever

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I mentioned the company, potential employers
would look at me with confusion. I

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started to feel like I was going
crazy. However, one day, while

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I was being interviewed for another fresh
animation team, I mentioned them again.

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The interviewer looked at me with skepticism
and told me he hadn't heard of them

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before. I was getting frustrated.
I was about to explain further when a

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worker who was passing by overheard our
conversation and nodded his head. I went

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on to bomb the interview as usual
and left went outside. The worker quickly

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rushed over to me and handed me
a slip of paper with his contact information.

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Please you have to reach me,
the worker said urgently. I used

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to work there too, was all
he said as he rushed back inside,

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leaving me standing there with a slipper
paper in my hand. When I got

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home, I stared at the slipper
paper that was given to me. It

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was obvious he did it all in
a rush, as the paper was hastily

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ripped from one of the work documents
who was carrying, and the penmanship had

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holes from how it was written,
most likely on the palm of his hand.

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I didn't know if I could trust
him, but if I wanted to

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investigate further, I knew I had
to take the plunge, so I decided

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to take the risk and contact him. I sent him an email and waited

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anxiously for a response. A few
hours later, I got an answer.

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All it contained was a link to
a small website that documented one of the

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animations I had briefly worked on.
The website was some small conspiratal site that

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looked like it was made with the
most basic template, but what I read

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was wild. It tried to correlate
the animation releases to a major political event

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and one off is a coincidence.
But every example given was so specific to

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each country an event. I now
knew more, but I had no idea

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where to go from here. My
curiosity was always thirsty, and this did

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nothing to quench it, I was
craving more. After this, though,

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my attempts to contact the worker failed, I started to get worried, so

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I decided to try to call the
company where the worker was from, hoping

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to find some new contact information.
But when I garled the number, I

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was met with a strange clicking sound
and a high pitched tone. I locked

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them up and they too disappeared.
After my attempts to contact the worker failed,

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things started getting weirder. My friends
and family seemed to be avoiding me.

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Whenever I ran into them in town, they would walk away from me,

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as if they didn't want to be
seen with me. It was as

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if I'd somehow become a prior,
and the thought made me feel isolated and

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alone. Even when I went to
the store to buy groceries, the cashiers

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would barely acknowledge me. They would
wordlessly serve me and take my money,

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but they wouldn't make eye contact or
engage in conversation. It was as if

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I was poisonous air breath held until
I was safely away, and the thought

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made me feel like I was losing
my mind. And after everything, I

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was still unable to find any solid
information on my own until One night,

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I was flipping through the channels or
watching TV, and I came across an

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advertisement for a worldwide premiere of a
new cartoon. The cartoon was going to

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be translated into multiple languages and broadcast
around the world. And as I watched

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the advertisement, I recognized some of
the countries listed. They were the same

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countries that were listed on the papers
I had found on mister Jones's desk.

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My eyes widened. I don't know
what's going to happen, but I can't

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shake the feeling that something terrible is
going to happen. The worldwide premiere of

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the new cartoon is fast approaching.
I don't know what kind of effect this

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cartoon is going to have on his
viewers, but it's going to be something

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that's going to happen on a grander
scale than anything we had done before.

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I can't help but worry about the
future.