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Dandy had lived the perfect life. Growing up, his parents were always kind and patient with him, raising him to be a sweet and caring young man. He couldn’t have been more grateful for the life he’d been given.
Growing up, he was naturally good at making friends. He was popular, got good grades, and was as friendly as possible. Everyone had faith in him.
After graduating, he wasn’t too sure what to do with himself. He knew his first course of action needed to be getting a job. He would prefer to move out of his parents house as soon as possible, not because he didn’t like them, but because he wanted to be independent. So, he started working at Gardenview Educational Center with a couple of his friends.
When it came to moving out, he decided to rent an apartment. He was a bit nervous about having a roommate at first. What if they clashed? What if his roommate didn’t like him? What would he do?
But the moment he laid his eyes on Astro all of those worries went away. Astro was soft spoken, gentle, polite. Not just a good roommate, but a good person. A good… Friend.
Every day of his life was better than the last. He loved his life so much. Going to work, talking to his friends. Cooking dinner with Astro. Visiting his family with Sprout. Going to museums with Shelly. Goofing around with Pebble. Going on Vee’s game show. He was so lucky, so happy. Too happy.
He should have known better, he should have known his luck would run out someday.
He could still remember the day his illusion was shattered. He woke up in a strange room with some strange person. He felt heavier, as if gravity itself was stronger.
He soon came to know the strange person as a woman named Delilah. She explained to him that he was part of a T. V. show her friend Arthur had created, and she had pulled him into the real world.
He just gave her this blank stare as she explained his reality to him. Eventually she realized she was scaring him, leaving him alone to process things.
And he’d be lying if he said he didn’t cry that day. He felt so broken. His entire life had been a giant lie. His parents, his friends, everybody he ever cared about. Not even he himself was real. It was all just one big lie.
He had trouble accepting it for the first few days. He’d watch episodes of the show, sobbing as he watched animated versions of memories he cherished so dearly. Why did it all have to be fake? Why did he have to be brought into this horrible world?
He didn’t want to accept the truth. He wanted to go to sleep and wake up back in the cartoon world with all of his friends. He wanted to be a kid again, cuddling against his mom as she read him a bedtime story or playing blocks in the living room with his cousin Sprout. He wanted to feel the embarrassment of confidently shouting out the wrong answer on Vee’s show. He wanted to listen intently as Shelly told him fun facts about all sorts of prehistoric creatures.
He wanted to wake up back in his apartment, clinging to his blankets out of fear of the nightmare he’d just had. He wanted to go to his living room for water, only to find Astro knitting on the couch with Pebble in his lap. He wanted to feel Astro’s warm arms wrap around him as he cried. He wanted to wake up.
But he wouldn’t. He’d spend every day here for the rest of his life.
With nobody else to talk to, he started to become friends with Delilah. She was a business woman at heart, bossy and confident, but she wasn’t mean. She gave good advice.
Along with her, Dandy met a man named Arthur. He was much quieter than Delilah, but he was good at comforting Dandy when he was scared.
Still, as much as he liked the two, he wasn’t sure if he could ever truly forgive them for exposing the truth to him. Not only that, but they treated him like a child. It felt so patronizing having people control everywhere he went and everything he did. Not even his parents were this controlling with him.
Soon, Pebble came to join him. His poor puppy looked so scared and confused by their big new home. He desperately asked Delilah to stop, he didn’t want any more of his friends to experience that pain that he had, but it was already too late.
Astro was the next to wake up. Dandy was happy to see his beloved best friend again, but he couldn’t help but feel so angry when he saw his frightened expression. Delilah and Arthur had no right to do this to the people he cared about.
Having Astro around definitely helped though. Pebble was a good dog, but he wasn’t very conversational. For a long time, it was just the three of them. Being alone with Astro for so long definitely brought them closer. Maybe too close. The building wasn’t open to the public yet, and with lots of free time and bottled up emotions, it was easy for their interactions to go in unexpected directions.
Eventually, even more familiar faces joined them. Once Sprout, Shelly, and Vee were created, Gardenview was officially opened to the public. It was just like it was in the toon world, except instead of being an educational center for young toons, it was aimed towards human children. Dandy found them kind of ugly, in all honesty, but that definitely wasn’t a thought that needed to be externalized.
He began to get used to his new life. It wasn’t ideal, but maybe everything would be alright. Right…?
But Dandy began to notice himself changing. He felt… Nervous. A constant anxiety that he just couldn’t stop. Like something bad was going to happen, rapidly approaching like storm clouds on the horizon. He tried so hard to ignore the feeling, but he just couldn’t do it.
He didn’t want to bother Astro with all his complex feelings, so he’d often spend time alone in his lab. He’d always loved science, and having such a big quiet workspace made him feel calm. He liked to study other plants. The human world had all sorts of unique flora that he’d never seen before, and he was always on the lookout for more.
One day, Delilah came down to his lab with a gift. She usually left him alone when he was in his lab, understanding how much he valued his privacy, but she said she just couldn’t wait to give him his present.
It was a plant. A big, tall plant. Vibrant green with gorgeous pointed petals and a long windy stem. “An Ichor plant!” Delilah said. “It’s what I used to make you! I figured you might like to study it. Who knows? Maybe you’ll learn something about yourself.”
He happily took it and added it to his collection. Apparently, Delilah’s family grew them every spring out on their porch. It had been a tradition in their family for decades, maybe centuries. Delilah came from a family of gardeners, and the Ichor plant was their favorite of all.
Dandy studied it for months. He tried growing more, studying what conditions they needed to survive and what all he could make out of them. That’s how he discovered ichor.
He tried to make tea from the leaves of the plant, boiling them with a bit of water in a pot. Instead of forming tea, it formed the thick, sweet ichor he’d soon become so familiar with.
When he took a sip, he found that he enjoyed the sweet flavor. He tried giving some to Astro, but he thought it was too sweet. He thought that would be the end of it. He thought it would just be a one time thing.
But the ichor kept calling out to him. He felt a strange connection to it. To think, the leaves adorning his head were ichor leaves from Delilah’s garden as well. It fascinated him.
Soon, he’d make more. He found a bunch of little empty capsules to put more ichor in and made even more. And every once in a while, he’d pull one out and have a nice drink.
Astro seemed worried about him. What if ichor was poisonous or dangerous? But Dandy assured him he would be fine.
But he didn’t feel fine. In fact, his anxiousness was getting worse. He could feel the thick ichor sloshing around in his stomach and it made him sick, and he could swear he heard whispers of people he didn’t know in his head.
He should’ve stopped it there. He should have thrown it all away, thrown the plants out and never looked back. But he just couldn’t. It was just too good to stop.
Soon, he wasn’t even in control anymore. He watched his body move on its own, imitating him perfectly. Sometimes he acted angry and threatening, sometimes sad and melancholic, sometimes manic and excited. His emotions seemed more exaggerated than normal, though nobody called him out on that. And all he could do was sit in his own head and watch.
He watched as he spread his infection to the others. First it was through the pipes. All of the water in the building was poisoned with ichor.
Then, the food. Sprout, despite his valiant efforts, would soon accept the ichor as well, adding it to his food and baked goods. Dandy did everything he could to get it to spread to the others.
When Arthur and Delilah found out they panicked. They evacuated the building immediately and shut it down. Delilah had known what was coming. Arthur had not.
The regular Dandy would’ve hated being a leader, he would’ve given that job up to Vee any day. But now he saw it as an opportunity to spread the corruption even further. Soon everyone in the building would be under his command. Everyone would be corrupted.
One by one, he was forced to watch as each of his friends lost themselves. His mind was so loud. He felt everything at once, so many thoughts running through his head at a time. It was so loud that he couldn’t control himself. The other voices overwhelmed him, scaring him back into his head and not letting him have control over his own body.
He still enjoyed spending time in his lab, but he only studied ichor. His other plants began to wilt and die as he cared for his darling, precious plant.
It was both hellish and heavenly. Cuddling with twisted Astro and Pebble, cooking himself pancakes with ichor as syrup, drinking so many capsules of it that he passed out from exhaustion. Part of him loved it. Part of him despised it.
The last thing he would do in the human world was rest his head on twisted Astro’s chest. The next morning, he’d be back home.