Mindwarp

Judy, a Dreamer living inside Inworld, attempts to wake from the virtual dream that sustains her life. Her interruption triggers a fatal consequence in the real world: her mother dies while Judy remains trapped in the illusion. This event seeds her exile from Inworld and sets her on a perilous journey on the surface.

For meddling with dreams, Judy is exiled by the System Operator. On the surface, Stover, an Outworlder who believes he is among the last normal humans, finds her and protects her from radiation and Crawlers. They form a wary alliance as they navigate a desolate world.

The duo is captured by Crawlers and dragged into their underground village. Stover is put to work mining the garbage dump, while Judy faces an uncertain fate under the community’s brutal rules. Their situation worsens as their captors tighten control.

The Crawlers’ masked leader, the Seer, intervenes just in time to save Judy from being butchered. He becomes her reluctant ally in the grim underground world and starts shaping events to his advantage. Judy remains wary of his true motives.

During their uneasy alliance, the Seer reveals that he is an Inworlder, not merely a local ruler. He presents himself as a figure with broader power and hints at a plan to ensure the Crawlers’ survival under his leadership.

Cornelia, an Outworlder consort, grows jealous of Judy’s influence and tries to infect her with a mutant leech-like parasite. The attempt fails, exposing the dangerous rivalries fueling the Seer’s regime.

In a brutal ritual, Claude’s eye is gouged out, and the ceremony continues with the populace drinking Claude’s blood. The act reinforces the Seer’s control through fear and ritualistic spectacle. The underground society clamps down on dissent.

Stover uses a found food processor blade to escape Judy’s confinement and frees her. They are quickly recaptured and tossed into a half-submerged cage, where they are attacked by a swarm of mutant leeches that threaten their lives.

The Seer declares that he is Judy’s father and outlines a plan to breed a healthy race to lead the Crawlers. Judy wrestles with his revelation, ultimately resisting his attempt to mold her into a successor and Power.

Judy makes another bid for freedom and manages to free Stover. The pair are recaptured, setting the stage for a final confrontation with the Seer and the grinding machinery.

During a climactic grinder ceremony, Judy overpowers the Seer and feeds him into the machine. The Crawlers declare Judy the new Seer, but Stover’s leech infection continues to threaten him as the victory is hollow.

Judy and Stover manage to reach the surface, but Stover vomits leech larvae onto Judy. She wakes up back in Inworld and realizes the journey might have been an Infinisynth simulation rather than reality.

Judy is confronted by her father—the System Operator—who suggests handing the Operator role to her. She wakes again in her old room with her mother, leaving the ending deliberately unresolved as to whether the handover was real or a subconscious dream.