Black screen. A cursor blinks.

"This game is based on a true story." "The names have been changed." "The suffering has not."

SHADOWINTERN fades in.

Scene 1 — ~30 seconds

You are [INTERN]. No name. Just a title.

It's your first day. You're standing on the sidewalk outside NEXUS CORP — a glass tower that looks like it was designed by someone who hated windows but loved the idea of windows. The sky is warm. You are nervous.

A poster on the wall reads:

"NOW HIRING: INTERNS — No Experience Needed (But You'll Get Plenty)"

There's a trash can by the entrance. It's overflowing with printed resumes. Yours is in there somewhere. They called you back anyway. You don't know why. You walk inside.

Scene 2 — ~45 seconds

The receptionist doesn't look up.

"Name?"

You say it.

"..." "Ah yes." "Conference room B. Down the hall, second left." "Don't be nervous."

A pause.

"Or do. It won't matter."

The lobby is aggressively beige. There are chairs no one sits in. A water cooler with no water. A TV playing a loop of the company's "Core Values" — INNOVATION. INTEGRITY. IMPACT. — over stock footage of people shaking hands.

One chair in the corner has a sign: "RESERVED FOR CANDIDATES." It's in the dark.

You walk down the hall.

Scene 3 — ~45 seconds

Conference room B.

Two people sit across a long table. They have the energy of people who stopped feeling things around Q2 2019. One of them gestures to an empty chair. It's a slightly different color from the rest. It is for you.

You sit.

Interviewer 1: "So... tell me about yourself."

You have three options:

• A) "I'm passionate about synergy and disrupting paradigms"
• B) "I just need the experience honestly"
• C) "..."

It doesn't matter which one you pick.

Interviewer 1: "Perfect. You start Monday."

Interviewer 2 hasn't moved. They're staring at their laptop.

Interviewer 2: "Welcome to Nexus. You'll love it here."

They say this in the tone of someone reading a terms and conditions agreement.

The whiteboard behind them reads: "Q3 OKRs: SYNERGY | LEVERAGE | DISRUPT | PIVOT"

Under that, half-erased: "Q2 OKR: Don't Lose Any More Interns"

Fade to black.

Scene 4 — ~60 seconds

Monday.

The open-plan office is exactly what you imagined. Rows of desks. Fluorescent lights that have been buzzing slightly wrong for three years but nobody has filed a ticket about it because nobody knows whose ticket it would be. The carpet is grey-blue, the color of mild despair.

People are working. Or appearing to work. It's hard to tell.

A coworker by the printer looks up at you. They've seen interns before.

"Oh. New intern?" "Good luck." "The last one cried on day two."

A beat.

"Day one was orientation."

You walk past. Another coworker at their desk, not looking up from their screen:

"Don't touch my stapler."

You weren't going to.

You pass a whiteboard labeled SPRINT BOARD. It's covered in sticky notes. Every sticky note says something urgent. None of the urgencies are related to each other.

One desk has a counter: "DAYS WITHOUT INCIDENT: 0"

Another desk has fourteen coffee cups arranged in a loose timeline of psychological deterioration.

A sign above the far exit reads: "Please Do Not Discuss Salary. Or Feelings."

At the end of the row: your desk. A name tag reads INTERN. Not your name. Just the job title. There is a monitor. There is a keyboard. There is a sticky note that says TODO: Everything.

There is a plant. It is trying its best.

You sit down.

Scene 5 — ~30 seconds

The camera doesn't move anymore. You're here now.

The narrator appears — text in the center of the screen, like something that has been watching you this whole time:

"And so you sat down."

"Ready to make a difference."

"Ready to change the world."

"Ready to..."

"...read your first Jira ticket."

The monitor in front of you starts to glow. Slowly at first, then brighter. The camera drifts forward — not fast, not dramatic, just the quiet inevitability of it.

The monitor fills your vision. But the office stays. The fluorescent lights. The coworkers. The sprint board. The fourteen coffee cups. They're all still there, behind you, around you, watching.

The screen flickers. Text appears:

NEXUSCORP OS v3.1
Booting workstation...
Loading Jira...
Loading Outlook...
Loading Slack...
Loading 47 unread notifications...

WELCOME, INTERN.
Have a productive day.

The 2D game begins.

The story isn't about the internship being evil. It's about it being mundane. Nobody is a villain. The interviewers aren't cruel — they're just tired. The coworker isn't mean — he's just protective of his stapler. The company isn't malicious — it just runs on buzzwords and meetings.

The horror isn't dramatic. It's the slow realization that the monitor in front of you is now your entire world, the office looms behind you, and somewhere in 47 unread notifications is a task that will take 10 minutes but is due in 5.

That's the joke. That's also the truth.