Despite never entering a contest, Ben and Zane won an all-expenses-paid trip to Endsville, a radiation-scarred city with residents who weren't doing much better. Most of the townspeople were either completely oblivious or totally insane, and none of them noticed the tentacles coming up from the sewers or the mysterious cloud of fog. Despite being clawed, chewed, and strangled on their way through town, neither of them died. Maybe it was a bizarre twist of fate, or the beneficence of incomprehensible beings from beyond the stars. Or maybe it had something to do with that skeleton on a leash tied up in someone's yard.