The Amazing World of Gumball has been my favorite TV show for about 3 years now. I enjoy the humor (Mostly because I'm 11 and the humor is hilarious to me) and just love the characters, animation, dialogue, etc. I just love everything about it.
One summer I was up late, later than I usually am in the summer. I was up at 5:30 AM. Of course, it was only 30 minutes until Cartoon Network was back on. I decided I should go back to bed when my iPad vibrated for a notification. It was from Cartoon Network's twitter. It said "a new episode of Gumball comes on at 6:00 AM!", which was 30 minutes away. So I decided to stay up for another hour or so. I got some microwaved burritos and some Dr Pepper, and waited. Another tweet was sent out, describing it was an episode testing out a new animation software. This really got me excited. Only 29 more minutes.
Finally, it was only 3 minutes away. I almost fell asleep, but one final tweet came out. It kind of gave me chills. It said "The new Gumball episode may be somewhat, weird. We wouldn't air this kind of stuff but if we didn't, something would happen to us. This will", and then they continued the tweet because of the 140 character tweet limit. "only be aired 3 times. 6:00 AM today, 7:30 AM tomorrow, and 6:30 AM in 2 days. Please, we beg of you do NOT even try to post this on a cartoon", and it continues once more. "site or whatever. This should NOT be seen. We will explain this in a later tweet, and hopefully we can get some help to delete these. Thanks." By the time I finished reading the tweets, the show started.
It started normal. The usual intro. Nice and cheery. The episodes name was “Znk Latkxgr”, followed with “Ju tuz sktzout zu gteutk. Eua ngbk hkkt cgxtkj.” I paused the DVR and copied the message down on a notebook to look jt up later. The episode finally started. It opened with Gumball sleeping. After this, the colors started twitching for about 3 seconds. I thought it was my TV (which is nearly 15 years old), but I played it back with the DVR and it was the episode. I thought it was just a small tecnical glitch, it happens sometimes.
This is when things became weird. I hear screaming. I thought it was from my house. I paused the episode and ran to where I heard the screaming. The noise had awoke my brother from that. I asked him if he heard screaming, he replied with yes. I then went to my Mom, but she told me she didn’t hear anything. I told my brother I was watching an episode of Gumball, and Cartoon Network’s tweets made it seem suspicious. I showed him the tweets, but my brother thought he was still dreaming, and went back to bed. I went back to my room, and continued the episode. I wish I hadn’t.
The screaming became more tense. Tenser, and tenser. Gumball finally woke up and screamed. Darwin wasn’t there. Gumball ran downstairs to see a pool of blood. I thought maybe Cartoon Network was threatened by someone to air this. Gumball screamed when he saw something. Something. I don’t know WHAT it was, because it just showed a screen with blue text saying “Nby vfuwe gihmnyl cm nby ihfs ihy nbun nby chxcpcxouf nbun cm nblyuncha om ni qunzwdxea, xlzges”. I didn’t feel like copying this down because it was so long. It went back to Gumball, shivering in a corner like someone he loved died. Which is obviously what happend due to the blood. I watched the episode fade to black. Then, a red-colored Gumball with no pupils appeared for 2 seconds, and that’s the last thing I saw before my power went out.
I told my mom the power went out, and she called the power company over. They came at around 6:07, which was preventing me from watching the episode. I’m sort of glad I missed most of it, because what I saw can NEVER be forgotten. They finally fixed the power at around 6:10, which meant only 1 more minute of the show. I got to watch the last minute. All it showed was just bloody organs with Gumball’s severed head on the carpet. I then saw what looked like Darwin’s body getting thrown by some black censored bars. Obviously, there was something hiding it. It then showed a saw, digging into Darwin’s legs. Flesh and blood was just exploding out of Darwin’s body. Then it happened with Anais, same thing, except her legs were chopped off. There was only 15 seconds left until 6:11, which is when Gumball signs off. It faded to a black screen with the censored bar. It stayed there for 13 seconds. The next 2 seconds was the censored bar revealing to be a mirror. I made a quick theory that it meant I WAS THE MURDERER. I don’t know WHY I thought that, but don’t mirrors show what you look like? It was a good theory, to me.
After that episode ended, I literally just couldn’t close my eyes. I couldn’t think about what I saw. All I did was turn the TV off, and go in the kitchen to put the microwave burritos back and I kept the Dr Pepper. I actually still had the mirror picture in my head. I had to go to the bathroom, and during using the bathroom, I fainted because of the mirror.
The Mirror. That’s all I could think about the next week in a half. I actually failed 3 tests because all I wrote on the papers were “The Mirror.” I was so weird about this mirror, that I wouldn’t even talk to my BEST FRIEND. All I’d say was “The... t.. the... T-t-the Mirror. The Mirror” I couldn’t even say HI to anyone. The teachers told my school therapist to talk to me. I didn’t say anything about what I watched. All I said was “The Mirror.” I actually got sent home one day because the teachers really thought I needed time to myself. I finally snapped out of it when I saw a real mirror.
2 years have passed since that week. Remember that text I wrote down, the “Znk Latkxgr, Ju tuz sktzout zu gteutk. Eua ngbk hkkt cgxtkj” stuff? Well, I looked it up, and came across this code called Cipher. I learned how to “decipher” this text, and heres what it read at first.
“Wkh Ixqhudo, Gr qrw phqwlrq wr dqbrqh. Brx kdyh ehhq zduqhg”
I then realized there was a KEY I needed to decode it. I kept trying different numbers for the code. I couldn’t find ANYTHING, the closest I got to a code was “The Funeral. Do not mention this episode at all cost.”
Anyways, I’m done talking about this. Cartoon Network only aired it once, and never explained it. In fact they went off air for like a week because of it. This is a moment I will never forget.
One thing I still want to know is what that mirror means. What does it truly mean?