The Card Kid, and the Taker

A boy you've never seen before turns up while you're working at the generator. He shows you his card collection; you cannot answer, because you are a baby.

Trigger

Roughly a 28% chance each time you start, refuel, or repair the generator, at most once per day/night phase. He approaches from somewhere 8–20 units away that has a walkable path to you.

What happens

1. Approach (up to 16 seconds): he walks toward you.
2. Talk (his voice line's length, minimum 3.4s, plus 0.9s buffer): subtitles cycle through "A boy you have not seen before holds up a fan of cards." → "He is telling you about them. All of them. In order." → "He does not seem to need you to answer." → "(you are a baby. you have no words yet.)"
3. Grab (up to 2.6 seconds): something the code calls only the Taker closes in from behind him, fast and silent, at 7.5 units/second, arriving from the darkest direction that isn't through you.
4. Drag (2.4 seconds): both of them are pulled backwards into the dark.

The Taker

Never named on-screen — only ever referred to as "the Taker" in the game's own source. It never touches or interacts with the player directly; its entire purpose is dragging the Card Kid away. It appears only during this one sequence and is otherwise invisible.

Purely local

It is also purely local: in co-op, every player who triggers it sees their own separate encounter, invisible to teammates — deliberately not networked, unlike almost everything else in the game.

Voice acting

The Card Kid has 2 of the game's 14 recorded lines: his talking line, and his scream as he's dragged away. See Voice Lines. His scream recording is reused elsewhere, for the Big Boys Club leader's cry when Grump lands his first hit — see The Big Boys Club.