Alma, a pot-dealing single mother, coasts through each day with little care and motivation until she meets a cancer patient in need of medical marijuana. Vargas, her roommate and friend for over a decade, works intensely in his room on a literary project that no one has seen and that in his words will 'change literature as we know it.' Moving into their Oakland apartment is Penny, a 19-year-old French foreign exchange student, in love with California and on her own for the first time. Embracing newfound freedoms, she explores her sexuality through two separate relationships -- one with a man, the other with a woman. 'Scared New World' is the story of three lives, separate but intertwined, trying to find balance in unstable times.