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Season 1 Finale
“Massaro!” both Vic and Scarlett shout, bursting into his office in hopes of his knowledge of the realm being able to serve them a key out of it. “Vic? Scarlett?” Massaro calls out, staying in his seat as the girls rush over to the desk his work is sprawled upon in another plane. “Massaro, do you know anything about how to get out of the realm without killing yourself?” Vic asks, refusing to do anything other than get straight to the point. “Geez, that’s a loaded question” Massaro replies, lifting his hand to his chin to ponder over the possibilities. “Even if it is, we need whatever you can think of” Vic replies, “we were drugged in the realm above and now we need a way back.” Though the girls cannot see it, Massaro’s eyes widen in shock, wondering what the reasoning behind drugging two teenage girls on a flight doomed to death serves. “Whatever the point of it was can be saved for another day” Scarlett responds, “what can’t is how to get back.” Standing from his seat, Massaro places his hand on a specific spot and guides Vic to rest her own hand on the same spot. Once done, Massaro takes the form of a blue light in Vic’s hand, actually able to be felt in her palm whilst Vic takes the same form in Massaro’s plane. “Follow the blue dot” Massaro beacons, leaving his office and leading the girls into the hall of the faceless, where he directs them to a set of doors in the very back. “Those fucking things again!” Scarlett exclaims, Massaro admitting that he had been hearing of some troubles. “If you can manage to get the doors open, even if you can somehow force them open, the realm will react in a hostile manner, setting out to put you down before you can harm it further. “What if we can’t get them open?” Vic asks, feeling Massaro struggle to find any alternatives. “You can’t control it from within the realm, but if you suffer any physical damage in the realm of reality, you’ll be shot right back up there to deal with whatever the cause is.” Apologizing, Massaro feels guilty that he has no better answer, breaking the news that the girls are completely shut out from the realm above without a direct line back. “Either open a back door, force the realm’s hand or hope you get lucky in time” Massaro concludes, “there’s nothing else I can think of that’s been proven than that.” Thanking the man for his help, Vic informs him that she’ll let him know how it all unfolds. “Which one do we go for?” Scarlett asks, getting herself ready to take on the double doors on the spot, already forcing herself to think of all the trouble they’ve caused her to further her motivation. “Let’s figure out the back door option first” Vic replies, “if we’re gonna fuck with the realm, I’d prefer if it was a last-ditch resort.” Groaning, Scarlett surrenders to Vic’s plan and asks where they go first. Thinking about it for a moment, Vic recalls a spot that helped in the past and makes the suggestion that they use it again. Without warning, she takes Scarlett by the hand and returns to the downtown Baton Rouge area, the empty streets a perfect metaphor for their optimism. “Okay, now that we’re here… Why are we here?” Scarlett asks, looking around the street before Vic points her in the direction of the end of the street, leading her by the hand to it. “That’s where the star crashed, right?” Vic asks, pointing to the scenic space above a set of buildings beneath the sunset. “When it hit, everything turned into something completely different from what we’re used to” Vic explains, “it sent us into some kind of nightmare.” “Why is that important?” Scarlett asks, struggling to follow Vic, though making her best effort. “When people realize they’re in a dream and force themselves to wake up, it’s always because they’re having a nightmare” Vic concludes, “all we have to do is convince the realm that this is a nightmare, and we’ll follow whatever fucked up thing tugs at our arm this time.” “Like the terrorists did last time!” Scarlett replies, finally catching the drift, and able to move onto the next issue in their way. “How do we turn this into a nightmare?” Scarlett follows up, that question somehow turning into a more difficult one to answer than the one that came before it. Conjuring up a thought in her head, Vic takes Scarlett by the hand one more time, popping her into the sky above, placing her in the realm beyond’s replica of their current doomed flight. “What the fuck!?” Scarlett shouts, feeling the plane’s speed increase as the pilots hope to get to land quick enough, forcing the blonde to look out onto the wings at the smoke billowing into the orange sky. “Holy fuck! How the fuck!?” Scarlett shouts, her hands gripping onto the armrests with such force that her nails begin to tear into the cushions. To her left, Vic lays there unconscious, completely oblivious to what’s going on around her. = Dream Sequence is created by Zachary Serra, all rights to the series belong to Zachary Serra and the entity of Pacer1 Media from the start of Season 1 onwards = “This makes no sense!” Jared says, putting his seat belt on as Rachel pulls her vehicle out of the school parking lot. “They killed her!” Jared shouts, his hands stretched out to visualize his point, “hasn’t the cop been given enough fucking justice?” Shaking her hand, Rachel pushes the notion of ‘too much justice’ out of the window. “It doesn’t matter who’s hurt by what” Rachel responds, “saying ‘justice hasn’t been served’ is just a reason to keep fighting each other.” Approaching the end of the parking lot, Rachel slows her vehicle as the patrolling guard waves her down just ahead. Finally at a full stop, Rachel rolls her window down and asks the guard what it is they are being stopped for. “The school isn’t letting anyone out right now” the guard replies, putting a smirk on Rachel’s face and a grimace on Jared’s, “you need to turn around and return to your parking spot.” “I don’t care what the school is doing” Rachel replies, “but that paint job was a death threat to people like us, and we’re not gonna sit around and wait like fish in a barrel. Move.” Proceeding to pull her talkie free and refuse to allow the girl through, the guard informs Rachel that she’ll have to call authorities if she does not comply. “Oh, so my choices are to get pulled over or get shot at in my own school?” Rachel retorts, pushing her foot to the pedal and running through the arm. Just as she had warned, the guard phones for one of the school officials to phone the authorities, watching Rachel drive onto the main road and disappear within seconds. “You just got us in so much trouble!” Jared exclaims, watching the amused smile creep over Rachel’s face. “No more trouble than we were already in” Rachel returns, glancing towards Jared and reminding him that it’s the person behind the wheel that’ll catch the blame. “For someone that cheated on a chick with a broken back.. You’re a real fuckin’ pussy” Rachel mutters, catching Jared shrug in agreement enough to break out into laughter. “Well, fuck…” Rachel says, “as long as you’re self aware!” Refusing to dwell any further on feeling bad about what he did, Jared allows himself to laugh at his errors, knowing that the effort to better himself as a person won’t allow him to make the same choice again. “It’s the kind of shitty part of trying to be a better man” Jared says, pulling Rachel’s intrigue as if he had it on a string. “You’ll still be guilty of the same shit that caused you to want to change in the first place” Jared continues, his admission of both guilt and hope being the first thing to make Rachel actually feel sorry for him. “I don’t think you’re a bad guy necessarily” Rachel explains, “I just think you did a really shitty thing to the last person that deserved it.” Admitting that she never hated him, only simply disliked him, Rachel tells Jared that he’s being too hard on himself far too often. “Things like cheating on Scarlett are things you should blame yourself for, things like what she had to do are things you shouldn’t” Rachel replies, giving Jared something new to find interest in. “What do you mean by ‘what she had to do’? Why did she have to do it?” Jared asks, having yet to be made aware of the less discussed areas. “There’s just something really shifty about the whole thing that doesn’t make sense” Rachel responds, pointing out a lack of video from the dash cam as a red flag. “I don’t think she killed the guy for no reason, I think the cop did something that forced her to act in self-defense” Rachel concludes, “the classic routine of the corrupt cop getting killed and being made to look like a hero.” “So she shouldn’t have been chased away?” Jared asks, his expression turning sour as he pieces together the fact that Scarlett may have been justified in her actions. “You’re saying she wouldn’t be dead if there wasn’t a cover up?” Jared continues, Rachel’s hand pressing against his as she tells him to calm down. “You’re getting worked up” Rachel counters, “we don’t know all the details, and we probably never will.” Taking in a deep breath, Rachel confesses that nothing is as definitive as they’d hope for on either side. “Because of that, there will always be a reason to fight for Scarlett and Tori’s justice” Rachel says, pausing as she realizes the nature behind her follow up, “just like there’ll always be one for the cop’s.” Continuing to drive, Rachel pulls into a diner and tells Jared to get some food in his system since they skipped out on lunch. Hopping out of the car and entering the building, the pair miss an old fashioned truck with a modern coat of light gray paint park beside Rachel’s car just seconds after they arrived. Exiting his vehicle, the figure with dark gray boots steps onto the ground, the strings from his worn down light blue jeans almost getting caught on one of the door’s hooks. With minimal effort, the figure slips a note into the space between the passenger’s side door and the window. Returning to his vehicle, the figure pulls out of the lot and drives off, leaving the folded paper sticking out, sturdy enough to keep from being effected by the gust of wind that ruffles through the trees around it. | “Vic, wake up!” Scarlett shouts, her body being forced into the seat by the air pressure of the cabin as the plane slowly breaks apart, splitting open at different sections of its body. In a matter of life or death, the auto pilot on Scarlett kicks in, prompting her to place her feet firmly to the floor and beginning pushing upwards. Fighting her seatbelt for position, Scarlett grabs onto the head of her seat and pulls, trying to get enough leverage to combat against the velocity. Her teeth pressed together harder than they ever had been before, Scarlett decides this is the best opportunity she is going to be afforded and makes the move she’s been setting up for. “Wake up!” Scarlett shouts, taking one foot off the floor and kicking Vic directly in the face with it before being forced back into her seat. Looking back, Scarlett finds Vic still unconscious as the sound of the engines giving out begins to fill the air. With a growl, Scarlett clenches at the arm rests with extreme force and bursts into another rage, her hair glowing once again, and her grip on the sides of the chair beginning to crush them. Lunging forward, Scarlett easily snaps out of the seatbelt and takes the seat in front of her clean out of the ground, throwing it across the cabin as it unnaturally explodes into thousands of pieces against the divider. No longer burdened by the increasing velocity, Scarlett strolls over to Vic and lifts her from her seat, throwing her against the cabin walls in an effort to awaken her. Unaware of just how much strength she has at her disposal, the attempted forced return into the realm above sends Vic crashing through the side of the cabin, ripping another massive hole in the interior and quickening the plane’s descent. Within moments, the engines completely turn off, losing power as the plane is amidst a forced nose dive, effectively placing the metaphorical tombstone on the already prepared grave. Having given up on any other course of action, Scarlett looks to the end of the cabin ahead and watches it seperate from the remainder of the planes body, the ocean ahead zipping closer into view. Meeting the surface halfway, Scarlett becomes engulfed with the waters rushing through the planes body as it burrows deeper into the drink. As the cold waters run against Scarlett’s face, the matter of the realm beyond splits her existence apart and returns it to the replica Baton Rouge streets. Touching her hands, arms, torso and face, Scarlett finds herself to be perfectly fine, safely returned to the simulated world unharmed and alone. After a few seconds, Vic appears from the sky, dropping from a tear in the realm and crashing into the asphalt below. “Fucking shit!” Vic shouts as she falls, the sound of the asphalt breaking her fall sounding like a metal hammer being taken to freshly-laid bricks. Stretching her arms out as if the asphalt beneath her were a cushion, Vic tilts her head back and groans at what she finds around her. “What the fuck was that about?” Scarlett asks, continuing to prod at Vic for answers as her friend emerges from her roadway coffin. “Seriously, what was that?” Scarlett continues, listening to a disappointed Vic suggest that surprising Scarlett with such an issue would force her into a nightmare. “Well, guess what?” Scarlett asks, Vic cutting her off to assure her that she’s well aware that it didn’t work. “What do we do now?” Scarlett shouts, her question being raised just before Esotera pops in, poking fun at the hole in the ground before addressing the more dire concern. “I know Massaro gave you three choices when you spoke to him earlier” Esotera begins, hurrying towards the bridge just a few blocks away as the girls follow. “But there’s more to one of those ways than just what he mentioned” the guide furthers, assuring the girls that the system can be cheated. “Just like come can do in the realm above, we can do in the realm below” Esotera proclaims, “they descend into the realm, you can ascend out of it.” Looking towards each other with confusion, Scarlett and Vic piece together the ways in which that’s possible until the lightbulb in Vic’s head suddenly flickers on. “Levitating?” Vic asks on, watching Esotera stop and turn towards her, invested in this new line of possibility. “You mean, you both levitate out of here?” Esotera asks, watching Vic concentrate on the ground beneath her before slowly lifting off of it much as she had in the walkway when alone. “When were you gonna tell me that you learned that?” Scarlett asks, Vic telling her that it just happened and she didn’t really think about it much. “The realm is putting its trust in you” Esotera exclaims, “great work, Vic.” Lifting herself off the ground with slightly more effort, Scarlett asks what happens now that they’ve got another tool at their disposal. “Well, what I was going to say was that there is a law to the realm beyond’s nature in what is and is not plausible in inter-realm connection” Esotera concludes. “Just like the five disasters, the laws of nature guide what the realm is willing to allow. If you can descend into and ascend out of, there needs to be a specific place to do so.” “So where is this specific place?” Vic asks, watching Esotera glance across the bridge at one building, unnecessary to point out with it needing no introduction, towering over the rest of the city like a traditional evil lair. “No matter what form the realm takees, there will always be one outlier above them all” Esotera states, “the central tower is the line of connection where the realm of reality and the realm beyond meet consistently.” “Why didn’t you say something about this earlier?” Scarlett asks, Esotera glancing towards her with concern. “Because getting to the top isn’t as cut and dry as just taking an elevator” the woman responds, pointing out the glowing red lights surrounding the building. “The building has keepers” Esotera says, looking at the girls and informing them that they will not rest at keeping those that do not belong unless their hand is forced. “So we just scale the side of the building then” Scarlett says, “bypass it all and float inside.” Shaking her head, Esotera points towards the very top of the structure, its abrupt end being the maximum height of the realm itself. “The connection is inside” the guiding light states, “the only way to get there is to go through it.” Nodding, Vic acknowledges the realm’s superiority over them. “It brought us here for a reason, it’s not going to lax the rules just because we ask it to” the confident girl proclaims, “we’re not smarter than it… So we have to be stronger.” Nodding, Esotera wishes both girls luck before vanishing into the thin atmosphere, leaving Scarlett and Vic to go about the business they need to tend to. “Are you ready?” Vic asks, turning towards Scarlett, whose face lights up with a smile as the pair begin the final steps in their return to the realm above. | “We’re always gonna be in danger, Jared” Rachel explains, putting her signature to the bill as she informs the man that their relation to Scarlett will always make them ‘in-depth’ sources. “Well maybe that’s the reason this person’s targeting us!” Jared retorts, “maybe we share information that no one else does and that makes us a threat to them.” Shaking her head and wiping her mouth, Rachel tells Jared that she’s worried he’s beginning to read too far into this. “No, you’re not reading into this enough” Jared responds, Rachel being unphased at the confidence in his statement, “have you wondered who shot her dad in the first place?” The most recent statement being made catching her like a fly ball in an outfielders mit, Rachel looks at Jared with widened eyes. “I’ve thought about that every second since it happened” Rachel responds, “but I’m not about to assume the same person responsible wants me dead too.” “What if they are?” Jared asks, making it clear that he understands the need for optimism, but isn’t about to put his chips in the center of the table on this bet. “This wasn’t a murder for the sake of murder, even people angry at Scarlett wouldn’t have wanted her dad dead” Jared replies, “there’s motives here that we play into just like he did.” Slamming her palms on the table, Rachel smiles at the few patrons of the diner as the silverware stops rattling. “I’m not gonna buy into being a name on some random persons hitlist” Rachel says, making it clear to Jared that she’s not going to let her life be dictated by fear. “How much of that life do you have left?” Jared asks, watching Rachel climb out of the booth and give him a cold stare. “Whatever life I’ve got left will not be spent fearing someone that wants exactly that” Rachel concludes, taking her purse and walking out of the restaurant with it. As they climb down the stairs, they spot officers waiting for them, their cars parked right beside hers. “Ms. Endrue” Sheriff West calls out, standing with a notepad in his hand alone, having been in the middle of writing Rachel a note and placing it beneath her windshield wiper. “Leaving school early isn’t a crime” Rachel says, “at least not in Louisiana.” With a smile, West nods in agreement, admitting that as the reason he was waiting for her. “I still wanted to come down here and check in on you” West explains, “I’ve already heard plenty of chatter about what happened at the school.” Slowing her walk towards him, Rachel sarcastically thanks him for the effort. “I may not legally be an adult, but I can still take care of myself” Rachel replies, Sheriff West refusing to doubt that. “Victoria had been living on her own for years” West acknowledges, “it’s not a concept out of the realm of possibility.” “So why are you still here?” the girl asks, “we spent a pretty long time in there for a reason.” As Jared walks around to his door, West goes from his lean against the hood of his own car and approaches Rachel with a ticket, his personal number on it. Without a second thought, Rachel crumples it up and tosses it to the side, amusing West even more. “Just because you can look after yourself doesn’t mean you should have to” the sheriff states, jotting his number down again. Leaning towards the girls ear, West whispers in order to make sure Jared doesn’t overhear the words being shared. “I know you found the note Scarlett left you” West states, validating its authenticity. “It was the main thing she negotiated when she convinced me to let her and Victoria restart their lives elsewhere” the man concludes, watching Rachel’s expression shift into one of surprise. “She saw you as the one person, other than her parents, that had always been there for her no matter what” the man continues, “she wanted you to be the one with the power of knowing what no one else did.” Looking at him, Rachel asks why that’s so important to bring up now, in the middle of a diner parking lot of all places. “Because I’m pretty sure that’s what the guy trying to scare her friends is looking for” West concludes, admitting that he’s been hiding the true motive from investigators. “They’re trying to fit pieces where they don’t fit” West explains, “and even if they don’t know that you’re the one with the answers, they’ll keep fighting until they do.” With a deep breath, Rachel thanks West for the new side of the case before he rips a note from his pad and hands it to her again. “It’s the number to a burner phone I’ve got” West says, “the only people I want you telling about this conversation are the people you’ve shared your info with.” Taking it and folding it, Rachel places the paper in her pocket and thanks him again. Before departing, West makes the suggestion to Rachel that she inform someone else of what she knows soon, just to make sure the truth doesn’t disappear in the event that this vigilante catches up to her. “Just be careful” West concludes, returning to his car and pulling out of the lot, returning to the road as Rachel climbs into her car. Before she can put the keys in the ignition, Rachel finds Jared holding a folded piece of paper out to her, informing her of where he found it. Opening it up, Rachel reads aloud the message written in faded black ink. In brief words, the message declares that the individual guilty of the vandalism at the school is also one of the few to be aware of secrets being kept by those closest to Scarlett. In brief, the figure threatens to eliminate whichever individual he finds to be guilty of withholding this information, killing off any false information at the root. “What is this guy talking about?” Jared asks, watching Rachel stare up at her front window and turn the car on, brushing it off as yet another poorly performed scare tactic. | In Scarlett and Vic’s simulated downtown Baton Rouge of the realm beyond, a pit for off in the near-outskirts of the platform, a rip appears in the middle of the very bottom. The hole, with the bottom being surrounded by sides reaching miles high, begins to glow a bright orange, and the coin-sized slot in the bottom begins to crack open like a cracking egg. Emerging from within are three figures draped in a sleek gray, two unnamed bald men and the mysterious flight attendant with the same “Suzie” nameplate sported on her left shoulder. Looking up at the mountainous crater they finds themselves in the depths of, the trio leave their feet and slowly ascend to the surface, leaving the bright orange split to close up, allowing them to invade Scarlett and Vic’s world with ease, nothing more than red skies above in their sights. | Approaching the front door, Scarlett and Vic feel the ground shake beneath their feet, their legs trembling as the plane’s floor in the realm of reality begins to provide insight to the plane’s health. “We’ve gotta move quickly!” Scarlett shouts, pulling the doors open and leading Vic inside, where they are greeted by the same aggravating beast that plagued their initial doctrination into the realm beyond. Running in the opposite direction of Scarlett, Vic notices the beast offering her his attention. “Alright, bring it on” Vic declares, welcoming the beast’s next action, taking the form of a swipe at her, his claws crashing into the ground at the same time as the plane jolts, rocking the building from both realms. From behind, Scarlett shatters a coffee table and uses her telekinesis to lift up a sharp glass shard. “Hey bastard!” Scarlett shouts, watching the beast’s face turn towards her before burying the shard in its right eye, causing it to howl in pain. Now with the beasts back turned to her, Vic levitates into the air and throws herself at its heel, taking its leg out as Scarlett buries a second shard into its left eye. Now blind, the beast wildly swings at whatever direction it chooses to, shattering anything other than the girls. Now stood together the girls reach for the glass pieces and use their powers to bury them further in its head, digging further in until the glasses penetrates brain, killing the beast, allowing it to drop with a resounding thud. The plane in the realm above continuing to jolt, the realm beyond’s ground begins quaking again, forcing the girls to be thrown from one side to the next, though unable to impede their progress further than that. Running to where the stairs would normally be located, the girls find a massive well reaching the entire way up. “Learning really does pay off” Scarlett exclaims, joining Vic as they ascend into the air, flying upwards until the well begins to flash with a brilliant red much as it had done before. Above, a beast drops from the very top of the building, shooting down the well as the girls quickly fly upwards. “Wait until the last second!” Scarlett shouts, the speed of their ascent increasing as they play chicken with the massive figure cratering towards them. Taking each other’s hand, the girls zip out of the well at the final possible opportunity as the beast splatters against the ground, leaving Scarlett and Vic to pop into a familiar office space. “Get ready for the swarm” Vic instructs, her warning being vocalized just as the malformed dwellers spill out of tiny little rooms at every direction. Levitating once more, Scarlett and Vic pull whatever they can and throw it at the swarm, at points even taking dead members of the swarm and throwing their corpses back at them. “Crater!” Vic shouts, she and Scarlett plummeting into the ground and striking it on cue, jolting the floor and wiping out any member of the swarm that had already spilled into the space. Now on the ground again, the ground shifts and sends the girls flying in each direction, Vic being the one to fall into the glass and create a massive crack through it. Despite the inconvenience, Scarlett and Vic return to the fight, sending bursts of energy pulsating throughout the room, dropping whatever dwellers are within eyesight. Suddenly, another jolt from the realm above shakes the ground, sending the girls flying apart again. Hitting the widows once more, Vic notices the crack getting bigger, unable to withstand another crash without shattering. Returning to the battle, Vic brushes off the immediate danger, unaware of Scarlett taking specific interest in what happens upon a third quake. Looking to send off another shockwave, Vic pulls her arms back and takes her stance, locking her sights on the swarm just ahead of her. Ready to send it off, Vic feels her feet dance upon the ground as the third quake hits, sending her into the window, causing it to shatter. Feeling the chips of glass on her back, Vic prepares to plummet back to the ground, her hand being taken by Scarlett at the last second, leaving her dangling out of the window as Scarlett keeps the fight going. Angered at the continuous jolts throwing her off, Scarlett begins fuming, the anger eventually beginning to consume her. Her hair returning to a bright, golden glow, Scarlett forcefully bends the air as if she were god herself, downing the remainder of the swarm as Vic watches from her less-than-comforting position. Catching her breath, Scarlett comes down from her rage and her hair returns to normal as she glances at Vic, still hanging on tight. Pulling her back in, Scarlett hurries into the depths of the room, finding a stairwell with yet another lack of steps. Ascending higher, the girls notice the blank, empty concrete walls end with one small doorway, the dark rectangle sticking out like a sore thumb in the bland coat of paint. Entering, the girls are greeted with a dark room only lit by torches burning with a red flame, the decour all a matching matte black. In the center of the room, the ceiling serves host to a hole, the picture of their perspectives of the doomed flight the only thing contained within it. “It’s right the-” Scarlett begins, walking towards it before being sent flying into the wall, flattening against it on impact as Vic leaps back. From around the corner, a mystifying figure covered in ash and glowing a dark, menacing red glances towards her, ready to take her on next. Stretching his hand out, the figure shoots a bright red ball of energy towards her, missing her by inches as she rolls her way behind the cover of a granite support column. Forced to dodge further oncoming bursts of energy, Vic slides and leaps beneath and behind whatever she can find, waiting for the single opportunity to make a run for the connection. Its sights set on Vic, the commanding figure fails to notice Scarlett climbing to her feet, allowing her to throw him against the wall opposite her, which he easily bounces off of, landing on his feet before throwing her against the wall with another ball of light. Enamored with the reaction, Vic begins altering her strategy, viewing the figure as unbeatable, thus causing the new goal to simply become reaching the connection. Calling for her friend, Vic tells her to aim at his head before lunging forward, taking cover behind a marble block as another ball of dreaded energy completely wipes out the granite column. Glancing around the side of the block, Vic watches Scarlett stand up and take aim. Taking a chunk of the granite into the air, Scarlett brains the volcanic figure, setting up the assist for Vic to swipe at him, sending him flying through the wall and cratering to the ground outside. No longer in immediate danger of being eviscerated, Vic and Scarlett chuckle as they catch their breath, amused at having pulled off what they consider to be an upset against the keeper of the realm itself. Climbing to her feet, Vic stumbles towards the middle of the room until it begins buzzing again, her instincts instructing her to turn around. As she glances back, Vic spots the volcanic keeper hovering back to the massive gap in the wall, charging up another shot, aimed at a coverless Vic, simply stood there waiting for the inevitable to strike. Completely turned around, Vic watches Scarlett rush to the gap and leap towards the figure latching onto it as the energy is shot. Sent back by the woman sacrificing herself in such a daring fashion, the figure’s aim is thrown off dramatically, the flashing ball of energy being shot into the connection itself as Vic watches both Scarlett and the figure disappear from her view. Not wasting a moment more, Vic runs for the center of the room and leaps, shooting through the connection and finally waking up in the realm of reality. As she emerges, Victoria watches the energy ball crash into the end of the cabin, immediately splitting the plane in two, with Victoria’s cabin being left to the elements. The cabin now full of screaming passengers, Victoria pulls her hand back and slaps Scarlett in the face, jolting her from her sleep as the cabin turns downwards. Unlatching themselves from their seats, Victoria and Scarlett pull themselves forward as they watch the ocean come into view. Forced against the back of the seats in front of them, Victoria and Scarlett watch the water approach just as it had in Scarlett’s vision of the events back in the realm beyond. Most passengers having lost consciousness from the altitude, the only soundtrack to their plummet back to earth comes in the form of the winds whipping past their ears as their doom inches closer. With the end in sight, the girls fight past the force of the plane with their eyes sealed shut, no longer able to handle the wind flying into them at such great speeds. Losing their grip on the head of the seats now acting as the only things keeping them held back, the girls relinquish their grip and lunge their arms forward, their hands thrusting down in an effort to reclaim their hold on the cushions. At that moment, a pulsating burst of energy flies from their hands, engulfing the broken body of the plane and bringing it to a complete and sudden stop. With the wind suddenly no longer forcing them backwards, and the plan now totally suspended in mid air, the girls wrap themselves over the seats before falling backwards. Opening their eyes, the girls look towards each other in shock, the chaos having ended and their lives seemingly no longer in danger. The tube at a ninety-degree angle, the girls lay facing each other, their bodies being supported by the back of the chairs below them. Silent, not saying a word to each other, the girls slowly reach up to the top of the seat and glance down, their jaws dropping at the sight. Below, the ripping ocean waves act just as they should, and the metal body of the plane remains hovering above, suspended in midair, completely frozen in time. Looking around the cabin, both the conscious and unconscious souls aboard remain frozen in time as well, only furthering the puzzling nature of what the girls are witness to. Out of their window, Scarlett and Vic watch the nose of the plane crater into the ocean nearly a mile out, the effects of which are shown in the violent waves directly beneath them. More shocked in this very moment than they ever have been in their lives, the girls stare blankly out into the waves below. “Esotera!?” Scarlett calls out, no response coming from out of thin air, confirming to the girls that, despite having their powers, they are within the realm of reality. Directing their sights from each other to the waves below, the girls struggle to convince themselves that their assumptions of what’s going on are true. “Should we-?” Scarlett begins, looking for a question to ask before failing to find one befitting to what they find themselves at the center of. “We should go” Victoria replies, shakily propping herself up on the chairs as Scarlett does the same. With a deep breath, the girls look towards each other and nod, taking one step off of the seats to find themselves levitating, able to walk on the air as if there was an invisible platform beneath them. Unable to say anything other than making belated gasps and shocked awes, the girls lower themselves out of the tube and hover over the waves to a nearby island. Reaching the shoreline, the girls plant their feet into the wet sands, feeling the gusts of the real world’s winds brushing through their hair as their new reality begins to settle in. As they lift their hands to their mouths, the plane’s cabin snaps from its effect, plummeting at its prior speed into the waters below, disappearing beneath the surface as the girls teleport further onto the island to evade the sudden rushing current. After a few minutes, the waters still, and the dawning of the sheer loss of life they had just witnessed clashes with the alteration of their new reality. The air calms, the waves return to a normal speed and the only remnants of the flight remaining are the seats and luggage of the fallen passengers. Still partially in awe, the girls slowly take a seat in the sands and place their chins to their knees, staring into the tragedy-filled night in wonder, horror, amazement, and bewilderment.
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“Ms. Endure” the English teacher calls out, watching Rachel enter her classroom nearly twenty minutes after class had already begun. “You’re wanted in the principal’s office” the teacher calls out, instructing the girl not to return to class without a slip expunging her tardiness from the record. Watching the girl walk away from the classroom without a word in response, Jared raises his hand and asks for permission to use the restroom.
“You’ll have to wait until after the presentation, Jared” the teacher replies, attempting to begin once more before noticing Jared pulling his bag over his shoulder and aim for the door. “I didn’t give you permission, Jared” the teacher says, “Return to your seat.” With his eyebrows raised, Jared continues walking up to the teacher before reminding her that the request is only formal. “You don’t have the right legally to keep me from using the bathroom” Jared replies, walking through the door. Calling out for the girl walking at a sloth-like pace, Jared catches up to her, not having much trouble with Rachel having assumed it was already too late to pick up the pace. “Jared, can you please fuck off?” Rachel asks, her eyes rolling when the boy asks when she’ll forgive him. “This isn’t a church state, Jared… I don’t have to forgive you if I don’t want to” Rachel replies, genuinely exhausted from having to deal with everything already hitting her at once. “Have you heard from Scarlett yet?” Jared asks, watching Rachel stop and turn to him, looking at him as if he were the dumbest student in the school. “For a start, she’s outrunning murder charges, she doesn’t have time to stop and chat” Rachel replies, “And at that, if I did, I’d be an accessory to murder, so I wouldn’t tell you even if I did.” “Rachel, I did a really fucking dumb thing, I’m not gonna deny it” Jared says, “But just because I’m an asshole, that doesn’t mean I’m gonna turn you into the cops!” Turning around again, Rachel admits that she doesn’t trust Jared one way or another, and she’s certainly not going to change her mind because of his persistence. “I’ve got enough to deal with, so go the fuck away before I fucking drop you!” Rachel concludes, turning the corner as Jared simply stops following. “Please, take a seat” the principal directs, sitting against the front of his desk as Rachel finds her spot in the soft chair opposite him. “Ms. Endrue, I’m afraid I have to share some, well, rather unfortunate news with you” the man acknowledges, watching Rachel’s eyes drop, almost as if she already knew this was coming, and was simply dreading it being broken. “I’m afraid Scarlett was involved in a shootout with the police early this morning.” The first line setting up for the climax, with Rachel biting her lip in expectation for the crescendo. “I’m very sorry, especially with everything that you’ve been going through as of late, but I’ve been told to make you aware that she was shot and killed in the process.” A blank stare at the window just off to the side, Rachel bites her finger and wipes away a tear before it could start rolling down her cheek. “Is that all?” Rachel asks, the principal caught off guard by her response, seemingly treating it like a minor inconvenience, threatening her ability to get back to class. “Um, well, I would-” the man begins, stammering over what to say next at the peculiar response. “I’d like to get to class before I miss anything else” Rachel replies, the principal silently nodding and stretching his hand towards the exit. Walking through the office door, Rachel stops the secretary from informing her of where the guidance counselor’s office is by taking her tardy slip and nonchalantly leaving through the front door. Wandering through the empty halls, Rachel stops at her locker and reaches for the dial, holding back a few sobs as she tries to remain composed, placing in her combination and opening the large metal plate. As the door swings open, a folded paper falls to her feet, the corner of a polaroid poking through the fold in the paper. Reaching to the ground, Rachel picks up the note and pulls the photo from it, revealing a shot of both Scarlett and Victoria with their fingers pressed against their lips, and the date and specific time written in green sharpie below. Looking around, Rachel hides the polaroid in a random notebook and unfolds the note, reading every line written. Directing her not to believe everything that the police announce, Scarlett writes for Rachel in appreciation for everything she did for her as her friend, and puts her trust in Rachel to make an important call. Scarlett informs Rachel that the police will announce a time and date of when the pair were supposedly killed, and that it is all nothing more than show. Scarlett then gives Rachel the keys to the truth, telling her to share this revelation with whomever she trusts to keep it secret. Closing off the note, Scarlett tells Rachel that she is unable to return to Praireville due to an agreement made with police, and wants to use this as her ‘thank you’ for always being there for her. Folding the note back up, Rachel pulls the polaroid out one final time and smiles, gently placing the two pieces of crucial evidence together before tucking them in a pocket of her bag. With a smile, Rachel closes her locker and returns to class as the loudspeaker requests everyone’s attention. = Dream Sequence is created by Zachary Serra, all rights to the series belong to Zachary Serra and the entity of Pacer1 Media from the start of Season 1 onwards = “Thank you!” Victoria replies, exiting alongside Scarlett having traded in the Hawaii tickets for an earlier trip to the Maldives, setting their final course of action into effect. “Alright” Victoria says, taking in a deep breath and turning to Scarlett, “here we go.” Giving each other a thumbs up, Scarlett pulls onto the main street and drives for the airport, ready to leave Praireville behind once and for all. After a few hours, the car parks in the airport parking lot and the girls prepare for one final return to the realm beyond before they board their flights. “Where to first?” Vic asks, watching Scarlett aim for the elevators without a second thought, aiming to get a look at what lies behind the double doors for herself. On the floor of her choice, Scarlett leads Vic to the hall of the faceless and shakes off the nerves, pulling the doors open to a massive surprise. Setting one foot in, Scarlett immediately pulls it back out, looking into a sea of nothing but night sky and bright stars. Pulling her friend back, Vic looks on at the sights before her and stares on in confusion, peering through the door and looking down from her position. A few miles below resides a restless ocean, waves ripping with authority and no more land than a small island a few thousand feet out. “What the hell is this?” Scarlett asks, her answer being met with a rephrased question asking the same thing. “What’s going on here?” Esotera asks, joining the two girls in the doorway of the steady drop into the merciless ocean. “We wouldn’t have brought you here if we already knew” Scarlett replies, looking around at what rests in front of her, finding that it truly is nothing but the starry night sky. “Do we jump in?” Vic asks, her idea immediately shot down by Esotera, who suggests that there is something more than off about this anomaly. “What do you mean by ‘off’?” Scarlett asks, “isn’t the realm beyond protected by being, I mean, a completely different reality?” Poking her hand through the doorway, Esotera notices it disappear, reappearing when it’s pulled back as if the doorway were a portal to somewhere else. Confirming Scarlett’s suspicions, Esotera furthers the point by reminding Scarlett that any realm has its faults in reality, with the realm beyond being no different. Poking and pulling her hand through the doorway a second time, a realization dawns over Esotera, and her eyes shoot open as if she felt a series of shivers running down her back. “That’s not the realm beyond” Esotera replies, capturing the attention of Scarlett and Vic without having to try. “That’s the realm of reality” Esotera continues, the eyes of both Vic and Scarlett shooting open as well, staring back and forth between Esotera and the night of their world above. “So, wait a second-” Vic begins, smiling as Scarlett does the opposite, peering through the doorway again and asking how that’s even possible. “It’s the backdoor I told you about” Esotera replies, Scarlett and Vic looking to each other and recalling their first conversation with her. “How the front entrance to the realm beyond was in their sleep, but the back entrances that hadn’t been seen before were elsewhere” Scarlett concludes. “So this can actually be seen in the realm of reality?” Vic asks, Esotera’s insistence that both realities can be seen within each other’s opening an entire new world of possibilities to be had. Before long, the light above in the skylight begins turning dark gray, hosting the same effects as the red ‘beast alert’ lights. Within moments, the ground begins rumbling, and the girls are thrown off balance, falling away from the door and dropping the ground with their eyes still glued on the split in realms. Laying there, the girls watch a ball of fire plummet past their door, prompting them to hurry back in time to watch it collide with the water and practically disintegrate upon impact. “What the fuck was that!?” Scarlett asks in a rush before she is flung back by the impact of the doors bolting closed. “Do I have to fucking ask again?” Scarlett shouts, running towards the doors and pulling them open to reveal the hall of the faceless, untouched as if it had never moved in the first place. “It appears to have been some sort of meteorite” Esotera remarks, disappearing with the assurance that she’ll look into whatever she can find to explain it. Entering the hall, Vic leads Scarlett to the backdoor, which slams shut as they come within inches of its handles. Taken aback by the realm beyond’s display, Vic tugs at the handles, pulling with as much force as she can muster without result. “I thought we were past this” Vic says, leaving Scarlett to try and open the doors as she looks out towards the faceless going about their day as per usual. “Something’s off about all of this” Vic states, walking up to the desk of one of the faceless and opening the drawer, which the figure instinctively closes without hesitation. Opening the drawer again, the figure slams the compartment shut once more, continuing to block Vic from viewing the contents within once more. Storming towards the figure, Scarlett opens the drawer and stops the figure’s hand as it reaches for it, pulling the faceless from its seat and hurling it across the hall, crushing it against the wall. Reacting to this, the figures leap from their desks and stare at the figures corpse before looking towards his desk. “What the fuck are you thinking Scar?” Vic calls out, watching Scarlett reach into the drawer and retrieve a folder, opening it on the figure’s desk. Finding nothing more than a few blank pieces of paper, Scarlett throws the folder across the room, hitting one of the many figures in the head with it, killing it on impact. Having witnessed this, the figures go into an uproar, mumbling in terror as they all hurry for the exits. Not willing to let this confusing battle slide without repercussion, Scarlett forces the doors shut and traps the figures in the room, holding them hostage without them even being aware of it. “Scarlett, calm it the fuck down!” Vic shouts, watching the girl’s hair begin to slowly glow once more as the figures scramble over each other, trying to break windows in order to reach safety. “Scarlett, stop!” Vic shouts again, watching the girl continue to refuse to obey the order. Not willing to risk getting on the bad side of the realm beyond, Vic pulls her service weapon up and fires a round into Scarlett’s head, returning her into the realm of reality. As Scarlett’s body drops in the realm beyond, the air returns to normal, and the figures all return to work as if nothing had happened. More importantly, the double doors at the back of the hall burst open, welcoming whomever chooses to enter with metaphorical open arms. As she squints her eyes at the messages the realm beyond is trying to get her to understand, the realm begins to violently shake, only Vic feeling the effects as the remainder of the hall remains untouched. Before long, Vic puts the weapon to her head and pulls the trigger, returning to the realm of reality, where she is met by an aggravated Scarlett, demanding to know why Vic took her out. “You were gonna kill the whole lot of them!” Victoria replies, demanding to know why Scarlett went crazy. “Just… Forget about it!” Scarlett replies, unbuckling her seatbelt as Victoria refuses to let it slide. “This is the second time you acted up like that, fuckin’ explain yourself!” Victoria shouts, the lack of response resulting from Scarlett exiting the vehicle and walking off the airport entrance. “S!” Victoria shouts, not wanting to scream Scarlett’s full name in public, earning zero response. Groaning, Victoria pulls both her bag and Scarlett’s out of the trunk and hurries after the girl, rushing across the parking lot to enter the building together. | “I’d like you to leave my house” Nora says, Sheriff West holding his hands out and trying to explain to Nora why they had no other choice, only to be escorted towards the front door by an angered mother. “You’ve killed my family, get the fuck out of my house!” Nora shouts, pointing towards the door as West leaves in defeat. “Nora, I need you to breathe” Mary asks, her hand being slapped away from Nora’s shoulder as the widowed mother of a dead girl refuses. “He’s killed my family, I will not calm down!” Nora shouts, the sound of the door closing behind Sheriff West only adding to her rage. “My family is gone, I have every reason to want someone to pay!” Nora screams, quickly glancing around the foyer of her home before walking upstairs. “Nora, please stop” Mary asks, her husband following her up the stairs as they chase after Nora, who aims for her bedroom and locks the door behind her. “Nora, unlock the door” Mary asks, lightly knocking as the sound of gear beng picked up becomes the sole thing audible on the other end. After a few moments, the door swings open again, and Nora emerges from her room with two suitcases, walking past Mary and Blake on her way to the front door. “Nora, what are you doing?” Mary asks, trying to put aside her wishes for Nora to calm down, knowing those requests to only further the already blistering anger. Calling after the woman, Mary follows her through the front door and watches her pack her bags into the backseat. As she opens the door to the driver’s side, Nora watches Mary run around to the opposite end, taking a seat on the passenger’s side. “Get the fuck out, Mary” Nora demands, angrily watching Mary buckle her seatbelt. “Mary, I wont fucking tell you again!” Nora shouts, “Get the fuck out!” “I’m not letting you leave here” Mary replies, watching the pain in Nora’s heart temporarily be overtaken by the anger of the sky crashing down on her entire life. “There’s no reason for me to be here, Mary” Nora replies, her anger getting the better of her, clouding her judgment or any thought that doesn’t pertain to her massacred family. “My husband is dead, my daughter is dead and there’s nothing left here for me!” Nora shouts, Mary being unable to respond to that hard truth. “This town can kiss my ass, I’m not giving it any more of my time!” Nora shouts, demanding that Mary get out of the car one final time. “I’m not leaving” Mary replies, watching Nora reach around her seat and open a box just below it. “What are you-” Mary begins, cut off when she watches Nora pull a gun from a metal box around and point it at her face. “Get out of the fucking car, Mary!” Nora shouts, watching the woman’s lip quiver as the fear keeps her from being able to respond. Her hands in the air, Mary reaches for the door’s latch as Nora makes the demand one final time, exiting the vehicle and watching the door swing to a close as Nora backs out of the driveway. “What the hell was that?” Blake shouts, no response coming before the squealing tires accompany the car down the road, completely abandoning the city that took her family and eviscerated it from inside. | “Alright, that’s class!” the young female teacher declares, requesting the class read the next two chapters of their biology textbook for homework. “Rachel, can I speak to you for a second?” the woman asks, pulling a seat up beside her desk for Rachel to have a seat. “I didn’t get to ask before class started” the woman with ‘Mrs. Ludgate’ plastered on a name plate at the front of her desk asks, Rachel shaking her head and replying with a simple “I’m fine.” Folding her hands, Ludgate asks Rachel if she’s only telling her what she wants to hear, with Rachel insisting that she’s exactly as she says. “Would you blame me if I thought you really weren’t fine?” Ludgate asks, watching Rachel lean back in her seat and reply with another simple “Yes.” Puckering her lips, obviously not having anticipated that brash answer, Ludgate asks Rachel to explain to her why she believes herself to be fine. “Are you my guidance counselor all of a sudden?” Rachel asks, having heard enough of the generic “How’re you doing?” question without being halfway done with the day. “I’m not interested in the pity from everyone, can’t we just call it a day and get back to work?” Surprised by Rachel’s hesitance to dwell on the loss even people indifferent to Scarlett were taking to heart, Ludgate asks Rachel what she truly thinks of everything that’s occurred. “I think shit happens to good people and it’s completely unfair” Rachel responds, “But I’m not gonna sit around grieving for someone when I know more than everyone else does.” With that statement, Rachel picks up her books and walks towards the front door, brushing off Ludgate’s questions of what she is referring to. “Mrs. Ludgate, I appreciate the concern” Rachel begins, placing her door on the handle and opening it. “But I know more than everything else does, and that’s more than enough to comfort me through all of this” Rachel concludes, “Have a wonderful afternoon.” With that, the girl walks through the door and enters the hallway just as the other students disperse to their next class. Suddenly, despite feeling like she’s outrun the trouble of everyone’s half-hearted sympathy, Rachel groans as a familiar voice calls for her to wait up. “Jared, can you fuck the hell off?” Rachel shouts, “I’m getting sick of this bullshit!” Rushing up to her and tapping her arm, Jared tells Rachel that there’s something she needs to see. “Seriously, I wouldn’t be telling you this if it wasn’t urgent!” Jared says, watching Rachel glance confusingly at the main entrance, where she watches a horde of student spill onto the front grounds of the building. “This way!” Jared says, taking Rachel’s hand and guiding her up a flight of stairs before spilling onto the roof and hurrying up to the edge. Glancing down, Rachel realizes the reason for the sudden shift in the school’s manner. Watching teachers attempt to hurry students back into the building whilst custodians scrub away at white paint, Rachel reads aloud the message left to those associated with Victoria and Scarlett. “The sluts killed. Their friends will pay” is legible from the heavens above, sending the school into a frenzy as Rachel and Jared realize what this entails for them in specific. “We’ve gotta get out of here” Rachel says, putting aside her differences with Jared knowing how this ended with Al. “I don’t like you and we’re not friends” Rachel begins, “But you don’t deserve to die because of that, so let’s keep that in mind” as they race down the stairwell. | “Are you ready?” Scarlett asks, her left leg crossed over her right as her foot bounces in the air with a combination of anxiety and excitement. “I’m nervous” Victoria replies, one of the few times she’s ever admitted to being anything other than confident in what she’s doing. The surprise causing Scarlett’s leg to stop as the former blonde puts her hand on Victoria’s arm, reminding her that whatever they do, they do together. With a smile, Victoria places her hand over Scarlett’s and nods, looking on at their plane approaching the tunnel, preparing to let passengers board. “Not much time left to go” Scarlett mutters to herself, sucking in a breath as the loudspeaker announces that they will soon be letting passengers on. Having paid extra when exchanging the tickets, Victoria stands up and grabs her bag knowing they’ll be the first let on the plane. With the loudspeaker turning on again, the initial call is the signal for Victoria and Scarlett to begin approaching the small line. Moving at a decent pace, Scarlett looks around the airport as the line progresses before noticing something off to her side in the seating area of another flight. Near the front of the line now, Scarlett has no choice but to remain within it, locking eyes with the source of what originally stole her attention. Holding back tears, Scarlett and Victoria hand the woman stationed at the tunnel their tickets and are allowed to pass. Stopping for a second to pick up her bags, Scarlett smiles, nodding and waving goodbye at the other seating area before entering the tunnel, disappearing from the remainder of the airport. In the seating area, with a quivering lip, Nora sits with two bags by her side, a smile of pain appearing without her being able to find any words to say. Wiping away her tears, Nora’s smile breaks through as the lucky interaction between the two reserves her hope, allowing her to move on in life knowing her daughter is safe. The loudspeaker returning, the next flight to North Dakota allows Nora to board, leaving the fate of her daughter with whatever forces are in charge of it now. Disappearing into her tunnel, Nora departs Praireville ready to return to where it started, whilst her daughter departs it for what now begins. Taking their seat, Scarlett and Victoria look through the plane’s window at the tarmac just beyond, taking their final glance at Louisiana. “Care for a drink?” a voice asks from off to the side, belonging to a flight attendant with the name “Suzie” emblazoned across her badge. Asking politely for a water, Victoria chuckles when Scarlett requests a vodka cranberry, watching the attendant walk off as more people board. “Who the fuck drinks a vodka cranberry on a flight?” Victoria asks, the memories of worry-free humor coming back to her with Scarlett’s response. “Normal people that aren’t soft dweebs like you” the former blonde replies, smirking as Suzie quickly returns with the drinks set and ready. “Thank you very much” Victoria replies, clanking her bottle of water against Scarlett’s vodka cranberry glass. After a few minutes, the plane begins the process of takeoff, slowly beginning the process of departing the airport before eventually taking off and leaving Louisiana in the girls’ back window. “There it goes” Scarlett exclaims, bidding ado to her former life in favor of the new one that has officially begun. “You good?” Scarlett asks, yawning as Victoria wipes at her eyes, rapidly growing tired as the cabin lights dim. “I think I’m gonna doze off for a bit” Victoria replies, laughing about it as Scarlett starts feeling the start of a slumber coming on as well. Within minutes, the girls drift to sleep as the plane reaches it’s necessary altitude, leaving their drinks in the holders of their chairs. “Can I refill your-” Suzie asks, noticing the girls to have fallen asleep before cautiously taking their drinks to the attendant’s quarters. “Can you take th-” a random passenger asks, holding his glass up to Suzie, who completely ignores him and knocks the glass out of his hand. “What the hell, lady?” the man calls out, still earning no response from the woman, who returns to her quarters with the two cups still in hand. Once in the back, Suzie places the bottle in the garbage and the glass into a plastic bag, returning to the cabin with it before dropping it off with two random bald men. As Suzie passes, the man closest to the aisle holds up two fingers, brushing Suzie’s arm with it before he and his associate vanish into thin air. Continuing her walk, Suzie approaches the man whose glass she knocked away, taking note of him standing from his seat. “Sit down or I’ll end your life” Suzie says, keeping the man from speaking before shoving him back into his chair. At the back of the plane, Suzie turns a corner and vanishes as a pair of flight attendants walk out with the co-pilot, reporting to him of a situation they can’t quite explain. “She’s dressed just like us but she’s not on the crew list we got” one attendant says, referring to Suzie as a fake member of the crew. Back in the realm beyond, Scarlett and Vic venture through the building, calling for any new update from Esotera. “Backdoors usually present themselves at random intervals, but are host to a specific energy” Esotera explains, suggesting that the split between the two realms from earlier was not a split that occurred naturally. “Someone opened it?” Scarlett asks, her suggestion corrected into it being someone that caused it. “I think someone opened a random backdoor into the realm without knowing where it opened, either by accident or by dumb luck” Esotera explains, joining the girls in the hall of the faceless. “Hold up!” Vic shouts, pointing out the opened double doors at the back, running to them before they can shut. Running through, the trio enter the lengthy hallway as the doors close behind them, displaying the same appearance that Vic had seen prior. “What is this?” Esotera asks, questioned as to how she could not know. “I’ve never seen this place before” Estoera explains,following Vic down the corridor. “This is the train wreck” Vic says, stopping to point out the photo with their name engraved below it. “That’s the building collapse” Vic says, showing the same thing to the pair before being surprised to find a blank photo with their names engraved below it. “Am I the only one that notices the fact that we’re the only pair of names in here?” Scarlett asks, pointing out each photo having only one name engraved below it. “It’s probably nothing” Esotera says, quickly wanting to return the attention towards what Vic found. “Why does this say tragedy number four on it?” Vic asks, pointing to the plaque and wondering if this was for the attack that they had prevented earlier. “There’s two” Scarlett says, pointing out an identical set up across from the blank photo with the tragedy of the Baton Rouge attacks being featured on it. ‘Tragedy avoided’ is plastered below their nameplate, suggesting that the photo Vic questions is an entirely different tragedy all together. “But we stopped it, so we’re all good, right?” Vic asks, repeating the latter-most word as she looks towards Esotera for confirmation. “No” Esotera admits, informing the girls that the realm beyond never leaves something unfinished, and insisting that the fifth tragedy would be featured if it were stopped. “So we’ve got another tragedy to stop?” Vic asks, looking towards Esotera as the ground violently shakes from one side to the other, sending the girls crashing into the walls and knocking over photographs. “What the fuck is happening in here?” Scarlett shouts, looking towards Esotera. “I don’t have all the answers, girls!” Esotera replies, “I don’t know what’s going on!” Finally, the ground stops shaking, instead beginning to vibrate beneath their feet, and Vic looks towards Esotera for any explanation she can think of. Suddenly, Scarlett’s eyes widen, and the blonde makes a frenzy towards the doors, quickly followed by Vic and Esotera, who rush after her into the main center of the office. “Scarlett, what the hell are you doing?” Vic calls out, catching up to her friend at the bannister, overlooking the office center beneath the skylight where Scarlett finds what she had been expecting. “No shooting star!” Scarlett shouts, pointing to the sky as Vic and Esotera look at her, giving her the non-verbal cue to continue. “The shooting star was the fifth tragedy!” Scarlett shouts, only further confusing the pair. “How is the shooting star the-” Vic starts, cut off by Scarlett who replies that it isn’t a shooting star. “It was never a shooting star, it was a plane!” Scarlett shouts, watching the expressions of Vic and Esotera shift as they begin to follow the pattern Scarlett had pieced together. “The realm was trying to tell us what the fifth tragedy was! It was a plane crash!” Scarlett says eagerly, watching Vic look towards her with panic. “It’s the plane we’re on, isn’t it?” Vic asks, “that’s why the ground’s shaking?” Looking towards her friend, Scarlett nods, affirming the suspicions the realm had been attempting to warn them about. “We gotta go!” Vic shouts, pulling her service weapon out and firing it at her head, opening her eyes to find herself unharmed, still in the realm beyond. “What the-?” Vic begins, hearing Scarlett fail to return herself back to the plane as well. “Why isn’t it working?” Vic asks, continuing to fail to pull herself out of the realm beyond as Esotera comes across a much more worrying conclusion. “Did you drink anything before you came here?” the guide asks, gaining all the answers she needed from the look the pair give to each other. “You were drugged” Esotera proclaims, Vic and Scarlett stumbling onto the conclusion that the flight attendant trapped them in the realm. “You need to figure out another way out” Esotera says, flashing out with the intention of locating an alternative exit from the realm. “We can’t waste any time!” Vic shouts, leading Scarlett away from the center of the building. Back in the realm of reality, the unconscious bodies of Victoria and Scarlett remain fastened into their seats as the other passengers worry, informed that the plane’s engines have caught fire and are near failing. On the outside, smoke builds up in the engines of the right wing whilst fire rages out of the engines of the left wing. The metal tube continues flying out over the Gulf of Mexico, unable to turn around without losing the altitude required to keep from plummeting into the waters. Beneath a clear, starry night sky, the threat of the fifth and final tragedy looms over the coast of Louisiana, threatening to take Scarlett and Victoria down with it. “You know exactly how this is gonna work, Nelson” Sheriff West says, telling him to play it the way he would play anything else. “More important than what the truth happens to be, we have to maintain the integrity of this department. The only way we can go about doing that is if we can be trusted to get the job done, and clearly, this is gonna go a long way in helping that along, you understand me?” Patting the man on the back, West walks over to his subordinate, still dressed in street clothes.
“How’re we doing on that lead?” West asks, assured that they have visuals on the people of interest but are unable to intervene until they have a warrant in place. “Whatever happened to kicking the doors down and catching ‘em red handed?” West asks, planting his hands to his hips and walking to the side to light up his cigarette. “People complained too much about innocent people getting their doors kicked in” his partner replies, watching the eye roll from West say all he needed to. “Would you wanna have me bust your front door down in the middle of dinner with your family ‘cause I found an envelope that called you a terrorist?” the detective asks, his nametag reading ‘Blake’ reflecting the patrol cars headlights. “Knowing how well my aim is, I think you’d be the one worrying more in that case!” West replies, spitting out smoke into the air off to Blake’s side. “My point remains standing” Blake responds, snatching the cigarette out of West’s mouth and taking a puff off of it himself. “It’s not like I’m out for blood here, or wanna kick some skulls in… I just wanna stop people from blowin’ up my city. Is that too much to ask?” West says, taking the cigarette back. “It is when you wish to go about it unlawfully” Blake replies, watching another eye roll do West’s speaking on his behalf. Sitting back against his civilian vehicle, West looks up at the stars and notices a shooting star dancing across the sky with grace. “Make a wish, Blake” West says, “Maybe wish for a pair of balls with that dick of yours so you can actually treat a terrorist differently from a piss-happy dog.” Looking at the man with his head tilted to the side, Blake watches the shrug as West tells him it’s better to take him outside before he spews a puddle onto the floor. “My point is, we can’t be playing nice with these bastards or else this’ll all have been for nothing!” West continues, explaining to Blake that things can take turns if you let them keep driving ahead of you for too long. “We don’t want them slipping out in the middle of the night and force us to chase them into ground zero, Blake!” Sending West’s shrug back his way, Blake tells him that they can’t act on a whim unless they have a reason to believe the claims to be validated. “Of course they’re valid!” West shouts, with Blake matching West’s point with a point of his own, reminding him that this tip came from the words of two runaway teenagers that murdered an officer. “He was a pedo!” West replies, Blake extending his arms and shouting that it doesn’t matter. “In the eyes of the public, he died a hero at the hands of two evil teenagers with more freedom than they should have!” Blake says, watching West confidently look at him with a cheesy grin. “And if we let these bombers get out of our sights, they’ll also think we’re incompetant fools that can’t be trusted!” West replies, taking whatever Blake’s follow up was meant to be and silencing it. “We’re not gonna let them get away” Blake replies, tapping West’s chest with a folder and returning to the crime scene. With one last puff, West drops the cigarette to the ground and stomps it out, walking over to the taped-off area and taking a look for himself. Walking up to the scene itself, West inspects the newly-blackened Chevy Silverado with multiple bullet holes in the windshield. Climbing into the front seat, West sits in Victoria’s usual position, staring through the no longer road-ready windshield with his chin against the top of the steering wheel. “What did you know that I didn’t?” West asks himself, biting his lip as he collapses into the seat and remains there, his officers working on the scene as they always would. = Dream Sequence is created by Zachary Serra, all rights to the series belong to Zachary Serra and the entity of Pacer1 Media from the start of Season 1 onwards = -> Eight Hours Earlier <- “Massaro?” Scarlett calls out, Vic chasing after her as the man’s voice breaks through thin air. “What floor has the most of those weird, malformed motherfuckers?” Scarlett asks, being directed to the eight-hundredth floor. “Don’t mind her, she’s going through something right now!” Vic replies, apologizing to the man before continuing to chase after Scarlett. “It’s alright. Can I help you with, you’re gone already, aren’t you?” Massaro replies, sighing and taking a seat at his desk. “Scarlett!” Vic shouts, watching her friend disappear behind the elevator doors and begin her ascent whilst Vic waits for a second elevator to show. Upon reaching her destination, Vic spots Scarlett taking on a flurry of hideously disfigured, violent realm-dwellers with ease. Sending ripples of air scattering throughout the area, throwing one dweller into another and slamming the ground with seismic effects, Scarlett takes out the brutalization of her realm on the inhabitants of this one. “Scarlett” Vic calls out, watching her friend swat her worries away as if they were fruitflies shuffling in front of her eyes, all to the sounds of the realm dweller’s suffering. “Get out of here, Vic” Scarlett says, obliterating whatever moves in whatever way seems most satisfying in the moment. Teleporting to her friend, taking her hand and teleporting into a vacant warehouse floor, Vic immediately finds herself crashing into the concrete floor at Scarlett’s hands. “I told you to get out of here!” Scarlett says, her words fluttering through the air as she throws Vic to the ground. “Can’t you go one day without trying to be a hero and leave me to my fucking shit!?” Scarlett shouts, pacing around the empty warehouse, looking for anything to yell about. Continuing her anger-fueled stroll from one side of the building to the other, Scarlett spots the shooting star dancing across the sky once more, acting as the one last drop of water to push it over the edge. With a roar, Scarlett sends her hands flying forward, shattering every window in the building, and hearing every shard of glass ring with pinpoint precision. The television show intro-like sound filling the air, shaking the ground beneath the girl’s feet as if the building were collapsing. “Scarlett?” Vic calls out, her voice confident out of necessity, hiding the blatant, unavoidable fear buried beneath it in hopes of getting through to her other half. Calling her name a second time, Vic watches Scarlett’s face turn towards her, a surreal sight washing over her eyes, keeping her from being able to look away. In her moment of anger, Scarlett’s eyes light a fiery orange, her once-more blonde hair glowing a brilliant gold and her hands, naturally soft, frozen over with a tundra-blue cold. Scarlett, noticing her friend’s unnatural gaze, looks at her own hands as they defrost and she returns to her status quo. “What was that?” Vic asks, having called for Esotera, who watches Scarlett look up to her, still staring downwards at her hands, shaking in fear. “I have no idea” Esotera admits, walking up to Scarlett and taking her hands, spotting the light blue tips of her fingers despite the palm of her hands burning hot. Putting a bullet in Scarlett’s head, Vic tells Esotera that they’ll be back once they’ve gotten some things taken care of. Returning to the realm of reality, Victoria and Scarlett both sit upright in their tent before preparing for the remainder of the day. “Whatever happened in there-” Victoria begins, cut off by Scarlett, requesting that they drop it and leave it all alone. “We’ve got much more important things to take care of, alright?” Scarlett declares, brushing everything off, leaving Victoria little reason remaining to continue dwelling on it. | “I don’t know what to do, Mary. I’ve never seen someone go through this!” Brian whispers to his wife, admitting that he has no clue how to help a woman in Nora’s shoes. “I couldn’t imagine losing you or Rachel, let alone both in the same week!” Brian continues, peeking around the corner to see Nora curled into a ball with dark, tired eyes clutching at a woven blanket. “Rachel will be here any second, just try to pretend like you know what you’re doing.” Walking away from her husband, Mary slowly walks to the sofa and takes a seat at the opposite end. Looking at Nora, Mary notices her thumbs caressing the fabrics in gentle strokes, gasping every few seconds through faint whimpers. Her hands folded and her face tucked towards the floor, Mary asks Nora if she knows that she’s not alone. With no answer, Mary looks up and watches the lone tear roll down her face, the other eye unable to shed any of its own. “There’s a whole bunch of people that are fighting this. For justice, for you, for your daughter-” Mary begins, droning on before Nora puts a stop to her, snapping back with a countermeasure. “There’s a whole bunch more that aren’t” Nora replies, making it clear that the individual responsible for taking her husbands life belonged to that group, not the one’s fighting in her corner. “They’re under this belief that my daughter would have the heart to kill an innocent man without a damn good reason, and they chose to punish me by taking my husband away!” Nora shouts. “They left me here, all alone, grieving for two without giving a shit. I care more about those bastards than I do about the people holding up a sign for a few minutes and moving on to the next tragedy!” Getting up from her seat and making a break for the door, Nora walks down her front steps, refusing to look at the blood stain at the bottom, before climbing into the driver’s seat of the car. “Nora!” Mary shouts, wanting to keep her friend from suffering the same fate as her husband, but unable to get her voice to break through to Nora more than the roaring engine of the car. Pulling out of the driveway, Nora drives away from the home and disappears into the distance, watching Rachel’s car pull up only a few seconds later. “Where did Mrs. Bensen go?” Rachel asks, the question being the first thing out of her mouth since getting out of the car. “I don’t know, honey” Mary replies, giving her daughter’s hand a squeeze and looking out into the distance as her husband gleefully greets Rachel inside. | “Gonna miss this thing?” Scarlett asks, patting the handle on her passenger’s side door as Victoria quietly nods. “Many great road trips in this baby” Victoria responds, comically caressing the steering wheel before giving a very quick tap on the horn. Glancing at Scarlett, Victoria can feel the poorly hidden sadness looming beneath the attempted smile. “That smile isn’t as convincing as you think” Victoria says, her words leaving Scarlett to drop both her head and the smile. Continuing the drive in silence, the memory of seeing Scarlett in the realm beyond turning into a human night light plays in Victoria’s head on a loop, sharing the attention with the road ahead. After a few minutes, Scarlett asks Victoria to pull into a nearby gas station parking lot in order to allow her to use the restroom. Obliging, Victoria puts the truck in park as Scarlett hops out, heading for the building as Victoria turns the radio on, listening into the local news broadcast. Closing her eyes to shield herself from having to stare into the reflection of the sun on the truck’s fresh coat of paint, Victoria begins to drift off, the radio anchor’s voice sounding monotone and subtle, calming her into a lull as she reenters the real beyond. “Oh fuck” Vic exclaims, the walls of the office tinted a warm orange the way her eyelids appeared when they were closed, but the room feeling both weirdly familiar and out of place. Turning around, Vic realizes that she is in the faceless foyer once more, this time unaccompanied, and without a single one of the faceless workers around her. More interesting, the evasive doors in the back of the room are wide open, almost welcoming her inside. Cautiously approaching them, Vic notices her reflection in the glass window beside it, her hair color remaining the same as her first encounter with the realm beyond out of its stubbornness to accept the changes of the realm above. After a few further seconds, Vic finally walks into the direct center of the opening, taking a moment to look into the doorway, something both she and Scarlett have been guilty of overlooking all along. Within the door is a massive hallway, stretching far enough for wherever it concludes to be hidden behind a thick layer of fog. Accepting this as her moment, Vic takes two further steps before stopping right behind the line marking the hallway’s interior. Never one to shy away from imminent danger if it serves a greater good, Vic brushes off the unexplainable feeling of dread looming over her and takes one further step, entering the hallway without issue. Continuing to walk, the doors close behind Vic, who returns to them in an attempt to open them, doing so without issue. The ease in which she can come and go as she pleases makes it clear that she is welcomed within, giving her the chance to explore without worry for the first time. Lining both sides of the stretching hallway are pictures of tragedies throughout the years, ranging for airline disasters to shipwrecks, assassinations and disappearances. Above each photo is a single lightbulb, the bright shade of yellow looming over each photograph clashing with the warm orange tint blanketing the realm beyond. Continuing to walk, Vic comes to a sudden pause when she notices one photo, caught by it like a fly in a spider’s web. The photo of a crashed train with an all-too familiar assortment of numbers brings Vic into a panic, realizing what the photos along the halls represent. Each new tragedy is one caused by Scarlett and Vic’s ancestors of the realm beyond, representing their failures to stop the law of five disasters meant by the realm beyond for initiatives to endure. Marking this as her primary assumption, Vic begins to question why the doors opened for her now of all times. Whether or not it was intended to be welcoming, Vic questions it regardless, wondering if it was simply holding out information because of how ready she was or was not for the truth. Inching backwards, Vic looks back down the length of the hallway and continues walking, ultimately finding the urge to further test her abilities. Without caring about whether this were the time or place, Vic stops and look towards the ground, focusing on what her instincts tell her to do. Feeling the ground become lighter, Vic begins levitating, leaning forward to float down the length of the hallway as the fog at the very end of the tunnel becomes lighter, an almost silver the further she goes. Traveling at the speed of someone riding their bike, Vic begins feeling the strands of her hair float back, trying to keep up with her as the outline of whatever rests in the distance, behind the near-white clouds of fog grows more vivid and detailed. Within moments, the hallway becomes entrenched in a white light and Victoria returns to the realm of reality, awoken by the snapping of Scarlett’s fingers. “Trying to take a power nap without me or something?” Scarlett asks with a smirk, a little concerned when Victoria sports a look of disappointment. “What happened in there?” Scarlett asks, stunned when Victoria openly admits that she walked through the familiar double doors. “You got in? How the hell did you manage that?” Scarlett asks, confused when she realizes that all Victoria had to do was simply walk in like it was no big deal. “What was in there?” Scarlett asks, further confused when Victoria struggles to respond, very different from her prior actions just before. “What did you see?” Scarlett asks, rephrasing her question as if it were the reason Victoria was unable to give a precise response. “It was just a big hallway” Victoria replies, “looked really uniform. Like some weird, never ending hall of fame display case.” Shaking her head, Scarlett ponders over which of the many questions to ask first, settling on what was being displayed. “A bunch of pictures” Victoria replies, Scarlett responding by repeating the latter-most word in a questionable tone. “Let’s talk about it on the way” Victoria replies, reminding Scarlett that they still need to get something to eat before trying to beat the deadline. “There’s a little cafe around here, we’ll stop in and pick something up to go” Scarlett replies, putting on her seatbelt and watching the station pass by like every other building and establishment they driven past on their longshot path to a hope-for freedom. | Walking down the stairs at the beaconing call of a knock at the door, Rachel reaches for the handle and pulls it open, surprised at the individual she finds waiting for her on the other side. “Jared?” Rachel asks, watching Scarlett’s ex-boyfriend holding a vase of white roses in his hands, almost as surprised to find Rachel answering the door as Rachel does to find Jared waiting at it. “What do you want?” Rachel asks, turning off Jared’s idea that he had approached the wrong house. “I’ll repeat, what do you want?” Rachel asks again, watching Jared stammer over his words, responding that he wanted to give Nora the flowers as an apology for her loss. Taking the flowers, Rachel gives Jared an unconvincing thanks for his thoughts and attempts to close the door, her attempt halted when Jared puts his foot in the doorway and tells Rachel to wait. “Jared, fuck off” Rachel replies, unable to get the door past his foot, forced to suffer having through a long-winded apology. “I’m not the one you need to be apologizing to, Jared” Rachel replies, her statement falling short of her hopes as Jared reminds her that the individual that does it outrunning a murder charge. “I’m an asshole and I did a dumb thing, I’m not going to try and excuse it” Jared responds, “But I want you to know that I realize that.” “What difference does it make whether I know that or not?” Rachel asks, watching Jared drop his head, finally met with a question he doesn’t have a rehearsed response to. “Are we done here?” Rachel asks, watching the guilt in Jared’s face as he looks at her. “I did a really stupid thing” Jared replies, “And I can’t help but think that I had a hand in what’s happening now.” Rolling her eyes, Rachel steps onto the front porch and shuts the door behind her. “Jared, I think you’re a piece of shit” Rachel responds, “But that doesn’t mean I want you to think you had a hand in a family being torn apart when it had nothing to do with you.” Tucking his hands in his pockets, Jared listens to Rachel assure him that what happened had no effect on what occurred with Scarlett. “You really hurt her, but the cop did something that the sheriff doesn’t wanna admit. He brought it on himself, you didn’t.” “That doesn’t change what I did” Jared replies, “And I can’t apologize to the person that deserves the apology.” Shrugging her shoulders, Rachel tells him that this is just another one of those things that life takes pleasure in. “You cheated on a girl that broke her back because you couldn’t fuck her for a few months… That’s fucking shitty, but it didn’t get her dad or a cop killed, so stop blaming yourself.” Taking a deep breath, Rachel tells Jared that this is something he needs to get ready to take from life. “It’s not fair, and it never will be. You did a shitty thing, and for one reason or another, you have to live without being able to make it better. Welcome to reality, I hope you have a fun ride” Rachel replies, patting Jared on the shoulder and returning to the front door. Stopped from walking back into the home at the request of Jared, Rachel turns around and asks what he wants now. Taking a second to think about whether or not his impulsive request for her to wait was inappropriate or not, Jared pushes his concerns aside and asks how Rachel is holding up. “Super” the girl replies, walking back into the home and shutting the door, leaving Jared stood there with his hands in his pockets. | Parking in the lot just outside a small restaurant just outside of town, Nora emerges from her vehicle and walks up to the entrance. Walking into the retro-themed dining room, lined with walls of 60’s decore and black and white floor tiles, Nora asks for a small booth at the very front and follows the waitress to her seat. “I’ll be with you in just one second” the waitress replies, smiling to Nora before walking off to the kitchen. Phone buzzing in her hand bag, Nora checks the text message dashing across her screen and brushes it off, refusing to respond to Mary’s inquiry of where she is. Looking up, Nora notices a television set to a black and white display in the corner of the dining room, just above the entrance, displaying the local news. As fate would have it, the coverage of the manhunt for Victoria and Nora’s daughter is on full display, nearly bringing Nora to tears. At her table, off to the side of the restaurant in an almost completely vacant dining room, Nora takes her eyes from the television and looks out at all of the empty booths. Feeling completely isolated, shut off from society, Nora associates her current placement in the building with the fate of her life. Alone in the restaurant just as she is destined to live out her remaining days alone, Nora tucks her head in her hands before standing up and walking out. Descending the steps and returning to her car, the woman breaks down to nothing than the silence of her vehicle’s interior, her cries being isolated to herself. Finally, her sorrow-filled pain is quelled by the ringing of her phone, showing an incoming call from her mother at the other side of the country. “Hi mom” Nora responds, using her shoulder to hold the phone to her ear as she leans over the passengers seat to access the glove compartment. As she continues speaking with her mother and rummaging through the other side of her car, two girls walk down the front steps of the restaurant with bags of food and enter a dark truck. Pulling out of the parking lot and heading down the road, the truck disappears into the distance just as Nora removes what she was looking for from the box. “I have to take care of some things first, but I’ll do so when those are-” Nora responds, cut off by the woman on the other line. “I don’t want you to take care of these things for me mom, just-” Nora begins, again cut off by her mother, pleading with her to buy a ticket and return to their home in North Dakota as soon as possible. Adamantly fighting for her mother to allow her to arrange things as necessary before making any quick decisions, Nora ultimately questions whether or not her mother’s desires to have her home during this period of time are what she truly needs. “I have to go mom, I’ll call you later” Nora says, ending the call with her mother and sitting in silence, just staring at the green fence she’s parked in front of. Looking at the stored note from her mother she pulled moments prior, Nora reads off the city of Fargo, North Dakota and thinks about it for a second. Realizing herself to be falling fond of wanting to return home, Nora starts her car and drives home, ready to call it a night to forget about. | Emerging from his car, Sheriff West looks at hi GPS, assuring him that he’s made it to the correct location, despite the presumed diner being nothing more than a massive field of dirt. “I see you came alone” Scarlett calls out from beneath the shade of a tree, hiding both her and Victoria from the street light’s illuminating glow just above. “Depends on whether or not he has the tickets” Victoria responds, taking her eyes directly towards West. Pulling out a yellow folder, West stick one of the four ends in the wet dirt below his feet and backs up a few steps, allowing the girls to do much the same. “Why did you call me here?” West asks, his voice seeming reasonably professional, though the temptation of treating this like a joke being evident in his voice. Pulled from her coat, Victoria frees a yellow folder of her own and tosses it to West as if it were a frosty beer. Opening the folder, West pulls free photos and a few pieces of paper with specific information regarding an upcoming planned attack on downtown Baton Rouge. “Why are you showing me this?” West asks, his concerns being thrown aside by the girls, who assure him that they had no hand in this, they simply overheard a plan being made and went about gathering the information necessary to stop it in its tracks. “Why should I believe you?” West asks, “After all, you were the ones that knew how to navigate a decimated building to save some random guy.” Her eyes narrowed, Victoria asks how the man is doing, disappointed when the news of his internal injuries having been too great to survive is revealed. “You should believe us because we want exactly what you want, just in a different way” Scarlett replies, confidently walking closer to him. “And what is that?” West asks, watching the smile on Scarlett’s face whilst she tucks her hands in her jacket pockets and replies, “freedom.” Pacing around the Sheriff as Victoria stands in place, focused on West, Scarlett continues the monologue. “You’re not revealing why we were forced to defend ourselves from your crooked cop because you want to be the big guy that took the cop killers down.” “You want the glory of it” Victoria adds in, “Your freedom is being remembered in ways the cops that came before you had been forgotten…” Pausing for a second, Victoria takes a few more steps towards the Sheriff, “...Ours is being given the chance to live... something we can’t do with you calling us murderers.” With a smirk, West asks the girls what they think they can get in Hawaii that they can’t get in Louisiana. “We’ll have those traded by the time we board the planes, we just don’t want you tracing us back without us controlling what you find” Scarlett replies, humoring West, who has no other choice but to nod and applaud their effort. “Why shouldn’t I just have a crew shut down the airport when you’re expected to depart?” West asks, finding an interest in the girls when they give it to him straight, refusing to play games with their intended futures. “You have the chance to stop an attempted terrorist attack on the capital of Louisiana AND catch the killers of a crooked, though not crooked to the public, cop all in one night.” Stopping for a second, Scarlett points to Victoria and tells West that she had it correct down to the tee. “You don’t want us, you want the glory. All you have to tell the public is that you killed the bad guys in a firefight and it’s all yours.” Turning around, Victoria takes an automatic rifle hidden behind her back and takes aim at her truck, apologizing to her vehicle before putting numerous bullets into it, spraying it down. “The entire department knows of our innocence what the public doesn’t, and there’s no reason to keep that from changing… As long as you let us live the lives we deserve to be able to live” Victoria concludes, telling West to make the decision now before they take it away. Glancing back and forth at the girls, West bites his lip and looks back to the photographs before turning back to the girls, watching them stand in different places, sharing the patience for him response. “Alright” West replies, “You’ve got a deal.” Smiles on their faces, the girls look to each other and nod before West adds in one specific piece of information. “I’m going on a limb that I probably shouldn’t right now, so let me make it clear… You will never, and I mean never return to Praireville” West says, “If I see or hear of you being back here, I will put a bullet in your heads before you even have a chance to get settled in.” Staring to each other, the girls accept, tossing the emptied rifle to West’s feet and walking up to a beaten down rental car parked on the side of the road. “Good luck” West shouts, earning the girl’s attention before Victoria climbs into the passengers seat. “I think you’ll need it more than we will” Scarlett replies, taking her seat and starting the car, driving off into the night as West calls in for backup, telling his station to be discreet. “Look up” Victoria says, guiding Scarlett towards a shooting star above, putting a smile on Scarlett’s face. “Some things will never change” Scarlett replies, turning on the radio to the nearest station and losing herself in the music, driving off into the next chapter of their lives. “What next?” Victoria asks, watching Scarlett turn towards her and wink, we’ve got a few good-bye’s to make. “We’ve got three days to put together a plan and figure out what sticks” Victoria says, packing up most of their makeshift camp as Scarlett puts on a clean white shirt. “There’s not exactly much to talk about other than how to prevent it” Scarlett replies, turning to watch Victoria chuck the remainder of their camping equipment in the back of their truck. “We’ve got to figure out an escape plan” Victoria says, reminding Scarlett that the task of stopping a terrorist attack isn’t cut and dry.
“You said the Maldives last night, so I’ll trust that you know best when it comes to hide outs” Scarlett replies, staring at the truck for a moment before looking over to Victoria. “Are we sure this is even gonna work?” the unconvinced blonde asks, watching Victoria put the final pieces of painters tape over the ends of her truck. “If they’re looking for a silver Silverado, they won’t be looking for a black Silverado” Victoria replies, popping the lid off a can of black paint. Handing Scarlett a brush, Victoria climbs into the truck bed and begins applying a coat of paint over the roof of the vehicle, applying careful strokes to the surface whilst Scarlett uses the brush to sponge the truck. “What the fuck are you doing, Scar?” Victoria asks, watching Scarlett dab at the truck as if it were a cereal bowl. “I think I’m painting the truck?” Scarlett replies, what is meant to be her definitive response coming across much like a question, which she partially intended for. Staring darts at her with a raised eyebrow to send her point home, Victoria watches Scarlett brush as if she were confident in what she were doing before continuing to her own efforts. “So what’s the agenda for today?” Scarlett asks, following along with Victoria suggesting they find somewhere in the far reaches of the forest to hunker down and safely return to the realm beyond. Confused, Scarlett questions what more they need to know from the realm beyond that they don’t already know. “Well for a start, we’re back in the office building” Victoria replies, reminding Scarlett that they have yet to make it inside the double doors. “Already on top of that, I think we can stop this thing before it actually goes down” Victoria replies, stealing Scarlett’s attention from the task at hand like a moth watching a bug zapper power on for the first time. “I don’t care if I should or shouldn’t be, but I’m afraid of how you think we’re going to stop terrorists from blowing up Baton Rouge” Scarlett responds, the manner in which she voices he concerns convincing Victoria that the idea is further ‘out there’ than most. “Listen, if we can find just one of the men in the van, we can follow him and collect whatever evidence we need to turn him into authorities.” Her mouth slightly ajar, Scarlett dabs the tip of her brush with a small amount of paint and flicks it at Victoria, getting her right beside the eye. Looking to the blonde with her hands up, “What was that for?” Victoria asks, watching Scarlett place her newly free hands on the unpainted portions of the hood. “Are we talking about the same authorities that currently have us wanted for murder?” Scarlett asks, watching Victoria’s expression throw her a curveball. “Why do you look like you know something you’re not telling me?” Scarlett jokes, watching Victoria look around the forest as if there were anyone out there to overhear them as the question remains needing an answer. “It was self defense against a corrupted police officer, and I’m pretty sure publicly acknowledging that is worth it if they can bust an act of domestic terror” Victoria replies, putting the nerves back in Scarlett almost as soon as she believed herself to be free from them. Rolling her eyes and hanging her head as if it were a robe dangling from a clothesline, Scarlett tells Victoria that she doesn’t like the dance with fire they’re starting to play around with. “We’re not going to get burned as long as we give them exactly what they want” Victoria replies, promising Scarlett that there’s an out to be found, and they’re going to take it. Returning to giving the truck a makeover, Victoria and Scarlett brace through the hot summer sun of Louisiana, shaded by the trees to the sound of the cool winds whipping through the branches. “Don’t worry” Victoria says, watching Scarlett look up to her with a look of well-hidden concern. “We’re not gonna spend the rest of our lives outrunning the law, Scar” Victoria says, watching the genuine smile of Scarlett lift the mood instantly, giving everything the feeling that it’ll be alright. = Dream Sequence is created by Zachary Serra, all rights to the series belong to Zachary Serra and the entity of Pacer1 Media from the start of Season 1 onwards = “I know, mom” Rachel says, apologizing to her family for not having returned, pacing around the Bensen’s living room and watching the newscast run down the information of her lifelong friend. “I will” Rachel replies, the concerns of her mother resonating through the phone as worried muffles, Rachel doing her best to make coherent sentences out of her mothers low quality phone. Leaving Rachel to her conversation, Nora joins her husband near the front door as he surveys the front yard through the curtained-off window. “They’re still out there?” Nora asks, watching the sea of news vans and angered civilians causing an uproar directly outside of their front door. “I should go out there” Al says, his suggested efforts immediately being cast aside by his wife, who reminds him that he has no idea what their response to seeing him might be. “They can’t shoot me because they think my daughter’s a murderer” Al begins, stopped by Nora when she informs him that they don’t need a reason to start casting stones. Putting his hands on her shoulders, Al tells Nora that they’ll need to address the media eventually. “The police are going around suggesting the officer had no hand in getting killed, and they’re dragging our daughter’s name through the mud. We can’t just let them do that.” Understanding the place in his heart that Al is coming from, Nora tells him that there is a need to be concerned. “Our daughter, like it or not, is wanted for murdering a police officer. She became a runaway the day before. The public doesn’t care about detail, they care about what the headlines read” Nora says, acting as the voice of reason and finally making a compelling case. “I can’t just watch it happen” Al replies, watching his wife sink her head. Relocating his hands from her shoulders to her head, Al presses his forehead against hers, assuring her that they need to do something before someone takes actions into their own hands. “Nora, I would not be able to live with myself if someone shot our daughter because the cops fed them lies and I just stood back and let it happen” Al says, giving his wife as kiss on the head before telling her to take Rachel and go upstairs. Doing as instructed, Nora guides Rachel to the third floor, stopping at the top of the first set of stairs and looking back at her husband, who takes a few deep breaths before reaching for the doorknob. The sound of Nora taking in a deep breath draws him to glance towards his wife, flashing her a smile before giving her a subtle nod as she disappears around the corner, and he pulls the door open. | “Alright, let’s-” Scarlett begins, pausing as she and Vic enter the realm beyond expecting to return to the inside of the office, only to find themselves in an empty Baton Rouge street. “Where’s the office?” Scarlett asks, surveying the lay of the land and noticing the realm beyond entrenched by the starry night sky, but completely lacking any color. Neon signs are powered down, the street is vacant, and the city is engulfed in a pitch black nothingness. “What kind of dumb fucking game is this shit?” Scarlett shouts, feeling the ground beneath her rumble as the sky is suddenly blanketed by bright red. At the end of the street, the beast explodes from beneath the asphalt, immediately making a break for the two girls. “Now what the fuck is this bullshit?” Scarlett shouts, throwing up a shield in front of herself and Vic, only for the best to swipe at the shield as if it were a fly, sending the girls flying backwards with a violent tenacity. Scraping and dragging along the ground a few hundred yards back, the girls pick themselves up and watch the beast taking aim at them once again. Firing a few rounds off with her service weapon, Scarlett watches the dashes of energy bounce of the figures head, refusing to phase him in the slightest. “Fuck you!” Scarlett shouts, watching Vic pull a concrete pillar from it’s supportive place beneath a building’s front and shattering it over the figure’s head. Stunning it for a moment as it drops to the ground in a thunderous heap, Vic attempts to send a shield ripping towards it, only to halt when the ground begins rumbling in a way foreign to the girls. Looking beside them, the girls notice the building, no longer finding support in the concrete pillar, toppling over and threatening to crash to the ground. Taking Scarlett by the hand, Vic pops out of existence for a brief second before returning with Scarlett a few yards away. A safe distance from the collision, Vic and Scarlett watch the building collapse onto the beast, burying it beneath hundreds of tons of concrete and steel. Silently surveying the damage and watching a number of other, much smaller buildings crumble to the ground, Vic and Scarlett just wait for whatever comes next. Much to their surprise, what happens next is only a continuation of the fight they just had, as the beast emerges from beneath the rubble, taking aim at the girls once again. Stood in place watching the beast storm towards them as Scarlett fires off one round after another, Vic comes up with a solution on the spot and puts it into effect. Grabbing Scarlett’s arm, Vic pops up directly behind the beast and grabs it’s leg, popping out of existence once more. Taking her chances, Vic returns all three to the farthest place she can sense existence in and lets go of the beast. One final time, Vic returns to existence milliseconds later, standing beside Scarlett and watching the beast kamikaze off the edge of the realm beyond. All of these events having taken place within less than the blink of an eye, Scarlett rushes over to the edge, looking down into the pit of eternal darkness below. “How the- What the-” Scarlett asks, pointing back and forth between the edge of existence and her friend, now harboring a newly acquired ability to teleport. “Are you gonna tell me how you figured that out or am I just supposed to guess?” Scarlett asks, Vic insisting she just had the instinct to try it and watch it payoff. “You’re getting used to this” Esotera says, emerging behind the girls and frightening Scarlett. “Stop scaring me!” Scarlett shouts, watching Esotera chuckle and toss her arms outwards before addressing Vic directly. “When the realm starts getting comfortable with you, it lets you act on instinct the way you would in real life” Esotera says, informing Vic that the realm is beginning to trust her. “What about me?” Scarlett asks, placing her hands on her hips as Esotera glances at her, spending three seconds staring at her before brushing her off, returning to her conversation with Vic. “It seems like the realm has decided to reward you” Esotera says, disappearing as a van pulls up. Slowing to a stop, the van’s doors open up, and from the van emerge four men of varying backgrounds, all dressed in normal, discreet civilian clothing. Unfortunately for the girls, the men lack any features on their face, instead sporting a soft covering of skin, much like the faceless figures found in the one hall in the office. Unmoving, instead standing like statues, the men remain motionless as the girls scout them out, noticing one man unlike the rest. Behind the driver in the back of the van was a white man sporting a fast food uniform, barely helpful on it’s own, but crucially sporting a legible nametag. “Ryan” the nametag reads, immediately opening the flood gates for the girls to begin speculating to just what level this new information helps them. “Well?” Scarlett asks, looking to Vic for her insight, only to find the girl finding interest in something other than the nametag. “Where are you going now?” Scarlett asks, tired of having to chase Vic around the realm beyond without knowledge of where they’re going to end up. This time, however, hits differently for Scarlett, as she watches Vic hit the jackpot as she rears the back of the van, reading off the fully legible license plate number. “Does this answer your question?” Vic confidently says with a smile, turning to look at Scarlett before the shoe gets placed onto the other foot, with Scarlett finding interest elsewhere. Pulling the van doors open, Scarlett expects to find a buildup of explosives, only for the back of the van to offer the girls something much more intriguing. Inside the van is a long hallway stretching to a perfectly white room at the very end, completely shattering the laws of nature. Tapping Scarlett on the arm, Victoria takes her sights away from the back of the van to their immediate surroundings, pointing out that they had been returned to the hall of the faceless figures inside the office. Gasping, Scarlett takes her hand away from the van doors, noticing them to have turned into the double doors at the back of the hall, and furthermore, to be completely open, with nothing impeding their progress. Attempting to step inside, Vic holds Scarlett back, telling her not to take any step further. “Don’t try to stop me, Vic” Scarlett says, pausing once Vic says her gut is telling her that something about this isn’t trustworthy. “We’ve been blown up and almost crushed to death trying to get inside these doors, do you really think it would just stroll up to us on the side of the road, give us the answers we needed and leave it as easy as that?” Biting her lip, not wanting to leave this opportunity to waste, but also knowing that Vic is the one with her instincts intact and not the other way around, Scarlett stands there with her foot still suspended in air. “We’re not done with our work yet, Scar” Vic says, taking Scarlett’s hand and leading her away from the double doors. Taking a couple cautious steps back, Scarlett and Vic watch the doors slowly close up, sealing it’s interior with a satisfying silence. | The roaring crowd growing timid, gradually turning into silence as Al steps onto the top step of his family’s home, asking the crowd to allow him to address their concerns. “I’m not gonna walk out here and tell you that I know everything about my daughter, because I’m sure that I don’t” Al opens, refusing to play into the face-saving notion he’s grown to hate situations like these play out beneath the banner of. “But I’ll tell you that I know for a fact that my daughter isn’t a cold blooded murderer” Al continues, hearing the heckle of one man lost in the crowd calling his daughter a cop killer. Making it clear that he isn’t out to call the police liars, Al chooses to state that he will challenge the validity of the clip until his concerns are addressed. “There are complete holes being left in that video that are not being addressed, like why the officer needed to remove the driver from the vehicle despite the stop being made as a wellfare check” Al begins, putting a damper on the crowd for the moment being. “Or why the driver wasn’t handcuffed despite being taken to the back of the car, or why the driver was removed in the first place, that the entire footage would clear up.” Suddenly the mood of the crowd begins to shift, some still firmly on the side of his daughter’s guilt, whilst others begin to join the countless others challenging the nature of the action. “I grieve for the officers family, I truly do… But there is no way this edited-down version of the footage answers all of these questions or tells the full story. If these officers wish to call my daughter a killer, prove your point and release the full goddamn tapes!” As the crowd begins talking amongst themselves, Al raises his finger to tack on an additional point, only for the crowd to hush at the sound of a rip through the air. Atop the stairs, Al looks on at the crowd, standing in the place he once stood before falling forward and collapsing to the bottom of the stairs. Screaming in horror, the crowd of civilians and news anchors begin hurrying off from where they came from. At the bottom of the stairs, amongst the help of few selfless people from the crowd, Al lays in a growing pool of his own blood, dead from a gunshot wound at the hand of a member of the crowd he died addressing. Hearing the sound, Nora attempts to run out of the home as police arrive at the scene, with the selfless civilians attempting to tend to Al pushing Nora back into the home in the event of further shots being fired. Within moments, patrol cars and an ambulance spill into the street, with doctors rushing to the aid of the man who died the instant the bullet ripped through his heart. Screaming as she is shoved back into the home, Nora calls for her husband, spotting the look of fear forever frozen on his face as Rachel stands there, traumatized. | “Found it!” a newly blonde Victoria whispers in the library cubicle beside a newly brunette Scarlett. “There’s a Ryan Seypore that works there in Hammond just outside Baton Rouge” Victoria says, fist-bumping Scarlett having found their ticket to freedom. In the truck, the girls lay out the plan and make sure to keep to it strictly, opting to park behind the restaurant in the employee parking lot. Staring at the black van with the identical license plate to that of the men in the realm beyond, Scarlett and Victoria find their five hours of waiting to be worth it when their person of interest appears through the door. Tailing him for what feels like an eternity, the girls are led to Lettsworth, Louisiana at the northern border of the state, where the van takes a turn to an off-road portion of the road. “Keep those headlights off” Scarlett says, bracing for whatever the pair are about to drive into as they take the turn to follow the van down the horror movie-like passageway into the unknown. The sound of the pebbles being reburied into the dirt below the Silverado’s tires keeping the girls from being perfectly stealthy, the air is only aided in noise by the roaring engine of the van just up ahead. “Stop!” Scarlett says, patting Victoria’s hand as the car breaks in the middle of the pathway, watching the van drive off a few yards ahead, coming to a slow stop at the base of a decrepit barnyard. Emerging from the driver’s seat, Ryan walks into the barn and disappears into its interior, giving Scarlett and Victoria all that they need to play negotiator with the corrupted police department. Throughout the rest of their sleepless night, the girls make various stops at random houses throughout Louisiana, ending their journey with one important stop in a quiet, tucked away suburban neighborhood. Slipping an envelope through the doorway, Scarlett returns to the truck and tells Victoria of them completing their cycle of deliveries. “I told you I had a plan” Victoria replies, fist bumping Scarlett as she proceeds to fasten her seatbelt. As they continue driving, a momentary through the window of an all-night bank teller gives Scarlett a glimpse at a television screen. Unable to read the words of the banner on the newscast, Scarlett urges Victoria to pull into the ATM line just beside it, feeling like it is of some importance. “It’s probably just them shit talking us even more” Victoria replies, her attempt at denying Scarlett her weird request ending when she notices the puppy dog eyes. Groaning at the unnecessary detour, Victoria strolls up to the ATM and presses random buttons to make it appear as though she were checking her account. Just past the ATM, Scarlett reads off the bottom of the banner and painfully whispers “no” to herself as the truth slaps her in the face like a vengeful backhand. Taking her eyes of the screen and reading the same text as Scarlett, Victoria looks over to the girl on the verge of completely breaking apart. “Drive away” Scarlett says, Victoria trying to calm her down before Scarlett yells the same request, turning into an immediate demand. Putting the car in drive and parking off the road just beside a bridge, Victoria watches Scarlett burst out of the vehicle, only to immediately follow after her. “Scarlett, wait up!” Victoria shouts, catching up to the distraught girl with the fresh heartbreak and hugging her from behind as she drops to her knees. “I’m so sorry, Scar” Victoria says, dropping to her knees behind Scarlett and wrapping her arms around her friend, unable to do anything to make matters better. Having to find out through the news that your father was shot to death trying to protect you is one horror in itself, but knowing that it was because of you is a completely different level of self-annihilation. Limp in her friends arms, Scarlett just drops her head and gasps for air through open weeping. Knowing her apologies do nothing to help her devastated friend, Victoria puts her forehead to the back of Scarlett’s, trying to show her that she’s not alone in this, regardless of how it may feel right now. Pausing for a moment, Scarlett looks towards the sky and watches a shooting star dance across it, the nature of it seeming like a combination of antagonistic and nurturing. “We have to go, Scarlett” Victoria says, understanding the pain her other half is feeling, but unable to waste a moment in returning to their camp before they’re seen. Pushing herself to her feet, Scarlett walks to the truck, lightly brushing off help from Victoria in favor of getting the job done on her own. Climbing into the vehicle, Scarlett shuts the passenger’s side door as Victoria climbs into the driver’s seat, turning the key in the ignition. “Are we doing the right thing?” Scarlett asks, her tears still streaming, but the heavy guilt on her conscience moving aside long enough for the question to be asked. “What exactly are we doing?” Victoria asks, watching Scarlett turn towards her and admit that she’s only growing less fond of the world by the day. “We’re running away from crooked cops who’ve made us the bad guys for stopping you from being raped!” Laying out the situation in a straight line like that certainly puts things into perspective, but only further muddies the waters between what is truly right and wrong. “You heard it on the radio the other night, they didn’t show anyone what he tried to do to you…” Scarlett says, no longer looking at Victoria, instead grabbing at whatever straws there are to pull whilst she stares down at the floormat beneath her feet. “... And my dad’s dead because of it” Scarlett says, again stopping as she clears her throat and wipes away the tears. Faintly, Scarlett caps off her question, though has very little strength to do so, her words coming out faint and hopeless, dainty due to the strong dread in the air. “Is giving them an out really the right thing to do?” Scarlett asks, watching Victoria rub her shoulder and remind her that it’s the only option to save thousands of innocent lives. “We can’t just go have a conversation with people about to blow up the capital city of Louisiana” Victoria says, her words at the start turning humorous as she goes along. “If there’s any stopping this, they’re the only ones that can help with that” Victoria says, not liking the circumstances, but understanding that doing the right thing has to come with consequences at times. “Either way, the second we give over this evidence, we’re free to live our lives and not have to live every day in fear” Victoria says, placing her hand on Scarlett’s leg as the newly-brunette woman returns her warmth with a smile through the tears. Putting the car into drive, the girls return to their forest campsite and wait for the new day to approach, only a few short hours remaining until their judgment day begins. | “Good mornin’” Sheriff West says, walking over to his wife and giving her a kissing on the head. “A letter came for you in the mail” his wife says, returning to her sink as West rounds the table, finding a manilla envelope in the place of his plate. “Something from the precinct?” the wife asks, watching West shake his head, assuming such an envelope would be waiting for him at the station if that were the case. Peeling the envelope open, West reaches inside to find another, smaller manilla envelope with handwriting in red ink on the front reading ‘Confidential.’ “I’ll be right back” West says, walking to the opposite end of the home and taking a seat behind his desk. Turning on the light directly beside the middle of the large wooden center, West tears open the manilla envelope and lets it’s contents fall out onto the table. Contained within the manilla envelope are an aluminum cap, two pictures of a van beneath the midnight sky, the location of a cafe just outside of Louisiana, and a small list of demands. Directing West to attend that place outside of Baton Rouge jurisdiction, the note demands he attend alone, tell no one, and come with two plane tickets to Hawaii. Signed by Scarlett and Victoria, the note tells the man that they will give him something much more important to his career in exchange for their freedom. Telling him not to be late and to come alone, the note signs off with West being reminded that the full dash cam footage does not need to released, and his deceased officer can remain innocent, thus wiping responsibility off of the precinct. Swallowing a mouthful of his coffee, West leans back in his chair and picks up his cellphone, calling in sick to work. The officer on the other line being a close friend, West tells him he just needs to help his wife with some errands out of town, and he’ll be back in tomorrow. Convinced that he wants to hear what these two individuals have for him, West goes against his best instincts and opts to take them up on their word. Walking out to the kitchen, West kisses his wife goodbye and states that he’d be back later in the evening. Walking out the door with the confidential information in his hand, West thinks about calling the station to ask for backup quietly, only to think better of it. Recalling the girls having been seen saving someone from a building collapse, West assumes them to be capable of more than they appear, and elects to do as told. Silent, almost intentionally trying to refrain from speaking about the events of just under an hour ago, the girls running away from their prior life simply wait for the other to make the first move. Operating on instinct alone, Victoria aims to drive until the can no longer run on fumes, and Scarlett sits in the passengers seat, seated in silence, as if this were the realm beyond and she was just waiting to wake up.
After a few minutes, Victoria notices the truck beginning to feel the effects of an empty gas tank, and pulls into a random gas station to refuel. Coming to a rolling stop, Victoria unclasps her seatbelt and turns to Scarlett, aiming to speak, only to be unable to find the words, and instead opting to simply exit the vehicle and fill the tank like they came here to do. Now alone, no longer able to fixate on Victoria’s heavy breathing to escape the silence, Scarlett closes her eyes. Entering the gas station to the cheery sounds of an automatic bell, Victoria walks up to the counter and requests fifty dollars worth of gas on the third pump. Instructing the teller to keep the change, Scarlett returns to her vehicle, takes the pump and begins to refill as if this was identical to the prior one-thousand times she had pumped gas before. Looking towards the top of her pump, Victoria notices a small screen displaying the news, which immediately commands her attention. No mention of the murder of an on-patrol officer, as crooked as he may truly have been, Victoria stands completely clueless to her surroundings as she just waits for the inevitable to dash across the screen, accompanied by a bright-red “Breaking News” banner. As the pump begins to click, the special edition of breaking news never comes, but Victoria remains standing there, just waiting. The truck no longer needing any additional gas, and the pump no longer pumping gasoline into it, Victoria remains stood there, watching the television with her finger squeezing the latch. “That is all for us this morning, we’ll see you once again at ten” the anchor proudly spouts, closing the show and allowing a random infomercial to begin. Swallowing the ball of spit in her mouth, Victoria notices the pump having done its job and returns it to the pump. Climbing back into the driver’s seat, Victoria looks to Scarlett, who stares at the roof of the truck above her, and turns the key in the ignition. Before pulling out of the gas station, Victoria looks to Scarlett and attempts to say something, literally anything, to no avail. Putting the car in drive, Victoria drives forward and makes for official city line to exit Baton Rouge, and enter Lafayette. = Dream Sequence is created by Zachary Serra, all rights to the series belong to Zachary Serra and the entity of Pacer1 Media from the start of Season 1 onwards = Pulling off the road and onto a dirt track leading down to a little campground in the forest, Victoria puts the truck in park, making sure to hide it behind the tall trees, and out of sight from any direct pathways. Finally, after nearly three hours of silence, Victoria speaks up, telling Scarlett that it is time for them to get back in the realm beyond. “Have you lost it more than I have?” Scarlett asks, “What if someone finds us and calls us in while we’re asleep?” Shaking her head, Victoria tells Scarlett that they’ll set an alarm for a half an hour and return when the alarm goes off. “It might cut it close, but we have to go back at some point” Victoria argues, suggesting advice from Esotera would help them get their plans straightened out. Struggling to fully commit to this plan, Scarlett folds and gives in, telling Victoria that they’ll need to find some place completely out of sight if they’re going to keep heading into the realm beyond for these answers. “When the alarm goes off, we get what we need to make a camp and we ditch the truck” Scarlett says, immediately watching the disgust come across Victoria’s face. “What?” Scarlett asks, watching Victoria caress the steering wheel. “The one thing you don’t tell people that drive a truck is that they have to give up their truck” Victoria replies, watching Scarlett look at her with the most judgmental eyes one could sport. “As I said. We get the shit we need, we ditch the truck, we make a camp. Nothing more, and strictly nothing less.” Nodding, Victoria begins to set her alarm and lays back, ready to leave behind the chaos of the realm of reality in favor of the realm beyond. After a few minutes, the girls both fall asleep, finally beginning to have a more firm control over when they do and don’t doze off. Emerging back into the crowd of party people in downtown Baton Rouge, Scarlett and Vic elbow their way through the horde whilst calling out for Esotera’s name. After a few moments, the touch of synthetic skin grabs both girls by the arm and teleports from the center of the crowd and into a quiet, danty, colorless warehouse. “What happened?” Esotera asks, “You’re trembling and your skin feels tight.” Looking at the woman for clarification, Esotera informs the girls that any stressful or fear-inducing situation the girls fall asleep suffering from is represented in a tight, restricted sensation when touched by synthetic skin. “Something’s off” Esotera suggests, “much more off than usual.” Looking to each other before they outright say it, Vic looks to Scarlett to break the ice, hearing her outright admit that they had killed an officer a few hours prior. “In the realm of reality?” Esotera asks, placing her hand to her forehead once her concerns had been clarified in Scarlett’s words. “He was trying to force Vic into his car, it- it felt so- so off” Scarlett says, with Vic concluding her statement by acknowledging that he was most likely looking to have his way with her. “Okay, he should have had a bodycam, so just-” Esotera begins, looking for hopeful suggestions before Scarlett informs her that Baton Rouge does not have a law requiring law enforcement to wear body cams. “Someone like him wouldn’t wear one if he didn’t have to” Vic concludes, watching Esotera’s head drop like a disappointed mother. “We don’t know what to do now” Scarlett admits, watching Esotera look up to her, before she places her hand on Scarlett’s cheek. “You did the right thing, it just has some pretty awful repercussions” Esotera states, telling the girls that without footage, their claim of self-defense is practically already dead in the water. Their heads hung in disappointment, neither girl can truly be upset at the response, having previously assumed it to rest along the lines of improbable to impossible. “What the hell do we do now?” Scarlett asks, the panic in her voice beginning to appear through the cracks within it. “You can hide away” Esotea suggests, having to think outside the box for a solution. “Hide out somewhere and lay low, other than that, I have nothing” Esotera concludes, apologizing once more for lacking the help and advice the girls were looking for. “So that’s it, huh?” Scarlett asks, the question tearing the hopes of all three figures in the room as it leaves her lips. “It’s just over? Just like that?” Scarlett asks, the anger beginning to build up. “We come here to stop the world from five tragedies, and with another one yet to come, we’ve failed to make any difference after fucking two?” Scarlett shouts, looking to Esotera, who looks at her with an eyebrow raised. “What? Why are you looking at me like that?” Scarlett asks, the question being aimed at Esotera takes a detour to be answered by Vic. “Three tragedies” Vic says, capturing Scarlett’s wandering eyes as if the two words were a beacon for Scarlett’s attention. “The murder of that officer and the succeeding manhunt for the two women responsible serve as the third tragedy” Esotera admits, watching Scarlett’ heart sink into the dark trenches of her chest. “But that tragedy wasn’t one we had to stop. It was-” Scarlett starts, stopped in her tracks when Vic effortlessly ends her sentence for her. “-It was one we caused” Vic says, looking to Esotera with pain-filled eyes. “We’re not the one’s stopping the disasters from happening, are we?” Vic asks, standing from her seat as Scarlett looks at their represented subconscious. Stepping up to Esotera, Scarlett begins to tear up as she forces herself to answer the question that Esotera can’t, or perhaps, won’t. “We’re the ones that are starting them” Scarlett declares, Esotera’s look at her out of the corner of her eye giving her all the confirmation that she needed. “Just by being here” Vic begins, “Just by knowing what’s going to happen, we already set out the motions for them to play out, don’t we?” Esotera, looking towards the girls, knowing just as much as their subconscious does, simply nods as Scarlett and Vic stand in shock. With her hands on her hips, Scarlett says the whole point of stopping the tragedies is over now that they’re fugitives. “Not exactly” Esotera states, the eyes of Scarlett and Vic cementing their focus on her. “Just because you’re fugitives, doesn’t mean you can’t still try to stop the tragedies from happening” Esotera admits, reminding the girls that they’re still part of the realm of reality. “If you can figure out what the disaster is and when it happens, you can put a stop to it.” With the declaration that the fight is only over if Scarlett and Vic choose to abandon it, the will to live long enough to make up for their wrong doings give them a sudden second wind. “Not getting caught is just another obstacle thrown into the mix” Vic says, turning to Scarlett, who is quick to point out all the other obstacles they overcame prior. Suddenly, the girls throw aside the loose fugitives concern and ask Esotera to insert them back into the bar when they return. Esotera states that she’ll do her best before watching Vic and Scarlett prepare to blow their brains back into the realm of reality. “One more thing!” Esotera shouts, pausing the return to the realm of reality for another moment and walking closer to the girls. “I know I said it before, but I think with these new ‘obstacles’ in your way, it’s worth reminding you that if you die in the realm of reality, you don’t die permanently.” Looking to each other with a scared, broken smile knowing that actual death is a card to possibly have to deal, Vic and Scarlett nod, thanking Esotera. “You die in the realm beyond and you no longer exist, but if you need to play the card up there…” Esotera starts, pausing for a second to take in what she’s about to say, knowing what she knows about the girls. “...Ending it up there is the last ditch resort, alright?” Esotera asks, hugging the two girls she’s grown rather close to as they disembark the realm beyond. | “Sweetheart, I want you to get some rest” Al says taking a seat beside Nora on the couch, watching the news in case they can get a glimpse at where their daughter is. “I can’t sleep, Al. Not while Scarlett is missing” Nora replies, taking a cup of coffee Al wished he wouldn’t have to give to her. “Alright” Al replies, sinking into his seat as he and his wife silently watch the news, hoping for a miracle. Suddenly, the eerily peaceful sights of infomercials is interrupted when a knock at the door strips Nora’s sights, bringing her to her feet in an instant. Opening the door, Nora’s disappointment shows when she finds Rachel, asking to come in. Opening the door, Nora asks Rachel if something is wrong, only for Rachel to admit to not going home when she left the home earlier in the morning. “I remembered Scarlett saying that she knew of a motel that she would go to if she needed to stay somewhere out of sight, so I went there” Rachel says, putting a speed into Nora’s steps as she asks what she found. “The manager said she and Victoria were there last night, but they left for no apparent reason before the sun came up” Rachel says, giving Nora newfound hope. “Where did they go?” Nora asks, the hope still intact, but coming to a sudden stop when Rachel admits having no response. “He said they were in a gray Chevy Silverado when they pulled up, and that was what they left in” Rachel says, the hope she afforded Nora with immediately dashed when Al calls them both into the living room. “What is it Al?” Nora asks, Rachel and herself turning to the breaking news report, showing the picture of Scarlett and Victoria behind the exact Chevy Silverado plastered on the screen. ‘Two Fugitives Wanted for Killing Officer’ is the chosen branding on the bottom ticker, the faces of Scarlett and Victoria as clear as anything representing the alleged killers. Standing in her living room, completely engulfed in horror at the combination on her television screen, Nora collapses into her husband’s arms as Rachel looks on, stunned into silence. Running over the names, ages, make and model of the vehicle in addition to its license plate number, as well as the girls being declared missing persons, the anchor pulls no punches. Calling the girls ‘wanted murderers’ on more than one occasion, the anchor unknowingly puts the Bensen family and Rachel into a full state of shock. Before they can have a moment to comprehend the sights they’re bearing witness to, the three are interrupted with a second knock on the door. Opening it on the family’s behalf, Rachel comes to look at the officer staring at her from the other side of a glass door. Opening it, Rachel asks the tall officer if this is in relation to the two girls, which he doesn’t answer at first, until he spots a distraught Nora and Al just inside. Understanding that they’ve more than likely already become aware of their reasoning of stopping at the house, the officer gives a simple nod to Rachel, who opens the door, and allows the officer entry. | With a similar bell to that of the gas station they had just departed hours earlier, Victoria and Scarlett enter a store near a forest on the outskirts on Lafayette, careful not to step on any toes. Walking in without an issue, the girls cautiously roam the mart in search of everything they’d need to survive within the boundaries that nature chooses to offer them. Scanning through shelves of outdoors gear and taking whatever they deem to be worth the purchase, the girls end up with a few arms full of equipment and little chance at being able to pay the hefty price of it. “We’re already wanted for murder, right?” Scarlett whispers, shrugging her shoulders and placing everything they need by a door near the back of the building. “When you hear me giggle, start shoveling everything out the back door, alright?” Scarlett says, telling Victoria to be ready before walking back to the front of the store. “Hey, my friend and I are looking for directions. Do you know how to get to the beach from here?” Scarlett asks, making sure to get the young nerdy teenager with heavy acne eating out of her hands before swooping in for the kill. Walking behind the counter in a very convincingly seductive manner, Scarlett takes the cashier’s attention and lets out a playful laugh, serving as Victoria’s cue. Taking a handful of things and propping the backdoor open with a rock, Scarlett covers for her, welcoming a non-existent customer through the front door as the automatic bell goes off. Hurrying back and forth in hopes of making Scarlett’s encounter brief, Victoria hurries back into the store and shuts the door behind her. “Sky, do you know where we’re going yet?” Victoria asks, unable to come up with a better code name, but making up for it in her hurry. “That’s right, I almost forgot!” Scarlett says, looking back to the teen as he gives them precise, detailed directions. Selling the encounter the rest of the way, Scarlett whispers something in the teen’s ears as she taps the inside of his thigh, thanking him for his help. Returning to Victoria, the pair walk through the front doors cleanly, Scarlett thanking Victoria for not being long. “Why’d you grab his junk?” Victoria asks, watching Scarlett’ mouth playfully drop as they reach the truck. “I didn’t grab his junk, I tapped his thigh” Scarlett replies, Victoria repeating the question with the correct phrasing. “Well we know he won’t be looking at the news when he goes on his next break, won’t we?” Scarlett replies, having made sure to cover any secondary ground, buying them time they otherwise wouldn’t have had. “You’re an evil genius” Victoria responds, watching Scarlett shrug, wishing she could just ‘ball-tap’ her way out of being a wanted murderer. “We’ll make it through this” Victoria replies, assuring Scarlett that they’ll clean their names soon enough. When the night sky consumes Lafayette, Louisiana, Scarlett and Victoria sit on rocks in front of their tents as Victoria gets a small campfire going. “Where’d you learn to do that?” Scarlett asks, watching Victoria’s technique hold the appearance of someone who’s done this thousands of times. “I’ve lived on my own for a long time, Scar” Victoria says, keeping the fire low enough to avoid detection. “I’ve picked up a thing or two about surviving out here when I have to” Victoria replies, watching the smile on Scarlett’s face tell the story. “You wanna learn how to keep a fire going?” Victoria asks, watching Scarlett nod before handing her a few loose pieces of moss. “When they’re dry enough, you’ll want to get it under the stick and around the fire. You don’t want the stuff to put it out” Victoria warns, pulling it into smaller pieces. Within seconds, Scarlett is lining the sides of the fire with moss, watching it burn whilst the smoke remains at a minimum. “Veery good” Victoria says, humorously pleased with Scarlett’s progress, suggesting she could get pretty used to living with nature. “When we find somewhere more permanent, I’ll teach you how to make a Dakota” Victoria says, leaving an explanation for later. Looking at each other in silence, Victoria smiles, telling Scarlett they could evade the law for years if they find somewhere out of the way. “It’s not like we’ll be struggling to get by out here, it’ll just be something we’ll have to get used to” Victoria continues, watching Scarlett look towards her and smile, the pain of not being able to go back to the way life used to be hiding away behind a relatively comforting though of a decent life still being possible. “I know” Victoria says, Scarlett not needing to say anything for Victoria to realize that she’s scared. “I’ve haven’t known you for half of a month, but it feels like I’ve known you forever” Victoria says, putting her hand on Scarlett’s back and rubbing her shoulder, easing her concerns where they rest. “We used to think a ton of things weren’t possible… But we know more now than we did back then” Victoria says, locking eyes with Scarlett. “We’re not just going to get through this, we’re going to thrive in this” Victoria concludes, watching the pain of Scarlett’s smile disappear the second time around. Patting her on the back a few times, Victoria returns to tending to the fire, assuring Scarlett that now would be a great time to get some rest and start putting together a plan when the sun comes up. Nodding her head, Scarlett watches Victoria walk into the tent and seal it behind herself, leaving Scarlett to stare at the flames. Pulling her legs up and resting her chin on her kneecaps, Scarlett wraps her arms around her shins as if to keep her legs tied up. As the picture of the bright flames reflect in her eyes, she begins to take in a few deep breaths, eventually losing it as the tears squeeze through her eyelids and roll down her face. One after another, the tears land on the ground beside the fire, and Scarlett lets out the build up of hurt, worry, concern and fear that she’s hidden well over the last number of hours. Inside the tent, Victoria watches Scarlett let out what she had been keeping inside, refusing to interrupt her, allowing Scarlett her chance to grieve for the life she once knew being buried where she sits, long dead and gone. | “Mrs. Bensen, my name is Sheriff Joe West and I work with the BRPD, the Baton Rouge Police Department, and it’s come to my understanding that your missing daughter has been video taped killing an on-duty police officer in cold blood.” The introduction not taking emotions into account, West makes it clear that he is sorry about their daughter currently being on the run from home, but his business belongs with the deceased officer killed at Scarlett’s hands. “I know this is all a lot to take in, so if you need a moment, please say so. But right now, we’re working against the clock, so I’d like to touch as many bases I can, alright?” Sheriff West asks, watching Al nod his head as his wife stares blankly at the front door. “Ma’am?” West asks, watching her snap out of her tunnel vision to stare at him, quickly dropping her head once she remembers why he’s here. “I’d like our attorney to be present” Nora replies, refusing to speak despite West informing her that she’s not under arrest. “Ma’am, you don’t have to speak with us, but we’d really appreciate your help” West says, the first half of his response serving enough for Nora to walk away, leaving Al alone on the couch. “I’d like to know what proof you have of my daughter being guilty of this crime” Al asks, watching Sheriff West informing him that an encounter was documented in a police cruiser’s dash cam that featured an officer being shot and killed. “After a few seconds, your daughter and another woman, I assume this Victoria Shea you mentioned in your police report, were found staring at the officers body and leaving the scene of the crime. “I’d like to see the video proof you have, Sheriff” Al requests, informed by West himself that he cannot share that footage with him. “Well if it happened the way you suggested that it had, then there is no footage of my daughter pulling the trigger that resulted in the death of your officer” Al says, playing hardball with Sheriff West, who begins getting frustrated. “Sheriff, if I may?” Rachel suddenly calls out, West informing her than he is not allowed to speak with her unless a parent or guardian allows him to. “Well you don’t have to talk, you just have to listen” Rachel says, the warm demeanor from her original request to be entered into the conversation being thrown aside in favor of a direct approach. “What the news footage happened to leave out was why Scarlett was left in the vehicle while Victoria was at the cruiser.” “I don’t see why that’s so-” West begins, his attempt at interjecting being silenced when Rachel reminds him that he is not allowed under law to speak to her without a guardian present, suggesting he ‘pipe down’. “If Scarlett was alone in the front seat and Victoria was at the back of the cruiser, the only way that’d be possible would be if Victoria was handcuffed before Scarlett exited the vehicle.” With a smile on her face, Rachel takes a seat beside Al and stares down West, who is helpless to add anything into the conversation. “If this was a wellfare check, there’d be no reason to handcuff Victoria, therefor no reason for her to be at the back of the cruiser unless something beyond legal limitations was taking place… Which only means that your officer was doing something he had no legal right to do.” Catching Rachel’s drift, Al looks towards West with wide eyes, finding a flaw in West’s story of his own. “Your dash cam footage never showed Victoria being removed from the vehicle Sheriff” Al says, watching West’s eyes lock onto him with a stare designed to be intimidating. “You’re hiding something” Al exclaims, turning towards Rachel, who comes to the conclusion that Victoria was unlawfully removed from her vehicle. “I believe we’re done here” West says, attempting to get up and leave, only to be stopped by Al, who tells him that he isn’t going anywhere. Brushing past West and standing between the Sheriff and the front door, Al expresses that he is well within his legal right to do so, with this being his property. “Sheriff, I’ll give yout his ultimatum right now… Either you release the full dash cam footage, or I’ll make sure the public gives you no other option.” The conversation having taken a drastically different turn than it originally looked, Al steps aside, extending his arm to greet West on his way out of the home. “Your daughter is in danger, Mr. Bensen” Sheriff West calls out, walking to the door of his vehicle before turning around, facing the Bensen family patriarch before climbing in. “Don’t make my job difficult if you want her to have a fair shot in court” West threatens, angering Bensen, who takes the petty attack personally. | “Where do we go when this is all over?” Scarlett asks, looking at the different patrons of the bar, whilst trying to focus on Vic’s words as they fight for supremacy over the roars of the crowd. “Somewhere without an extradition process, so they don’t fly us out if they ever catch us” Vic suggests, throwing the Maldives out as her personal choice, much to the wonder of Scarlett. “How the hell would we afford to live in the Maldives?” Scarlett asks, sifting through napkins and glass cups in search of any indication of what the date is. “My grandparents passed their belongings down to me when they passed” Vic admits, “They didn’t trust my parents with the sudden influx of cash… And it seems like they were right to.” “I’m sorry, Vic” Scarlett says, watching Scarlett turn around with a smile on her face. “Don’t be. The only reason I don’t spend a lot of money is because I can’t make the purchases I want yet!” The idea of owning property, buying stock, making investments in real estate aren’t possible if you’re not an adult. “In the Maldives, I’m equal to everyone that can breath” Vic says proudly, “We’ll make it work.” After a few more minutes of searching through cabinets, Scarlett stumbles upon a receit printer, with its most recent print out being the margarita of one of the women at the counter. “It’s four days from now” Scarlett says, watching the crowd part and the explosive van roll to a stop as he did the day prior. Hopping over the counter with her service weapon drawn, Scarlett kills the two men in the front of the van, only to watch another two hurry from the back of it. Chasing after them, the girls are forced to split up when the two terrorists head into opposite directions, taking their own routes. Scarlett being led into a collapsed construction sight, she eventually crosses paths with Vic once more, who was taken through a busy city. “How did you get here?” Scarlett asks, watching Vic look around, having noticed the terrorists they were chasing having vanished. Almost immediately after the question is raised, the girls notice the sight of the shooting star above as the sky begins to grow dark. “Good to know I’ve got my own personal bullshit to remind me it still exists!” Scarlett aggravatedly shouts, attempting to walk away until the touch of Vic tapping her on the arm pulls her right back in. “It’s getting bigger” Vic says, pointing to the star falling at a rapid speed, and growing closer to the ground with every second. “It’s not getting bigger” Scarlett says, taking a few seconds to assess the star, coming to the conclusion that it’s falling. Watching the star take a nosedive, the girls follow it until it disappears behind the line of buildings, with a massive eruption occurring, sending a plume of smoke and fire into the sky, blocking out the sunlight. “What was-” Vic says, stopped when the sky goes black and an explosion of bright white light appears out of nowhere. Suddenly, the girls find themselves back in the office space of the faceless figures. “Esotera!?” Scarlett calls out, her request for their embodied subconscious nowhere to be found. Tapping her friend on the arm, Vic points out the double doors in the back having returned, wide open and awaiting their company. “Now or never?” Scarlett asks, looking to Vic and slowly walking towards the doors, making sure not to interrupt the faceless figures. As they come within feet of the doors, the white lights of the room turn into a sudden shade of bright red, and the beast from the stairwell bursts through the office doors. “Run!” Vic shouts, making a belign for the double doors, only for their only escape to slam closed in their face. “Shit!” Scarlett exclaims, throwing a shield up and allowing the beast to crash into it, only to be sent flying backwards as the shield is thrown directly at him. Reaching for a desk, Vic aims for the beast, ready to let it fly until the pulsating heat of a burst of fire drops her to her knees. Without even noticing until it was too late, the double doors had exploded from the inside, spitting the girls back into the realm of reality on a sour note. Waking up in a daze, sweating from the heat residue of the realm beyond being present when they returned, Scarlett and Vic look to each other, as if to ask what more they can do. Silently laying back down, the girls notice the dawn of a new day begin to show, ending their slumber for the night, and returning them to the awful hand they’ve been dealt. “Scarlett!” the distant voice of her friend calls out, the words fluttering through her head as she fades in and out of the two realms she shares her life with. Again called for by the woman in the driver’s seat, Scarlett remains battling the urge to fall asleep before the sudden sting of a hand to the face jolts her back. “What the fuck?” Scarlett shouts, tending to the handprint on her face as she brushes off the apology from Victoria. “Well you weren’t answering me when I called for you, so I went to the next best thing” the driver replies, watching as Scarlett adjusts the seatbelt, keeping it from continuing to strangle her.
“How are you staying awake?” Scarlett asks, still fighting to keep her eyes open through their obvious want to close for even a few minutes. “We’re either about to become missing people or already have been, so that’s a good motivator” Victoria replies, instantly pushing Scarlett into an apologetic state of mind, having been the one to push them onto this track to begin. Reaching out to turn the dial on the truck’s console, Scarlett’s hand finds a similar fate as her cheek did a few moments prior. “Vic, cool it with the slapping!” Scarlett says, watching the driver apologetically bounce her head up and down. “Sorry, it’s… Well, it’s a stress reliever” Victoria replies, putting a smile on Scarlett’s face. “Keep it up and I’ll have to get us into couple’s counseling” Scarlett jokes, pushing the fear of being their own providers aside for the few seconds. On the long road into Baton Rouge, the headlights of the car spot out a few ambitious rain drops beginning their crash into the ground. “We should find a place to settle in for the-” Scarlett begins, pausing to check the clock as it near five o’clock in the morning. “-Well, morning” Scarlett concludes, bringing about more laughter, finally getting Victoria to ease the worry for the first time since their original departure. Passing the ‘Now Entering Baton Rouge’ street sign, the rain quickly begins to come down hard, forcing the girls to pull off to the side of the road. “Fuck it, we’ve got soft seats. We’ll settle down here for a few” Scarlett says, presenting it as a solution as the dry sand below quickly turns to mud. Turning the key and powering the car down, the two girls look to each other with an expression of worry. “Everything’s gonna be alright” Scarlett says, watching the smile on Victoria’s face assure her that the pair are on the same page. “I trust you” Victoria says, the little under the week she’s known her feeling like a lifetime. “Is it weird that I trust you this much?” Victoria asks, watching Scarlett smirk and drop her head against the headrest as her seat turns into a recliner. “We’re a strange set of clairvoyants. If this doesn’t give us the free ticket to become BFF’s, I don’t know what can” Scarlett replies, reassuring Victoria that she isn’t losing her mind. Without response, Victoria nods to herself and drops her seat back, taking in a deep breath as the two girls close their eyes, having earned their return to the realm beyond. = Dream Sequence is created by Zachary Serra, all rights to the series belong to Zachary Serra and the entity of Pacer1 Media from the start of Season 1 onwards = Sat to the chorus of phones ringing off the walls and the unprovoked uneasy feeling in the air, Rachel and the Benson’s sit patiently waiting to declare their daughter a missing person. Her leg tapping against the floor until the hand of her husband prompts her stop, Nora watches the officer stationed at the front desk as if he was just going to drop everything to help her. “What is taking so long?” Nora asks herself, ultimately finding small but existing reassurance in Al’s promise that she’s perfectly fine. “Why would she just disappear like this?” Nora asks, resting her head against her husband’s chest as he pulls her close. “We don’t know that she meant to disappear, Nor” Al says, “For all we know, she went out trying to buy you a surprise present and got spooked by everyone looking for her. We just don’t have answers, and that’s not necessarily a bad thing from top to bottom.” Finding herself in a similar position to what she normally finds herself in, Nora refuses to argue, putting her faith in Al’s composed response, hoping for it all to just be a case of being too blown out of proportion. “Bensen?” an officer calls out, reading off a clipboard and capturing the focus of the distraught mother like a moth to a porch light. “Yes, yes that’s us” Nora says, swiping the hair from her face as she shoots to her feet, following the officer’s hand directing the trio to an office in the back. “And when did you last see her?” the officer asks mid-conversation, told the events exactly as they unfolded. “Do you know this friend?” the officer asks, both parents looking back to Rachel as the teenage girl stands against the wall directly beside the door. “Her name’s Victoria. I don’t know her last name, she just started at our school” Rachel replies, challenged by the follow-up question of whether or not Scarlett had ever had prior interactions with the girl. “She told her where to find one of her classes in the hallway a few days ago, but I haven’t seen them interact with each other other than that.” Writing this down in the notebook, the officer asks Rachel if she has any reason to believe Rachel to be a threat to Scarlett’s well-being. Stuttering for a second, the brief hesitation enough to captivate the three adults now staring at her as if she were on stage performing on Broadway. “Not that I would know of” Rachel replies, pausing for a second before admitting that she doesn’t have anything to base that off of. “Do you have any reason to believe that Scarlett would run off without saying anything?” the officer asks, Rachel’s response being interrupted by Scarlett’s mother assuring the officer that she would never. Folding his hands together and taking a brief glance towards the floor, the officer apologizes to Nora. “Ma’am, I understand your concern. As a parent myself, and I can assure you that we do not always know our children as best as we think we do.” With that statement, the officer looks back to Rachel and asks the question a second time. “I’m not asking you if she has done this in the past, but as someone that is close with her on the level of an acquaintance, would your assessment of her indicate that she would be the kind of person to run off without saying anything?” With the question, Al keeps his eyes forward as Nora plants her own on Rachel, watching the young girl give her answer as if she was a television program reading off the lottery numbers. “Knowing Scarlett…” Rachel begins, taking in a deep breath as her eyes find Nora for a brief second before wavering off. “...If there was a good reason for it, I’m confident she would.” With this assertion made, Nora looks away with disappointment. “I’m sorry, Mrs. Bensen” Rachel says, watching a hurt smile come over Nora’s face as she nods to the girl. | “That’ll never get old” Scarlett says, gliding her hand over her skin as the pleasing touch of her skin turning from synthetic into flesh acts like a fetish. Vic appearing beside her, gliding her hand over her skin much the same, the two look to each other as if they know exactly what the other is thinking. “It feels like winning a marathon, don’t it?” Scarlett says with a smile, watching Vic humorously shake her head and head into the main street. “Wait, why are we out here?” Scarlett asks, not needing to hear anything to feel Esotera popping into existence behind the pair. “As I said, a much more open environment will be beneficial to you two” Esotera replies, joining the girls in their stroll down the street. “Where is everyone?” Scarlett asks, noticing the downtown area of Baton Rouge lit up, ready to impress the existing nightlife without any signs of the night’s life to be seen. “This is your dream, not theirs” Esotera responds, placing her hand to the door of one of the buildings before popping onto the other side of it. Looking to each other as if they were about to open presents on Christmas morning, Scarlett and Vic walk up to the doors and attempt to lean on them, only to fall directly through and drop to the ground in the entry way. “Ow, what the hell?” Scarlett asks, dusting herself off as Esotera fails to hide her enjoyment. “Funny is it?” Scarlett asks, pointing her hand forward as if to grab Esotera, only to be sent flying back into the wall, disappearing through it as if it were never even there. “Where the fuck did she go!?” Vic asks amusingly, telling Vic to check out the opposite wall just as Scarlett crashes through it and drops to the floor. “I’m too good for your powers to work on me, little one” Esotera jokes, turning around to walk into the building as Scarlett gets to her feet. Throwing her hands forward with a smile, Scarlett is sent crashing through the windows without Esotera having to lift a finger, eventually crashing through the opposite side of the building once more as Esotera lifts an eyebrow. “Did I not already have this discussion with you?” Esotera asks, watching Scarlett pick the splintered wood from her hair and reply with a simple but firm “Bite me.” “Follow along” Esotera exclaims, laughing at the muttered name calling of ‘show off’ from the upstaged young blonde. “Where are we going?” Vic asks, following Esotera and beginning an ascent up a never-ending stairwell colored with a splash of bright red. As they continue their ascent without question, the bright red lights begin to flicker, with the stairwell beginning to rumble until the sight of something large near-miles above acts as a massive shadow. “What is that?” Vic asks, noticing the growling of the original beast from their introduction into the realm beyond. “What do we do?” Vic asks, only to cut herself off and ask why the beast keeps growing closer. Suddenly the sound of twisting metal accompanies the task of dodging falling bolts and screws, turning their current predicament into one more dire in nature. “We have to get out of here!” Scarlett shouts as the beast rapidly falls closer to them, and the metal stairs beneath their feet begin to shake rapidly, threatening to collapse at any moment. Suddenly, the touch of Esotera’s hand grabbing their wrists and squeezing tight snap them into a seperate room, lit with a natural white light and the feel of something safe from an earthquake. “What the fuck was that?” Scarlett asks, her request for further information blocked when a horde of disfigured monsters race from respective empty rooms, making a break for the duo. Attempting to call for Esotera, Scarlett notices their overseer having disappeared, leaving the girls to fend for themselves. “On the desks!” Vic shouts, climbing onto one as one of the seemingly thousands of the disfigured inches closer to Scarlett at a full sprint. “Scarlett!” Vic shouts, watching the girl nail a backflip onto the desk’s surface. Service weapon in hand, Scarlett blows the disfigured head into bits and joins Vic in running along the desktops as if they were playing a massive game of ‘the floor is lava.’ Before long, the girls break out their shields and toss them around when necessary, wiping hundreds of the disfigured into death in the snap of a finger. Shot after shot taking down the disfigured as if they were beating a video game level, Scarlett and Vic dash through the workspace wiping away and taking out the disfigured, which only continue to pour from their pockets. “Vic!” Scarlett calls out, watching the girl wipe out crowd after crowd of the disfigured. “Send a shield at the ground!” Scarlett shouts, taking aim and firing off as ordered, disappearing through the walls as Vic soon follows. Not having seen what happens like Scarlett, Vic watches the ground she once walked disappear in the blink of an eye as she throws herself through one room after another before finding herself popping through the roof. “Holy fuck!” Vic shouts, her words extending as her ascent reaches its peak, sending her back down slowly before the pace picks back up, ending with her slamming into the office floor and sending a shockwave throughout, wiping every single disfigured from existence. Looking at her posture to notice herself having unintentionally landed a superhero-like pose, she looks towards Scarlett as she smiles from ear-to-ear. “Super fucking cool, isn’t it?” Scarlett calls out, admitting that her sneak attacks on Esotera ended up paying off. “I knew they would” Esotera exclaims, reappearing before immediately watching Scarlett try to take aim at her again, only to send herself ripping through the office walls once more and crashing through the opposite side. “Learn your fucking lesson, please!” Esotera proudly exclaims, with Scarlett pointing towards her, promising that she’ll get one over on her someday. “When that day comes, I’ll probably kill myself” Esotera says, watching Scarlett wrinkle her nose and shake her head. “Why did you bring us here?” Vic asks, switching the conversation onto what she hopes to be a more productive path. “Find out for yourselves” Esotera suggests, opening every door in the office before popping out of sight, leaving Scarlett and Vic to their own work. Shrugging towards Vic, Scarlett walks down one of the many maze-like hallways in an effort to randomly pick at what is made available to her. | With the dawn of a new day arriving over the horizon in the form of the sunrise, Rachel finally puts an end to the car ride from hell in the driveway of the Bensen’s. “Thank you again, Rachel” Nora says, quickly getting out of the car and heading for the house. “If you need us to explain to your parents why you were out all night, let me know” Al says, making for the door before pausing for a moment, noticing Rachel’s head sink. Knowing how much Rachel’s concerns took a backseat to their own throughout the night, Al gently taps the young girl on the shoulder and does what he can to help put her worries at ease. “I’ll never claim to know everything about my daughter, but I know she wouldn’t just voluntarily go after danger.” Al looks Rachel in the eyes and promises her that Scarlett will show up. “It’s not a matter of ‘if’, it’s a matter of ‘when’, alright?” Al asks, watching Rachel offer a brief half smile before the man exits the vehicle. Pulling out of the driveway, Rachel’s phone goes off, vibrating like a bat out of hell as a piercing alarm escorts it. Noticing the amber alert for both Scarlett and Victoria, Rachel puts the phone back down and heads for the highway. As she fights off any exhaustion, Rachel thinks to herself for a moment before stopping the car on the side of the road. Pulling up her phone once again, Rachel looks through the text log of her past conversations with Scarlett before her eyes widen, spotting something of interest. Suddenly, Rachel does a complete u-turn and drives off to the opposite end of town than what she searched the night prior. | Locking the front door behind him, Al walks into the kitchen to find his wife already sat with a cup of coffee at the kitchen table. The room still mostly darkened by the lack of the sunlight, Al takes a seat beside his wife and places his hands over his wife’s. “She wouldn’t just run off, would she?” Nora asks, trying as best as she can to make sense of things that don’t make sense. Watching the pain of not knowing whether or not her daughter is safe visibly weighing on his wife, Al tells her to keep from the worst case scenario from overwhelming her. “Keep your hopes out that she’s just out somewhere and doesn’t have her phone on her” Al says, grasping at whatever straws he can pull from the tower of possibilities. “Did we do something wrong?” Nora asks, her question remaining unanswered as Al lightly pats his wife’s hands, refusing to let Nora continue to needlessly second guess herself. | Walking up to the managing office and knocking on the door until her call for help is answered, Rachel finds herself approached with a goateed man in a plaid robe. “Looking for a room?” the man asks, fighting off the exhaustion of being awoken in such a way. “No, can you tell me if you’ve seen this girl anytime since yesterday?” Rachel asks, holding up a picture of Scarlett on her phone. Unfolding his glasses and looking at the screen, the man admits that she and another girl have a room just at the end of the motel. “Sir, those girls are currently listed as missing people. Can you please do a wellfare check on that room?” Rachel asks, watching the man walk over to a wall and free a backup pair of keys. Making the long walk to the end of the corridor, the man gives a few knocks on the door before unlocking it, entering the room and asking Rachel to remain outside. Surveying the room, still with the television on and turned to the news, the man finds no sign of any current residents, with all of Scarlett and Victoria’s belongings having been taken. “Sorry, kid. They’re not in here” the man mutters, still groggy from the sudden wake up call. Hand to her head with the hope of anything falling out of the sky, the woman asks if the man can give her anything that may help find them. “I’m not supposed to give out that kind of information” the man replies, watching the girl place her hand to her hip and ask if he genuinely believes her to look like a threat to their well being. Letting out a deep breath before thinking over whatever he can come up with, he mentions a truck with a mid-2000’s look. “Not something too modern of flashy. Pretty sure it was a Silverado… A Chevy” the man says, watching the woman take down the info in her phone. “Pretty sure they left before 11:00 last night” the man adds in, remembering them not having answered the door when he went around offering new towels. “Thank you, I appreciate it” Rachel says, returning to her truck and calling the Bensen residence, offering them the new information. Upon hanging up the call with Scarlett’s family, Rachel tries Scarlett’s cellphone again to no response. Gently placing her phone back into the console, Rachel slams the steering wheel once before pulling out of the lot and returning into Prairieville. | “Anything?” Scarlett calls out, shuffling through folders of blank papers and cabinets of unmarked files. “Nothing” Vic replies, frustrated enough to carelessly throw a folder of loose papers to the ground, laying them out before scanning the barebones room once more. “Why does this place have so many papers just laying around everywhere?” Vic calls out, blindly tossing folder after folder around the room, letting papers fall to the ground in a heap wherever they please. “If everything in here is blank, let’s just look for the things that aren’t” Scarlett suggests, reaching onto a random desk beside her with a nameplate, the letters on it all scrambled and mangled with reckless abandon. Surrounding her at every side are eggshell covered walls, generic brown desks, gray plastic chairs and pearly-white sheets of printer paper. “Everything’s all bland” Scarlett calls out, catching Vic’s eye for a moment before the girl on the other side of the building suggests they look for what stands out. Leaving her little nook at the same time as Vic, the two girls meet at the back of the main working space, eying a common cat poster across the room from them. “Just hang in there” the poster reads, putting an eye roll in the motions of the girls as they approach it, staring down the only thing out of place in the room. Being the first to reach out, Scarlett shrugs her shoulders and tears the poster down, revealing a window to a much more vibrant side of the realm beyond. Walking over to the regular building’s windows to find a few neon lights every other building, the sight in this new viewing point offers a much more vibrant and lively city. “That’s not Baton Rouge” Vic points out, watching Scarlett remove the very realistic photo from the wall to reveal more eggshell coloring. “No, it’s n-” Scarlett begins, stopping herself as she takes a glance at the window Vic had just come from. Looking down into the street, the entire area lights up in exquisite, other-worldly colors they never even dreamed of seeing. Unable to let out more than a little “Woah”, Scarlett places her hands to the glass and feels a warm, welcoming surface. Feeling a cold wind dancing across the back of her neck, Scarlett gets the strange desire to push forward at the window keeping them sectioned off. Casually walking forward, Scarlett emerges through the front door of the building she just accompanied, lost in a crowd of fun-loving people dancing on the vibrant Baton Rouge square. Soon joined by Vic, the girls take a step into the middle of the road, void of cars but not of life, and stare up at the dark sky lit by the luminescent sights of bright neon bliss. “I’ve never seen it look like this” Vic mutters, her breath being stripped away by the beauty of the life around her. “This is the realm beyond, I think that’s kind of the point” Scarlett replies, watching Vic take in the sights afforded to no one other than the pair. Taking the walk through the city, watching the smiles on the faces of people they aren’t even sure exist in the realm of reality, the two girls find themselves lost in the shuffle, and don’t seem to mind at all. Scarlett tapping her arm, Vic follows her blonde friend into an open bar with smooth jazz circulating in ways that almost seem visible. Surveying the place as if they were unseen spectators, Scarlett and Vic take two seats near the window, taken aback by the sights both outside the bar and inside. Sitting back into their seats and looking at the sights afforded to them, Vic and Scarlett glance towards each other with pure smiles. “I never thought I’d see it all look like this” Scarlett says, watching the road outside begin to part, making way for a line of golf carts and go-karts setting off fireworks. Watching the parade pass by with a smile on their faces, the feeling starts to fade away once the cold air starts brushing against Scarlett’s neck again. In the sky, the sight of the shooting star dashing across the sky is found once more. Suddenly, the crowd begins to space out once more, this time directly in front of Scarlett and Vic’s table. With an uninterrupted view of the street, the joy and amusement begins to fully wear off once Vic points out that she now spots the shooting star Scarlett had been talking about. “What? I thought you couldn’t see it?” Scarlett calls out, watching the surprise on Vic’s face match the surprise of her own. Suddenly, the surprise is replaced with horror as the black van from the night prior slowly rolls to a stop in front of the girls. Without needing to say it, Scarlett and Vic both recall their exit the night prior and take the moment to burst from their seats. With the clothes on their back and the hairs on their head going wherever the wind takes them, the girl hurry for the back of the bar before the sudden sensation of flames torching their skin returns them to the realm of reality. “Ma’am?” a uniformed officer asks, the sudden burst of light from the explosion turning into the sudden burst of light from his oversized flashlight. Knocking on the window beneath the pouring rain, the officer awaits a response until the pair of girls finally awaken, rolling down their windows and shielding their eyes from the harsh light. “Good morning officer” Victoria replies, rolling her seat up as Scarlett does the same. “You girls got somewhere to be?” the officer asks, noticing the soft tone in Victoria’s voice hesitating to be immediately upfront with him. “Car break down?” the officer asks, repeating his question a second time after Victoria fails to properly hear it the first time around. “Oh, yeah. We’re just waiting for the tow truck and sort of dozed off” Victoria replies, giving the officer a smile. Glancing back to his cruiser, the officer opens Victoria’s door and suggests she step out of the vehicle. “I’ll drive you two out to the tow lot, get you out of this rain” the officer says, waving off Victoria’s hesitation to step out of the vehicle. “I said step out of the vehicle ma’am” the officer says for a second time, this suggestion sounding more like an order. Not willing to cause a stir and still shaken from running off from Prairieville, Victoria obliges, stepping out of the car despite Scarlett’s suggestion otherwise. Slamming the door shut behind Victoria, the officer leaves Scarlett alone in the front seat and walks her friend towards his cruiser, sliding his finger down her cheek in the process. Spotting this, Scarlett unclasps her seatbelt as the officer holds the backdoor of his cruiser open, catching his attention as she notices Scarlett’s door open. “Ma’am, I’m gonna need you to stay in the car” the officer warns, one hand on his gun as the other starts lightly shoving Victoria into the back of his car. “What are you doing?” Scarlett asks, rounding the back of the car directly into the sight of the cruiser’s dash cam. “Get back in the car, ma’am” the officer says, his gun now taking aim at Scarlett, who stops in her tracks at the sight of the officer still trying to shove her friend into his backseat. “You can’t do that!” Scarlett shouts, struggling to move with the gun aimed at her and the sights before her unfolding. “I’m not gonna say it again ma’am, you get-” the officer begins, stopped when Victoria fights him off and tackles the gun out of his hand. “You bitch!” the officer shouts, slapping Victoria across the face before lunging to the ground, the gun he’s aiming to retrieve instead picked up by Scarlett and aimed at his head. Understand his current predicament, the officer holds his hands up and crawls back towards his car, walking in front of it. “Put your hands in the air!” Scarlett shouts, the officer doing so as he stands directly in front of the vehicle’s hood. “Give me your cuffs slowly!” Scarlett demands, watching the officer lower one of his hands towards his belt loop before glancing over to her friend as she climbs up from the ground. With the small moment being more than enough, the officer’s second hand flies down towards his belt and grabs hold of his taser. Noticing the turn of events unfold through the corner of her eye, Scarlett places her sight back onto the officer and instinctively pulls the trigger as he frees the taser from his belt. Still standing, Scarlett fires another two shots and watches the dirty cop collapse to the ground, the taser falling to his side with him. Still, Scarlett lowers the gun to her stomach as Victoria walks over to survey the sights for the first time. “Scarlett, wha… What did you just do?” Victoria asks, watching Scarlett’s lip quiver as she slowly walks up to the body. Illuminated by the headlights, every detail from the loose strands of her hair to the strings from her sweater sleeves find themselves clear as day beneath the morning dawn. Standing by her side as they stare at the body, Victoria turns towards the car, noticing the blinking red light atop the small black box in the center of the window. “Shit” Victoria says, both she and Scarlett staring directly into the camera as it continues to record. “We need to go” Victoria says, lightly pulling Scarlett’s arm as the gun drops from her hand. “Scarlett, we need to go” Victoria repeats, her pull on Scarlett’s arm growing more stiff as she tugs the blonde towards the car. From the camera’s perspective, the girls climb into the vehicle on either side and drive off into the morning sky, leaving the deceased officer laying in a pool of his own blood. Kicking up the wet sand beneath their tires onto the body, the girls disappear beneath a hill as the footage rolls on. The sights of a morning sunrise for twenty minutes before an onlooker stumbles across the scene calls in police make it seem like nothing more than an art-inspiring clip. The runaway girls, now with their actions having stained their hands with blood, only darken the target on their back with a much brighter, bolder bullseye. “Oh, fuck” Scarlett exclaims, sat in the passenger seat as she and Victoria listen into the flood of sirens engulfing them at seemingly every angle. “We’re late!” Vic mutters, gritting her teeth, angered at the missed window, with the focus of still seeing the sight for sore eyes herself. “Hurry before we’re swarmed out!” Scarlett shouts, watching Victoria ferociously pull down a few streets before arriving at the scene of the chaos.
“Oh my god!” Scarlett shouts, joining Victoria in gazing at the dismantled building, noticing the rubble of the formerly-intended skyscraper not even reaching past three stories. “It’s so much worse than I thought!” Scarlett says, watching Victoria climb out of her car and race towards the scene of the destruction. “Vic, wait!” Scarlett shouts, hopping out of the car and running after the woman, hell-bent on getting to the man stranded in the place they once met him in. “Victoria, wait!” Scarlett shouts, barely dodging a car coming within inches of mowing her down as her friend disappears into the collapsed remnants. “Fuck!” Scarlett mutters, continuing her run, coming to an understanding that it’ll take throwing herself into the carnage to save her friend from eminent demise. “Victoria, where-” Scarlett begins to shout, forced to leap back to the ground as the earth beneath her begins to shake, and the remaining debris huddled higher than the rest begins to slowly sink inwards. “Victoria!” Scarlett shouts, standing up and beginning to race for the building until the rubble caves in the rest of the way, crushing whatever remains below it as the dust litters the air. Stuck in place as if she were encountering the realm beyond for the first time all over again, Scarlett watches the dust raise in the air without worry over being caught in whatever flutters out. Mouth dropped and eyes wandering from one side of what remains of the building to the other, Scarlett whispers Victoria’s name once more, knowing the way she came in is no longer viable as an escape route. The events having happened so soon, Scarlett turns around and slowly walks back to Victoria’s car as the civilians at every end of her scream in horror, pointing the first responders towards where the girl entered. Distraught and not yet understanding how to cope with the sights she’s just witnessed, Scarlett silently returns to the vehicle and climbs into the driver’s seat, turning the key in the ignition and staring at the building, mouth still agape. After a few moments of sitting in complete silence, Scarlett notices something out of the corner of her eye, watching two people covered in the dust of the broken rubble escaping through another gap in the bricks. Staring at them for a moment before their identities dawn on her, Scarlett turns the key and shuts off the vehicle, rushing up to the pair and directing them towards ambulances. “Victoria!” Scarlett shouts as she hurries up, assisting her friend in helping the injured man towards help. “What the fuck did you do that for?” Scarlett asks, looking at Victoria with tears weltering in her eyes as the pair watch the man comply with the paramedics. “That’s the guy I put down” Victoria replies, watching him nod at the question of his well being, assuring the medics he had nothing more than a few cuts and bruises. “You’re a goddamn hero, kid” one of the many paramedics says, patting Victoria on the shoulder as he rushes towards the remaining rubble, with a few pedestrians applauding the woman for her efforts. “Let’s get back to the motel” Victoria says, leading Scarlett back towards the car, assuring her that they have some work to do. = Dream Sequence is created by Zachary Serra, all rights to the series belong to Zachary Serra and the entity of Pacer1 Media from the start of Season 1 onwards = “There’s gonna be something here, I’m sure of it” Vic says, ascending the staircase alongside Scarlett, expecting the realm beyond to hand them a case file for their next great disaster in it’s usually screwed up way. Stumbling across one of the many disfigured with their backs turned, Vic looks to Scarlett to take the opportunity to harness their newest ability, using this newfound telekinesis to pick up a small plant and launch it across the room, dropping the disfigured before putting it down with a well-placed bullet. “You done, Scarface?” Vic asks, walking past Scarlett and heading for the center piece of the building. Turning towards the hall of the faceless, the pair proceed to open the double doors and find another puzzle to solve. Pulling them open without a countdown, Vic and Scarlett both walk into the hall as if nothing had ever changed. Gone are the double doors in the back, replaced with another slate of drywall as the faceless return to their business as per their normal. “Did we have the wrong floor?” Scarlett asks herself, walking out of the hall and seeing the same scenery lining the walls outside the hall. Taking the liberties of addressing the absence of the double door entry, Vic tells Scarlett to keep an eye out for anything out of place whilst she shifts through cabinets of useless garble. Eventually, Vic stumbles upon a book she recognizes the cover of, unable to put her finger on it, but realizing that the piece belongs to their realm of reality. “I know it seems barebones, but I’ve seen this cover a million times before” Vic says, handing Scarlett the book as she shifts through whatever else she can find. “Come on, there’s gotta be something here” Vic says to herself, resorting to invading the worker’s personal space, looking through the cabinets on their desks for a new lead. “Goddamnit!” Vic shouts, slamming the drawer shut, and taking in a couple deep breaths as her hair covers her face. “This is fucking bullshit” Vic says, looking over to Scarlett, who leaves Vic to spazz out, assuming she needed some way to cope. “If it’s not here, there must be places we have to look through” Scarlett suggests, telling Vic to calm down and think this through. “We’ve got the entire day to find something, we’re drugged out of our minds, remember?” Convinced they’re not crunching time, Scarlett tells Vic to take it easy and let things play out the way the realm beyond intends them to. “It’s pointing us in these different directions, it’s only a matter of time until they bring another one down on us, alright?” Scarlett asks, rubbing Vic’s back and telling her to cool off. After a few minutes, the pair leave the faceless hall and prepare to immerse themselves in the rest of the office. Walking through dimly lit corridors in search of something calling out for them, Scarlett and Vic walk past one empty room after another, chairs and desks abandoned in the line of duty. “Left side” Vic calls out, pulling a paper weight and zipping it into the face of the disfigured stood guard by a room illuminated in a brilliant white. “After you” Scarlett says, letting Vic lead the way into a cafeteria, each seat empty and the trays upon the serving counter sparkling clean. Taking one step into the cafeteria, the ground below begins to bend, reacting with the weight of each step taken. “I guess we’ve gotta get use to this kind of thing” Scarlett says, taking off from where Vic jumped back, startled by the feel beneath the soles of her shoes. “Holy fuck, this is trippy” Scarlett says, pulling her second foot onto the floor and steadying herself as the room begins to sway back and forth. “It’s like I’m on fucking acid!” Scarlett says, amused as she calls for Vic to join in. Putting her concerns over her prior experience behind her, Vic steps into the room, stumbling over the waves of the floor. Suddenly, the doors behind them slam shut, and the sound of the booming thud causes Vic to fall backwards in fear, disappearing beneath the floors surface. “Vic?” Scarlett calls out, turning around the see the girl having vanished beneath the surface, poking her head out a few moments later, keeping herself afloat as she struggles to climb onto one of the cafe tables, soaking wet to the amusement of Scarlett. “That was fucking hysterical!” Scarlett says, walking over to check on Vic before being shoved into her own pool for her troubles, jokingly referring to Vic as a bitch as she climbs up a table of her own. “I was trying to help you!” Scarlett says, resorting to the notion that it came at the price of humor at Vic’s expense. Mustering up the courage to give it another go, Vic places her foot onto the ground and steadies herself, ready to walk again as Scarlett follows suit. | Wiping the sweat from his brow as he digs his saw into a log, Al calls out for someone knocking at the front door to meet him in the backyard. “Who’s there?” Al asks, caught off guard when Rachel greets herself. “Rachel? I thought you were with Scar?” Al asks, watching Rachel’s eyebrows lower and her head tilt, assuring Scarlett’s father that there weren’t even plans made for that. “Scarlett said you needed her… Something urgent” Al says, again assured that she hasn’t seen Scarlett at all today as Nora climbs down the back stairs. “Rachel? Why aren’t you with Scarlett?” Nora asks, watching Rachel’s demeanor turn into one of concern. “I don’t know what Scarlett told you, but I haven’t seen her since school yesterday” Rachel replies, beginning to sound off the alarm bells in Al and Nora’s heads. “Do you know where she is?” Al asks, watching Rachel look towards them with almost as much worry as they themselves appear to hold. “No, that’s why I came here. She isn’t answering her phone” Rachel replies, watching Al immediately rush into the house and reach for the keys as Nora tells Rachel not to worry. Walking after Nora as she locks the backdoor and exits through the backyard, Rachel watches Al frustratedly climb into his car and turn the key, unable to start it. “What the hell is going on here!?” Al shouts, popping the hood open to find the car having been tampered with, the engine having been flooded. Grunting in anger as he slams the hood shut, Al’s anger subsides when Rachel offers to drive the pair in her car. Not one to pass up that kind of offer now, Al walks towards the car and climbs into the driver’s seat, watching Rachel state that she’s the only one allowed to drive the car. Sighing, but understanding that the law is the law, Al climbs into the backseat, leaving Nora to the passengers side as Rachel climbs into the driver’s seat. Pulling out of the driveway and onto the main road, Rachel asks where they’re off to, finding the parents unsure of where their destination is. “Okay, I might know where to go” Rachel says, turning away from the on-ramp in favor of an alternative route at the last possible minute, taking the vehicle out of the suburbs and into the outskirts of Prairieville, Louisiana. | “This place is pissing me off” Scarlett says, grabbing onto whatever she can find for support, each step further pulling her towards annoyance. All of a sudden, the sound of her own name being called from within the sanctum of the main dining area forces the woman to rush to Vic, watching her stare at the room surrounding her. Noticing something off about the girl, Scarlett calls out Vic’s name in hopes of a less paranoid response, only to find the woman scanning the room, looking frightened by what could come next. “Vic, what’s going on?” Scarlett asks, watching the woman turn towards her as her balance begins going. “Look around” Vic says, playing off her fear with a composed demeanor, allowing Scarlett to view the predicament through her own lens. After a moment of gazing around the room, Scarlett notices the cafeteria line and every table having disappeared from the room, unable to figure out why the phenomenon has occurred. “Where’d the tables go?” Scarlett asks, watching Vic turns towards her slowly, watching the ground below her continue to shake despite Vic not moving an inch. After a few further moments, Scarlett looks towards the way they came and sees nothing more than a blank wall where the double doors once resided. Looking back to the girl and pleading for an answer, Scarlett watches Vic turn towards her and inform her that they submerged below the surface. Looking at Vic as if she had three heads, Scarlett looks up to notice the ceiling far closer to them than it once was, suggesting that the water level below them is rising. “This room is sinking, Scarlett” Vic says, cautiously starting to walk around the room to look for a way out. Accepting that the situation won’t be changed by arguing about it, Scarlett joins Vic in looking for alternative routes out of the room, searching throughout whatever spots they can find. “Keep looking!” Scarlett shouts, caught in the corner of Vic’s eye before she dives below the surface and begins swimming towards the double doors. The deep blue water beneath their feet already difficult to see through to start with, Scarlett fumbles her way over what remains sunken below the surface until she finally catches a glimpse of the presumed exit at the last possible moment. Going back up for air, Scarlett dives right back down and takes her shot at the doors, desperately trying to push them in to no luck. “Damnit!” Scarlett shouts, splashing the water as she emerges from below the surface, admitting that the doors don’t budge an inch. “There’s someway else, there’s no way we’d be condemned to death without an alternative route” Vic exclaims, stammering around the room before suddenly having the where withall to look up. “What about that?” Vic asks, pointing directly overhead to a vent system, suggesting they ride the rising water level to the top and make an escape the cinematic way. “I’ve got a better idea” Scarlett says, brandishing her firearm and sending off a shot towards the vent, popping the cover open before pulling something free from beneath the water. Like a dolphin splashing out from beneath the waves, a cafeteria table suddenly pops up and hoves beside the girls. “Get on!” Scarlett directs, watching Vic turn towards her with an amused face, her grin disappearing once she realizes that Scarlett’s suggestion is legitimate. “You wanna drown?” Scarlett asks, watching Vic climb onto the table before joining her, pulling the table up slowly before the vent comes within arm’s reach. Climbing through the vent, Scarlett lets the cafeteria table drop back into the sea below, only to watch the previously lower water level suddenly rise with a massive surge, spilling into the vent. “Hurry!” Scarlett shouts, crawling through the system with Vic as the water below them swashes around like the tide crashing into the shore. Taking the turns of the vent in whichever direction it opts to carry them, the pair notices the water beneath their hands and knees begin to rise, threatening to drown them out if they’re not fast enough. Despite the do-or-die situation, the girls take a much needed reprieve as they encounter a split in the path, with two separate options afforded to them. “What are you doing?” Scarlett asks, unable to see what Vic can, and just as enamored with the idea of the paths as the woman in front. “I’m gonna trust you on this one” Scarlett shouts, waiting for Vic’s response, feeling as though the fork in the road wouldn’t exist without a reason. “It pushed us into this vent on purpose, I’m one to believe the path we take matters towards what comes next. Just trust your instinct” Scarlett calls out, waiting eagerly as the water begins to rise towards the middle of her forearms. “Preferably before we drown, though” Scarlett shouts, watching Vic take the left-most path, outrunning the water as if lifts past the bottom of her chin. “Save your breath!” Scarlett shouts, doing her best to empty her lungs enough to keep as much air as she can contain when the moment calls for it. Struggling onwards as the splashing water throws itself into the girl’s eyes and ears, Vic manages to spot a momentary burst of light coming from the very end of the corridor roughly fifty yards out. “I see it!” Vic shouts, the task at hand now going from the search for a way out to a race against mother nature. Still a number of yards away, the girls find their mouths and noses touching the water as a mere two inches further would completely cut them off from oxygen. A few seconds later, the rush of water lifts the level again, splitting the girls off from their supply, turning the race from one against water to one against their own lung capacity. The bursts of light growing more rapid and more visible, the girl notice the end growing closer, fighting their way until their last breath. Finally, the cold metal surface and bone-chilling waters are replaced with the sensation of water boarding as they fall through the end and crash into the compacted dirt below, their faces exposed to the swell of water joining their drop. Gasping for air between coughs as their lungs get used to the rush of air it had quickly become unadjusted to, the girls catch themselves in the moment they find find themselves embroiled in. “Where are we?” Scarlett asks herself, the first to make it back to her feet as she walks a few feet away from the drain. “Are we outside?” Vic asks, joining Scarlett in staring off in wonder as they walk the empty streets of Baton Rouge. “Have you found what you were looking for yet?” Esotera calls out from behind them, her clean and well-maintained appearance making Scarlett and Vic look like druggies just coming down from a high. “Where have you been?” Scarlett asks, informed that she’s been digging into whatever she could to help the girls. “I may be your subconscious, but you’ve given me a life of my own. I figured I should do something with that life” Esotera says, answering the most obvious question. “You’re still in the realm beyond, but it’s mirroring the realm you’re most used to” Esotera informs, letting the girls know that the realm beyond is evolving into something the girls can become more perceptive to. “So they’re killing a shit ton of people, but putting us on training wheels while we figure out the puzzle?” Scarlett asks, watching Esotera shrug in response. “If you choose to look at it in that light, I will not try to dissuade you” Esotera retorts, “But if you wish to know what I view it as, I will tell you that this is just another step in your indoctrination into the realm beyond.” Angered, Scarlett tells Esotera that she’d rather not be a part of the realm beyond if it is only going to hurt people and force her to watch. “I want out” Scarlett says, further annoyed when Esotera apologetically returns with the fact that there is no choice in the matter. “Unfortunately, there is no permanent solution from the realm beyond as far as I am aware” Esotera states, forcing Scarlett anger to further boil before it begins tipping over the edge. “This is fucking bullshit!” Scarlett shouts, silenced by the sudden surprise of two vans pulling up to the curb and coming to an immediate stop. “What the fuck?” Scarlett mutters, the picture of the skylight dying into darkness brought to a stubborn shift as Vic shouts for Esotera to vanish. Doing as told, Esotera disappears into thin air, returning to her prior work as Vic hurries up to Scarlett’s side, pulling her by the arm as her gut instinct of something being off is proven correct. With a sudden blast, the girls are thrown from their feet and enraptured by a massive explosion, lighting the night sky a horrifying orange, burning their flesh before their bodies can return to the ground. After a brief two second engulfed in the intense heat, both Victoria and Scarlett awaken in the realm of reality, jolting from their sleep in a traumatic daze, looking to each other for the affirmation that the experience was over. “An explosion and getting flooded out?” Scarlett asks, looking to the other girl, who finds herself just as baffled by the combination as her. “What explosion in the middle of town sinks a building into the ocean?” Scarlett asks, Victoria wiping her eyes away before turning on the television and attempting to forget about the whole ordeal all together. Before long, Victoria is reimmersed in the events of the realm beyond, seeing news coverage detailing her own heroic actions in vivid detail, asking her to come forward so the Baton Rouge Police Department can formally thank her for her actions. “Holy shit” Victoria mutters, with Scarlett quickly hopping out of bed and running for the television screen as the picture of both Victoria and Scarlett rushing away from the scene and escaping in their vehicle plays on a loop. “Please tell me we’re still in the realm beyond?” Victoria says, taking a seat beside Scarlett and taking in the pictures as they scroll by. “We’re definitely not” Scarlett says, joining Victoria in a state of wonder as the wounded man they heroically saved pleads for them to come forward so he can thank them. | “Why would they be out here?” Nora asks, following Rachel through an open field in the middle of nowhere. “Scarlett and I come out here to drink sometimes” Rachel says, turning towards the two adults and assuring that they only have two drinks at maximum. “The world just gets to cluttered” Rachel continues, “It’s nice to come out and forget about it for a little bit so it doesn’t keep weighing us down.” “You two shouldn’t be drinking” Al says, watching Rachel nod and suggest that they’ve known that for a very long time. “But I shouldn’t be one to talk” Al continues, admitting that he’s glad they remain cautious to not push it too far. Opting to stay quiet, Nora starts to ask where they are going, only to cut herself off upon the sight of a small but noticeable dip in the ground. Coming closer to the end of the stable ground, the trio peer over the edge of a dip, leading to a small little makeshift campsite at the very bottom. Walking to a crafty dirt staircase the girls managed to craft, the trio find themselves at the bottom of an intersecting dip, surrounded by litter comprised of shattered bottles and torn fabric from weathered picnic chairs. “This is where you guys disappear to?” Nora asks, met with a disappointed ‘yes’ from Rachel, upset at the fact that Scarlett is nowhere to be seen. “Maybe she came her earlier with someone?” Al suggests, “Maybe she’s on her way home and we just passed her at some point?” Detoured from his hopes as Rachel gets off the phone with Scarlett’s answering machine once again, the trio begin to ponder where Scarlett could be hiding out at. Calling for his wife, Al notices her holding something in her hands, curious as to what it is. “What’ve you got there, hun?” Al asks, walking over to find his wife holding Scarlett’s journal, carefully tucked in between two trees to keep it from being dampened by any incoming rain water. “Is that Scarlett’s?” Al asks, watching Nora look up to him and admit that she doesn’t feel okay with invading her privacy like this. “Sweetheart, if this can tell us where she is, we need to read it” Al says, not one for invading one’s personal space, but changing his tone when the situation reflects a need for it. “We can apologize to her after we find out where she is, alright? Until then, we need to know if she was here” Al concludes,gently taking the book from his wife and searching for the most recent entry. Reading the most notable entry, Al discovers something peculiar in her words that concern him, though ease his worry. “What did she write?” Nora asks, watching Al struggle to comprehend most of what the words even describe to begin with. “Something about going to another world when she sleeps and solving mysteries or something” Al replies, tossing Nora for a turn harder than the worst of drugs can cause. “She said she saw the train wreck happen the night before it happened” Al calls out, the conversation pulled off course slightly with Rachel’s question of whether or not she mentioned the girl’s name. Upon reading the name ‘Victoria’, Al watches Rachel come to a sudden realization that she knows exactly who Scarlett is referring to. “I don’t know anything about her, but I know she’s new at the school” Rachel replies, following Al as he works his way up the stairs. “We’re going to the school” Al says, climbing into the backseat as Nora looks through her phone, searching for Scarlett’s phone number once more. “Al, honey?” Nora calls out, “What did the end of the book say?” After taking a moment to recall, he mentions something along the lines of a building falling during construction, watching Nora turn to face him, eyes widened and her mouth dropped. Handing Al the phone, Nora watches the man’s reaction do the same as he looks at a picture of Victoria and Scarlett on the front page of her facebook, with the request that the two girls make contact with the police department for their heroic actions. “That building collapsed while it was under construction, Al” Nora says, watching Rachel’s mouth drop at the sight of her best friend leading Victoria away from the scene. | “What the fuck are we gonna do?” Victoria asks, begging for Scarlett to say something as the girl turns off every light in the room and tries to calm her nerves. “We don’t do anything” Scarlett replies, stating that they need to skip town. “I can’t leave the school, Scarlett!” Victoria shouts, only for Scarlett to make it clear that they have no other option. “Our picture is all over the news, Vic. If either of us go back home, everyone and their mothers will know about us” Scarlett shouts, declaring that this is their only option. “We’ll crash at my place” Victoria says, immediately ridiculed by Scarlett. “No, I… I live alone” Victoria says, watching Scarlett take a mental step back. “My mother and father disappeared a few months back. I’ve been keeping up on the payments” Victoria says, telling Scarlett not to worry about it. “Don’t make a fuss about it, I’m much happier now, trust me” Victoria replies, refusing to allow Scarlett to feel sorry for her. “But if these people find out who I am, they’ll find out about my parents being gone and they’ll drop me in foster care” Victoria says, pleading with Scarlett that she can’t just drop everything and run away. Refusing to take Victoria’s leas lightly, Scarlett tells Victoria that there is no way for her to go back to the school without immediately being recognized. “The only way out is by getting away until this all boils over” Scarlett says, apologizing out of guilt, but pushing forward the evasion knowing that it’s the only current option. “Please, Vic” Scarlett asks, putting her arm on Victoria and pulling her in as the tears begin to form, telling her that it will all be alright in the end. “Alright” Victoria replies, nodding to agree to the terms, packing her things and getting ready to depart the motel room. Getting into the car, Scarlett and Victoria pull out of the parking lot and hit the road, listening to the officers begging the girls to reveal their identities to the Baton Rouge police department. Switching the dial to cut off the feed, Scarlett puts her hand on Victoria’s and tells her again that everything is going to turn out okay. “We’re going to get to the bottom of this, and then we’ll get back to normal” Scarlett says, promising Victoria that everything is going to be alright. Driving out of Baton Rouge, the girls begin to make their way up north, ready to lay low for everything to blow over, and then get on with their lives the way hey intended to. “Scarlett, honey?” Nora asks, looking towards her daughter simply staring at an empty plate without any intention of eating. “Scarlett?” Nora asks again, finally capturing the girl’s attention, causing her to jump for a second, jolting harshly enough for her fork to go flying past her head and slam against the wall. “Scarlett, what’s wrong?” Al asks, watching Scarlett give off an uninspired smile, insisting that she’s just not feeling well. “I think I’m gonna go to bed early tonight, if that’s alright?” Scarlett asks, excusing herself from the table before her parents can get a chance to answer.
“What’s wrong with her?” Al asks, looking over to his wife to see her shrug her shoulders and stare off as Scarlett ascends the staircase to her room. Her room darkened, Scarlett does whatever she can to sleep, ultimately falling victim to her mind racing with more thoughts than she can slip past. Opening her eyes to snap out of this harbored dread, Scarlett looks to take a few deep breaths, looking out of her window on instinct to notice a shooting star gliding across the sky for the third night in a row. Refusing to think much of it, Scarlett returns to her breathing and closes her eyes, awaiting the darkness to consume her before it finally does, sending her back to the realm beyond. The more often she enters the realm beyond, the quicker the blinding white light passes by. Looking to her left, she notices Victoria having yet to arrive, allowing her to start the journey into the realm beyond on her own for the moment. “Massaro?” Scarlett calls out, entering his office before the bodiless voice asks what he can help her with. “Can you tell me what that shooting star I keep seeing is?” Scarlett asks, looking out at the skylight to see the star shooting by as if it were triggered by the mention of it. “I don’t know” Massaro admits, stating that he cannot see the star. “Vic said she couldn’t see it either” Scarlett replies, hearing the amused laughter of Massaro replying as if he had come to a sudden realization. “If neither Vic or I could see it, it’s likely that it’s a sight specific to you” Massaro admits, informing Scarlett that specific sights in the realm beyond are events that happen on earth, but can only be seen by the person that it’s supposed to be seen by. “Think of it as your god, if you believe in that sort of thing, creating something he only lets you see because you’re the only person that’s supposed to see it. It’s carefully crafted for your eyes, and your eyes only.” “Why am I the only person that needs to see it?” Scarlett asks, hearing Massaro assure her that it’s occurrence is supposed to offer Scarlett a piece of a puzzle she’s meant to solve. “Whatever reason the realm beyond has for bringing you here has decided that you, alone, are to solve a puzzle and figure out where the pieces go as you move along.” Confused by the lack of available reasoning, Scarlett takes in enough to know that the shooting star has a bigger reasoning for happening, but it’s a lost cause to try and put the puzzle together just yet, as she lacks all the pieces. “Thanks, Massaro. I’ll let you know what I find when I see it” Scarlett says, bidding Massaro a goodbye before returning to the main lobby. “Why are you here so early?” Vic asks, just getting into the realm beyond as Scarlett happens to pass through, walking with the girl as she aims to return to the faceless hall. “We need to see what’s in there before we do anything else” Scarlett says, leading Vic up the stairwell and brandishing her service weapon to take down a few of the disfigured. “Getting better at that” Vic says, amusing Scarlett as they come face to face with the entry to what killed their time here the previous night. “Ready?” Vic asks, watching Scarlett nod and walk for the double doors, pulling them open and brandishing her weapon, only to find the interior blocked off by a massive stone wall, unrelenting in its mission to keep the girls from what hides within. “What the fuck is this?” Scarlett asks, cut off by a sound that can only be described as air warping around itself originating from behind them. “What is that?” Vic asks, looking at an office door they managed to miss with a light blue doorframe, something uncommon in anything else they’ve found. “I don’t know what it is, but it seems like it’s calling us” Vic says, taking the lead towards it before pushing the door in and finding a vacant room much the same as all of the others in the realm beyond. “There’s gotta be something here” Vic says, entering the room and sifting through whatever she can get her hands on. “Do you hear that?” Scarlett asks, quieting Vic as the quieter sound of the same warping air begins billowing throughout the room like smoke. Following the sound, Scarlett stumbles upon a baje filing cabinet, different from the other solid gray ones littering the room. Assuming it to have importance, Scarlett pulls the door open and retrieves a singular folder with one piece of paper tucked away inside of it. Reading it aloud, Scarlett notices the title of the paper to read “The Law of Nine Disasters”, with the words “Genuine Rail 06606” as the first ones listed under bullet points. “The Law of Five Disasters are the introductory events for each recruit into the realm beyond. It is the system of belief stating that each recruit into the realm beyond needs to experience four disasters on the realm of reality before the final fifth disaster can clarify the reasoning for their inclusion into the realm beyond” the first paragraph reads. “The train crash is the only one listed” Vic mutters, noticing four empty bullet points below it. “The Law of Five Disasters states that the first four disasters are unavoidable, and only the fifth disaster can be avoided with the perfect timing. The reasoning behind the nine disasters is believed to only be discovered upon inevitable failure or success” the paper concludes. “So we’re supposed to let this shit happen four more times before we can stop it?” Vic asks, watching Scarlett come to the realization that they can avoid the tragedies if they work quickly enough. “How can we stop trains from crashing, Scarlett? We’re teenagers in high school, it’s not like we can tell cops we’re psychic and call it a day!” Vic exclaims, pleading for the girl to think about things from a realistic point of view. “What’s realistic about this, Vic?” Scarlett asks, telling her to look at literally anything around her. “We’re in another realm that we get to by sleeping, we’ve got transforming guns and are told that we need to solve nine deadly tragedies all before we turn seventeen!” Despite the hope that realism can be reached, Vic has no choice but to accept Scarlett’s points as fact, with very little support to argue against it. “I’m not in favor of sitting back and watching people die, but I’m not about to go life saving because I saw people die in a dream!” Scarlett says, dropping the folder back into the file and beginning to walk off, only for the filing cabinet to close on it’s own. “Oh yeah, and there’s that!” Scarlett says, animatedly pointing at the hunk of metal before leading Vic out of the room and further into the realm beyond. Having been left behind, the filing cabinet turns gray to mirror the other cabinets in the room as the sound of a type writer clicking away. After a few seconds, the sound of metal clanking around within begins to ring throughout the office space, settling down for a second after one final click before the room returns to a silent normal. = Dream Sequence is created by Zachary Serra, all rights to the series belong to Zachary Serra and the entity of Pacer1 Media from the start of Season 1 onwards = “We’ll find something!” Scarlett says, leading Vic down a narrow hallway, assuring her that they’ll instinctively find something that will lead them to disaster number two. “I know it seems like we have to do the work, but Esotera said it ourselves” Scarlett says, “We made this world possible for ourselves. If there’s something here, we already know about it… It’s just a matter of stumbling across it.” Turning one corner, Scarlett looks up at the skylight in the center of the realm beyond and notices the shooting star stuck in place in the sky, directly centered in the window. “So Massaro told me why I keep seeing that shooting star” Scarlett says, informing her that it’s a ‘specific sight’ only intended for her to see. “It’s supposed to be a second puzzle for me to figure out, y’know, aside from the one that’s threatening to kill hundreds of people” Scarlett says, trying to make light of a situation that her joke only makes darker. “The planet gonna get hit by an asteroid or something?” Vic asks, watching the girl turn to her and smile. “I don’t know yet, but at least we know where we’re going if it does!” Scarlett jokes, looking at Vic as she gives her a closed-lip smile, nodding as Scarlett apologizes once more. “Get down!” Scarlett says, pushing Vic behind a concrete wall with a shrub in it, looking out at something dressed in riot gear. “What is that?” Scarlett asks, losing herself in staring at it as Vic picks up a lump of dirt and tosses it at the guard, immediately putting him on high alert. “Where are you!?” the guard shouts, his face completely disfigured like the creature from earlier, but his words as intelligible as anything they’d hear in the realm of reality. Whistling, Vic draws the guard’s eyes over to her, running from behind cover and lunging into an office space, drawing the guard towards her. “Hey fucker!” Scarlett shouts, watching the guard turn around to face her before blowing it’s head off with the service weapon as Vic comes free from hiding. “Didn’t think you’d go for the sneak attack” Vic says, watching Scarlett yank a card from his shirt pocket and turn it around. “The name’s a bunch of symbols” Scarlett says, only able to read the number one from the card. “If we find a one, we’ll know what to do… Hopefully” Scarlett says, tucking the card away as the pair continue into the realm of reality. | “I’m worried about her, Al” Nora says, getting herself ready for bed as her husband brushes his teeth. “She was out like a light by seven, what kid does that?” Nora asks, assured that it’s nothing to be concerned about. “We don’t give her a bedtime, Nora” Al says, “Most kids only stay up late because their parents tell them not to, Scarlett’s got no reason to want to stay up late.” “I know that, Al. That doesn’t change the fact that going to bed before nine every night this week isn’t normal even for Scarlett” Nora admits, telling Al to keep an eye on her over the weekend to make sure there’s no deeper rooted issue. “The last thing I want is for Scarlett to be depressed and not be able to see it when it’s slapping me right across the face” Nora admits, taking a kiss from her husband as he tells her to stop panicking over something as small as this. “At worst, she’s sick and has been resting it off. Maybe it’s mono or something” Al states, seemingly unable to correctly determine what kind of advice is the ‘reassuring’ kind. “She’ll be fine, just give her some time” Al concludes, climbing into bed and turning off the light, calling it a night as his head hits the pillow. | “That looks promising” Scarlett says, leading Vic around a corner and stumbling upon a crater in the side of one wall, looking as though it was blown into place. “If we find a nuke in there, let’s just call it a day and move here full time” Scarlett jokes, watching Vic narrow her eyes towards her again, only to be met with Scarlett telling her to learn what a joke is before joining her in the mysterious tunnel. As they enter through the hole, the wall behind them seels back up, immersing them into total darkness much to Vic’s displeasure. “If this turns out to be the equivalent to ‘if your friend jumped off a bridge, would you’, I’m gonna kill you in real life” Vic jokes, brought to a silence once both her and Scarlett’s service weapons light up, glowing a brilliant light blue and illuminating the tunnel as the pair make their ways further in. “We’re going into the creepy tunnel, we’re going to die in it” Vic begins singing, criticised by Scarlett as she tells her cohort to take a few lessons before she joins the choir. “I could do without the critique” Vic asks, only for Scarlett to back her claims up by acknowledging that she has yet to be wrong today. “Well take your truth serum and shove it up your ass, Hawking” Vic jokes, earning the same look from Scarlett that she’s given her all night long. Rolling her eyes and groaning, Vic apologizes and tells Scarlett not to simmer in it as the girl smiles, moving further into the tunnel. After a few more minutes of traversing the narrow formations, the pair are stopped directly in their tracks with the rattling sound of clanking metal. “This way!” Scarlett directs, leading Vic down a cramped corridor, squeezing through tight slots in search of a bright flashing orange light at the end. “Are those sparks?” Vic asks, following Scarlett’s lead before finally reaching their destination, only to find the sparks having faded and whatever the source was having disappeared. “It’s gotta be somewhere” Scarlett says, continuing to follow the formations before the sound starts up again further in. “This way!” Scarlett says, now turning her walk into a run as she spots the sparks flying once more, devoted to reaching them before they disappear once more. “Come on!” Scarlett shouts, seeming to forget that Vic can only run as fast as a regular human being. Reaching their destination, the girls find the sparks and the clanking metal having disappeared once again, seemingly leading them through the tunnels as if they were guiding them through a maze. “Where did we come in?” Vic asks, following Scarlett through the depths of the tunnels without argument, though filled with concern that they’ll never be able to retrace their steps. “It’s not about where we came in, Vic” Scarlett says, leaping over metal beams as Vic does her best to keep up. “It’s about where it’s taking us out!” Scarlett concludes, making the final statement as if she was excitedly awaiting the nearing end of her maiden voyage. Hearing the sound again, Scarlett stops in her tracks, sending dirt from the ground flying through the air as her heels act as her brakes. At the end of another corridor, Scarlett and Vic notice a pair of men dressed in construction equipment working on wielding a few metal columns into place. Careful of their step as if they were high above the ground, the two men go about their jobs as if nothing were out of the ordinary. “Hey!” Scarlett shouts, waiting for the men to turn around and acknowledge her to no use. “Hey!” Scarlett shouts, this time walking after the men beside Vic before the ground begins shaking, and the two men begin to lose their balance as the structure they stand atop begins giving out. “Guys, run!” Scarlett shouts, rushing beside Vic in hopes of tackling the men off the structure before feeling the ground begin to loosen. After a few more desperate steps, the girls feel the ground give in beneath them as the two men fall beneath the ground, soon to be joined by the pair as Scarlett and Vic collapse into a sea of pitch black nothingness. Before long, the girls find their descent come to a close by crashing into the ground below, surrounded by the backs of disfigured men they’ve grown accustomed to having to rid of. “Scarlett” Vic whispers, noticing one turn around upon hearing the thud of their bodies hitting the ground and take the girls within it’s sights. Shouting an unintelligible sound, the disfigured man takes aim and opens fire on the pair, met with a single bullet from Vic for his troubles as the remaining men begin to open fire. Helping Scarlett up, Vic leads the girl behind a stack of metal sheets, ducking from cover every few seconds to fire off a few shots, failing to dissuade any of the figures from their attack. “What’s the plan, Scarlett?” Vic shouts, continuing to offer cover as her cohort puts together a plan with the best hopes of not getting each other killed. “If we can get to that scaffold, we can make a break for that gap” Scarlett shouts, pointing out a narrow hole in the wall just out of reach from enemy fire. “After you!” Vic says, looking towards Scarlett with her eyebrows raised before doing her best to keep the attention of the disfigured on herself. With a deep breath, Scarlett breaks free and leaps for the scaffold, ducking her head around and leaving the piping behind her to take the brunt of the gunfire. Catching her composure, Scarlett does what she can to create an opening, firing off at the disfigured as Vic picks her spot. After a few further shots, Vic gets up and hurries for the scaffold, attempting to lunge forward as a bullet rips through her stomach and drops her to the ground short of her goal. Calling out the girls name to no response, Scarlett charges out of cover and fires off at whatever moves, covering Vic and doing her best to check for any sign of life. Out in the open with nothing more than a gun to take on twenty disfigured freaks, Scarlett does what she can to continue covering herself whilst pulling Vic behind the scaffolding. Amidst the unravelling chaos, Scarlett takes two bullets in the chest, dropping her to nearly as much of a heap as Vic lays in, fighting for her life. Gravely wounded, Scarlett keeps the fight going in an effort to buy the pair as much time as she can before another bullet rips past her cheek, leaving a gash in it as Scarlett’s instincts begin to take the controls. Knowing it’s fight or die, Scarlett does what she can with her fleeting strength to fire off whatever she can, feeling all energy from her drain with each second. Losing the feeling in her arms as another disfigured props it’s head over from cover, Scarlett lets out a war cry, intending to go out in a halestorm of bullets, only to watch an encompassing blue shield wrap around the pair like a protective bubble, shielding the duo from any oncoming gunfire. As shocked as she can manage to be with the escaping strength, Scarlett assumes this to not be a mere coincidence, and uses whatever she has left to test what more she can do. Climbing to her knees and lunging forward, Scarlett lets out the roar cry again, expanding the blue shield and hauling it at whatever moves. Having decimated everything and everyone other than the girls, the shield leaves the pair alone in an eerily silent room, struggling to hold on as their blood floods through their wounds. “Vic?” Scarlett asks, clutching at her chest and crawling to the woman, struggling for air as her lungs fill with blood. “Vic, come on” Scarlett calls, doing her best to get to her feet whilst expending whatever she has left to pick up Vic. Dragging the woman across the ground towards the hole in the wall, Scarlett catches a glimpse of the other side, seeing a construction sight with an unnamed massive yellow crane just barely visible. “Vic!” Scarlett says, looking back to the ground to notice her friend having disappeared, returned to the realm of reality, leaving Scarlett all alone to survey what she can in the time she has left. Digging her nails into the dirt, Scarlett pulls herself forward, climbing up to the gap and doing her best to look out at what she can before her vision quickly goes from gray to black. Without having been able to see anything of use, Scarlett is returned to the realm of reality as the sun begins to rise on yet another day. | “Good morning, sweetheart!” Al calls out, watching Scarlett race by and grab an apple from the basket on the counter. “Morning!” Scarlett replies, giving her parents a kiss on the cheek before telling them that Rachel’s coming by. “Something urgent she needs me for, I don’t have much of a say. I’ll see you later tonight!” Scarlett says, leaving little room for questions before vanishing through the front door and hurrying down the street. “Ready?” Victoria asks, watching Scarlett climb into the passenger seat and slam the door shut on the way in. “Easy on the door, sunshine. Things cost money up here!” Victoria says, watching Scarlett look towards her with genuine curiosity. “Are you really this much of a prude in real life, too?” Scarlett asks, watching Victoria turn the key in the ignition with a cheesy smile, looking back to Scarlett. “I’m only as much of a prude as you are a stubborn motherfucker!” Victoria replies, watching Scarlett mockingly laugh as Victoria puts the car in drive and heads off. “What happened in there last night?” Victoria asks, taking a sip of coffee as the pair speak as quietly as possible whilst trying to fit the puzzle pieces together. “I don’t remember much more after getting shot, but I know you made something happen” Victoria adds in, watching Scarlett struggle to describe in adequate detail. “After I took a third shot, I couldn’t really hold the gun any longer” Scarlett says, “I knew I was done for, so I tried to get whatever adrenaline I could to start running. When I got enough to pick up the gun again, I saw this big blue bubble around us.” “It stopped the gunfire?” Victoria asks, assured that it not only saved them a few more moments, but it ripped apart everything in its path when she launched it. “So you set up a shield and used it to wipe out the freaks?” Victoria asks, surprised at the lack of enthusiasm in Scarlett’s nod. “Why aren’t you more psyched about this?” Victoria asks, “That’s fucking great!” Dropping her eyes, Scarlett admits that she’s still unsure how she even managed to do it in the first place. “What good is it if I can only do it when I’m on death’s doorstep?” Scarlett asks, stating that if those were to be the bounds by which the power was controlled, is no more good than just delaying the inevitable. “Well what happened once you cleared the place?” Victoria asks, watching Scarlett recall the events in full. “Okay, you didn’t get a look at what was on the other side. Next time, delaying the inevitable might actually pay off” Victoria replies, assuring Scarlett that they’ll work on it the next time they get into the realm beyond. Roughly an hour later, Vic and Scarlett check into a motel for cheap, taking a few sleeping pills and getting ready to return themselves to the realm beyond. “Let’s hope whatever the next disaster is will be put on hold while we’re back in there” Scarlett says aloud, earning an “amen” from Victoria in response as the pair turns out the light and awaits the consuming darkness. Returning to the realm beyond, Scarlett and Vic make their way from the lobby and into the elevator, returning to the double doors of the hall of the faceless. Revealing the massive stone wall from before, Scarlett and Vic both do what they can to build up whatever brute force they can muster before letting out dueling war cries before pulling the ground up and watching the blue orb surround them much as it did the night before. “Never seen this place during the daytime!” Vic exclaims, looking over to Scarlett as the woman smiles back to her. “Let’s turn the lights out!” Scarlett replies, tossing her arms forward with Vic and sending the shield tearing through the stone, and shattering every easily destructible material in the central area in the process. “Move back!” Scarlett shouts, leading Vic back as the stone from within begins to flood into the halls, almost taking the pair out in the process. “Let’s get in those doors!” Scarlett mutters, joining Vic in climbing over rocks and ducking through tight slots as if they were hiking through the mountains. “What’s the deal with all the fucking rubble?” Scarlett asks, stopped by Vic as she calls for her, inspecting the metal beams lining the walls having offered support for the wall. “Scarlett, don’t these look like the beams the workers were standing on last night?” Vic asks, watching Scarlett glance at the beams. “Same color, same size” Scarlett starts to say, cutting herself short by climbing through one of the few gaps letting in enough sunlight to illuminate the immediate vicinity. Joining Scarlett, Vic stares up at the sky, seeing the remnants of a devastated building taken down by a massive structural failure. “Scarlett?” Vic calls out, pointing outwards to show Scarlett the crowd of people and emergency crews staring on in horror at the sights the post-disaster has to offer. Shocked at the sights, Vic and Scarlett climb down from the rubble and touch down onto the sidewalk, peering out at the side of a building once amidst the end of its construction being rendered to nothing more than crumbs and dust. Calling the girl beside her, Vic points towards a clocktower a few blocks away, realizing that she knows exactly where this is. “Scarlett, I know where this place is!” Vice shouts, putting the service weapon to her head and readying herself to pull the trigger, only to be stopped by Scarlett at the last possible moment. “Someone’s in there!” Scarlett shouts, putting her hand on Vic’s arm and lowering the gun from her head, searching after the sound of a man crying out for help. “Where are you?” Scarlett calls out, not expecting the voice to respond, and surprised when it begins calling for her, trying to lure her towards him in hopes of saving his life. “You can understand me?” Scarlett asks, entrenching herself in the rubble in search of the man. Finally, the pair stumble across an arm sticking out of the rubble, the man buried beneath it struggling to breathe as the weight from the tons of stone atop him has its way. “Yes, help me!” the voice cries out, doing what it can to reach as far up as possible before finally being found by the pair, eager to find a way to free the man. Firing a few shots at the rocks, Scarlett begins to believe that there is no way of freeing the man, desperately trying to push the boulders off. Frustrated and angered, Vic shouts and waves in defeat at the rock, unexpectedly sending it flying through the air and off into oblivion. “How did you do that!?” Scarlett shouts, trying to repeat the same, only to take the ability further, picking up the stone and sending it off into the darkness. Realizing the gaining of a new ability, Vic and Scarlett uncover the man with what they have at their disposal, finding him perilously close to death, with most of his limbs reduced to fragments. “Please, help me” the voice calls out again, begging for his freedom as Scarlett and Vic look to each other in hopes that either will come up with the answer necessary. Seeing that Scarlett isn’t about to make the call necessary, Vic raises the service weapon to the man’s head and blows his brains out, relieving him of his misery. “What the fuck!?” Scarlett asks, watching Vic stare at her with remorseless eyes, stating that it was nothing more than a mercy killing. Attempting to further the conversation, Scarlett opens her mouth to speak, only to silence herself when Vic returns the barrel of the service weapon to her head and pulls the trigger, returning to the realm of reality, leaving Scarlett behind to muddle in whatever she pleases. Staring back towards the man with most of his body flattened more than most pancakes, Scarlett drops her head and stares back out into the street. Watching the civilians looking on at the damage inflicted, Scarlett stares down emergency crews fighting defiantly to search for any signs of life, their efforts yielding no results. Letting out a deep breath, Scarlett drops her head again before putting the service weapon below her chin and fire up, letting a bullet rip through the top of her head as she departs the realm beyond. “Are you the voice we keep hearing?” Scarlett asks, awestruck at the woman, hoping for some clarity on the questions she’s been so eager to find answers to. “You may refer to me as Esotera” the voice explains, “I am the consciousness of your dreams.”
Looking to each other, Scarlett and Victoria go along with it, following the woman into an elevator just beyond the lobby desk. Pressing a button, Esotera stands with her hands folded as the doors shut and immediately reopen to another floor. “What is happening?” Scarlett asks, almost immediately overshadowed by Victoria, with the more pressing question. “More importantly, how long will we have until we wake up again?” the woman asks, putting a smile on Esotera’s face. “I’ll answer the first question in due time, the second question however is much more simplified.” Turning one corner and approaching a long building with a few small offices for secretary’s, Esotera leads the way towards the main office floor. “The dreams before were simple dreams, they seem like it’s only been a few seconds, when in reality, it’s been a few hours in the realm of reality” Esotera explains, making it clear that they have accomplished something further than general sleep. “What you’re doing now is lucid dreaming” she continues, “You’re aware of the fact that you’re sleeping, yet you have full control over what you say and do, and no amount of thinking can break that illusion.” “So we can think of whatever we want, but we’re still asleep in the real world?” Scarlett asks, fascinated by the feeling of everything, with every touch feeling as though it was real. “We refer to this as the ‘Beyond Realm’” Esotera explains, “It doesn’t technically exist, but it has all the understandings of the realm of reality that you call the ‘real world’.” “So we’re still dreaming, but it feels as if this is the real world?” Victoria asks, gaining all the clarity she needs through Esotera’s nod. “In this realm, every minute in the real world is a minute here. Now that you’ve accomplished lucid dreaming, you’re free to come and go in the realm beyond as long as you’re asleep in the realm of reality.” “How is this possible?” Scarlett asks, “people don’t share dreams.” Looking a the blonde with intrigue, Esotera asks exactly how she could treat this as just any other dream. “These sort of dreams don’t reoccur every single night, and they certainly don’t feel real regardless of whether or not they’re lucid. This realm works differently from any other concept the human mind can conjure up.” “So how is this possible?” Victoria asks, noticing the first time she’s seen Esotera without a thorough answer. “Truthfully, I don’t exactly know” Esotera admits, “I don’t physically exist, you’ll never meet me in the realm of reality. But I know everything there is to know about this place, even if it doesn’t actually exist in the other realm. I’m a figment of your imagination, but I have a conscious all of my own, whilst also serving as the conscious of yourselves.” Leaning over a bannister and looking down at an empty office floor with level after level of floors above all leading to a skylight in the middle, Esotera explains that this shouldn’t be possible. “I shouldn’t exist and this shouldn’t be possible, it just is. Together, we have broken existence as a concept entirely, and have established a new plane of being. For whatever reason the world has decided, it appears as though the access point to the realm beyond lays in your subconscious. Since that doesn’t physically exist, I’d prefer it if you were to picture this world as just another building… There’s only one door in, and you two are the only ones with a key.” After thinking about it for a moment, Scarlett comes across a realization that Esotera’s hesitance to answer makes worrisome. “Even though we have a key to the building, that means there’s still the ability to break into it” Scarlett admits, watching the disappointment come over Esotera’s face. “You’re correct in your assessment” Esotera admits, “Unfortunately, I have not come across anything that would point me to where those possible break in points happen to be located.” Figuring that the conversation could take an unwanted turn, Victoria elects to move onto another subject. “We’re clear that we can get here by falling asleep, we know we’re in here for as long as we’re asleep up there, we know all we need about that for now” Victoria concludes, “Now, why are we here?” Following Esotera, the duo enter one office space, this one being one of the very few with a nameplate on the front door, which reads “Elvert.” Following Esotera inside, the two take a seat at a desk opposite their conscious being. “I didn’t know why I was here when I got here, I just woke up, much like you have. I knew everything about this building despite not being aware of why, and that’s what led me to this.” Extending her arm out, Esotera hands Scarlett and Victoria a folder with papers of random statements almost spilling out of it. On the front page, the first quote reads, ‘The least effort is the feat most likely to be accomplished’, followed by an assortment of others below it. “What does this mean?” Victoria asks, ultimately informed that whilst Esotera has yet to figure out the reasoning behind them, she does understand that someone else was here before her. “From what I can gather, anyone that exists in the realm of reality can return to it by dying inside the realm beyond. Others that reside in the realm beyond will cease to exist upon death” Esotera explains, jokingly exclaiming, “consider yourselves lucky” to conclude. “And you know all of this how?” Victoria asks, reminded of the lack of Esotera’s understanding of how this all came to be. “From what I can concur, you are not the first in the realm of reality to find yourselves entrenched in the world beyond, but you are the only example that I can find currently with the ability to enter. The others are also individuals I have yet to identify.” “So you’re saying they could still be in here somewhere?” Victoria asks, watching Esotera acknowledge that whilst they may still be hidden within, the size of the building they find themselves hidden away in mirrors that of two planet earth’s. “This building is comprised of an almost infinite amount of space, including whatever you’d imagine to find. Every new entrant from the realm of reality only increases the internal capacity of it. You may never live long enough in this realm or the realm of reality to even stumble into each other.” “Are we able to find them anyway?” Scarlett asks, genuinely intrigued by the concept of finding their realm beyond ancestors for any information they currently lack. “I’m sure there will be pieces of information that will help you fill in the puzzle, but until the picture is clear enough, there is just no possible way of really knowing where they could be, if they even are here to begin with.” Realizing the amount of questions that can be asked, Esotera acknowledges that every clock in the building is set to the same time as that of the realm of reality, giving them a full knowledge of how much longer before any alarm can go off. “I am your consciousness, so whatever I know, you know as well. I’m just the shortcut to keep you from having to scan through those pieces of information… Kind of like an automatic button to help you remember a word you had on the tip of your tongue immediately.” Standing from the desk and using the papers in the folder, Victoria and Scarlett watch Esotera hand them two guns, both living and without any capacity. “These are your service weapons, they have unlimited ammunition, and they’re one of the only things you can wake up in the realm of reality and return to the realm beyond still having. Regardless of how you wake up there, whenever you come back, you start right back where you started here, just without the ‘beast’ problem.” “One more question” Scarlett asks, “What happens if we die in the realm of reality?” For a brief second, the air grows thin, and Victoria glances at Scarlett, who assures her it’s simply just a question for insurance purposes. “As far as I’m aware, this is the afterlife with people given the gift of the keys to the realm beyond. If you die in the realm of reality, you simply return to the realm beyond full time.” “So there’s no such thing as heaven?” Victoria asks, with Esotera struggling for the right answer for a moment. “Whilst I’m sure there is a high chance of a heaven being possible in the realm of reality, I know for a fact that you will not go to it in favor of the realm beyond” Esotera admits, putting a disappointed look on Victoria’s face. “You alright, Vic?” Scarlett asks, watching the girl turn to her and nod. “I would’ve liked for there to be a heaven, but I’m just glad I know there’s something guaranteed on the other side” Victoria responds, thanking Scarlett as she puts her hand on her shoulder and tells her that everything will be just fine. “Scarlett’s alarm is set for seven o’clock, Victoria’s for seven-thirty. If you’d like to join Scarlett when she wakes, put the service weapon to your head and pull the trigger, you’ll wake up in the realm of reality and be fine to start your day.” Looking at both women, watching their immediate confidence overtake them, Esotera wishes them luck as they enter the elevator and take the trip to their first stop in the realm beyond. = Dream Sequence is created by Zachary Serra, all rights to the series belong to Zachary Serra and the entity of Pacer1 Media from the start of Season 1 onwards = Doors opening immediately, Scarlett and Victoria are introduced to a slouched figure with it’s back to them, bald with deteriorating skin and overgrown finger nails. “What the fuck is that?” Victoria whispers, aiming her service weapon forward and sending off a shot, immediately putting it down. Calling out for Esotera, Scarlett asks if the service weapons gives off a gunshot sound to anything else other than them. “No, you’re the only ones that can hear the shot. One shot is enough to kill almost any enemy, others may take a few shots to go down.” “That’s pleasing” Victoria suggests, kicking the body over to reveal a shriveled face with a lack of color in the eyes. “Let’s move on” Scarlett suggests, walking down the corridor before finding an office with another nameplate on the door, this one in an unfamiliar language. “In he-” Scarlett attempts to say, only to be swept from her train of thought by the sight of a shooting star just outside of the skylight above. “That’s strange… I’ve seen that same shooting star outside of my window the past two nights” Scarlett says, pointing it out to Victoria, who doesn’t seem to spot it. “There’s nothing there” Victoria replies, unable to see the shooting star having stopped it’s progress, now remaining stationary in the sky. “Seriously?” Scarlett asks, met with the same response as before. Brushing it off, the two enter the office and start shifting through whatever they can find to little luck. Eventually, Victoria stumbles upon a filing cabinet filled with name, most of which are written in a code indecipherable to the duo. “Any chance this means something?” Vic asks, immediately hushed by Scarlett, who overhears footsteps just outside. “You hear that?” Scarlett asks, sneaking over to the doorway upon Vic’s nod, looking out to see if they can spot anything out of the ordinary. Eventually, they hear a whistling accompany the footsteps, which never seem to be joined by a pair of feet regardless of how close they appear. “What is that?” Scarlett asks, immediately hearing the footsteps come to a halt before an unbodied voice asks who’s there. “Can you hear us?” Vic asks, met with a surprised but straight-forward answer of ‘yes.’ “Where are you?” the voice asks, with Scarlett explaining that they’re not present to hurt him, they just cannot seem to see him. “Are you in the office marked ‘Massaro’?” the voice asks, unable to get a clear response. “We’re in an office, we can’t seem to read the nameplate” Scarlett admits, unable to make out much more than a few groans of concern from the voice on the other end. “You must be on a separate dimension” the voice exclaims, muddling Vic and Scarlett with another level of confusion. “Separate dimension?” Scarlett asks, with Massaro explaining that every being in the realm beyond live in separate dimensions. Each new figure that comes into the world beyond creates a new dimension, and then proceed to occupy it. “So how do we get into your dimension?” Vic asks, finding no further knowledge than she had prior to the question. “I don’t know. Quite frankly I almost didn’t believe that was true until now. I know just about as much as you” Massaro explains. “We just got here, it’s been a sort of transition for us. What is this place if you don’t mind us asking?” asks Scarlett, leaning against the doorway and staring at the thin air she hopes to receive an answer from. “This is the realm beyond. It takes the form of an office building, the only reason I’d assume for that is because it’s ever-expanding. I don’t exactly have a clear-cut answer for it.” “Are you a consciousness or are you an actual person?” Vic asks, receiving an even further confusion response. “Neither. I was created by the realm beyond once others entered in from the realm of reality a few years ago” Massaro explains, “I’ve been stationed in this office ever since.” “Do you know anything that you can tell us?” Vic asks, “You’ve been here many more years than we have been, so I’m sure there’s something.” Without hesitation, Massaro cuts the truth that everyone experiences the realm beyond differently according to what dimension they inhabit. “For example, you may have gutters laying all around your dimension, but I’ve completely cleared mine out.” Asking about what a gutter is, Massaro explains that it was the name he gave to the deteriorated skin create the girls put down earlier. “There’s going to be more of them?” Vic asks, hearing Massaro enthusiastically explain that not only will there be more of them, but they’ll evolve the longer they inhabit their dimension. “That’s the worst piece of news I’ve ever heard” Vic replies, leaving Massaro to apologize. “I hate to have to tell you this, but it’s just how the realm beyond works” the man replies, telling the girls that he needs to return to his work, but he’ll be in his office more often than not if they ever need to come back to see him for anything else. Leaving the office and walking through the corridors, Vic and Scarlett remain cautious as to what may be lurking around ever corner whilst talking about what they do from here. “It’s not like we can just wake up and pretend like we don’t have a completely different life waiting for us” Vic admits, stating that normality died the second the picture here became clearer. “Well we have to wake up eventually” Scarlett states, avoiding the conversation of what the realm of reality becomes now that the realm beyond exists to them. Turning the corner, the duo spot another one of the gutters before dropping it with a single shot. Attempting to move forward, the girls notice the gutter trembling, with the rapidity increasing every few seconds. “Get behind something” Vic says casually, prompting Scarlett to ask why, stubbornly looking for a reason as the trembling becomes erratic. Running over to the girl, Vic shoves Scarlett to the ground behind a stone wall and takes cover over her just as the gutter bursts into pieces, leaving a singe mark at ground zero. “What the hell was that?” Vic asks, “If we were in a fight right there and I told you to take cover, would yo just stand by and ask ‘why’?” Apologizing, Scarlett moves on, looking to take the stairs to another level as Vic tells her that this isn’t just one or the other right here. “If we’re gonna do this together, we’re gonna do this together. Got it?” Vic asks, watching Scarlett swallow her pride and reluctantly agree, the level of stubbornness throwing Vic for a loop. | With fifteen minutes remaining before Scarlett’s alarm goes off, the duo stumble across a walled off section of the building, shielding whatever lies inside behind nothing more than an ordinary door. “I’m interested” Vic exclaims, walking towards it as Scarlett soon follows, joining the girl in preparing to open the flood gates. After a brief countdown, the pair hoist the doors open, looking inside to see nothing more than a few desks with unresponsive figures seated at them. “Where are their faces?” Scarlett asks, noticing the lack of features other than a basic, smooth patch of skin where their facial features would normally be. “Can any oof your hear me?” Vic asks, noticing the lack of ears as well, but looking to give it a shot anyway. Reaching out to touch one, Scarlett is stopped by Vic, who admits that they don’t know what these are, let alone what signalling their presence would do. “Let’s just look around and see what we can find” Vic says, pausing for a second to watch one of the figures stand from their desk and walk through a pair of double doors in the back. “After we figure out what’s behind that” the girl then says, changing up the plan and walking over to the doors, though is stopped by the inability to push them open. “That’s odd” Vic states, figuring out that neither woman is able to open the doors themselves. “Let’s just wait here for someone to open the doors again and we’ll sneak through” Scarlett suggests, standing beside Vic and watching as another faceless figure stands up and walks towards the double doors. “Alright, check this one” Vic says, watching as the figure grows closer to the door, with the ground rumbling beneath the duo the closer the figure comes. The air growing harsher and the thoughts in their minds growing less audible, Vic tenses up, feeling a tension in the air refusing to be ignored. “Go for cover!” Vic shouts, diving alongside Scarlett out of the way as the faceless figure reaches the double doors and gets obliterated by a rogue train, slamming into the wall having been taken off the rails. “Holy shit!” Scarlett shouts, standing to her feet and rushing over to the train, soon joined by Vic, who notices the rest of the faceless figures left unharmed refusing to even acknowledge anything having happened. Climbing onto the front of the train, Scarlett looks into the conductors cabin and notices a figure completely blackened out laying dead with its head completely removed. “What the hell was that?” Vic asks, reading the writing on the side as ‘Genuine Rail 06606’, and noticing the back of it completely cutting them off from what rests within the double doors. “Whatever that was supposed to be, it doesn’t want us getting in there” Vic states, pointing out what she sees to the other girl. “So, we just leave it alone?” Scarlett exclaims, aggravated at the idea of being kept from controlling her own realm beyond. “Fuck that, I’ve got five minutes left here… I’m getting a look at whatever I can” Scarlett says, stubbornly refusing to adhere to Vic’s warnings. Climbing into one of the cabins, Scarlett disappears into the vehicle and begins the trek in hopes of finally reaching the back. Shaking her head and figuring that Scarlett will spend the rest of her time wandering the wreckage, Vic turns around and walks to the entry of the room, attempting to leave. As she walks through the entrance, the sound of a massive explosion behind her forces her attention to a sight of fire and debris no longer conditioned enough to house the faceless figures. “Scarlett!” Vic shouts, rushing forward to run back into the room before the double doors close on her, locking her out and leaving her to wonder over what happened for the time she has remaining in the realm beyond. | “What the fuck were you doing?” Victoria asks, catching up to Scarlett and introducing herself to Rachel. “You’re the girl Scarlett helped find her class the other day, right?” Rachel asks, assured of having remembered correctly. “Do you mind if I talk to Scarlett for a second?” Victoria asks, attempting to reply before the sight of her best friend being dragged away by a woman she just formally met interrupts her. “What was that back there?” Victoria asks, closing the empty classroom door behind the two as Scarlett acknowledges that she simply wanted to find out what the realm beyond was hiding. “Did you honestly think it was just going to be that easy?” Victoria asks, watching Scarlett shrug and admit that she was wrong. “You’re pretty impulsive, aren’t you?” Victoria asks, watching Scarlett do a twirl and ask how she could have guessed. “Well how about we try not walking into an entirely different plane of existence trying to get ourselves killed?” Victoria suggests, watching Scarlett accept after an eye roll. Taking in a deep breath, Victoria collects herself and reminds Scarlett exactly what they’re a part of right now. “We’re breaking the laws of existence. Those are probably the only laws impossible to be broken other than gravity, and I’m pretty sure we’ve also already done that. Let’s drop the impulsivity when we break the concept of life, alright?” Coming to an acceptance that the difference between what they experience in the realm of reality and the realm beyond deserve separate approaches, Scarlett comes to an agreement to follow Victoria just as she would her own instincts. “Thank you” Victoria says, “Now let’s figure out how to fin-” she attempts to continue, only to catch the mounted TV at the other end of the room automatically turn on, revealing the local news. “That’s strange” Victoria responds at the occurrence, only to be unable to do more than watch the anchors run over a breaking news story revolving an incident extraordinarily familiar to them. “It was just a few minutes ago when a passenger train commuting from Baton Rouge to Shreveport was sent off the rails, obliterating a bank just across the street. The passenger train ‘Genuine Rail 06606’ unexpectedly derailed in the middle of it’s early morning route before bursting into flames a matter of moments later. It is assumed that all two-hundred and forty-six passengers were lost in the incident, with another undisclosed amount of civilians from the crash into the banking center. We will have more on this story as it develops into the Channel 9 newsroom.” “Vic?” Scarlett says, both girl’s mouths agape at the realization that their dreams aren’t solely exclusive to the world beyond. “Was that the same train that ran through the office?” Scarlett asks, watching Vic look towards her and nod, assuring her that the world’s have now intersected for the worst. Series Premiere
“Here she comes” a faint voice calls out, slowly becoming more visible as a pale white light lowers in tone, revealing an old office building stacked with early 2000’s-era technology. “Glad you could make it” the voice says again, this time clearer than it was before. Scanning the area, which lessens in color the further it is traversed, seems completely out of place from one’s normality, but feels decisively in place with the rest of the world. “Don’t try to think” the voice calls out, feeling the sensation of the eye of the beholder trying to figure out what it’s experiencing. “You’ll ruin the illusion if you try to think too soon” the voice calls out once again, once more failing to convince the eye of the beholder, which soon sputters out of control, making the picture look as though it was the subject of an earthquake before it returns into darkness. Finally, the darkness is interrupted by the familiar sound of an anger-inducing alarm clock, ruining the illusion and returning the eye of the beholder into her reality. “Scarlett, get down here!” a woman cries out, forcing the girl in bed to aggravatedly toss her comforter off and emerge from bed. “You excited to go back?” the man in the passenger’s seat calls out, looking in the rear-view mirror to watch Scarlett’s face shift. “Not as excited as I was to leave” the girl replies, met with hassle from both her mother and her father. “Scarlett, don’t talk like that” her mother responds, met with confusion as to what’s wrong with it. “If you go into school thinking it’s a prison, it will always be just a prison” her mother replies, unable to change anything n Scarlett’s mindset. “I’m locked in a building for six hours doing nothing but learning stuff I’ll never use again. Then they’ll have me take the same pointless stuff back home and steal another six hours. Then I’ll go to sleep and nothing will have changed” Scarlett replies, met with disapproval by the two elders ahead of her. “What am I supposed to look forward to?” Scarlett asks, genuinely intrigued by the possibility that her parents could have a response worthy of her effort. “You’ll get to see your friends and learn new stuff, pointless or not” her father replies, met with insistence that it would be the latter. “It’ll do you good in the long run” her father replies, “what harm could algebra have?” Met with the challenge, Scarlett breaks her first smirk of the day and asks her father one rule he remembers from algebra classes of his own. Confident at first assumption, Scarlett’s mother turns to her husband and finds him rolling through his head in search of not just a worthy answer, but any answer. “Oh, Al” Nora replies, only to be met with him looking back to watch Scarlett’s smug grin do all the talking she needs. “Have a good day sweetheart” Nora says, watching Scarlett into the school building and disappear into the sea of other teenagers. “Scarlett!” a blonde dressed in a blue dress with a pink sweater calls out, hurrying up to her. “Hey, Rachel” Scarlett says, fighting the urge not to groan at already having some stuck by her side. “Someone’s happy to be back!” Rachel says, watching Scarlett high five a few of the guys and girls she walks past. “How’d the surgery go?” Rachel asks, assured by Scarlett herself that her jacked-up back is no more. “Three months later and the rose herself is back and better than ever!” Rachel says, finally getting a genuine smile on the girl’s face as they reach her locker. “So how’d the off-time go?” Rachel asks, watching Scarlett turn her face towards her and bite her lip. “Glad to see you had fun!” Rachel replies, catching the drift before Scarlett even needed to say a word. “How’ve you and Jared been?” Rachel asks, this follow-up question making less beneficial traction than the one before it. “As well as you’d assume a guy with the last name ‘Wactor’ would take it” Scarlett states, met with a frown from her friend. “He brought it onto himself” Rachel says, reassuring Scarlett that she made the right call. “No, shit… Fuck some other bitch and then expect me to just drop everything and move on like it never happened? I already know I made the right call!” Moving along to the subject of her return to school, Rachel and Scarlett start for their usual route through the hallways, passing by a girl who seemed rather lost. “What’s her deal?” Scarlett asks, breaking away from Rachel for a second to ask the girl if she needed any help. “I’m looking for Mr. Graham’s psychology class, do you happen to know where it is?” the woman asks, getting a brief direction of where to go and what to look for. “I’m Scarlett, it’s nice to meet you” Scarlett says, shaking the girl’s hand as she replies, “Victoria Shea. Most people call me ‘Tori”, it’s nice to meet you too!” With that brief interaction, the brunette goes on her way, vanishing into the crowd as Scarlett and Rachel return to their originally taken route as the day progresses as normal. = Dream Sequence is created by Zachary Serra, all rights to the series belong to Zachary Serra and the entity of Pacer1 Media from the start of Season 1 onwards = “How was your day, sweetheart?” Al asks, walking to the front door and getting the hug from his daughter that almost feels routine at this point, with very little emotion behind it. “It was fine” Scarlett replies, returning to her room with very little effort spared in order to get her work out of the way. By the time the night falls, Scarlett gets herself ready for bed and hops in, not thinking much more about the night prior than the fact that she can remember exactly the way the dream went. Closing her eyes and trying to lose herself in the need for sleep, Scarlett drifts off and slowly falls into an unconscious blank slate of nothing just as the blinding white shot of light begins flooding through her eyelids. “I don’t wanna wake up!” Scarlett thinks to herself, shouting in her sleep in refusal to accept that daylight has arrived. “You’re not waking up” a voice beacons, welcoming her back as the white light slowly dies out to return her to the room she had been stuck looking at the night prior. “What’s happening?” Scarlett thinks, unable to do anything more than respond to the strange voice as she is forced to stand frozen, looking out at the office lobby interior as the color pops off like neon paint from a canvas in a dark room. “You’re dreaming” the voice responds, “none of this is real.” “AH!” a voice shouts, away from Scarlett’s perspective, causing her to question who that was. “Who are you?” the mysterious voice asks, meeting Scarlett with the same confusion of her own. “Calm down, both of you. Don’t think too much, you’ll break the illusion” the voice calmly pleads, slowing the breathing of both voices, Scarlett and the mystery voice’s own on their behalf. “The least effort is the feat most likely to be accomplished” the voice goes on, bringing further confusion onto both parties. “What the hell is that supposed to mean?” Scarlett asks, the voice refusing to answer with any outright response. “The least effort is the feat most likely to be accomplished” the voice repeats again, leaving Scarlett and the second voice to try their hand at extracting the information necessary to fulfill whatever the purpose of their presence is needed for. “The least effort is the feat most likely to be accomplished” the voice says again, convincing both presence’s that trying to get information out of this realm they find themselves in is like pulling the teeth of someone afraid of the dentist. Soon, the room starts losing its color, and the pallet starts running dry, and Scarlett is ripped from her dream by the sound of her alarm, instructing her that it’s time to start a brand new day. | Seated in her desk just as the students surrounding her are, Scarlett begins drifting off, falling into a nap as the room grows into a dark black bubble, overtaking her consciousness before a faint voice in the back of her head steals her focus as if it had purchased it. “Wake up!” the voice shouts, shooting Scarlett back into the present, jolting her body upon waking up and halting the teacher’s lesson for a brief moment. “Are you okay, Scarlett?” the teacher asks, watching her gather her composure and assure him that she is perfectly fine. “Okay, I’ll take your word for it” the teacher replies, continuing his lesson as if nothing had happened, allowing Scarlett to get her bearings back. “Alright, where were we?” the teacher says, trying to get back into his train of thought before another student speaks up, giving him the push he needed to correct his course. “Alright, can anyone tell me what they know about Richelle E. Goodrich?” the teacher asks, expecting nothing more than silence, but surprised when not one, but two people both utter the same exact thing. “The least effort is the feat most likely to be accomplished!” the two voices exclaim, one belonging to Scarlett, and the other belonging to one of the students on the other side of the room. Without thinking, Scarlett leaps from her seat and stands at attention, looking at the other side of the room to see Victoria staring daggers right back at her. Impressed by near-impossible chances, the group laughs in awe at the sight they just witnessed, chalking it up to a coincidence. “Yes, that was, indeed, a Richelle E. Goodrich quote” the teacher replies, trying to correct his course, but is unable to get past the strange occurrence having just taken place. “Can I use the rest room?” Victoria asks, met immediately by Scarlett thereafter. “Only one of you can use the restroom at the same time” the teacher replies, ultimately changing his mind when both girls insist, telling them to make it quick. “What the hell was that?” Scarlett asks, hurrying alongside Victoria before the pair duck into the girl’s bathroom, telling three occupants to get out. “What’s your problem?” one of the girls asks, only to be met with the same demand again, this time with less of a kind tone. “Again, I’ll reiterate… What was that?” Scarlett asks, locking eyes with the girl as they realize that they both recognized each other’s voices. “I’m going to suggest something insane, and I want you to be honest with me, alright?” Victoria asks, watching Scarlett take in a deep breath before nodding in compliance. “What do you think of when you hear ‘office building’?” Victoria asks, trying not to push too hard on the obvious wonder. “I think of a dream I had last night and the night before” Scarlett replies, watching Victoria’s eyes grow wide. “Do you remember hearing a voice you knew you didn’t know?” Victoria asks, watching Scarlett refuse to verbally respond, too startled to do much more than nod. “You were in my dream last night” Victoria replies, met with the same insistance from the woman, putting both women in the same boat as the other. “What does this mean?” Victoria asks, watching Scarlett panic as she realizes the dreams weren’t actually dreams at all. “I don’t know, but I guess they’re not dreams!” Scarlett replies, confusing Victoria. “What are they then?” the girl asks, not blaming Scarlett when she insists that she doesn’t know. “I don’t know what they are, I just know people don’t share dreams” Scarlett concludes, putting her back against the wall and trying to convince herself that she’s not going crazy. “So… What now?” Victoria asks, watching Scarlett stare at her, unable to give an answer worth putting all their eggs into one basket with. Later on that evening, Scarlett finishes having dinner with her family before retiring to her room for the night and getting ready for bed. As her head hits the pillow, and her eyes close to allow herself to drift off, a sudden dread comes in, sweeping across Scarlett like a rug being pulled from beneath her feet. Eyes shooting open, she simply lays there and worries that, once again, she’ll drift off into the same world she’s been introduced into twice before. Hoping that tonight will be different, and the brief interaction she had with Victoria would be left to ancient history, Scarlett closes her eyes and lets her brain take her to wherever it pleases. Finally encompassed by the darkness, the same bright white light shines through her vision once again, forcing Scarlett to return to the hope that she’s simply being awoken by the sunlight peering through the curtains. “Welcome back” the voice calls out, ending all hope for this night being any different from the last. Breaking through the light and returning to the office lobby, Scarlett is met with remaining frozen in place as she hears Victoria’s voice beside her, asking how to break from this freeze. “Don’t try too hard, you’ll break the illusion” the voice says again, noticing Scarlett and Victoria’s attempts to argue, and silencing them in order to keep the illusion strong. “What do you mean by ‘the illusion’?” Scarlett asks, waiting for a response from the dissident voice, who only assures her that she’ll see in due time. Frustrated, but taking the voice’s advice into consideration, the two girls remain calm and stare accordingly at the blank wall ahead. “Try to stay here long enough” the voice requests, telling the girl’s that “it’s on the way.” After a brief moment of panic over what that is meant to mean, the two girls ask for clarification on what it is that they’re soon to encounter. Before long, the office lobby begins to light red, which grows harsher the longer the two girls remain in this strange limbo, and a distant growling begins to hiss throughout the halls. Growing louder and more volatile with every passing second, the shrieks of horror bounce off the walls like a rubber ball as the ground begins to shake. Briefly, if only for a moment, the two girls physically feel the world around them begin to shift with the weight of whatever is coming for them. Soon, the growling grows loud enough for the source to feel as if it were right between them, and the red lights begin to coat the room like paint. Through the lobby wall ahead of them, a monstrous beast plows through the walls and takes a single swipe at them, coating their entire sight red and jolting them awake in their separate beds. Gasping for breath at the realization of her dream turning into a nightmare, Scarlett’s chest heaves as she looks to compose herself and notices the time on the clock beside her. Realizing that it’s only been a few hours and the world has only managed t make it into the middle of the night, Scarlett drops back into her pillow and stares at the ceiling, refusing to return to the scene of what just unfolded. | “You saw that too, right?” Victoria asks, spotting out and catching up to Scarlett as she does what she can to forget the night before. “What was that?” Victoria asks, changing the question as she earns no response in return, only to find the same outcome handed to her once again. “Scarlett?” Victoria calls, trying to get the girl’s attention before she politely asks her to leave it alone before walking into her next class, leaving the girl stood in the middle of the hallway, trying to figure out what went wrong. That night, Scarlett lays in bed staring at the ceiling, refusing to close her eyes for anything other than blinking, and refusing to return to the world she knows full-well will return her to whatever realm spawned the nightmare of the night prior. Looking out through the window beside her bed and between the blinds, Scarlett spots a shooting star dancing across the sky and disappearing from her view, leaving her comforted in the idea that all could be right once again some day. That morning, after the first sleepless night of many she expects to experience, Scarlett staggers through her classes, refusing to pay them any more attention than they require. “What’s up with you today?” Rachel asks, lightly nudging her with her shoulder, which was nearly enough to knock her off her balance. “Seriously, what’s up?” Rachel repeats, this time more animated by the surprising ease it was to get her best friend rocked. “It’s nothing, don’t worry about it” Scarlett says, playing the typical card of refusing to accept what’s wrong, allowing herself to continue with the self-destructive tendencies she’s perfectly fine with indulging in. “Scarlett, don’t do that to me. Something’s off with you right now” Rachel replies, pulling Scarlett’s arm and keeping her from walking off. “Please trust me when I say that I’ll tell you about it, just not right now… Not yet” Scarlett replies, walking off and leaving Rachel stood much the way she did with Victoria the day prior, allowing her friend to watch her walk off into the crowd of teens and return to whatever she intended on doing prior. For the next two nights, Scarlett remains awake, downing coffee as if it was a race to see which person could drink the most in any given time. Eventually, she resorts to simply drinking straight out of the pot, refusing to add anything into it, and relying on it to act as the drug to keep her problems away. Bed untouched, Scarlett remains sat at the kitchen counter as her family is sound asleep, leaving her and the one light on above to her own mind. “Sleep” a distant voice requests from seemingly nowhere, telling Scarlett to give in and return to slumber, thus, returning to the world beyond. “No” Scarlett replies, visibly spooked and staggering around her kitchen, searching desperately for where the voice is originating to no avail. “We need you back” the voice calls out once again, telling her not to be afraid of what remains awaiting her. “What do you want from me?” Scarlett asks herself, muttering under her breath to keep from waking her family, whilst hoping that she’ll receive an answer worthy of finding truth in. “There’s nothing to be afraid of” the voice replies, softening the usual tone, and bringing a small level of comfort to the girl. “You can’t avoid this forever, you’ll only be here longer when you return” the voice replies, telling her that it’s okay. “I’m not coming back. That thing is still there” Scarlett whispers, grabbing at her hair as her elbows firmly press against the countertop. “It won’t be long before it’s no longer a threat” the voice replies, playing with her emotions, leaving her to ask why the voice would be so sure. “You wouldn’t be welcomed here if you weren’t able to overcome it” the voice replies, almost convincing Scarlett to fall asleep right there before slowly dissipating as the sound of footsteps above force Scarlett to clean up around herself and sneak back up to bed. | Almost dragging her feet through the hallways, Scarlett finds herself stunned by Victoria, who called her name prior to catching up to her, yet not catching her attention until the final moment. “What do you want?” Scarlett asks, having been too bothered to even put on makeup that same morning, waiting for the girl to grant her knowledge of her latest realization. “You haven’t been sleeping have you?” Victoria asks, watching the girl lock eyes with her, the exhaustion present in the daggers being thrown through her pupils. “Scarlett, I don’t think I’m supposed to do this alone” Victoria states, telling Scarlett that there’s a reason it isn’t just her in these dreams. “Have you seen that thing again?” Scarlett asks, assured that it keeps coming back and waking her up. “And what? You just go back to sleep?” Scarlett asks, met with the disappointed confirmation that she just returns to the lobby without the voice until her alarm wakes her up. “No matter what I do, I can’t even feel the ground shaking” Victoria admits, telling Scarlett that she must be the missing piece. “They keep telling us not to break the illusion, so let’s just go with it tonight. Let’s just try to give into whatever it’s making us feel” Victoria pleads, finally convincing Scarlett that there’s no avoiding it forever. “Y’know we’ll figure this out, right?” Victoria says, pulling Scarlett back for a moment, and watching her eyes light up, pleased to finally have some reassurance from someone who’s actually aware of what’s happening. That night, Scarlett finally gives into whatever power is pulling her back to take control, resting her head on her pillow and closing her eyes, embracing the darkness before finally returning to light. “Look who decided to join us” the voice says sarcastically, breaking through the light and returning Scarlett to the office lobby, where she calls out for Victoria, who responds in kind, asking the voice what to do next. “Don’t break the illusion” the voice calls, frustrating Scarlett enough for her to throw her hands out and look around the room, sarcastically challenging the voice to give the smug sarcasm back again. “Scarlett?” Victoria calls, locking eyes with the girl who now realizes that, despite still being stuck in place, she can now move her head and arms, freeing up a portion of her body to the humor of the voice above. “This is only the beginning, girls” the voice calls out, “it’s coming.” Soon, the ground begins shaking and the lobby begins growing red again. “I can feel it again!” Victoria shouts, finally pleased at the sensation as the reminder of the threat closing the distance between the two retakes the spotlight. “Whatever happens here, Vic... Just do what you can to get back!” Scarlett shouts, watching the girl beside her nod as the lobby grows increasingly red, and the growling becomes ear-piercing. Finally, emerging through the walls like a wrecking ball, the beast takes a swipe and cleans house, snapping the girls free of the illusion, and sending them back into the realm of reality. Jolted awake by the sudden sight, Scarlett looks to her clock and notices it to be right around the same time as the last instance she was awoken by the beast. Without hesitation, Scarlett places her head on the pillow again and attempts to drift back into the dream world, only to open her eyes for a brief moment and see the same shooting star from the night before through the blinds of her window. Brushing off the sight, Scarlett enters into the darkness again and quickly breaks through the light, returning to the office lobby and looking over to see Victoria in the place she always has been. “Get ready girls” the voice calls out, signalling for the rumbling to begin, setting them up for their second-consecutive encounter, this time more determined than the last. “Don’t break the illusion” Scarlett says, convincing both herself and Victoria to just go with what’s thrown at them and think about it later whilst the walls start turning red once more. “Ready?” Vic asks, watching Scarlett turn to her and smile as they gear up for round two, watching the beast burst through the concrete walls and lift it’s arm into the air, ready to swipe down for yet another clean sweep. Letting their instincts take control, both Scarlett and Victoria bend their knees and throw their hands up, sending off a sudden burst of nerve-tingling electricity to pulsate throughout their bodies like nothing they had ever experienced before. After a few seconds, both girls feel the rest of their bodies break free from the frozen stance, allowing them to take a slow step forward and look towards each other in jubilation. “We did it!” Vic says enthusiastically, sharing Scarlett’s smile before turning to the beast and noticing him frozen in place, arm still ready to swipe. “What the fuck?” Scarlett whispers to herself, walking forward and tapping the sort of blue shield they threw in its way, hearing the hollow sounds of what you would normally feel tapping on hard plastic. Calling Victoria over, the two girls stand beside each other and place one hand each on the bubble, doing what feels right and watching the blue surface start to tremble. Before long, the light blue coating begins turning golden before finally turning a harsh red and exploding, allowing the beast to charge forward and swipe at where the girls once were, only to connect with nothing and explode on contact, shifting the ground as if an explosion had just gone off. “We did it, right?” Vic asks, smiling with Scarlett, who pulls her in and embraces her, having been freed from the fear of having to return to the world beyond. “You did, indeed” the voice calls out, this time closer than it has ever felt before. Turning around to see what rests behind them, Scarlett and Victoria stare down a woman of the same height and stature dressed in a long white coat with silver accents. Stunned by the sight before them, the girls stare on without saying anything, watching the woman break the silence by directing them onwards. “Follow me” the woman says, “You have a lot left to learn.” |
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September 2022
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