|
“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.
0 Comments
“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.” |
AuthorWrite something about yourself. No need to be fancy, just an overview. Archives
September 2022
Categories |
RSS Feed