S1, E3 | Genesis

“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.

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“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.

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“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.

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“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.