S3, E1 | Expiration

Season 3 Premiere

\ Realm of Reality /

The sole of his foot slamming against the brake pedal, West’s cruiser drags across debris-covered pavement as it rolls to a stop, faced with a scene of utter devastation. “Hey, what the hell happened!?” West exclaims, calling out to a group of police officers as they near, his question ignored as they race past him without a second thought.

His mouth agape and eyes widened in shock, West falls against his vehicle whilst his arm sits atop its roof, unable to stand properly. Stripped bare of any grass, asphalt or concrete foundations, the three-kilometre strip of land sits as nothing more than a massive, circular patch of mud. Unable to close his mouth, West presses his left hand against his lips, his mind still struggling to process the tragedy that sits before him.

“How many people are dead!?” West exclaims, calling out to another flock of officers, each passing him by just as the last assortment had, the back-most officer’s arm taken into West’s grasp. “Hey, hey! How many are dead!?” West asks again, the subordinate quickly jerking his arm back, taking both offence and a dislike for West’s interference.

“I don’t know!” the officer exclaims, stepping away to rejoin his unit, “do you see anything that survived this!?” As the question prompts West to wonder quietly, a harrowing answer soon prevails over the rest, one that ties West’s stomach into knots that would make the most experienced survivalists jealous. Using the ill sensation, West contorts his sickness into a blistering, unadulterated anger, propelling himself into action with it as his motivation.

Taking a few steps towards the blast’s epicentre, a sudden roar in the distance emerges, unable to finish before frantic calls are howled through the radios of each stationary police cruiser. “We’re under attack!” an officer in training exclaims, the attention of each deputy on the scene drawn in his direction. “There’s a bombing downtown! A building just came down!” the officer reiterates, inciting a flurry of chatter amongst the different cop-filled bundles.

Seething, West connects the dots left for him to trace, their path leading him directly to the face he’d held responsible for the death of his closest confidant. His right eye twitching, West turns away from the scene and returns to his vehicle, turning the key in his ignition as the door slams shut behind him. His rear wheels kicking up wet dirt, West pulls away from the ruination and returns to the road he’d arrived upon, his car directed toward the nearest exit leading to Praireville’s heart.

= 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 =

\ Realm of Reality /

His presence alone sending Praireville into a terror, Lincoln sets his aggressions upon the population. Herding together like sheep, civilians race to the nearest safety, following the closest wanderer through the well-lit, small-town streets with dreams of uncovering sanctuary. The fingers on his right hand sprawling outward, Lincoln forces his palm toward the ground, crushing clumps of innocent bystanders into piles of eviscerated bone and gore.

His face pale and drained of emotion other than exhaustion, fury and suffering, Lincoln plays with the mortal souls beneath his levitating body, picking them out from the crowd like trinkets from a jewellery box. With the motion of his finger, legs are swept from beneath Lincoln’s unsuspecting victims, their bodies given nothing to break their fall as they collide with the pavement.

Whilst a few lucky souls overcome their impacts, most find themselves unlucky, gorgonized just long enough for Lincoln to commence the next phase of his attack. Having seemingly vanished behind the physical dominance of yet another high-rise office complex, Lincoln’s presence reveals itself yet again, this time peeking out from the wounded population’s tragically flawed assumption of momentary optimism.

With a force greater than that of most Californian earthquakes, Praireville’s road begins to crack and splinter, a wave of pedestrians forced to the ground as yet another building begins to sway. Encouraged by his wrath, Lincoln rips the foundation of the office complex he’d hidden his presence behind from the ground it was embedded into, gradually pushing it forward as if it were the domino at the start of a long line.

Windows shattering from the movement alone, Lincoln topples the building, watching its walls flatten as warped metal juts through debris, sentencing those he’d swept the feet of to a permanent slumber beneath. A row of buildings and street lights immediately going dark as the complex snaps overhead electrical wires, Praireville becomes consumed in a blanket of darkness, lorded over by a malefactor that gratifies himself in unleashing an implausible horror the world has yet to witness.

Floating through the air off-balanced and glassy-eyed, Lincoln revels in the carnage he’s waged, a small town left in ruins at his hands. Fearing the awful fate that could be in store for themselves, onlookers hurdle themselves over the edges of overpasses and from sidewalk-adjacent terraces, landing on other, equally desperate people just begging for a second lease on life.

A malicious smile occupying his face, Lincoln turns his sights toward the still-lit portions of walkway ahead, his intentions as sour as those he’d arrived with. In a change of fate, a sudden burst of light blinds Lincoln’s villainous sights, his face spotlighted by an approaching police helicopter. Unaware of what’s within its best interests, the helicopter closes the distance between itself and the mid-flight, one-man guerrilla.

Though badly injured, Lincoln retains the insight to know what the unfolding situation says in quiet, unspoken terms, the first to strike likely to be the one allowed to leave with their life. Summoning his dagger from the realm beyond, Lincoln repeats the gesture he’d collapsed buildings and severed roadways with, the dagger slicing across his body from the left and toward the aircraft ahead.

Its windows shattered, the helicopter is sliced halfway through its large, metal frame in a diagonal line, pulling apart before it even has the chance to lose its elevation. Like a cap gently removed from the container it fits to, the helicopter gracefully snaps apart, each piece descending from the heavens and into the town below, littering the street with even more litter and casualties.

The sky left cold, dark and empty, only Lincoln stands above all else, the building that now stands as the highest in Praireville still many levels below the bottom of his feet. Gentle raindrops falling upon him, Lincoln lifts his chin toward the sky, his skin softened by the tender droplets that coat his sinful flesh. “I’m the chosen one” Lincoln whispers into the heavens, his arms outstretched as the wind picks up speed, “I will die just the same.”

His ears latching onto a nearby disturbance, Lincoln turns his focus in the opposite direction of where the helicopter had arrived, a much quicker set of forces speeding into his line of sight. His wherewithal still firmly intact, Lincoln narrowly dodges the double-attempt on his life with a flurry of evasive shifts, the forces opposing him zipping by with as little warning as they’d arrived with.

“It took you longer than I’d expected” Lincoln barks, his voice carried through the air with grace, though spoken to Scarlett and Vic with a withered tone. Uninterested in sharing words any further than they already had, the girls ready themselves for a counterattack, dodging the wave of Lincoln’s hand by arching themselves at a precise angle, thwarting Lincoln’s assault with the principle of aerodynamics.

The first to restabilise herself, Vic parts her fingers just as Lincoln had, the wave of her palm met with a similar lack of success. Crossing his arms, Lincoln allows the sonic blast to carry him many kilometres away, no aircraft or building to obstruct his propulsion, allowing him to slowly recapture control over his flight.

Correctly assuming her attempt had faltered, Vic rips through the air in pursuit, leaving Scarlett to follow behind. Attempting to propel herself forward, Scarlett feels the grasp of an unfamiliar hand wrap around her wrist, not only preventing her from giving chase, but catapulting her back into the rubble-coated ground below. Her body spinning uncontrollably, Scarlett’s instincts eventually assume control, her eyes setting upon a specific destination as her frame adjusts for the plummet.

In the last moment, Scarlett’s return to earth is corrected, her fist slamming into the already-fractured asphalt as she assumes a three-point pose, positioning herself just as any superhero would. Paying little mind to the aftershock she’d sent tearing through the earth’s core, Scarlett’s attention takes to the sky, a single figure becoming all the more familiar as she draws nearer, flanked by her mercenaries for added effect.

“Step out of my way, Suzie” Scarlett orders, keeping her guard high at the uncertainty over the woman’s presence, “we want Lincoln dead just like you.” Her head shaking, Suzie touches upon the closest thing to solid ground Praireville can offer, Razul and Kazro led at her beck and call. “Were you not up there just a second ago? Did you not see him?” Suzie inquires, summoning her bright red service dagger with her heart set on war, “his clock’s just about to strike midnight.”

Incensed, Scarlett takes a quick glance at the sky before returning her look toward Suzie, almost contemplating which conflict her fight is most needed. “So now you’ve got no worries. We’ve already outlasted the clock” Scarlett mutters beneath her breath, Suzie’s ear still able to capture every syllable uttered, “now you just need us dead.”

With a shrug, Suzie raises her dagger toward Scarlett’s direction, the tip of her blade lining up directly with the blonde woman’s throat. “It’s nothing personal, kid-” Suzie replies, though her statement is true, an inescapable sense of mockery cloaks itself behind her declaration, “-don’t make this harder than it has to be.”

Her eyes burning a hole through Suzie’s face, Scarlett peers into the sky for a second time, her mind trying to make sense of the predicament she’s encased within, and rationalise her response. “Vic can manage on her own” Scarlett replies, her hand lifting from the ground as she stands to her feet, the woman having returned to Praireville prepared for a war she now accepts the role she plays within it.

Summoning her service weapon, Scarlett stares into Suzie’s eyes, refusing to allow the woman even the slightest opportunity to capitalise upon. Rather than disgust or approval, Suzie’s eyes widen in surprise, her face going pale as she steps back, rocked by what she discovers. “Impossible” Suzie whispers, the emphasis in her voice having fallen just as her battle-tested expression does.

Confused, Scarlett watches Suzie’s dagger lower toward the ground, only able to guide herself by following her line of sight toward the source of her awestruck reaction. Her head lowering, Scarlett’s eyes lay upon the same unearthing as Suzie’s had, a similar reaction befalling her to that of her rival’s.

Summoned just as it had countless times before, its structure as unchanged as its shape, Scarlett’s service weapon emerges from the realm beyond with a new look, its bold, dark red glow exchanged for a crisp, deep, oceanic blue. Simmering, Suzie locks eyes with Scarlett for a second time, her face beaten with an anger she’d yet to present. “Alright-” Suzie murmurs, readying her battle stance yet again, this time more driven than she’d been before, “-now it’s personal.”

|

\ Realm of Reality /

Her hand wrapped around his throat, Vic and Lincoln twirl through the air with seemingly little end in sight, the younger woman shifting backward to evade the service dagger’s repeated swipes. Eventually forced to pull her hand away as the pulsating blade targets her arm, Vic and Lincoln momentarily separate, continuing to chase each other through the skies, now too far from the levelled Praireville skyline that they no longer recognise the air they occupy.

Finally given a reprieve from combat, Lincoln takes immediate notice of Scarlett’s absence, something Vic takes an additional few seconds to realise for herself. “Where’s you friend, Victoria?” Lincoln exclaims, the whites of his eyes laggardly darkening into a sickly shade of yellow. “Where’s your sister, Christopher?” Vic rebukes, a question that instantly detours Lincoln’s attention.

“Wh- how-?” Lincoln stammers, the vocalisation of his birth name clearly catching him by immense surprise, “how do you-?” The ability to finish his inquiry unafforded, Vic continues to wrench at the parts of Lincoln’s mind that make him tick, plunging the metaphorical blade further into his heart.

“Why change your name, anyway?” Vic wonders aloud, pulling the trigger on her service weapon a few further times, each resounding charge she fires missing just as they have through the evenings entirety. “As if I’d tell you that?” Lincoln responds, scoffing at the woman’s qualm as he shields himself from a few extra discharged bolts from Vic’s service weapon, his dagger reflecting the charges further out into the deep sky, “it’s none of your concern to know.”

Annoyed, Vic floats restlessly in nondescript Louisiana’s empty skies, the sounds of sirens and helicopters that had grown so distant recently now impossible to hear from so far away. “Don’t you wanna share your secrets?” Vic continues, their hostilities still held even though their clash now stalls, verbal warfare slowly becoming the preferred method of assault.

“Secrets are the only things that are ever personal anymore. That’s the whole point- they’re ours” Lincoln responds, his face beginning to sag, “you take them with you when you die. They’re yours ‘till the end- and they stay that way.” Scowling at the man, Vic chooses to refute the need for bloodshed Lincoln has waged, relinquishing herself of her service weapon as she, knowingly, accepts her self-appointed position of vulnerability.

“Is that what you want?” Vic wonders aloud, her peaceful display puzzling her violent foe, who remains suspended high above the sky, choosing to occupy the second side of the discussion. “Do you really wanna die- having done everything you’ve done, and seen everything you’ve done- do you really want it to just disappear?” Vic queries, watching Lincoln’s face fall lower, not from any changed emotions, but from a genuine focus on the woman’s inquiry.

“I don’t care what I want” Lincoln responds, struggling to take in a full lung’s worth of air as he lifts the back of his shirt, the majority of it stained red with his blood. “I’m going to die regardless, secrets or no secrets- what difference would it make?” Lincoln responds, admitting that he has no expectation of survival by the night’s conclusion, “I’ll be a lost soul just as the rest are.”

“And that doesn’t bother you?” Vic responds, the question remaining despite being raised as if it were a statement, a subtle look of repulsion in her face. “It doesn’t bother me anymore than it should bother you” Lincoln replies, the colour in his service dagger beginning to fade just as his life does, “you and I are cut from the same cloth.”

Her eyes pressing closer together, Vic remains silent, her quietude prompting Lincoln to continue speaking, taking it as her request for elaboration. “Haven’t you ever wondered why all of your shit is coloured blue, and Scarlett’s is red?” Lincoln wonders aloud, the query always having settled at the back of Vic’s mind, though never having surfaced as anything more than a random thought, “you’re the same as my sister and I. We’re born into the realm pure, and they’re born corrupted.”

Both restrained by the need to know more and furious at Lincoln’s inclination, Vic resummons her service weapon, prepared to re engage in battle. “You can try to kill me, that’s fine. It won’t change the fact that- the real war, how this game really ends- is between you and Scarlett” Lincoln posits, a limp nod granted as the far racket of aircraft creep closer.

“If you really want me to share a secret before I go- here it is-” Lincoln remarks, still able to muster enough strength to reclaim his malevolent grin, “-I never thought Suzie would kill me, either.” Pushed beyond the desire to speak, Vic presses her finger upon her service weapon’s trigger, a steady flow of pulses discharged in Lincoln’s direction, all missing their target as the man speeds through the skies, retreating to the small, annihilated town they’d left behind.

|

\ Realm of Reality /

Forced into a consistent withdrawal, Scarlett gives up copious amounts of land to Suzie, each centimetre she’s forced to pull away by is another centimetre her adversary forges ahead by. Leaping off the tops of ruined vehicles and around the corpses of many unfortunate folk, Scarlett evades Suzie’s onslaught one manoeuvre at a time, each brief success followed by the need to avoid a succeeding attack from either Razul or Kazro.

“You don’t get redemption!” Suzie howls, thrusting her dagger-wielding hand forward at each sign of life Scarlett provides, slashing whatever lays ahead into multiple pieces and fragments. Driven into choosing her moments carefully, Scarlett presents a few, sparse counterattacks in Suzie’s direction, most proving ineffective as time passes.

“Alright, kid- let’s see how you like this” Suzie exclaims, the fingers on her right hand bending forward until her palm resembles a claw, the tips of her fingers held in Scarlett’s direction. Puckering her lips, Suzie blows on the empty hand and launches it forward, her massive combatant accomplices quickly snapping themselves back into the realm beyond’s embrace.

Though what flies toward her direction takes on no appearance whatsoever, a brief, red flash of light begins to blink from the perceived emptiness, leaving Scarlett with little more than impulse to act on. The mangled husk of what was one a minivan now guided through the air by her hand, Scarlett braces for cover as the unassuming orb makes contact with the vehicle’s wreckage, cascading the immediate area in an explosion upon impact.

Her mind taking control of her movements, Scarlett’s fingers snap just as the heat touches upon the back of her neck, the spot she’d occupied before vanishing levelled by the minivan mere seconds later. The explosion soon subsiding, Praireville’s remains begin to quiet, the charred remnants of what once comprised a minivan beginning to settle into its resting place, no sign of Scarlett’s body left before it.

Though not convinced her objective has been accomplished, Suzie approaches the scene with cautious optimism, slowly encroaching upon Scarlett’s last-known position with her eyes peeled. Dagger wielded, Suzie guides the van away from its journey’s end via her telekinesis, holding out hope that she’ll uncover a grizzly, welcomed sight.

“Let me save you the trouble” Scarlett whispers into Suzie’s ear, provoking the woman into spinning around defensively, her target yet to resurface. Catching Suzie’s eye off the ball, Scarlett reemerges behind the woman’s back, her finger on the trigger of her service weapon as its barrel aims at the back of Suzie’s head.

Prepared to pull the trigger, Scarlett’s efforts prove futile, her fatal intentions interfered with at the last moment. Saving his sister’s life, Lincoln soars through the air and thrusts his hand forward, thrusting Scarlett through the air with incredible forces once thought unimaginable. Again compelled by her intuition, Scarlett rescues herself from certain death by reclaiming control over her body, narrowly avoiding a direct collision with an overturned eighteen wheeler by taking to the sky.

Her ascent slowing, Scarlett relinquishes her service weapon once more, the hand she replaces it with now balled into a fist, its aim taken toward her point of lift off. Only just now realising the fate that almost claimed her existence, Suzie’s eyes fall upon Lincoln, the man’s face wearing the expression of a man on his last legs. “Heads up” Lincoln groans, aware of the assault Scarlett plans on launching next.

Jarred by Lincoln’s preservation of her life, Suzie looks to him with a shocked look, only then recognising what’s bound for the ground she currently resides upon. With all the strength he still wields, Lincoln launches himself into the sky, following his sister’s lead as Scarlett collides with earth once more, her three point stance accompanying it as Lincoln and Suzie descend from the heavens.

His legs going weak, Lincoln falls to one knee, the sight of his fragility prompting Suzie and Scarlett’s battle to briefly cease, their attention set upon the dying soul. “What!?” Lincoln groans as loud as he can muster, forcing himself back to two feet as a pair of headlights round the corner a few hundred metres behind him, “haven’t you ever heard of a man’s dying breath?”

Interrupted by the squealing sound of tires drawing near, Lincoln’s head turns toward the opposite end of the road, the oncoming pair of lights rapidly speeding in his direction. Having returned just in time to spectate the sudden lull in combat, Vic joins Suzie and Scarlett in returning to the realm beyond with the snap of their fingers, only Lincoln left upon the dishevelled streets.

“This is for the rookie” West mutters beneath his breath, both hands gripping tightly around the steering wheel as his foot presses into the gas pedal, refusing to accept anything less than the highest speed his cruiser can manage. His time drawing to a close, Lincoln defies the realm one final time, his mangled left hand outstretched toward the car as the right prepares for his send off.

His timing impeccable, Lincoln’s fingers snap just as the skin on his finger connects with the hood of West’s cruiser, vanishing into thin air along with the sheriff and the vehicle his existence is sentenced to death with.

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\ Realm Beyond - Eternal Office - The Mezzanine /

Landing without issue, Suzie hears the bottoms of Scarlett and Vic’s shoes collide with the ground, tapping along the linoleum finish as they struggle to keep their balance. “There’s no way you’re still this clueless by now, guys” Suzie remarks, quietly judging the girls as she reunites with her brutes, Razul and Kazro returning to her sides.

“That’s pretty tough talk for-” Scarlett begins to reply, her thoughts interrupted as a gust of wind begins to circulate throughout the towering foyer, a rumble growing in the realm’s heavens. Within moments, the roaring sound of a powerful engine rips through the mezzanine, unable to stop its momentum before barrelling over the floor’s lip and into the dark, lifeless abyss below.

“What the fuck!?” Vic exclaims, leaping back in shock as she does so seconds before Lincoln’s body leaves the air, landing hard upon the mezzanine’s ground. “Chris!” Suzie screams, overtaken with grief in a moment powerful enough for her to forget their chequered past, the incomparable hatred she holds for him instantly disappearing as the true care the likes of which she’d hidden deep within herself long ago, returns to the surface.

No longer Lincoln’s greatest rival, Suzie becomes her brother’s baby sister once more, the bond they’d allowed to fall into disrepair rekindled just as the clock begins to strike midnight. Lincoln’s head in her hands, Suzie looks into the man’s dark, yellow eyes as tears begin to fall from those of her own, his devious grin replaced with a sympathetic, gracious smile.

“Hey, sis” Lincoln whispers, his barely-operable hand finding the back of Suzie’s own, the blue glow in his eyes turning their own shade of inevitable red, “it’s good to see you.”

His palm already cold, Lincoln’s hand falls limp, slowly grazing Suzie’s hand as it falls to the ground, his glassy eyes losing their lustre as the red glow dies out, their natural, hazel colour replacing it. The first tear she’d allowed to run for her brother now falling upon Lincoln’s forehead as it drops from her chin, Suzie’s lip begins to quiver, her brother’s final moments spent protecting her just as his first had.

Quiet, Scarlett and Vic watch on, a suppressed concern just beginning to climb toward the surface, the idea that the sights set before them offer a glimpse into a collective future begin to weigh upon their frazzled minds. Their heads slowly turning away from the disheartening scene, Scarlett and Vic’s eyes soon take to each other, a silent realisation that they share a fear of the future brings with it a steady chill down the back of their necks.

== Dream Sequence ==