Participants:
| Scene Title | ¿ƃƃƎ ǝɥʇ ɹo uǝʞɔᴉɥƆ |
|---|---|
| Synopsis | ¿ʇsɹᴉɟ ǝɯɐɔ ɥɔᴉɥM |
| Date | June 12, 2021 |
I feel
Six missiles rise from corn-field silos, streaking fire and smoke into the night sky.
I am
A young man vaults a concrete barricade, smashing a police officer in the face with a stone fist.
Nothing
A black sphere the size of several city blocks rises high over farmland and forests.
Inside of me
A slowly spinning globe in a college office is marked with gold leaf fracture lines.
I am, I am
Empty, Empty
On a windswept desert plain, a man with a mechanical arm lays on his stomach across a rocky overlook. He takes off his sunglasses, squinting blue eyes against the glare of the sun as he trains his sights down the scope of a sniper rifle. Through the scope, Adam Monroe—no, Uluru—clutching Richard Ray by the throat and holding him off of his feet. Richard’s legs kick in the air. The sniper trains his crosshairs on Adam’s chest, breathes in deeply, exhales, and
I feel
I am
Nothing
Inside of me
Richard Ray staggers out of the burning wreckage of a crashed helicopter, collecting himself from swirling pools of shadow. The darkness stretches to form down from one hand into the length of a gleaming sword—the Kensei sword—radiating a seething auroral light from its blade. Uluru, eyes afire, turns in the open stretch of desert and looks at Richard, lips crooking into a smile. Overhead, the sky has torn open into a yawning abyss of infinite darkness surrounded by daylight and clouds.
I am, I am
Empty, empty
Taking a knee in the dirt, a blonde soldier with red sunglasses braces a Barrett .50 caliber sniper rifle against his chest, resting the butt on the sandy rock below. He pops out the currently loaded magazine and drops it into the sand, then produces another from a pouch at his chest. Checking the rounds, he sees them chromatic and gleaming, faint auroral wisps of light coming off the rounds. He slaps the magazine into the rifle.
I reached up to the dying sun
Touched the bare moon with my thumb
Uluru winces, reaching up to touch a bleeding wound in his shoulder. Bone is visible through the fabric of his suit. He snorts, then looks down to the bloody, kris-bladed knife in the sand. Wisps of auroral light swirl around the blade, which he kicks aside with a flinch. But the approaching noise of a helicopter’s rotors catches his attention, and Uluru slowly turns to see a quad-rotor aircraft on a direct approach. He raises his hand, spreading his fingers, and then squeezes them shut. The helicopter is crushed like a tin can in mid air, then, explodes.
Mother, Mother, Daughter, Son
I burned my eyes out
Staring at them
As one
A dark-haired man with an eyepatch stands in front of a shimmering orb of darkness with a flickering blue light at its center. The orb is surrounded by pylons with vibrating, hexagonal plates that face the sphere. Electricity arcs from the pylons to the sphere and back again. He directs two fingers toward a scientist in a head-to-toe clean suit who flips a switch, and the vibration increases intensely. The sphere, struggles and surges, then collapses to a smaller size. The man with the eyepatch smiles. Progress.
I feel
I am
Nothing
Inside of me
A blonde man with red sunglasses smokes a cigarette in a fully-stocked armory lined with assault rifles and ammunition. He follows behind a dark-haired man with an eyepatch, walking out of the armory and into a workshop lined with benches, lengths of metal, tongs, and a huge gas-powered forge. There is a gray-haired man waiting for them near. He approaches and opens one hand, revealing a brass-jacketed .50 caliber round of ammunition made from a gleaming, chrome-like metal.
I am, I am
Empty, Empty
Samson Gray is strung up by chains in a room filled with a variety of mirrors. He breathes out blood through broken teeth, staring up at a dark-haired man with an eyepatch who presses the barrel of a gun to the older man’s forehead. The chains are dark, almost like hematite, cold, terrifying. Samson spits blood up at his captor. His captor shoots him square in the forehead. There is silence. Blood slowly starts to trickle backwards into the wound. The man in the eyepatch smiles. He could do this all day.
I feel
I am
Nothing
Inside of me
February Lancaster’s naked body is pale from exsanguination. A Y-shaped cut has been made across her chest. A man in a blood-stained apron forces open her ribs with a spreader. He pauses to brush an errant lock of coppery hair from her face. In an adjacent room with a view to the surgery theater, a dark-haired man with an eyepatch looks on intently.
I am, I am
Empty, empty
Richard Ray sits with his head in his hands, covered in ash and dust that clings bright in his hair and dark clothes. Lockers at his back are pale green in color, the floor a checkered mosaic of gray and white tiles. Faded banners of the Seattle Seahawks hang overhead. When a man with dark hair and an eyepatch enters the room Richard looks up through the dark lenses of his sunglasses. He holds out a USB thumb drive. The man with the eyepatch smiles.
Fight, flight from the dark sky
I breed memories trapped inside
Alone in this world
That you destroyed
The sky is clear, cloudless and dim, a twilight or dusk that can't be determined. The horizon is cast a brilliant shade of pink and purple, and more stars than seem possible shine overhead like a carpet of diamonds strewn across a colorful tapestry.
I am the Dragon
I never died
But it isn't dawn, or dusk, or any twilight hour she's ever experienced. The sun hangs like a dead stone overhead, jet black and ringed with brilliant gold in a fiery eclipse. Around the sun shift curtains of light more beautiful than the stars, shimmering and ephemeral waves of green that fade to blue, like the hem of a goddess' dress extending down from the firmament.
I feel
I am
Nothing
Inside of me
A child stands atop a grassy hill below the sun, no more than two years old and as naked as the day they were born, cast in a shroud of innocence in ways only children can be. The child raises a tanned arm over their head, fingers splayed, and the wind changes to swirl their dark hair about. They stare up into the eclipse, tears streaming down their cheeks.
I am, I am
Empty, Empty
Then, a golden light rises around the child's body like a cloud of luminescent gold filaments cast into the air. The child's skin sheds warm light, and their irises glow with brilliant gold, as though they were mirroring the eclipse.
I feel
I am
Nothing
Inside of me
Lips parted, the child smiles.
I am, I am
Empty, Empty
The sun explodes with light, coruscating bands of energy the color of fire wash across the darkness of the sky, turn to seething waves of blue and green, and the heavens are set ablaze.
I reached up to the dying sun
Touched the bare moon with my thumb
A voice, as if calling from deep inside a cave, echoes in the child’s mind.
Mother, Mother, Daughter, Son
I returned from a dark time
Soon we will all
"Gutes-asi"
Become
A single, simple word: unite.
I feel
“Ninbanda!”
I am
The child turns toward the shout, gold eyes burning bright as they turn to face a woman dressed in turquoise and gold, crimson and lavender. The child’s mother calls out their name again, “Ninbanda!” Beckoning them back toward the small mud-brick house with its clay tiled roof.
Nothing
A child’s innocent laughter spills into the air, and they turn to run toward their mother, who looks up at the eclipse with tension in her brows.
Inside of me
And the blind eyes of a seer.
I am, I am
The seer tilts her head to the side, brows furrowed, and begins humming something to herself.
Empty, Empty
Her lips part, forming words she hears but does not understand.
I feel
“Singing my life… with his words.”
I am
Six missiles rise from corn-field silos, streaking fire and smoke into the night sky.
Nothing
A young man vaults a concrete barricade, smashing a police officer in the face with a stone fist.
Inside of me
A black sphere the size of several city blocks rises high over farmland and forests.
I am, I am
A slowly spinning globe in a college office is marked with gold leaf fracture lines.
Dragon
The globe explodes.
Dragon