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“Living Sky” / Draft 1.0
Written by Paul Circharo
Genre: Fantasy, Supernatural, Horror

Cover Art: Living Sky Cover Art Animation Draft

(Opening Scene/Concept) – “Insomniac Olympics”

You are in your apartment, it’s 10:20 pm. So you play some music, you read bullshit, play video games, staying up through the night. Getting tired around 5-5:30 am so you decide to lie down on the couch to relax while watching television, it is still dark outside. You doze for maybe 10-15 minutes and in that time you have a very disturbing dream. The sun is just starting to rise..

<Dream Sequence>

In this dream your eyes open slowly and out of focus. Feels like they have been pressed shut for as long as you’ve been alive. Then suddenly, alert, as if you had fallen asleep on guard duty, you snap your wet posture into a halfway standing position. Once you are there you accept your first hundred breathes in this new landscape. It hurts here. As you inhale, at first your eyes gently refill themselves with air before the rest of your body has a chance. “Guess they needed it”, you say out loud, to no one. You look around for approval but your dog Dutch isnt there to give you any. Now with your vision returning, you notice a herd of wild animals running together, off in the distance. Horses or antelope maybe, you’re not sure, but they ARE running towards you, still very far away. The back drop is a flat desert of endless black, white, and orange dirt, with little greenery in view. The only notable vegetation nearby is a large ficus tree standing about 20 feet behind you. The tree is large, with winding interwoven branches, reaching outwards towards bunches of bright green leaves that are quenched to the point almost bursting with fresh water. A landmark or anchor at the center an ocean that been siphoned inward and rung taut by the land itself. A living Lighthouse that is beaming with abundance. The branches themselves are thick from years of braiding overgrowth. The weight of the ficus’ luscious leaves force its bearing branches to bow down toward the ground. This minir submission to gravity has created a blanket of clean, healthy debris at the base of the tree. Small puddles of water have collected giving off the reflection of sun and sky. You think to yourself for a moment, “I would love to climb that tree. I could survive in there if at had to, easy to climb, easy to hide.” As now you are observing see this tree and its immediate area as a whole, the ficus develops almost a Godly aura surrounding it, nothing but true blue skies behind that…

As you turn back around your eyes widen. Now you can make out what was out focus a few moments ago. There is pack of very charged up, and very fucking beefy adult zebras barreling towards you, they are still off a ways, but holy mothaf**k! You stare hard at them……they are draped in thick shadow below a shadeless darkness, as they are getting closer, and more within sight range, you can make out each silhouette individually, clearer and more sharply, still featureless, too far…You begin to hear them now as well, and that’s when you know, without a having single doubt, that there is a seriously intimidating anount of natural power and force headed your way, in your mind you think at scale to a crushing rogue wave, or of a hairy moment just before a mile wide tornado swallows your childhood view out the window. As you are relating these imaginings to what’s occuring, the camera spares you a moment to become fully immersed in what’s plowing ahead, really allowing this new reality to sink in…like something completely unsympathetic to you as a feeling and sensitive person is directly saying, “Fuck you. FUCK YOU!”

<The camera zooms in and pans across the front line of the stampede in slowish motion, right to left you observe, learn quietly, giving you chest up portraits of each zebra’s face and stature, though none look identical as you would expect, each is displaying their own distinct characteristics, personalities, past histories, differences in opinion, but by a sickening shared expression, ALL are convincingly unified behind one purpose. We don’t know, or want to know what that purpose is. But we may not have a choice…Lastly the camera zooms out again, and up slightly, with the entire front line of warrior zebra (lol) in frame, though the camera is not zoomed out all the way, yes they have covered some ground during the slo-mo panorama profile, weve accounted for this, but the camera is still zoomed in slightly. Remember, these zebras are under an umbrella of thick shadow.>

The camera IS your eyes at distance, and you notice above them there is something else to be aware of, something enormous beyond anything you can compare to. It is flying above the ferocious charge in pure darkness, and calm, seemingly while leading them into war, but this giant doesn’t seem natural to you, the way it moves is as if, it does not move, but it IS getting bigger, and it IS getting closer…
What you could call a “Living Sky” is flying above the herd in rolling darkness from the horizon upward <a deep growling, almost hissing whisper begins to emerge from the cloud, shot directly into your mind using your eyes as funneled little doorways> You swear that you CAN see the sun rising slowly behind the stampede.
<your anxiety is building>
But not even the gravity of the sun, can illuminate the crushing void this energy is effoetlessly dragging with it. It has created a pocket of nothingness in this world, and the effects have trickled down onto, and into, a shadow that seems to fuel the beasts, like a self-sustaining parasite. “Nothing can stop nothing can stop nothing can stop nothing can…” you can’t get the words out fast enough. Again and again…”Nothing can stop nothing can stop nothing can stop nothing can…”
And while they all come rushing forward, like a cannonball riding hot gunpowder at speed, “The Nothing” keeps the (perceivably intelligent) zebras in wet blinders, still having their minds about them, but only ever seeing what’s ahead, enraged by a whisper…of sorts.

Now in a disorganized panic, you reach back for the safe haven snapshot in your mind of the ficus tree. “It’s not right behind you…remember?” You knew that. And you think, GO!!!

Our audience is left with the feeling that you have either fucked yourself completely by not retreating sooner, or, perhaps you can juuust make it in time of youre lucky. But there is also still the question of, will it even matter? It’s just a tree afterall, surely nothing in comparisom to the sun, or a storm…So far the odds are not in our favor.

<End Dream>

Your dog wakes you up…

<Loyal Ridgeback, named Dutchess, or Dutch for short, well-built female, sweet but also very leary of strangers upon first meeting, good instincts and physical ability>

She shimmies for a pat on the head and scratch on the butt, then signals toward the backdoor to pee. Maybe even shit if you’re lucky. So on 10 minutes of sleep you agree and let her out, few secs go by, <youre tired> you yell out, “Hey have a shit too while you’re out there huh?” Dog looks back, realizes it’s not important, continues sniffing around. You halfway yell in a defeated manner, “You’re a good girl.” Then you laugh under your breathe at your juvenile sense of humor, having entertained yourself for a moment of sleepless delirium. As you are chuckling, you tip your head down to keep the sun from blinding your tired eyes, you recall the weight of the dream you just had, experienced, lived through, and in such a short time too, you try to reassure yourself, “None of that meant anything, it makes no sense pertaining to you…we are fine, we are awake, we are alive today.”

You rest against the wall by the doorframe holding yourself, with that introspective coloring for a moment. A few lulled minutes go by, and Dutchess comes back to the screen door, shes looks happy enough to be back. You bring yourself back. “In you go, you’re hungry now too I expect. Ok alright.” As you close the screen and main door behind her the camera catches a glimpse of the clear blue sky, nothing there, just some small clouds spaciously painted in, and as the door shuts we hear the fairly common sound of a commercial airplane flying over head somewhere in earshot, the door shuts completely, but the faint sounds of our nearby flight are still sneaking in and around the door handle, as our shelter eats up the rapidly thinning natural light, there is one last shot of popping air that hurries in as the wooden door locks in place, it carries in with it a dry whisper, it says something specific to us, to our future, but we don’t hear it, we can’t hear anything…and then it just stops, a moment before the door handle is pulled in sealing the exit… whereas every other sound from outside had muted themselves after the door shut.

As you lie back down on the couch, you reach out to pet the dog, dragging your hand across her Ridgeback as she walks past you to climb up on the couch by your feet, she’s not small either, almost nearing 100 pounds. You say, “You have a good piss?” She looks at you “almost” worried for a split sec that you don’t want her to be on the couch. As she’s climbing up you say, “That’s nice, good. Who’s my good girl Dutch?” Wasnt gonna stop her anyway, she pulls herself up the rest of the way, positioned in a croissant knot opposite your frazzled hair, taking up the final square, one 4th of your lengthy hand me down couch. You see that she’s resting, youbfeel secure, tired, and lazily pull the sheets up to your shoulders. It’s about 7:15 am. I’m awake…

<End Scene>

(Scene #2) – “What Is It Girl?”

<Late afternoon, same day. Scene starts off with you at work at a local restaurant, as a younger cook on the line. Though not senior, you seem to be good at what you do and are well liked and respected by the other cooks, helpers, and wait staff. The owners comes to you when they need something, rather than the head chef. You do what they ask and though it may irritate the chef slightly, you always treat him with the utmost respect and follow his instructions without argument.>

<This scene will introduce some new characters into the film, providing some context as to who our main protagonist is,
and what the local area and people are like, and though well liked, why does our guy live alone, in a fairly secluded part of town.>

You will have a similar night of making some bumpin house music, watching your off brand 65″ TV, ditzing around on your phone, and overall lounging about without purpose. You fall back asleep, but this time you don’t dream at all, you sleep well, but still only for about 2 hours. Then suddenly you wake up, Wide awake, to your dog…right up in your fucking face. And…her expression is horrifying at first, not aggressive, but almost, like she is dead inside…you pop up on your butt and ask her if she has to pee, she doesnt respond to question, but she heard you. You are confused as to what’s wrong. So you look around the room, everything looks the same, TV is on, dimly lit, sounds the same, etc…then when you turn back around, the dog is already standing over by the door, 10-15 feet away from you, as if she teleported there with out making a sound or even moving a muscle. It seems really weird. Shes has been looking back at you this whole time, just waiting for you to let her out like the day before, except this time there is no excitement or youthful curiosity driving her to relieve herself and see what is out there, and very strangly the back door is already open, screen door still closed, and the sun is shining in on her there standing still. She looks ahead now out the door, knowing you are about to get up and let her out, as per usual. And you do just that, but you feel a sense of eerieness and vulnerability at your heels, which instinctually causes you to check back over your shoulder midway from the couch to the door, <senses are a bit heightened at this moment> but you definitely don’t see a figure large enough to warrant full blown panic, at least at a quick glance, and especially after just waking up. As you approach the dog you ask another unacknowledged question. What is it girl? What is wrong with you? What is wrong?

<to be continued…