Kay walks through the middle of an open rocky desert. He carries with him a backpack from the supplies he woke with. All around him lay clouds of steam rising up from only a dozen or so meters from him. Although his environment is not very visible he can see the Gates city he longingly approaches. He then looks down at the watch that remain on his wrist. Initially peering under his wrist at the clasp then turning it over to reveal the time on the watch. It ticks from ‘86:11’ to ‘86:10’. We cut back to Kay continuing to walk in his broad landscape. He approaches something before him in the distance. Getting closer he realises that it is a very old broken down car. Having never seen a car like this before the sight intrigues him as he approaches the rear end. He places his hands up against the base of the broken window and looks in to see if anything obvious may interest his curiosity. Nothing. He attempts to open the front passenger door but lets go in a struggle as the door does not budge. He tries again with both hands yanking the handle. The door cracks open swinging back as Kay falls onto his behind. As he gets up the camera pans back to reveal something standing watching him in the distance. A short amount of time passes. Kay sits on the ground by the rear end of the car leaning against one of the tyres. He has before him an old toolbox which we presume he must have found from the boot of the car as it is wide open. He plays with multiple tools pushing and picking away at the watch on his wrist. Viciously attempting to pry or break the watch off but he has no luck. With a sigh of exasperation he throws the tools to the side and leans back, banging his head in frustration against the rusted metal. His head now lies on an angle that light sharply reflects over one of his eyes. He looks over to his right directly into the left revision mirror where the sun light reflects from. He sees the handle of the car’s glove box and the key hole beside it. We cut to Kay fiddling with the same tools upon this key hole. He then takes a screwdriver and slams it hard into the slot which drops the glove box down in a heavy thump. He pushes his hand through the thick pile of pointless objects seeking for anything that may be useful. He suddenly stops and pauses holding up one of the objects from the collective. It is an old mp3 player with thin wire headphones plugged in. He gets up from his huddled state and sits upright in the passenger seat. Kay slides his thumb across the player’s screen to reveal its dark ‘off’ state. He then twists and turns the device looking around it before seeing a small button along it’s right hand side. He places the same thumb on the button and gives it a strong solid push. Nothing happens at first as Kay’s eyes switch back to the focus of the screen. White. The screen lights up. Kay’s eyes widen with amazement as he lets out a brief sigh. The screen turns from a bright white to a drop down menu. Kay places his thumb over the buttons below the player and pushes them at random. The screen moves through different menus before music starts playing out of the headphones. This startles Kay at first as you can see he doesn’t quite understand or know what this device is. But now he is starting to understand. He slowly raises the headphones to his ears and places them firmly. He seems absolutely mesmerised as a song begins to play. He looks down to see the cover and title of the song on screen ‘Daylight/Moonlight - The Red Pears’. As the intro of the song transitions to it’s first verse and the beat kicks in, we cut the scene.
Throughout the song for the next 50 seconds we illustrate Kay’s time lapsed walking adventure through multiple apocalyptic locations. We see him from afar walking toward the Gates and we see him up close with the headset still over his ears. As we time-lapse the daylight slowly turns to moonlight.
As the end of the song fades out Kay finally arrives at the base of the Gates, he reaches up to his headphones and takes them off. He stands a few feet from the very bottom. An enormous reflective marble pillar pierces through the sky to the very edge of sight. Rain trickles down it as Kay admires his perfect mirrored reflection. Suddenly a water-base blood-like fluid begins to trickle down the pillar sinking into the ground at Kay’s feet. Becoming confused he is abruptly interrupted by the sounds of scuffling from his behind. He sharply turns looking very concerned and confused as to whether he heard anything at all. He hears it again from his left and turns to look.
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”Hey! Who’s there?”
The sounds of movement and dirt shifting get louder as whatever it is approaches Kay. Thump. A small animal jumps onto a rock right before Kay. He takes a few steps back and lightly screams. You can see the amazement in his eyes and feel the shaking of his breath.
”Wh- I- Im-possible.”
The small animal licks its paws and cleans its face before looking up at Kay. He takes a few steps forward toward the animal observing its very movement and reality. There is then another voice from behind him.
”Kay?”
Kay slowly turns around keeping his amazed expression. He sees a young girl emerge from the fog before him. He smiles.
”Ely?!”
The two run and embrace each other in a deep hug. They both then let go and hold eye contact. Tears well up in all eyes.
Ely and Kay sit under the rooftop of a broken building. The wall of the building is wide open allowing the moonlight to illuminate their surroundings. The small animal hops around in the rain. Ely giggles as it happily lands in a puddle. Kay looks over at her smiling happy that he has reunited with his sister. He notices something glisten within Ely’s eyes as she remain focused on the small animal. A Moon has been implanted. Kay starts the conversation.
”What’s the last thing that you remember?”
Ely brings her focus from the small animal back to Kay and shortly pauses.
”Dad.”
Kay lets out a brief sigh and looks down at the ground.
”Me too.”
Ely looks back over at the small animal and begins giggling again as it does stupid animal things. Kay lightens the conversation with the next topic.
”You given him a name yet?”
”Lucky.”
”Ha, Lucky? Well. That’s fitting, I didn’t think animals could survive down here... I guess things are slowly changing.”
Lucky makes a few animal noises and hops inside the building out of the rain. Ely starts a new topic.
”But the food.”
”Yea... We’re gonna have to hold out for a few more days alright?”
Ely jolts her head up and looks at Kay concerned.
”We’re going back up right? We can’t stay down here.” raised voice
”Ely, the only thing Dad ever wanted was for us to leave that place. And here we are. We’re out.” passively
”But we can still go back. Maybe live in the Anyth? Someone has to look after us.”
The conversation starts to get sad again.
”No Ely. I will look after us. Look. That mountain that Dad wanted to take us? The happy place? It isn’t far. Maybe 3 days at most if we start first thing in the morning.”
Ely looks down at the ground beginning to cry by the thought of her Dad.
”He wasn’t meant to die. He was gonna- We were supposed to leave together.”
Kay leans across and touches Ely’s shoulder with his right hand.
”And we still will. We can make it Ely. We’re gonna be fine.”
Ely looks up at Kay and then across at his arm that lay on her shoulder. She sees on his wrist the Red watch. Kay takes his hand off her shoulder and looks down at the device.
”What is-”
”I don’t know. When I woke up it was there and. It just, flew onto my arm. Now it won’t come off.”
Kay pries at it with his fingers attempting once more to remove it.
”What does that mean?”
Ely reaches across and touches the watch’s display. ‘74:54’
”It’s a countdown. On the left it displays hours, on the right, minutes.”
A minute ticks down as the veins around Kay’s wrist pulse. ‘74:53’
”A countdown for what?”
Kay looks up at Ely in disbelief. He silently shrugs and smiles as confused as she is.