The Dark Sisters (2023) Movie Script
1
(eerie music)
(eerie music continues)
[Thief] It gleams every night,
crime scene tape, phosphorescent
in the dark woods.
It guards between human intellect
and the sentience of nature.
(eerie music continues)
(eerie music continues)
Consider your feelings for a
lone hawk soaring in the sky.
Now consider it mantling
over a little rabbit
and the squawk, squawk,
squawk of dying life.
The crime scene tape flaps
between these two images,
between the religious
feeling of the soaring hawk
and the frozen moment when
we see what's on its talons.
Consider the fern that covers
the surface of the water,
spreading to make a feast of the light
and everything below is held
in darkness, starving slow.
Between the survival of the fern
and the deaths of the
darkened plants and fish,
that is where we put a barrier
to mark evidence of a crime.
This tape we put up,
it's a strange legality,
a symbol of our
exclusively human concerns.
Cut through it.
Come into an extra-human reality.
(eerie music continues)
(creepy music)
(creepy music continues)
What's the first macabre
thing you remember?
I remember being a
kid, four, maybe five,
waking up to discover a streak
of dried blood on my pillow
and wondering, from my ears,
from my nose, from my eyes?
Blood from the eyes. That's rich.
Like a detail from one of your stories.
I don't remember that, you're
coming awake, bleeding.
Probably, it was a dream.
Crows attacking fairies,
tumbling bloody in the sky.
I used to to dream like that all the time.
So vivid there'd be
remnant outside my head,
a stain upon my pillow.
(eerie music)
(eerie music continues)
(eerie music continues)
(insects chirring)
(eerie music)
(eerie music continues)
(birds chirping)
I've been teaching my course
on the contemporary novel for years.
Then two years ago, I
started a night class
on romantic poetry, emphasis
on the metaphysical.
Coleridge, Baudelaire, Poe.
Are you still religious?
Not like we were before.
Of course not.
We should go in. It'll be dark soon.
You worried about snakes?
You are too. Don't lie.
There's some DVD's in
the cabin Horror movies.
- Any bad ones?
- We can hope. (chuckles)
(insects chirring)
(eerie music)
(eerie music continues)
(eerie music continues)
(insects chirring)
All horror movies are about
prying into private places
and the discoveries are like
long falls through the dark.
You have a story, your character Lizzie,
searching through a family
member's private things.
Yes, Lizzie.
She pays a secret visit to
her stepbrother's closet
and falls through a trap door.
The fall of Lizzie, is it far?
A long tumble through the dark.
Into a basement?
More like a realm beneath the house.
Oh, I like that.
There's a troll down there
and Lizzie's hurt her ankle from the fall.
She's defenseless, therefore prey.
The troll tells her
there are special laws.
If she obeys these laws,
her ankle will heal
and the puddle of blood
at her feet will rise
into a ladder, which rung over rung
she can climb all the
way up to the trap door.
What are the special laws?
The most special law
is this, no snooping,
but of course, the troll lays it out
in a biblically formal way.
"Thou shall not cast
eyes in unwelcome places.
Neither shall you open cabinetry
or peek through curtains."
That sort of thing.
But our Lizzie can't
resist a secret visit
to a closet or quick peek into cabinetry.
No, she can't.
I'm trying to imagine a mind
that rejoices in these stories.
I don't rejoice in them.
Do you all always write anonymously?
I really don't want the attention.
Not for this kind of work.
What does body horror mean?
Blood spray.
Do all your stories spray blood?
Like a car wash.
Is it ritualistic, for revenge?
These aren't literary stories.
The draw is mutilation.
You must know why that is,
otherwise you wouldn't
be so successful at it.
Mutilation is like a search.
It turns the characters
insides into outsides.
Hidden things now seen, roughly exposed.
The reader's desire
to see private parts.
And knowing that it's
not all right to want that.
An appealing sense of shame.
Like something from the
dark recesses of Puritanism.
Shame and rage.
A reliable business model.
(insects chirring)
(Lizzie screaming)
(boat engine rumbling)
(tense music)
(tense music continues)
(tense music continues)
(tense music continues)
(tense music continues)
(tense music continues)
(tense music continues)
Jorie, I called to you
to make sense of what happened.
You didn't answer.
[Jorie] It's taken me a long time.
I'm sorry, but now I have a plan.
A way for us to move past our troubles,
into a future tense of joy.
(soft dramatic music)
(soft dramatic music continues)
(insects chirring)
(crows cawing)
You bring me all the way
out here to a place that seems
prehistoric to tell me about future joy?
I'll reveal everything soon,
but first, let me catch up with you.
I didn't realize how much
I had ached to see you.
(soft dramatic music)
(crows cawing)
(eerie music)
(eerie music continues)
(soft dramatic music)
(soft dramatic music)
Not the intent of suicide.
An image of floating just
below the surface of the water.
Pale as stone, empty,
trailed by fish and birds.
No, the ideation of suicide.
To imagine the migraine of
consciousness over and done.
What can water really do?
[Kaidon] I remember a dark time.
We were children under pressure.
Sworn to stay quiet.
We disappeared all evidence
of the thing we did,
but the secret, the
secret hollowed us out.
(insects chirring)
Hey.
(insects chirring)
(truck door opens)
(blanket rustling)
(eerie music)
(eerie music continues)
(tapping)
(insects chirring)
We were sold.
Not sold.
Whatever ceremonial
name you wanna put to it,
we were sold.
And him that bought us is an old halfwit
in the mistaken light between
competence and desire.
An inheritance of goat-gnawed automobiles
he can't put to profit.
The light at the ceremony,
the light they say binds us to him,
it's a light of absence.
The light of isolation, our toil.
Binding light.
Bright light. Indentured light
Light upon sweat, light upon blood.
Light of a raw life.
The light of the belt around our necks.
Light decaying into light.
In the light of our
own darkness, receeding.
(eerie music)
(tense music)
(tense music continues)
(door creaking)
(door creaks and closes)
(tense music continues)
(bed creaking)
(tense music continues)
(tense music continues)
A fall on an ax will
create a specific wound.
We have to mimic that wound.
You said we'd hide the
body, hide it perfectly.
Anything hidden can
one day appear again.
We'll be ready no matter what.
Come on. Let's give it a try.
(Kaidon inhales)
No.
Slowly, to practice precision. Like this:
Chop, chop, chop.
[Both] Chop, chop, chop,
chop, chop, chop.
(horn honking)
(intense music)
Hey!
Drop my fucking bag!
Hey, you!
(horn blaring)
Oh!
No! (sighs)
Uh!
(foot thuds)
Must you?
(foot thudding)
(Thief laughing)
(tense music)
(Thief grunting)
Quit throwing rocks
at my head! God, y'all!
(laughs) Back the fuck off,
or I swear I'll kill your
husband and your daughter!
I'll slit both their throats to rags!
(tense music)
(insects chirring)
Remember, my knife knows
the way home, bitches.
(tense music continues)
(birds chirping)
Yes.
Oh, yes. Me too.
(door closes)
I miss you both.
I love you.
I will. Goodbye.
(Jorie sighs)
They're fine?
Yes, they're fine.
The odds of that crazy
girl coming back after we...
I know. (chuckles)
Does she even have the
sense to find her way
out of those woods is...
I know. I'm all good.
How much did you tell your husband?
(crows cawing)
Who robs a house looking like a wolf?
It's so odd.
(chuckles) What about
the person in the truck?
Clearly not very brave.
(both laugh)
Listen, I was thinking,
I think we should stay
and finish our vacation.
I don't think she'll be back.
What's wrong?
You mentioned an
event that would move us
past our troubles so that we can focus
on a future tense of joy.
(birds chirping)
(crows cawing)
You don't think I orchestrated
that break in, do you?
(insects chirring)
Maybe it's too late for us
to be normal with one another.
Don't say that.
I've waited for so long.
Let's try, please.
(vehicle approaching)
- Someone's here.
- The park rangers?
We hope.
(tense music)
(insects chirring)
We searched the woods
where she fled, but no luck.
She probably made her way to the fringe.
- The fringe?
- Yeah.
It's what we call a
little ad hoc community
between here and town.
Camp of young adults found
themselves outta place,
now living in the woods by choice.
- Are they violent?
- Not normally,
but sometimes there are drifters.
You're going to thoroughly
check this place out, yes?
Now that you have the description
of the one who attacked us.
I'm on my way there now
with the park rangers.
I just stopped by to
tell you that the woods
near your cabin are clear.
- You're not a park ranger?
- I'm a volunteer.
That's rich.
You look like a ranger out of
central casting. (chuckles)
I know these woods pretty well, I guess.
What do you do?
I'm a pastor at a
Congregationalist church in town.
No fooling?
No fooling.
I never would've figured that.
Well thanks. Maybe.
How is it that this fringe community
is tolerated by the parks department?
Not tolerated, exactly.
I sort of liaison between the two.
Do you have a card or something?
I don't mean to be impolite,
but if you're not a park ranger,
then we oughta have some record
of who we're speaking to about our case.
Case? We weren't robbed exactly.
But you clearly saw the knife.
I don't have a card. I'm sorry.
My name is Jack Weems.
I'm known around the lake.
It's easy to check up on me.
Parson Weems?
(Jorie laughs)
- Sorry.
- It's fine.
I've heard 'em all.
Believe me, "I cannot tell a lie."
Can we go with you to see the fringe?
Not a good idea, but I can circle back
after my look around if you want me to.
That'd be nice. Thank you.
(insects chirring)
(eerie music)
(eerie music continues)
(eerie music continues)
(insects chirring)
(fan whirring)
(tense music)
(tense music continues)
(tense music continues)
(insects chirring)
(tense music continues)
(eerie music)
(insects chirring)
(eerie music continues)
(eerie music continues)
(eerie music continues)
Priestly, prissy, Pastor Jack
Puts the girls of the
orphanage on their back
(intense music)
Mandibles of the sun
Will tear the world undone
Light on the horizon gleas with blood
Serpent sets its gaze
You're frozen and amazed
You lose your life
and all you understood
The game is fixed to rot
You're here and then you're not
The only thing worth
living is a thought
Rapture, rupture
Rapture, rupture.
The only thing worth
living is a thought
(intense music continues)
(Kaidon gasping)
(tense music)
(muffled chattering)
(tense music continues)
[Jorie] That's not true.
(chattering continues)
Did you talk to the locals?
(chattering continues)
Out back?
(chattering continues)
(floor creaking)
(insects chirring)
(eerie music)
Giant salvinia.
The ferns you see here
are choking the lake.
Biological control through
the use of salvinia weevils
is the best management option.
The weevils devour that
the lake may become clear.
Looks chaotic, doesn't it?
Looks like renewal.
(soft dramatic music)
This place is magical.
[Jack] Yes.
[Jorie] It's as though
there's a separation.
This natural place and
the place of ambition,
a place of concrete skin.
There's encroachment.
This place needs preserving.
[Jorie] At your church,
do you say God's plan?
- Yes.
- Is that accurate?
[Jack] It's helpful.
Saying "plan" presents a sense
of authority in the unknown.
What word would you use?
Spectacle. God's spectacle.
God's spectacle which
includes individual damage.
[Jack] And individual grace?
[Jorie] Can it be included in this talk
of spectacle and grace,
the prospect of a double,
that each of us has a double.
A double that prepares us for survival?
[Jack] A representation of ourselves?
[Jack] Imagine I have a double.
Someone who struggles,
but also sets the stage
for me to live more wisely.
Are you talking about Kaidon?
[Jorie] We've been
separated for a long time.
The lake is our reunion.
Although it sounds magical,
I believe I have a way forward for us.
[Jack] A path you
didn't know about before.
[Jorie] Take the idea of heaven
and God's plan for destination.
Imagine not a plan but a spectacle.
Everything happening simultaneously.
Instead of toil and reward being one thing
followed by another, life and life after,
imagine toil and reward at once.
Experience between doubles.
One struggle prepares
the other's survival.
They're at the same pace.
[Jack] It's interesting
(soft dramatic music)
[Jorie] So no, not a pathway, an event.
An event of grace where the
doubles meet and are made equal.
(soft dramatic music continues)
[Jack] What type of event is that?
[Jorie] Something extreme.
(eerie music)
(eerie music continues)
(eerie music continues)
(suspenseful music)
(suspenseful music continues)
It's you.
Like it or not, you can hear me.
(eerie music)
(eerie music continues)
We are a closed community
dedicated to God.
Silence and obedience are expected.
Husband guards us and guides us.
His eyes and punishment are swift.
(eerie music continues)
Ours too, Kaidon. Our punishment is swift.
(eerie music continues)
(eerie music continues)
[Kaidon] Lizzie was alone in the forest.
A sour spell had taken over her.
She struggled up a hill
the way a newborn calf
struggles to his feet.
(eerie music continues)
She wobbled in and out
of the black shadows
cast by the cypresses.
Were there crows?
Yes. Shiny and loud.
Lizzie was on the lookout
for a circle of stones,
a healing place that was
assembled on the hill
hundreds of years ago.
The spell made her ears
hurt and her stomach turn.
(eerie music continues)
She looked forward to laying
down in the circle of stones,
covering herself over with ferns and dirt.
The stones would dissipate
the spell or so she hoped.
Lizzie moved from tree to tree,
handling each one for support.
She was losing all her strength.
All at once, the insects all went dumb.
The crows were high up in the quiet.
Lizzie felt herself watched.
Did a black cat walk by?
Yes. Delicate and precise.
Lizzie felt thoroughly searched.
And then she saw hunter standing
on the side of the hill watching her.
The hunter was a woman
with a striking face
and powerful eyes.
Lizzie thought she was probably a goddess
there to guide her or else murder her.
Possibly do both.
(insects chirring)
Why are you here?
I wanna change my life.
What is wrong with it?
I've been a terrible person.
I'm in so much pain.
I need to think about my life
and find a new way to be.
And what if the change is death?
Don't you think it's possible
that you deserve to die?
I prefer to live.
If there's a way to live
and be changed, I want that.
What will you do?
Anything.
Do you have the authority to help me?
Yes.
An exchange is necessary.
You must bring me two.
Then you will have the
opportunity to reform
Two?
(eerie music)
All right.
I'll bring you two.
(eerie music continues)
(insects chirring)
(eerie music continues)
(insects chirring)
(eerie music continues)
(eerie music continues)
(insects chirring)
(eerie music continues)
(insects chirring)
(eerie music continues)
(eerie music continues)
(eerie music continues)
[Jorie] I had a moment of recognition,
like a face that appears
suddenly at the window.
First, it's a surprise. Then you know.
[Jack] Sounds profound.
(eerie music continues)
[Jorie] I found a way for Kaidon and me
to let the pain of her
past stay in the past.
Not a denial.
We understand we can't
possibly make each other feel
what the gap of years
was like for each other.
Her time staying solitary and me trying
to make a life for myself.
Right now, there is a void between us,
a history of absence
and the pain of absence.
What might help is the shock of the new.
[Jack] Shock of the new?
[Jorie] The idea is to
create a new beginning.
It must be a profound experience.
Something that regenerates
our relationship,
allows us to reshape our
understanding of one another.
[Jack] What is this shocking experience?
[Jorie] It has to do with that thief.
(eerie music continues)
(eerie music continues)
(eerie music continues)
(Kaidon gasping)
(ominous music)
(ominous music continues)
(ominous music continues)
(blankets rustling)
(bed creaking)
(ominous music continues)
(bed creaking)
(mask clinks)
(bed creaking)
(bed creaking)
(ominous music continues)
(bed creaking)
(insects chirring)
(eerie music)
(crackling)
(eerie music continues)
(eerie music continues)
(intense music)
(intense music continues)
(intense music continues)
(tools clinking)
(intense music continues)
(intense music continues)
(ax blades clink)
(intense music continues)
(intense music continues)
(intense music continues)
(axes hacking)
(Jorie and Kaidon grunting)
(Karl groaning)
(blood spurting)
(axes hacking)
(Karl gasping)
(boat motor rumbling)
(eerie music)
(eerie music continues)
(shutter clicking)
(eerie music continues)
(shutter clicking)
(eerie music continues)
(eerie music continues)
(motor boat engine rumbling)
(eerie music continues)
(eerie music continues)
(eerie music continues)
(shutter clicking)
(shutter clicking)
(shutter clicking)
(shutter clicking)
(intense music)
(intense music continues)
(intense music continues)
(intense music continues)
(intense music continues)
(intense music continues)
(intense music continues)
(intense music continues)
(intense music continues)
(intense music continues)
(intense music continues)
(intense music continues)
(intense music continues)
(intense music continues)
(insects chirring)
(birds chirping)
(eerie music)
(eerie music continues)
(eerie music continues)
(insects chirring)
(insects chirring)
(soft dramatic music)
(soft dramatic music continues)
[Hunter] There is an
old story about snakes
saving their hearts in humans.
Cold-blooded snakes can live for a time
without their hearts, gaining warmth
instead by gliding their bodies
across sunlit grass and stone.
(soft dramatic music continues)
To protect their hearts
from trample or combat,
snakes often hide their
hearts in stronger vessels.
There are people so cut off
from their own memories,
their hearts grow cold.
No disguise can truly hide them.
No matter their appointments
or how they surround themselves,
they are deeply alone.
Snakes seek out such people
to hide their hearts in.
People who don't know their
own heart won't notice,
they also carry a snake heart.
(soft dramatic music continues)
There are stories of people that died
from terrible loneliness.
As many as 20 snake hearts have been found
in a lonely person that died.
And sometimes, people die
when snakes come to retrieve their heart.
They see snakes approaching
and misunderstand the situation.
If the snake is cut in
two by a worried host,
there is a heart within
that person that dies.
If the snake strikes a person,
the poison that goes in the veins
will affect the hidden heart.
I'll tell you about axes and dirt.
There are people that bury their
axes but never forget them.
There are people who bury their axes
and uncover them every night
just to hold them in secret.
There are people who bury axes
who will tell you to your face,
they never carried an
ax in all their life.
(soft dramatic music)
Snakes are careful of
their bellies in dirt
where axes are hidden.
They know they have to put
their hearts somewhere safe.
They can sense those people cut
off from their own memories,
people with buried hearts.
Such obstinate sadness is
the perfect hiding place.
(soft dramatic music continues)
Word travels fast when
there is a suitable host
for the snakes to save their hearts.
But there is always a risk.
A person burdened by too many snake hearts
will find oneself standing
at the edge of a cliff
or deep water and look into it,
search it with the
bloody weight of desire,
desire that drenches the
world in a cold chill.
We watch out for such people.
(eerie music)
(eerie music continues)
(eerie music continues)
(eerie music continues)
Priestly, prissy, Pastor Jack
Puts the girls of the
orphanage on their back
(eerie music continues)
(eerie music continues)
(eerie music continues)
(eerie music continues)
(eerie music continues)
(eerie music continues)
(eerie music continues)
(creepy music)
(insects chirring)
(static white noise)
I believe there are doubles
and we are each other's double.
Not an exact likeness.
Doubling is one of nature's
irregular patterns.
It's a way of expressing
personal satisfaction
and personal crisis.
Perhaps one struggle sets the
stage to live more wisely.
Even Prosperously.
I think that's the case with you and me.
You are alone working anonymously.
I have my students and my family.
I think what happened to you with old Karl
and how we fixed old Karl,
I think it resulted in an imbalance.
(intense music)
(soft dramatic music)
(insects chirring)
(soft dramatic music continues)
[Thief] It's you.
You can hear me, like it or not.
(soft dramatic music continues)
(soft dramatic music continues)
(insects chirring)
I ate a concoction of grass and flowers.
It didn't make me whole, but
maybe it'll strike your fancy.
I'm not as wretched as you think.
I have human qualities.
When I was little, I drew
little forest creatures
wearing human clothes, Victorian
dresses and waist coats,
moist eyes looking out at you.
They weren't very good
and I think most of them
I traced out of some book,
but I could sort of see in them
what my mind intended them to be.
(insects chirring)
Portrait after portrait,
adding up to a little society.
I'd spread them out and feel fellowship.
(eerie music)
(intense music)
(eerie music)
(insects chirring)
Heaven allows individual damage.
A double can absorb some of that damage.
(eerie music continues)
(eerie music continues)
(eerie music continues)
(insects chirring)
(eerie music continues)
(insects chirring)
(eerie music continues)
(eerie music continues)
[Thief] You feel her.
- Who?
- The hunter.
She's close.
[Kaidon] Where?
[Thief] Behind those
trees chewing on a dead doe.
She wouldn't want you
to see her like this.
Wait till after she's fed.
She's better after having blood.
(eerie music continues)
(insects chittering)
I thought we'd find a
leveling experience out here
by this remote lake.
I knew about that fringe
group that lives in the woods
and how they've taken liberties
with the rental cabins.
The darkness that marks us is self-similar
to the darkness that marked the thief.
She stands before a mirror
and sees an image that's evolving.
(insects chirring)
The image supersedes the host
and soon
she'll be brand new
like a snake shedding its skin.
We're drawn back,
forever back into our
sin against old Karl.
(eerie music continues)
Chop, chop
Chop.
(insects chirring)
(eerie music continues)
[Thief] It is the absence
of meaning in what you live
at the moment you are living it
which multiplies the
possibilities of your imagination.
(eerie music continues)
[Kaidon] I grew up in the country.
[Thief] I grew up in the city.
Probably the things I had were
nicer than the things you had.
[Kaidon] Probably.
[Thief] Were you happy?
I had thought life isn't worth living,
but it is worth thinking about.
(eerie music continues)
(insects chittering)
(eerie music continues)
(insects chittering)
[Thief] I remember when I was small,
I was once held down
by several older boys.
That set me off to a bad start.
[Kaidon] That's horrible.
[Thief] I'd like you to
consider how you might go on
thinking about your life even
after you lose your life.
Think about what everlasting means.
(eerie music continues)
(insects chittering)
(eerie music continues)
(eerie music continues)
(insects chittering)
(eerie music continues)
(creepy music)
(insects chittering)
(creepy music continues)
(creepy music continues)
I was daydreaming.
Where did you take me?
To see the hunter.
She's ready for us now.
(eerie music)
Where are you going?
[Kaidon] I'm leaving.
No. There's momentum for us now.
[Kaidon] I don't want you
coming around the cabin.
Leave us alone.
[Thief] I don't need to go
to your cabin to find you.
[Kaidon] I'll alert the rangers.
[Thief] We are tethered now
and you don't need to be afraid.
Let events run their course.
(eerie music continues)
(eerie music continues)
(eerie music continues)
(intense music)
(Lizzie screaming)
(intense music continues)
(intense music continues)
(intense music continues)
(intense music continues)
(Kaidon breathes heavily)
(insects chirring)
Chop. (breathes uneasily)
Chop.
Chop.
(insects chirring)
(suspenseful music)
[Jorie] Heaven allows individual damage.
A double can absorb some of that damage.
A double prepares us for survival.
I thought a thief might provide
us the shock of the new.
We'd have a new challenge to unite us.
A shared experience that
would allow us to begin again.
Hey you!
[Jorie] Moving forward, that would be
the story we would tell,
how we chased a thief that
trespassed against us,
ran her deep into the forest and gone.
This story would supplant
the story of old Karl.
Narrative is everything.
Story puts all our
experiences and all our dreams
into balance, but our doubling
now involves uncertainty.
(suspenseful music continues)
Someone messed up the narrative.
A player has gone rogue.
She's using us as her double,
preparing her own survival at our expense.
An elaborate double-cross.
Something in the woods gets
her power to pull it off.
(intense music)
(intense music continues)
(intense music continues)
(intense music continues)
(intense music continues)
(intense music continues)
(intense music continues)
(intense music continues)
(intense music continues)
(intense music continues)
(eerie music)
(insects chirring)
(intense music)
(intense music continues)
(intense music continues)
(intense music continues)
(intense music continues)
(intense music continues)
(intense music continues)
(intense music continues)
(insects chirring)
(eerie music)
(eerie music continues)
(soft dramatic music)
[Hunter] A person cannot
know whether the next moment
will be not like any other moment,
but one that will change
their life or end their life.
A deer in the woods
goes about its business
knowing only by instinct
what sort of creature it is.
The one who draws her bow, that is the one
who knows what the next moment will be.
She will line up her arrow and change time
for what is standing in her sight.
Do you understand?
Who am I to you?
[Thief] You are the hunter.
[Hunter] Do I have the
power to change your life?
[Thief] Oh yes.
(eerie music continues)
[Hunter] Do you see
before you a better life?
[Thief] I do.
[Hunter] Do you take it upon yourself
to afford that better life?
[Thief] I do.
[Hunter] One world falls
away, another is taking shape.
(intense music)
(intense music continues)
(intense music continues)
(intense music continues)
(intense music continues)
(suspenseful music)
(door creaking)
(suspenseful music continues)
(suspenseful music continues)
(suspenseful music continues)
(gun clattering)
(suspenseful music continues)
(creature snarling)
(suspenseful music continues)
(suspenseful music continues)
(Kaidon screaming)
(gun firing)
(suspenseful music continues)
(insects chirring)
(insects chirring)
(insects chirring)
(gun fires)
(insects chirring)
(intense music)
(intense music continues)
(intense music continues)
(intense music continues)
(intense music continues)
[Kaidon] When the
ordeal ends, who's there?
Nobody's there.
That's what Lizzie believed.
She began walking in the
direction of never coming back.
What was the meaning of
the thing that happened?
The thing that had been
like a tornado in her life.
It's something that will always follow
and the howling of its anger behind her
is something she will have to
relish as she moves forward.
Aiming so earnestly for
a future tense of joy.
(soft dramatic music)
(insects chirring)
(eerie music)
(eerie music continues)
[Man] Nice work getting
your degree, Angela.
I'm surprised you stayed
around here though.
I'm exactly where I need to be.
(insects chirring)
(eerie music)
(eerie music continues)
(eerie music continues)
(eerie music continues)
(insects chirring)
(intense music)
(intense music continues)
(intense music continues)
(intense music continues)
(intense music continues)
(intense music continues)
(intense music continues)
(intense music continues)
(intense music continues)
(eerie music)
(insects chirring)
(eerie music)
(eerie music continues)
[Thief] It gleams every night,
crime scene tape, phosphorescent
in the dark woods.
It guards between human intellect
and the sentience of nature.
(eerie music continues)
(eerie music continues)
Consider your feelings for a
lone hawk soaring in the sky.
Now consider it mantling
over a little rabbit
and the squawk, squawk,
squawk of dying life.
The crime scene tape flaps
between these two images,
between the religious
feeling of the soaring hawk
and the frozen moment when
we see what's on its talons.
Consider the fern that covers
the surface of the water,
spreading to make a feast of the light
and everything below is held
in darkness, starving slow.
Between the survival of the fern
and the deaths of the
darkened plants and fish,
that is where we put a barrier
to mark evidence of a crime.
This tape we put up,
it's a strange legality,
a symbol of our
exclusively human concerns.
Cut through it.
Come into an extra-human reality.
(eerie music continues)
(creepy music)
(creepy music continues)
What's the first macabre
thing you remember?
I remember being a
kid, four, maybe five,
waking up to discover a streak
of dried blood on my pillow
and wondering, from my ears,
from my nose, from my eyes?
Blood from the eyes. That's rich.
Like a detail from one of your stories.
I don't remember that, you're
coming awake, bleeding.
Probably, it was a dream.
Crows attacking fairies,
tumbling bloody in the sky.
I used to to dream like that all the time.
So vivid there'd be
remnant outside my head,
a stain upon my pillow.
(eerie music)
(eerie music continues)
(eerie music continues)
(insects chirring)
(eerie music)
(eerie music continues)
(birds chirping)
I've been teaching my course
on the contemporary novel for years.
Then two years ago, I
started a night class
on romantic poetry, emphasis
on the metaphysical.
Coleridge, Baudelaire, Poe.
Are you still religious?
Not like we were before.
Of course not.
We should go in. It'll be dark soon.
You worried about snakes?
You are too. Don't lie.
There's some DVD's in
the cabin Horror movies.
- Any bad ones?
- We can hope. (chuckles)
(insects chirring)
(eerie music)
(eerie music continues)
(eerie music continues)
(insects chirring)
All horror movies are about
prying into private places
and the discoveries are like
long falls through the dark.
You have a story, your character Lizzie,
searching through a family
member's private things.
Yes, Lizzie.
She pays a secret visit to
her stepbrother's closet
and falls through a trap door.
The fall of Lizzie, is it far?
A long tumble through the dark.
Into a basement?
More like a realm beneath the house.
Oh, I like that.
There's a troll down there
and Lizzie's hurt her ankle from the fall.
She's defenseless, therefore prey.
The troll tells her
there are special laws.
If she obeys these laws,
her ankle will heal
and the puddle of blood
at her feet will rise
into a ladder, which rung over rung
she can climb all the
way up to the trap door.
What are the special laws?
The most special law
is this, no snooping,
but of course, the troll lays it out
in a biblically formal way.
"Thou shall not cast
eyes in unwelcome places.
Neither shall you open cabinetry
or peek through curtains."
That sort of thing.
But our Lizzie can't
resist a secret visit
to a closet or quick peek into cabinetry.
No, she can't.
I'm trying to imagine a mind
that rejoices in these stories.
I don't rejoice in them.
Do you all always write anonymously?
I really don't want the attention.
Not for this kind of work.
What does body horror mean?
Blood spray.
Do all your stories spray blood?
Like a car wash.
Is it ritualistic, for revenge?
These aren't literary stories.
The draw is mutilation.
You must know why that is,
otherwise you wouldn't
be so successful at it.
Mutilation is like a search.
It turns the characters
insides into outsides.
Hidden things now seen, roughly exposed.
The reader's desire
to see private parts.
And knowing that it's
not all right to want that.
An appealing sense of shame.
Like something from the
dark recesses of Puritanism.
Shame and rage.
A reliable business model.
(insects chirring)
(Lizzie screaming)
(boat engine rumbling)
(tense music)
(tense music continues)
(tense music continues)
(tense music continues)
(tense music continues)
(tense music continues)
(tense music continues)
Jorie, I called to you
to make sense of what happened.
You didn't answer.
[Jorie] It's taken me a long time.
I'm sorry, but now I have a plan.
A way for us to move past our troubles,
into a future tense of joy.
(soft dramatic music)
(soft dramatic music continues)
(insects chirring)
(crows cawing)
You bring me all the way
out here to a place that seems
prehistoric to tell me about future joy?
I'll reveal everything soon,
but first, let me catch up with you.
I didn't realize how much
I had ached to see you.
(soft dramatic music)
(crows cawing)
(eerie music)
(eerie music continues)
(soft dramatic music)
(soft dramatic music)
Not the intent of suicide.
An image of floating just
below the surface of the water.
Pale as stone, empty,
trailed by fish and birds.
No, the ideation of suicide.
To imagine the migraine of
consciousness over and done.
What can water really do?
[Kaidon] I remember a dark time.
We were children under pressure.
Sworn to stay quiet.
We disappeared all evidence
of the thing we did,
but the secret, the
secret hollowed us out.
(insects chirring)
Hey.
(insects chirring)
(truck door opens)
(blanket rustling)
(eerie music)
(eerie music continues)
(tapping)
(insects chirring)
We were sold.
Not sold.
Whatever ceremonial
name you wanna put to it,
we were sold.
And him that bought us is an old halfwit
in the mistaken light between
competence and desire.
An inheritance of goat-gnawed automobiles
he can't put to profit.
The light at the ceremony,
the light they say binds us to him,
it's a light of absence.
The light of isolation, our toil.
Binding light.
Bright light. Indentured light
Light upon sweat, light upon blood.
Light of a raw life.
The light of the belt around our necks.
Light decaying into light.
In the light of our
own darkness, receeding.
(eerie music)
(tense music)
(tense music continues)
(door creaking)
(door creaks and closes)
(tense music continues)
(bed creaking)
(tense music continues)
(tense music continues)
A fall on an ax will
create a specific wound.
We have to mimic that wound.
You said we'd hide the
body, hide it perfectly.
Anything hidden can
one day appear again.
We'll be ready no matter what.
Come on. Let's give it a try.
(Kaidon inhales)
No.
Slowly, to practice precision. Like this:
Chop, chop, chop.
[Both] Chop, chop, chop,
chop, chop, chop.
(horn honking)
(intense music)
Hey!
Drop my fucking bag!
Hey, you!
(horn blaring)
Oh!
No! (sighs)
Uh!
(foot thuds)
Must you?
(foot thudding)
(Thief laughing)
(tense music)
(Thief grunting)
Quit throwing rocks
at my head! God, y'all!
(laughs) Back the fuck off,
or I swear I'll kill your
husband and your daughter!
I'll slit both their throats to rags!
(tense music)
(insects chirring)
Remember, my knife knows
the way home, bitches.
(tense music continues)
(birds chirping)
Yes.
Oh, yes. Me too.
(door closes)
I miss you both.
I love you.
I will. Goodbye.
(Jorie sighs)
They're fine?
Yes, they're fine.
The odds of that crazy
girl coming back after we...
I know. (chuckles)
Does she even have the
sense to find her way
out of those woods is...
I know. I'm all good.
How much did you tell your husband?
(crows cawing)
Who robs a house looking like a wolf?
It's so odd.
(chuckles) What about
the person in the truck?
Clearly not very brave.
(both laugh)
Listen, I was thinking,
I think we should stay
and finish our vacation.
I don't think she'll be back.
What's wrong?
You mentioned an
event that would move us
past our troubles so that we can focus
on a future tense of joy.
(birds chirping)
(crows cawing)
You don't think I orchestrated
that break in, do you?
(insects chirring)
Maybe it's too late for us
to be normal with one another.
Don't say that.
I've waited for so long.
Let's try, please.
(vehicle approaching)
- Someone's here.
- The park rangers?
We hope.
(tense music)
(insects chirring)
We searched the woods
where she fled, but no luck.
She probably made her way to the fringe.
- The fringe?
- Yeah.
It's what we call a
little ad hoc community
between here and town.
Camp of young adults found
themselves outta place,
now living in the woods by choice.
- Are they violent?
- Not normally,
but sometimes there are drifters.
You're going to thoroughly
check this place out, yes?
Now that you have the description
of the one who attacked us.
I'm on my way there now
with the park rangers.
I just stopped by to
tell you that the woods
near your cabin are clear.
- You're not a park ranger?
- I'm a volunteer.
That's rich.
You look like a ranger out of
central casting. (chuckles)
I know these woods pretty well, I guess.
What do you do?
I'm a pastor at a
Congregationalist church in town.
No fooling?
No fooling.
I never would've figured that.
Well thanks. Maybe.
How is it that this fringe community
is tolerated by the parks department?
Not tolerated, exactly.
I sort of liaison between the two.
Do you have a card or something?
I don't mean to be impolite,
but if you're not a park ranger,
then we oughta have some record
of who we're speaking to about our case.
Case? We weren't robbed exactly.
But you clearly saw the knife.
I don't have a card. I'm sorry.
My name is Jack Weems.
I'm known around the lake.
It's easy to check up on me.
Parson Weems?
(Jorie laughs)
- Sorry.
- It's fine.
I've heard 'em all.
Believe me, "I cannot tell a lie."
Can we go with you to see the fringe?
Not a good idea, but I can circle back
after my look around if you want me to.
That'd be nice. Thank you.
(insects chirring)
(eerie music)
(eerie music continues)
(eerie music continues)
(insects chirring)
(fan whirring)
(tense music)
(tense music continues)
(tense music continues)
(insects chirring)
(tense music continues)
(eerie music)
(insects chirring)
(eerie music continues)
(eerie music continues)
(eerie music continues)
Priestly, prissy, Pastor Jack
Puts the girls of the
orphanage on their back
(intense music)
Mandibles of the sun
Will tear the world undone
Light on the horizon gleas with blood
Serpent sets its gaze
You're frozen and amazed
You lose your life
and all you understood
The game is fixed to rot
You're here and then you're not
The only thing worth
living is a thought
Rapture, rupture
Rapture, rupture.
The only thing worth
living is a thought
(intense music continues)
(Kaidon gasping)
(tense music)
(muffled chattering)
(tense music continues)
[Jorie] That's not true.
(chattering continues)
Did you talk to the locals?
(chattering continues)
Out back?
(chattering continues)
(floor creaking)
(insects chirring)
(eerie music)
Giant salvinia.
The ferns you see here
are choking the lake.
Biological control through
the use of salvinia weevils
is the best management option.
The weevils devour that
the lake may become clear.
Looks chaotic, doesn't it?
Looks like renewal.
(soft dramatic music)
This place is magical.
[Jack] Yes.
[Jorie] It's as though
there's a separation.
This natural place and
the place of ambition,
a place of concrete skin.
There's encroachment.
This place needs preserving.
[Jorie] At your church,
do you say God's plan?
- Yes.
- Is that accurate?
[Jack] It's helpful.
Saying "plan" presents a sense
of authority in the unknown.
What word would you use?
Spectacle. God's spectacle.
God's spectacle which
includes individual damage.
[Jack] And individual grace?
[Jorie] Can it be included in this talk
of spectacle and grace,
the prospect of a double,
that each of us has a double.
A double that prepares us for survival?
[Jack] A representation of ourselves?
[Jack] Imagine I have a double.
Someone who struggles,
but also sets the stage
for me to live more wisely.
Are you talking about Kaidon?
[Jorie] We've been
separated for a long time.
The lake is our reunion.
Although it sounds magical,
I believe I have a way forward for us.
[Jack] A path you
didn't know about before.
[Jorie] Take the idea of heaven
and God's plan for destination.
Imagine not a plan but a spectacle.
Everything happening simultaneously.
Instead of toil and reward being one thing
followed by another, life and life after,
imagine toil and reward at once.
Experience between doubles.
One struggle prepares
the other's survival.
They're at the same pace.
[Jack] It's interesting
(soft dramatic music)
[Jorie] So no, not a pathway, an event.
An event of grace where the
doubles meet and are made equal.
(soft dramatic music continues)
[Jack] What type of event is that?
[Jorie] Something extreme.
(eerie music)
(eerie music continues)
(eerie music continues)
(suspenseful music)
(suspenseful music continues)
It's you.
Like it or not, you can hear me.
(eerie music)
(eerie music continues)
We are a closed community
dedicated to God.
Silence and obedience are expected.
Husband guards us and guides us.
His eyes and punishment are swift.
(eerie music continues)
Ours too, Kaidon. Our punishment is swift.
(eerie music continues)
(eerie music continues)
[Kaidon] Lizzie was alone in the forest.
A sour spell had taken over her.
She struggled up a hill
the way a newborn calf
struggles to his feet.
(eerie music continues)
She wobbled in and out
of the black shadows
cast by the cypresses.
Were there crows?
Yes. Shiny and loud.
Lizzie was on the lookout
for a circle of stones,
a healing place that was
assembled on the hill
hundreds of years ago.
The spell made her ears
hurt and her stomach turn.
(eerie music continues)
She looked forward to laying
down in the circle of stones,
covering herself over with ferns and dirt.
The stones would dissipate
the spell or so she hoped.
Lizzie moved from tree to tree,
handling each one for support.
She was losing all her strength.
All at once, the insects all went dumb.
The crows were high up in the quiet.
Lizzie felt herself watched.
Did a black cat walk by?
Yes. Delicate and precise.
Lizzie felt thoroughly searched.
And then she saw hunter standing
on the side of the hill watching her.
The hunter was a woman
with a striking face
and powerful eyes.
Lizzie thought she was probably a goddess
there to guide her or else murder her.
Possibly do both.
(insects chirring)
Why are you here?
I wanna change my life.
What is wrong with it?
I've been a terrible person.
I'm in so much pain.
I need to think about my life
and find a new way to be.
And what if the change is death?
Don't you think it's possible
that you deserve to die?
I prefer to live.
If there's a way to live
and be changed, I want that.
What will you do?
Anything.
Do you have the authority to help me?
Yes.
An exchange is necessary.
You must bring me two.
Then you will have the
opportunity to reform
Two?
(eerie music)
All right.
I'll bring you two.
(eerie music continues)
(insects chirring)
(eerie music continues)
(insects chirring)
(eerie music continues)
(eerie music continues)
(insects chirring)
(eerie music continues)
(insects chirring)
(eerie music continues)
(eerie music continues)
(eerie music continues)
[Jorie] I had a moment of recognition,
like a face that appears
suddenly at the window.
First, it's a surprise. Then you know.
[Jack] Sounds profound.
(eerie music continues)
[Jorie] I found a way for Kaidon and me
to let the pain of her
past stay in the past.
Not a denial.
We understand we can't
possibly make each other feel
what the gap of years
was like for each other.
Her time staying solitary and me trying
to make a life for myself.
Right now, there is a void between us,
a history of absence
and the pain of absence.
What might help is the shock of the new.
[Jack] Shock of the new?
[Jorie] The idea is to
create a new beginning.
It must be a profound experience.
Something that regenerates
our relationship,
allows us to reshape our
understanding of one another.
[Jack] What is this shocking experience?
[Jorie] It has to do with that thief.
(eerie music continues)
(eerie music continues)
(eerie music continues)
(Kaidon gasping)
(ominous music)
(ominous music continues)
(ominous music continues)
(blankets rustling)
(bed creaking)
(ominous music continues)
(bed creaking)
(mask clinks)
(bed creaking)
(bed creaking)
(ominous music continues)
(bed creaking)
(insects chirring)
(eerie music)
(crackling)
(eerie music continues)
(eerie music continues)
(intense music)
(intense music continues)
(intense music continues)
(tools clinking)
(intense music continues)
(intense music continues)
(ax blades clink)
(intense music continues)
(intense music continues)
(intense music continues)
(axes hacking)
(Jorie and Kaidon grunting)
(Karl groaning)
(blood spurting)
(axes hacking)
(Karl gasping)
(boat motor rumbling)
(eerie music)
(eerie music continues)
(shutter clicking)
(eerie music continues)
(shutter clicking)
(eerie music continues)
(eerie music continues)
(motor boat engine rumbling)
(eerie music continues)
(eerie music continues)
(eerie music continues)
(shutter clicking)
(shutter clicking)
(shutter clicking)
(shutter clicking)
(intense music)
(intense music continues)
(intense music continues)
(intense music continues)
(intense music continues)
(intense music continues)
(intense music continues)
(intense music continues)
(intense music continues)
(intense music continues)
(intense music continues)
(intense music continues)
(intense music continues)
(intense music continues)
(insects chirring)
(birds chirping)
(eerie music)
(eerie music continues)
(eerie music continues)
(insects chirring)
(insects chirring)
(soft dramatic music)
(soft dramatic music continues)
[Hunter] There is an
old story about snakes
saving their hearts in humans.
Cold-blooded snakes can live for a time
without their hearts, gaining warmth
instead by gliding their bodies
across sunlit grass and stone.
(soft dramatic music continues)
To protect their hearts
from trample or combat,
snakes often hide their
hearts in stronger vessels.
There are people so cut off
from their own memories,
their hearts grow cold.
No disguise can truly hide them.
No matter their appointments
or how they surround themselves,
they are deeply alone.
Snakes seek out such people
to hide their hearts in.
People who don't know their
own heart won't notice,
they also carry a snake heart.
(soft dramatic music continues)
There are stories of people that died
from terrible loneliness.
As many as 20 snake hearts have been found
in a lonely person that died.
And sometimes, people die
when snakes come to retrieve their heart.
They see snakes approaching
and misunderstand the situation.
If the snake is cut in
two by a worried host,
there is a heart within
that person that dies.
If the snake strikes a person,
the poison that goes in the veins
will affect the hidden heart.
I'll tell you about axes and dirt.
There are people that bury their
axes but never forget them.
There are people who bury their axes
and uncover them every night
just to hold them in secret.
There are people who bury axes
who will tell you to your face,
they never carried an
ax in all their life.
(soft dramatic music)
Snakes are careful of
their bellies in dirt
where axes are hidden.
They know they have to put
their hearts somewhere safe.
They can sense those people cut
off from their own memories,
people with buried hearts.
Such obstinate sadness is
the perfect hiding place.
(soft dramatic music continues)
Word travels fast when
there is a suitable host
for the snakes to save their hearts.
But there is always a risk.
A person burdened by too many snake hearts
will find oneself standing
at the edge of a cliff
or deep water and look into it,
search it with the
bloody weight of desire,
desire that drenches the
world in a cold chill.
We watch out for such people.
(eerie music)
(eerie music continues)
(eerie music continues)
(eerie music continues)
Priestly, prissy, Pastor Jack
Puts the girls of the
orphanage on their back
(eerie music continues)
(eerie music continues)
(eerie music continues)
(eerie music continues)
(eerie music continues)
(eerie music continues)
(eerie music continues)
(creepy music)
(insects chirring)
(static white noise)
I believe there are doubles
and we are each other's double.
Not an exact likeness.
Doubling is one of nature's
irregular patterns.
It's a way of expressing
personal satisfaction
and personal crisis.
Perhaps one struggle sets the
stage to live more wisely.
Even Prosperously.
I think that's the case with you and me.
You are alone working anonymously.
I have my students and my family.
I think what happened to you with old Karl
and how we fixed old Karl,
I think it resulted in an imbalance.
(intense music)
(soft dramatic music)
(insects chirring)
(soft dramatic music continues)
[Thief] It's you.
You can hear me, like it or not.
(soft dramatic music continues)
(soft dramatic music continues)
(insects chirring)
I ate a concoction of grass and flowers.
It didn't make me whole, but
maybe it'll strike your fancy.
I'm not as wretched as you think.
I have human qualities.
When I was little, I drew
little forest creatures
wearing human clothes, Victorian
dresses and waist coats,
moist eyes looking out at you.
They weren't very good
and I think most of them
I traced out of some book,
but I could sort of see in them
what my mind intended them to be.
(insects chirring)
Portrait after portrait,
adding up to a little society.
I'd spread them out and feel fellowship.
(eerie music)
(intense music)
(eerie music)
(insects chirring)
Heaven allows individual damage.
A double can absorb some of that damage.
(eerie music continues)
(eerie music continues)
(eerie music continues)
(insects chirring)
(eerie music continues)
(insects chirring)
(eerie music continues)
(eerie music continues)
[Thief] You feel her.
- Who?
- The hunter.
She's close.
[Kaidon] Where?
[Thief] Behind those
trees chewing on a dead doe.
She wouldn't want you
to see her like this.
Wait till after she's fed.
She's better after having blood.
(eerie music continues)
(insects chittering)
I thought we'd find a
leveling experience out here
by this remote lake.
I knew about that fringe
group that lives in the woods
and how they've taken liberties
with the rental cabins.
The darkness that marks us is self-similar
to the darkness that marked the thief.
She stands before a mirror
and sees an image that's evolving.
(insects chirring)
The image supersedes the host
and soon
she'll be brand new
like a snake shedding its skin.
We're drawn back,
forever back into our
sin against old Karl.
(eerie music continues)
Chop, chop
Chop.
(insects chirring)
(eerie music continues)
[Thief] It is the absence
of meaning in what you live
at the moment you are living it
which multiplies the
possibilities of your imagination.
(eerie music continues)
[Kaidon] I grew up in the country.
[Thief] I grew up in the city.
Probably the things I had were
nicer than the things you had.
[Kaidon] Probably.
[Thief] Were you happy?
I had thought life isn't worth living,
but it is worth thinking about.
(eerie music continues)
(insects chittering)
(eerie music continues)
(insects chittering)
[Thief] I remember when I was small,
I was once held down
by several older boys.
That set me off to a bad start.
[Kaidon] That's horrible.
[Thief] I'd like you to
consider how you might go on
thinking about your life even
after you lose your life.
Think about what everlasting means.
(eerie music continues)
(insects chittering)
(eerie music continues)
(eerie music continues)
(insects chittering)
(eerie music continues)
(creepy music)
(insects chittering)
(creepy music continues)
(creepy music continues)
I was daydreaming.
Where did you take me?
To see the hunter.
She's ready for us now.
(eerie music)
Where are you going?
[Kaidon] I'm leaving.
No. There's momentum for us now.
[Kaidon] I don't want you
coming around the cabin.
Leave us alone.
[Thief] I don't need to go
to your cabin to find you.
[Kaidon] I'll alert the rangers.
[Thief] We are tethered now
and you don't need to be afraid.
Let events run their course.
(eerie music continues)
(eerie music continues)
(eerie music continues)
(intense music)
(Lizzie screaming)
(intense music continues)
(intense music continues)
(intense music continues)
(intense music continues)
(Kaidon breathes heavily)
(insects chirring)
Chop. (breathes uneasily)
Chop.
Chop.
(insects chirring)
(suspenseful music)
[Jorie] Heaven allows individual damage.
A double can absorb some of that damage.
A double prepares us for survival.
I thought a thief might provide
us the shock of the new.
We'd have a new challenge to unite us.
A shared experience that
would allow us to begin again.
Hey you!
[Jorie] Moving forward, that would be
the story we would tell,
how we chased a thief that
trespassed against us,
ran her deep into the forest and gone.
This story would supplant
the story of old Karl.
Narrative is everything.
Story puts all our
experiences and all our dreams
into balance, but our doubling
now involves uncertainty.
(suspenseful music continues)
Someone messed up the narrative.
A player has gone rogue.
She's using us as her double,
preparing her own survival at our expense.
An elaborate double-cross.
Something in the woods gets
her power to pull it off.
(intense music)
(intense music continues)
(intense music continues)
(intense music continues)
(intense music continues)
(intense music continues)
(intense music continues)
(intense music continues)
(intense music continues)
(intense music continues)
(eerie music)
(insects chirring)
(intense music)
(intense music continues)
(intense music continues)
(intense music continues)
(intense music continues)
(intense music continues)
(intense music continues)
(intense music continues)
(insects chirring)
(eerie music)
(eerie music continues)
(soft dramatic music)
[Hunter] A person cannot
know whether the next moment
will be not like any other moment,
but one that will change
their life or end their life.
A deer in the woods
goes about its business
knowing only by instinct
what sort of creature it is.
The one who draws her bow, that is the one
who knows what the next moment will be.
She will line up her arrow and change time
for what is standing in her sight.
Do you understand?
Who am I to you?
[Thief] You are the hunter.
[Hunter] Do I have the
power to change your life?
[Thief] Oh yes.
(eerie music continues)
[Hunter] Do you see
before you a better life?
[Thief] I do.
[Hunter] Do you take it upon yourself
to afford that better life?
[Thief] I do.
[Hunter] One world falls
away, another is taking shape.
(intense music)
(intense music continues)
(intense music continues)
(intense music continues)
(intense music continues)
(suspenseful music)
(door creaking)
(suspenseful music continues)
(suspenseful music continues)
(suspenseful music continues)
(gun clattering)
(suspenseful music continues)
(creature snarling)
(suspenseful music continues)
(suspenseful music continues)
(Kaidon screaming)
(gun firing)
(suspenseful music continues)
(insects chirring)
(insects chirring)
(insects chirring)
(gun fires)
(insects chirring)
(intense music)
(intense music continues)
(intense music continues)
(intense music continues)
(intense music continues)
[Kaidon] When the
ordeal ends, who's there?
Nobody's there.
That's what Lizzie believed.
She began walking in the
direction of never coming back.
What was the meaning of
the thing that happened?
The thing that had been
like a tornado in her life.
It's something that will always follow
and the howling of its anger behind her
is something she will have to
relish as she moves forward.
Aiming so earnestly for
a future tense of joy.
(soft dramatic music)
(insects chirring)
(eerie music)
(eerie music continues)
[Man] Nice work getting
your degree, Angela.
I'm surprised you stayed
around here though.
I'm exactly where I need to be.
(insects chirring)
(eerie music)
(eerie music continues)
(eerie music continues)
(eerie music continues)
(insects chirring)
(intense music)
(intense music continues)
(intense music continues)
(intense music continues)
(intense music continues)
(intense music continues)
(intense music continues)
(intense music continues)
(intense music continues)
(eerie music)
(insects chirring)