The Ragged Veil

EXT. ANCIENT FOREST - DAY

CAI (28), face smudged with grease and eyes wide with frantic intensity, hunches over a gutted comms unit on a mossy rock.

She picks at a hair-thin copper wire. It is snapped clean through.

She drops the wire. It falls onto the moss.

A sharp, ragged BREATH hitches in her throat.

The forest is silent. Ancient trees loom, their canopy swallowing the sun.

Cai traces the cracked screen of the unit with her thumb.

Damn it.

A TWIG SNAPS.

Cai spins. Her hand grips a knife at her hip.

A low WHISTLE: two quick notes, a pause, one long note.

FINN (35), a man of weathered skin and slate-colored eyes, steps from behind a massive oak.

He looks at the gutted unit on the rock.

Problem.

Snapped a lead. Critical.

Finn nods. He kneels beside the rock but does not touch the device.

Anything?

No. Dead.

He looks into the dark, shifting treeline.

Means we go without.

The map is half-erased. The comms were the only way to confirm—

We adapt.

Finn stands. His movements are fluid, predator-like.

Adapt? This forest shifts. Paths disappear.

We find it. Or we don’t. But we try.

Finn pushes through a thick curtain of ivy and disappears into the mist.

EXT. CLEARING - NIGHT

Ancient standing stones, slick with moss, form a jagged circle in the mist.

Finn stops. He tilts his head, listening to the silence.

Here. We rest. Briefly.

Cai slumps against the base of a stone. Her muscles tremble.

Finn melts into the shadows at the edge of the clearing.

A faint HUMMING begins. Low. Vibrating in the air.

The standing stones pulse with a faint, internal BLUE LIGHT.

A SHARP CHILL snaps Cai awake.

The mist is thick. Finn is gone from the treeline.

The HUMMING escalates to a resonant ROAR.

The air smells of ozone and rotting flowers.

A MUFFLED SHOUT echoes from the mist. Finn.

Cai scrambles to her feet and runs toward the sound.

EXT. HOLLOW - CONTINUOUS

Finn is on his knees, clutching his head. His body is wracked with tremors.

A circular depression in the earth glows with a sickly BLUE-GREEN light.

The ground is churned. A low GROWL vibrates through the soil.

Something rises from the depression. It is UNFURLING.

A colossal mass of twisting tendrils and undulating surfaces.

A blinding FLASH of blue-green light erupts.

Cai falls to the damp earth. Her vision swims.

The entity is impossibly large, casting an eerie light on the writhing trees.

Finn is ashen. His eyes are wide, unblinking, and fixed on the horror.

A single, elongated skeletal limb emerges from the entity’s core.

It ends in a razor-sharp OBSIDIAN CLAW.

The claw reaches toward Finn.

A new, RASPING GROWL echoes through the hollow. Deep. Savage.

A shadow launches from the darkness. A blur of dark fur and feral eyes.

The BEAST slams into the entity. BLUE-GREEN FLUID sprays the air.

The fluid HISSES as it hits the ground.

The ground TREMBLES. Standing stones CRACK and groan.

Finn gasps, his voice a ragged whisper.

Cai, run.