A Script for The Mire of Wakefulness

Here is the screenplay scene, written in standard industry format.

**Title: The Mire of Wakefulness**

[SCENE START]

**INT. RUINED WAREHOUSE - DAY**

SOUND of a low, static HUM

Darkness. The hum vibrates, a deep thrum you feel more than hear.

CLOSE ON an eye, fluttering open. A sliver of grey light.

JARED (30s) lies face down on a CONCRETE FLOOR. Gritty, cold. The air smells of damp dust and decaying metal.

His eyelids are heavy, cemented shut. He blinks, a monumental effort. He pushes himself up onto his elbows, his muscles screaming in protest. A thick, olive-green PARKA clings to him, damp and heavy. It smells of old woodsmoke and wet coffee grounds.

He fumbles with the zipper, stiff fingers struggling with the cold metal. He pulls it down an inch. The frigid air bites.

He takes in the space. It’s cavernous. Ruined.

Massive concrete pillars, flaked with ancient paint, soar into shadow. Above, a jagged hole where the roof should be opens to a uniform, anemic GREY SKY.

A fine, persistent rain sifts through the opening, peppering the rubble-strewn floor. Rust-coloured stains bleed down the walls like old, dried blood. Twisted rebar juts from broken concrete like bone.

A GUST OF WIND rattles a loose sheet of corrugated iron. A sound like an old man clearing his throat, endlessly.

Jared scrapes a hand across his cheek. Stubble. A faint, stinging cut near his temple. He pushes himself to a sitting position, his head swimming. His scuffed work boots are caked in dried mud.

He lurches to his feet, clumsy, knees knocking. He braces a hand against a leaning concrete slab. The surface is cold, abrasive.

Through a gaping hole in the wall, he sees a monochrome landscape. Skeletal trees etched against the oppressive grey. Broken structures. No color. Just shades of grey and the dull red of rust.

He starts walking, a slow, shuffling gait. The rubble shifts under his weight.

He stops.

At the base of a crumbling wall, a patch of MOSS. Impossibly, vibrantly green. A defiant splash of life. He reaches out, his fingers hovering just above the damp, spongy surface.

The moss TREMORS. A tiny, imperceptible shiver.

Jared pulls his hand back, a prickle of unease crawling up his arm.

He rounds a pile of debris and freezes.

A flicker of movement.

Near a large hole in the wall, where the rain falls thickest, a FIGURE sits hunched over. A WOMAN, wrapped in a threadbare, dark cloak, her back to him. She sways with a slight, rhythmic motion.

Jared clears his throat. A dry, rusty sound.

<center>JARED</center>

> Hello?

The word hangs in the damp air, swallowed by the vastness.

The Woman doesn’t turn. Jared takes a hesitant step closer. The crunch of his boots on gravel sounds impossibly loud.

He can see what she’s doing. She’s sketching. A small, worn notebook on her knee, a stubby pencil in her fingers. Her strokes are quick, deliberate.

He’s close enough now to see the drawing. It’s this place. The broken pillars, the rain-streaked light. But it’s... wrong. The pillars are twisting, fluid. The rain swirls like smoke.

She looks up, a slow, deliberate tilt of her head.

Her face is young but lined, smudged with charcoal. Her eyes are a startlingly clear blue, filled with a kind of mild, ancient recognition.

<center>WOMAN</center>

> Morning.

Jared is thrown. No surprise. No fear. Just... "morning."

<center>JARED</center>

> It’s... morning?

He glances at the sky. It offers no clues.

<center>JARED</center>

>(CONT'D)

> Do you know... what day it is?

He feels foolish as soon as he says it. The Woman offers a small, sad curve of her lips.

<center>WOMAN</center>

> Does it matter? It’s always this day, isn’t it? The day after. Or the day before. Depends on which way you’re looking.

She turns back to her sketch, the pencil scratching softly.

<center>JARED</center>

> I don’t... I don’t remember much. Where are we?

<center>WOMAN</center>

>(sketching)

> In the grey. Or maybe just outside it. You just got here, didn’t you? Came up from the mire.

She glances at him, her blue eyes piercing.

<center>WOMAN</center>

>(CONT'D)

> It’s always a shock, the first few times.

*The first few times?* A chill, colder than the air, runs through Jared.

<center>JARED</center>

>(a whisper)

> The mire? Is this... is this a dream?

He hates how desperate he sounds. He pinches his forearm, hard. A sharp, undeniable pain. He draws a tiny bead of blood. He holds his arm out to her, a pathetic, frantic gesture.

<center>JARED</center>

>(CONT'D)

> Look. It hurts. This is real.

The Woman watches him, her expression unreadable. She slowly reaches into her cloak. Jared tenses.

She pulls out another sketchbook, identical to the first. She opens it to a blank page and extends it to him.

<center>WOMAN</center>

> Draw it. Draw the pain.

<center>JARED</center>

> What? Why?

<center>WOMAN</center>

> Because that’s how you know it’s real. Or how you make it real. For a moment.

>(gestures vaguely)

> Everything here... it’s drawn. It’s remembered. It’s wished for. Or it’s feared. Every brick, every flake of rust. It’s all just... ink.

Jared stares at the blank page, then at the dot of blood on his arm. A tremor starts in his hands.

<center>JARED</center>

> I can’t. I don’t... I can’t draw anything.

As he speaks, the air feels thicker. His vision blurs at the edges. The hard lines of the concrete walls WAIVER, softening.

<center>WOMAN</center>

>(urgently)

> You have to. Or it starts to unravel. It always does.

Jared looks from her to a wavering wall. The rust stains begin to RIPPLE, like spilled paint on water. The sound of the rain deepens into a pervasive, crushing ROAR.

A wave of vertigo hits him. The ground TILTS. He stumbles, putting a hand out to a pillar for support--

AND IT PASSES RIGHT THROUGH.

His fingers meet no resistance, only a phantom coldness. He yanks his hand back as if burned. He stares, eyes wide with terror, as the pillar SHIMMERS like heat haze, then solidifies. But he felt it. He knows.

<center>JARED</center>

>(choking)

> What was that?

He turns to the Woman. Her face is now INDISTINCT. Too smooth. Like an unfinished drawing. She’s sketching furiously, her pencil a blur.

<center>WOMAN</center>

>(her voice flat, distant)

> You’re waking up. Or you’re falling deeper.

Jared takes a frantic step towards her, but the space between them seems to STRETCH, elastic. He stumbles over a piece of rubble that feels like sharp gravel, then soft dust, then wet earth. It won’t stay the same.

The Woman’s hand, still sketching, begins to BLUR, her fingers elongating into thin, translucent lines. Her blue eyes widen, a flash of raw terror in them before they too DISSOLVE into swirls of blue pigment.

<center>WOMAN</center>

>(her voice fragmenting, echoing)

> Hold onto something! Anything!

He scrambles for a piece of rebar sticking out of the ground. His fingers close on empty air. It isn’t there. Then it is, cold and sharp. Then it’s gone again.

The ruin collapses into a surreal nightmare.

The concrete pillars TWIST and SPIRAL upwards like petrified trees, strange, luminescent mosses pulsing with green light on their surfaces.

The grey sky above CRACKS like old plaster. The cracks widen, revealing not sky, but a swirling, liquid NEBULA of impossible color—deep purples, brilliant oranges, electric blues.

The sensory overload is crushing. A relentless hammer pounds inside his skull. He tries to scream, but no sound comes out.

The Woman is a faint outline now, a smudge of charcoal and blue watercolour, her hand still making impossible strokes in the air as she disintegrates completely.

Jared squeezes his eyes shut, a guttural sob caught in his throat.

Darkness. Silence.

He opens his eyes.

**EXT. TWISTED FOREST - TWILIGHT**

Everything is gone.

He’s lying on his back on cool, soft SOIL.

Above him, the skeletal branches of a massive, impossibly twisted tree claw at a sky streaked with bruised purples and yellows.

The air is still. A single, CRIMSON-COLOURED LEAF detaches from a high branch.

It drifts down, a slow, lazy spiral.

It lands gently on his forehead.

Cool. Solid.

Utterly, terrifyingly real.

He lies there, paralyzed, staring up at the empty branch.

FADE TO BLACK.

[SCENE END]