A Script for Green Surge

[SCENE START]

**EXT. OVERGROWN ALLEY - DAY**

The air is a thick, green soup. So saturated with chlorophyll it feels like you could drown in it.

This was a street once. Now, it’s a claustrophobic canyon walled in by monstrous botany. EMERALD VINES, thick as a human thigh, have consumed entire buildings, their immense strength twisting steel girders into knots and shattering concrete facades.

Above, giant FUCHSIA BLOOMS, each the size of a dinner plate, open and close in a slow, hypnotic pulse. Their light casts a shifting, almost painful glow on the scene below.

A deep, resonant HUM vibrates through the ground, the air, everything.

LUCIE (30s), focused, her face smudged with pollen and dirt, pushes through a curtain of shimmering leaves. Her breath hitches, not from effort, but from the sheer sensory overload.

Behind her, KENNY (30s), pulling his worn denim hoodie free from a thorny tendril, stumbles.

<center>KENNY</center>

> Are we sure this is the right way? Because, last time, ‘right way’ meant we ended up covered in... well, I don't even know what that was. Sticky, definitely purple.

He shudders, rubbing his arm as if he can still feel it.

Lucie doesn’t look back. Her trainers SQUELCH in a patch of luminous, glowing moss. The smell is bitter, like damp soil and bleach.

<center>LUCIE</center>

> Zach says it’s the only way, Kenny. And she’s usually not wrong about the temporal stuff. Just… the exact exit points.

ZACH (20s), calm and analytical, brings up the rear. A sleek comms device glows on her wrist, projecting tiny, complex schematics into the air. Her glasses are slightly askew, catching the fuchsia light.

<center>ZACH</center>

> The predictive models show a 93.7% probability of this alley leading directly to the Core Blossom. The previous attempts were… outliers.

She adjusts her glasses with a precise finger, pushing a strand of dark hair from her face.

<center>ZACH (CONT'D)</center>

> The temporal decay rate is accelerating. We don't have time for a scenic detour, Kenny.

<center>KENNY</center>

>>(muttering)

> Right, right, no detours. Just trying to keep the mood light before we all get absorbed by giant carnivorous spring flowers. Which, for the record, is not how I pictured my Tuesday.

A thick, rope-like tendril swings down, brushing Lucie’s cheek. She flinches, batting it away. A faint red scratch appears on her skin.

<center>LUCIE</center>

> They’re not carnivorous, Kenny. They’re just… overenthusiastic. The timeline’s bleeding.

She pushes harder, parting a thick wall of leaves. Her hand brushes against a metal street sign, half-swallowed by a vine. She glances at it—the rust is sharp and dark. A memory of a different city, grey and predictable, flashes in her mind. She grimaces.

<center>ZACH (O.S.)</center>

>>(filtered through comms)

> My readings are spiking. The field distortion is intensifying. We’re getting close. And… something else.

Suddenly, the world JOLTS. A visual-auditory SKIP—like a corrupted video file. For a split second, everything freezes, then snaps back into place.

Kenny lurches forward, bumping into Lucie.

<center>KENNY</center>

> Whoa! What was that? Felt like a skipping record... but in my head.

<center>ZACH</center>

>>(voice clipped, urgent)

> Temporal stutter. A micro-disruption. The field is actively pushing back. It's trying to maintain its altered state.

<center>LUCIE</center>

> Great. So, the thing we're trying to fix is actively *trying* to stay broken. Fantastic.

She shoves through a final curtain of shimmering, wet leaves and stops dead.

**EXT. THE CORE BLOSSOM CLEARING - CONTINUOUS**

They’ve emerged into a small clearing. The canopy opens slightly, allowing a single shaft of watery light to pierce the gloom.

It illuminates THE CORE BLOSSOM.

It’s not one plant, but a colossal, spiraling nexus of intertwined growths. A living, breathing cathedral of light and chlorophyll, it PULSES with the deep HUM, a vibration that Lucie feels in her bones.

Small MOTES OF LIGHT, like displaced fireflies, dance around its base. The air shimmers with a visible distortion, like heat haze.

Lucie, mesmerized, takes a step forward, her hand reaching out unconsciously.

<center>ZACH</center>

> Don't!

Lucie freezes.

<center>ZACH (CONT'D)</center>

> The temporal flux here is immense. Touching it could… well, could splinter your existence across three different Tuesdays, for starters.

Zach is already on her knees, unfolding a portable scanner. It whirs to life, projecting a HOLOGRAPHIC MAP of swirling energy patterns into the air.

<center>KENNY</center>

>>(whistles low)

> Okay, that's… actually pretty cool. And terrifying. Like a giant, angry Christmas tree on steroids. Do we hug it or hit it?

<center>LUCIE</center>

>>(shaking her head, eyes watering from the intense light)

> Neither, Kenny. We recalibrate it. Zach, what’s the read? Can we initiate the frequency inversion?

Zach’s fingers fly across her device, her usual composure gone, replaced by a taut strain.

<center>ZACH</center>

> The core resonance is… unstable. Stronger than predicted. The paradox feedback loop is accelerating. We're getting readings from two districts over. If this isn’t contained, the entire quadrant could be swallowed by… this.

She gestures vaguely at the botanical monstrosity. The ground under their feet is a soft, spongy carpet of GLOWING IRIDESCENT FUNGI.

<center>LUCIE</center>

> Two districts? We need to go faster. Give me the primary frequency. I’ll start the manual override. Kenny, watch our backs.

<center>KENNY</center>

> Aye aye, captain.

He gives a mock salute and pulls a small, battered ENERGY PISTOL from his belt. He taps it nervously against his thigh.

Lucie moves towards the Core Blossom. The HUM intensifies, a thrumming pressure inside her skull. She pulls a sleek, cylindrical FIELD GENERATOR from her pack. It feels cold and solid in her clammy hand.

<center>LUCIE (CONT'D)</center>

>>(shouting over the HUM)

> Primary frequency, Zach!

<center>ZACH</center>

>>(strained)

> Transmitting now! The resonance frequency is 7.42 gigahertz. Oscillate to stabilise! You need to hit the central node—that crystalline growth!

Lucie squints, locating the target: a cluster of jagged, glowing AMETHYST-LIKE CRYSTALS embedded deep within the pulsating mass.

She takes a deep, shaky breath of the sweet, cloying air. Her fingers, sticky with moss, adjust the dials on her generator.

<center>LUCIE</center>

> Oscillation set. Aiming for the node.

She raises the generator. Its tip glows with faint energy. Her arm is surprisingly steady. The pressure behind her eyes is immense. Her vision blurs at the edges.

She is about to activate it when—

<center>KENNY</center>

> Lucie! Behind you!

Lucie spins, but it’s too late.

The ground ERUPTS.

A new wave of growth, faster and more violent than anything before, bursts upwards with an audible SHRIEK. Giant, thorny tendrils, thicker than her waist, slam into the clearing walls.

One impossibly fast vine snakes towards Zach.

<center>LUCIE</center>

> ZACH!

A CRACKLING BLUE BEAM from Kenny’s pistol slices through the vine. It recoils, SIZZLING.

But more vines erupt from the ground, coiling around Kenny’s legs, yanking him off his feet. He CRIES OUT, dropping his pistol.

At the same time, a deep FISSURE, glowing with emerald light, cracks open in the ground directly in front of Lucie. It yawns wide.

Zach’s scanner SPARKS violently and dies.

<center>ZACH</center>

> Run!

But there's nowhere to go.

The entire clearing gives a violent LURCH. Lucie loses her footing on the slick fungi, stumbling. The field generator clatters from her hand, its light dying.

Her gaze shoots to Kenny, tangled and struggling, then to Zach, her face a mask of pure terror.

The ground beneath them simply drops away.

The sickening lurch of falling. The frantic, terrified SCREAMS of all three are swallowed by the overwhelming, all-consuming green.

FADE TO BLACK.

The sound of the HUM continues for a beat, then silence.

[SCENE END]