We open on a wide shot of Zain’s cell. Zain looks almost small, sat with his back on the far wall. Reaching up, he grips one of the crystal plates protecting his neck. It crumbles at his touch.

He doesn’t react as a voice fills the room.

ECHOING ALIEN: I sorely hope that you don’t represent your species to any extent.

We cut to Jordan in his cell, the alien’s words overlayed on the scene as it continues to speak at Zain. Jordan is sat on the floor with his back on his bed’s side, panting heavily. Sweat can be seen on his brow, and his face is red.

ECHOING ALIEN: Allow me to tell you a little bit about where I come from.

Jordan can be seen to try getting up from his sitting position. The arm he tries to push himself up with, however, buckles under his weight. Evidently, he’s been weakened by exercise.

ECHOING ALIEN: We are a perfect, global community– what you and yours would call a utopia.

Jordan allows himself to fall, catching himself with an elbow as his labored breathing continues.

ECHOING ALIEN: And our society– the place where we subsist, alter and create– is kept so perfect by one constant;

Jordan’s vision blurries with welling tears as he looks towards the metal door, his low-shot view of it making it look more imposing and impassible than ever before.

ECHOING ALIEN: We all know our place.

Jordan scrubs his eyes dry with his forearms, pulling himself up to place his back on the wall. His eyes fall to gaze upon the thin grates composing his room’s floor. They remain there, transfixed for a moment on the blackness beyond them, before flipping back to the door. With a wet sniff, he speaks under his breath in a grumble:

JORDAN: Tomorrow.

Returning to Zain’s cell, Zain can be seen to get up as the alien voice continues to echo:

ECHOING ALIEN: Everyone on the planet has confidence in the government that guides them, and there is only one government. There is no terrorism, vigilantism or crime.

We get a shot of Scott, back in his basement. He’s sitting at his desk, in front of the nearly-completed onyx suit. He is spreading some sort of orange gel, by hand, over the interior-side of one of the suit’s abdominal pieces, fitting it back onto the whole once he’s done.

ECHOING ALIEN: No one takes matters “into their own hands”.

Scott, still sitting, looks to his right, into a shadowed corner of the basement. There, a large, indeterminately-dimensioned shape can be seen hidden under a cloth tarp. Pinned on the tarp with a thumb-tack is a note, which reads: “-For Scott: Don’t open till birthday!”

ECHOING ALIEN: Further, every one of us can make a “wish”. Once per lifetime, once per person, we can make an alteration to our reality just by thinking it.

Switching back to Zain in his cell, we see him speed-walk to a corner of the room adjacent to where he was sitting.

ECHOING ALIEN: Had you or yours at any point had this ability and became aware of it…

As the alien speaks, the scene changes to illustrate what it is explaining. A depiction of a man in golden robes, covered head-to-toe in lavish jewelry. He is sitting on a marble and ivory throne, surrounded by expensive-looking art, foods, drinks, curios and concubines. A zoom-out brings us to see that he is sitting at the center of a giant castle-mansion at the top of a green mountain, the surrounding landscape being cracked and desert-like. 

ECHOING ALIEN: There is no doubt that your society would never have progressed to where it is today.

The entire structure, as well as the mountain under it, are crushed into fine rubble by a gargantuan, hairy foot that comes into focus from above. The “BOOM” this produces reverberates through the ground as the shot moves up to show the full body of the giant.

The thing is heavily humanoid in shape, the structure of its face heavily reminiscent of that of Homo erectus. Floating just above its head, massive in its own right, is a blackened halo-like structure. The behemoth had been walking, continuing to send reverberations throughout the ground, but now it stops. 

The scene shifts to show us that it is gazing towards a similar humanoid in the distance, which is weiling a full, uprooted tree as a club.

The giants dwarf even the clouds they walk through as they charge each other, breaking the earth beneath them further.

We return from the hypothetical as Zain sits down in the corner he’d moved to. A lower angle shows us that he’s positioned himself in front of the arrow-head, which is still hidden behind the thin plate of crystal.

ECHOING ALIEN: This is because unlike me and mine, those of your race have little sense of the “balance” we exist in. We only ever use our wishes to bring about small things, never deigning to inflict what some would call “real” change. We wish for the health of loved ones, the restoration of a ruined artefact– nothing more frivolous than that.

As the alien continues to monologue, we cut to Angosin and Wenji, standing in the same spot of forest as they had been before.

ECHOING ALIEN: That piece of metal behind you, or rather, the virus infesting it– it stands in stark opposition to the balance. It changes too much– it threatens everything you know.

Angosin’s face, as he is still looking away from Wenji, can be seen to revert from a flesh-mist amalgam to a regular visage. 

ECHOING ALIEN: My people hold an actual understanding of this virus you have so knowingly spread. Just the fact that it has been present on this planet for so long renders the whole rock doomed. In time, you will come to understand this yourself. 

Angosin turns to face Wenji, and as he does, we can see her stand from her seated position on the tree. Anxiety is evident in her voice as she speaks:

WENJI: Are you done? Can I have my machete back?

In response, Angosin raises an arm. At its end, where his hand should be, it is terminating into multiple wispy tails from the wrist.

ANGOSIN: Keeping it ready, just to be sure.

In the distance behind them, a moose can be seen.

ANGOSIN: Just watch the sky; they’ll be here soon enough.

Indeed, the chopping sounds of a helicopter’s blades can be heard in the distance.

As both Angosin and Wenji are squinting past the trees, attempting to see the noisy aircraft, the moose slowly but surely edges closer. Its focus is very obviously on the two.

The scene cuts back to Zain in his cell. He scratches his head, mumbling to himself:

ECHOING ALIEN: My request to you is that you leave this place, a thing very much in your power to do, as outside nature will be allowed to take its natural course. There, the consequences of the arrow’s use will much more quickly make themselv–

ZAIN: (interrupting) Gotta look and act like a knight when it turns into a dragon…? What were those guys reading?

There is a long silence.

ECHOING ALIEN: Were you not even listening to me?

Zain shows no signs of having heard the alien.

ECHOING ALIEN: Typical. Not just of your species, but of you, specifically! You even disregarded the warnings in that colonel’s note!

The scene changes back to Angosin and Wenji. The moose is alarmingly close now, and it seems the two haven’t recognized its presence in any capacity, still watching the sky.

The sound of the helicopter is intensifying quickly, now, and the moose backs off somewhat as the vehicle comes into view.

Angosin and Wenji both find their faces blasted with wind, dead leaves flying from the ground and their hair from their heads as the bulky, black chopper lands in the clearing before them. At this, the moose slinks back into the shadows behind the trees, even its antlers disappearing beyond them.

In the chopper’s cockpit, on the leftmost seat is the janitor. He is looking in Angosin and Wenji’s direction. His face is layered with doubt and spite, visible even outside the chopper and through its windows. 

Still positioned right under his chin, held there by the blade and handle by Angosin’s hands, is the machete. 

A cut back to the facility brings us to Jordan’s cell. He is tucked under his bed’s covers, mumbling under his breath and biting at his nails..

JORDAN: They’ve got one camera hidden in my room, in the top-right corner nearest the door. Positioned outside the door, immediate to its left and right, are two guards with guns, except for when any of those lab-coat guys visit to talk. Then, the guards keep their distance. That happened just recently, so it’ll be a while ‘till they come by again. I can’t hear anything through the door or wall, even when I put my ear up to them, so they might be sound-proofed. This means I’ll be able to take the guards out when they’re close.

Jordan’s eyes drift to the grated floor.

They raise back towards the wall and door a moment later.

JORDAN: I’ll burn right through it.