Arcade

The dunes gradually level out.  Alex and Nick slow to a stop.
Alex flips up her visor.  Her face is covered with grime now, hardened.

    ALEX
  I guess we're walking from here on out.

They pick up their boards and walk.

       DISSOLVE TO:

EXT.  LEVEL THREE, DESERT -- LATER

Alex and Nick have been walking for a long time.  Nick is silent, just
staring straight ahead at the endless sand. He looks wasted.  Zoned out.
His face is beaded with sweat.

Once again, their wrist displays begin to BEEP.

    ALEX
   (almost a whisper)
  Time's up.

Nick starts to LAUGH, sinking to his knees.

    NICK
  We're fucked.  That's it.

Alex pulls on Nick's arm, forcing him to his feet.

    ALEX
  Get up, Nick...

Nick isn't going anywhere fast.  Alex tries to drag him forward, but she
slips in the sand.

    ALEX
  GET UP!!!

And then, from off in the distance...

    VOICE (O.S.)
   (far away)
  Alex...help me...

Alex turns.  She focuses on the horizon and sees a tiny speck.  She taps a
control on her helmet and her view is magnified.

ALEX'S P.O.V.

Benz is up ahead. buried up to his waist in the blue sand and sinking
quickly.  He waves his hands for help. and clutched in one of them is the
second key.

    ALEX
  It's Benz!!!

Alex breaks into a run, and after a moment, Nick follows. He's walking,
though...in no hurry to reach Benz.

ON BENZ

The desert is swallowing him up.  Only his head and arms remain.  He's in
a state of total panic.

    BENZ
   (terrified)
  Get me out of here!  Oh God!!!

ALEX

is running at top speed, half-stumbling across the dunes. Her
wrist-display is BEEPING furiously.

BENZ

His head starts to disappear beneath the sand and his cries are choked
off.

    ALEX
  Benz!

Alex reaches the spot and now, only Benz' clutched fist remains.  The hand
opens and the gold key falls onto the sand.

Alex DIVES for Benz' hand, but it sinks just before she can reach it.  She
SCREAMS and claws at the sand, trying to find him.  She digs and digs, but
all she finds is more sand.  With each second she becomes more frantic.

Finally Alex stops, noticing the key and idly picking it up.

THE SAND

around Alex ERUPTS and BONES come flying up into the air, Benz' bones!

Alex SCREAMS.  The bones rain down around her in bloody fragments.  It's
as if the Earth has chewed Benz up and spit out the nasty bits.

At that very moment, the BEEPS on her wrist-display meld into the single
tone heralding...

THE SCREAMER

As if on cue, it enters Level Two, breaking the Sound Barrier.

ON NICK

As he stands some hundred feet away, oblivious to everything.  We can hear
Alex SCREAMING, but the sound is muffled, distant.  Nick is staring down
at his feet at an area where the sand has hardened like glass.  Inside the
sand/glass, Nick can make out fractals.  He smiles.

THE SCREAMER

streaks across the sky towards them, blowing up a maelstrom of sand as it
crosses the dunes...

ON ALEX

as she sees that a rabbit hole of sorts has been created where the bones
were ejected.  Actually, not a rabbit hole, but a circular, pulsing mouth
with razor sharp teeth.  Alex realizes, much to her horror, that this is
the doorway to Level Three!

Alex shouts at Nick, trying to break the spell over him.

    ALEX
  Run!  RUN!!!

But the Screamer is bearing down on him, like a heat-seeking missile...

ON NICK

as he watches the fractals.  ARCADE'S face appears in the mirrored sand,
smiling back at him.

    ARCADE
  GOODBYE, NICK.

At the last possible moment, Nick seems to wake from his trance.  He sees
Alex, hears her, then turns.  He has about one fear-wrought second to
realize that the Screamer has reached him when...

WHAM!!!!!!!!!

The Screamer SLAMS into Nick at about 200 miles per hour. Nick, literally,
liquefies.  The human body is 95% water, and Nick EXPLODES like a water
balloon on high impact, blood spraying in a fine mist across the dunes,
Alex, and everything for a good fifty yards.

Alex is frozen with terror.  You remember your worst childhood nightmare
monster?  The one you'd see in your room at night as your brain cooked
with fever?  Too paralyzed to call out for Mom?  Well that's the Screamer.

THE SCREAMER

stands where Nick used to be (a red mess on the blue sand now).  Black as
night.  Like living, roiling lava. Smoking, charged RED EYES.  One third
demon, one third Balrog, and one third rotting corpse.  Clad in chains and
samurai armor, CLINKING as it moves.  It rear back its head, opens a
fanged mouth, and lets loose a ROAR designed to shake the stars from the
sky.

Then it focuses it's eyes on Alex.  And it charges.

ALEX

unfreezes.  She's got seconds to make up her mind, the doorway/mouth or
the Screamer.  It's really no choice at all.  Alex turns and dives
straight down into the pulsing mouth.

The jaws of the rabbit hole SNAP shut around her.  Darkness consumes
everything.

These words appear on screen, "LEVEL THREE -- TOWER OF GHOSTS"

        CUT TO:

EXT.  LEVEL FOUR, VOLCANO -- DAY

We are looking at a steep cliff face composed of black, volcanic rock.
This world is desaturated, gray, and harsh. The rocks looks sharp as
razors.

As we will discover, the cliff face is also composed of skulls, old and
blackened, set inside the rock.

We hear a HUMMING and Alex "fades in", appearing on the side of the cliff
face.  Immediately she starts to fall, realizes where she is, and hugs the
cliff for dear life. Rock shards crumble away beneath her feet.  Alex
looks down ...

Big mistake.

She hugs the cliff face tighter, tears and grime streaking her face. She's
alone now and she knows it.  She looks up ...

It's a long way to go.