Save the next.
There's a longer and more detailed version of this storyline as well as a script.
twitter: lovegoodari
Government introduces the idea of rewatching your dreams through a moving picture frame every morning. Mother Beth Michaelsen witnesses her daughters kidnap through it. A nightmare and reality.
A kid gets rushed into the hospital room as the seizure continuously shakes his body and cuts his breath. He's shaking, his parents are panicking and Beth is attempting to cure his untreated Meningitis. Unsuccessful. Dr. Michaelsen removes her gloves as she announces the bad news to the desperate parents. She continued her day while carrying the weight of guilt with her around.
Driving home, she walks in to several men inside her house moving furniture as if they shared the house. Her look of confusion leads the men to explain that they have a warrant to enter the building in order to install the obligatory new system created by the government.
"I never asked for this" She insisted.
"You don't have that choice. We do, the moment you signed the property papers."
He laughed. "It's our way of boosting the next generation's creativity and memory" The men claimed as they inserted microchips on our temples in a carefree manner.
Several weeks passed until they could get used to waking up, and watch every dream and nightmare through picture like frames around the house. No control, no privacy. Only Beth's constant dreaming of her ex husband hitting her for Mia to see.
They kept coming: Beth's bloody hands. Mia's bullying fears. Beth's depression. Mia's dream dog. Except March 11th, Pitch black. Suddenly the dream frames had stopped working. Mia's had no problem, but Beth's showed strange images that she didn't remember dreaming: Forests, dark nights, more blood, shotgun noises… The uncontrollable visuals continued for days. Until… it was more than images. She woke up to an alarming beeping sound at 6:00 am. As she checked her dream frame, she noticed flashing words and glitching images.
IT'S LONELY IN THERE.
NOT A FUN PLACE FOR A CHILD.
NEXTDOOR.
Beth rushed out her room to check on Mia as she made the connection, that her child, was gone. Nothing. No sign of Mia.
Beth tore the house down and scanned the whole neighbourhood searching for her. No matter how much she looked around, Mia was nowhere to be found. The police came, the neighbours helped. The dream frame kept changing to moving images she couldn't figure out. One thousand possibilities ran through the mother's mind after looking for hours.
"Did the government plan this? They installed it… but why would they? Why Mia?
"Is it even possible to hack the system?
"What if the men in my home weren't from the government? Too many choices.
The time passed, and as if things couldn't get worse, every night the dream frame would give Beth new words and locations, as if her daughter's life was a treasure hunt. In conclusion, she was forced to sleep so she could receive an insignificant small piece of information about Mia's whereabouts every morning. This only confused Beth more, in her mind this was a trap. Why would your child's kidnapper help you find her? Why would he kidnap her in the first place then? Nothing made sense.
This game went on for six days. Six days where Beth had not laid an eye, where she had traveled to different cities following the locations given to her, where she payed private investigators and suffered several injuries by the information given to her. All of this, to later receive a call from Beth's grandmother on March 24th saying she received "Beths" note and that Mia has been staying there this whole time.
Beth's expression was priceless. Something he enjoyed, because he was watching.
The dream frame glitched for one last time.
Saying:
I AM NO KIDNAPPER. NOR KILLER.
I'M THE ELECTRONIC VERSION OF KARMA.
IT'S NOT FUN TO LOSE A CHILD RIGHT?
TRY HARDER WITH THE NEXT ONE.
Flashing images of the child she couldn't save that morning at hospital immediately came to her mind. The seizures, the sobbing, the pain, the parents desperation and their worrying silence that finally, made sense.