by Jenova Chen
FADE IN:
EXT. MALL D - DAY
WIDE SHOT establishing a five story building with pale, dusty
walls. People's screaming can be barely heard from inside the
mall. A broken sign reads MALL D.
DOLLY to the entrance of the building. A group of customers
flee out of the mall, stepping over each other with their
luggage behind.
CLOSE UP to a young woman's expanded pupil. Her face is
covered with blood stain. A thrilling scream.
FADE TO:
INT. MALL D PARVIS - DAY
CLOSE SHOT at a 24 inch long tusk being raised and stabbed
through a middle aged male victim's chest.
MEDIUM SHOT reveals the 24 inch tusk belongs to a monstrous
bat. It is about 5 feet tall with 12 feet wing reach, covered
with thick needle-like mane.
WIDE SHOT shows the mall parvis is covered with blood, bodies
and scared people running for their lives.
TUXEDO, 35, dark hair, good looking with a pair of sad eye.
He stands still and holds a boy's hand. EYE, 14, dressed in
normal school uniform. He has an angel face which may make
people think he is a girl.
EYE looks at TUXEDO.
AN ANGLE follow TUXEDO's eye line to a white haired Caucasian
male. ELDER, 70, in a gray dust coat, he stumbles backwards
with both his hands grasping on a black cane.
Carelessly ELDER steps over a food can left on the ground and
falls down on the ground.
The bat hears the sound and turns around. It raises its
bloody tusk aiming at ELDER's chest.
ELDER
No! Stop!
The bat holds his tusk in the air and stares at ELDER.
ELDER points his finger to his heart and stares back to the
bat's eye.
ELDER
We are the sa...
FADE TO BLACK.
FADE IN:
INT. MALL D PARVIS - DAY
Empty parvis with a couple wounded people mourning and
crawling on the floor.
ELDER, TUXEDO, EYE and a green skinned small demon, GOBLIN
sit in circle. ELDER plays with his cane and starts speak.
ELDER
You barely killed me, novice.
ELDER coughs.
GOBLIN speaks with a sharp and piercing voice.
GOBLIN
A soul drainer disguises himself
into the lowly human. Funny, huh,
very funny!
GOBLIN scan through the rest three.
TUXEDO and EYE are looking nowhere. ELDER contemptuously
smiles.
ELDER
Young man, soul draining is an art.
Your skill is too barbarian, too
dirty. You will get us in trouble
with them.
ELDER glances at a dying victim around the corner of the room
and turns back to the rest three.
ELDER
No wonder human will confuse us
with those corrupted vampires.
GOBLIN
Vampire? What's wrong with
vampirism?
We all know soul lives in blood,
this is the easiest way to get
them. Aren't you hungry? Listen to
your instinct fellows.
ELDER sighs,
ELDER
You must learned soul draining by
yourself, didn't you? Talent like
you are very rare these days. You
have the potential to be a great
one. But be wise and listen to your
seniors.
ELDER pushes his cane and stands up slowly, with a proud
sneer on his face.
ELDER
After my master got killed by them,
the angels. I have been hiding and
researching better soul draining
techniques. I'm very proud that I
have surpassed my master.
ELDER turns to the dying victim.
ELDER
Mankind's biggest weakness is
horror. Horror makes them
defenseless and their souls
unstable.
ELDER moves his hands away from the top of his cane, reveals
a horrifying skull with cyan and purple smoke leaking out
from the cracks. The victim puts his head between his knees,
shivering.
ELDER
The art is to catch that instant
moment, the moment their minds lose
grasp of their souls...
Slowly, ELDER rotates his cane like a clock arm. The flaming
skull emits ear bleeding siren. The victim is scared and
leaves his mouth wide open.
Suddenly, ELDER howls out and knocks the cane on the ground.
The victim spits out a flock of green and purple energies,
eventually eaten by the skull on the cane.
ELDER gasps heavily. Little by little, he regains his peace
with a childish smile on his face.
ELDER
See? Did you see? This...is the
true way of soul draining. No dirty
flesh, no corrupted blood! I won
their pure soul......flawless!
TUXEDO's claps break the silence.
GOBLIN
Overdo. (murmurs)
ELDER wears off his smile.
ELDER
I can tell from your claps that my
skill is not impressive to you,
young man. Would you like to share
your thoughts with us?
TUXEDO looks out of the window. Slowly, he speaks.
TUXEDO
The soul you just ate is corrupted.
ELDER
Wh...what!?
(Silence)
What do you mean? I gained the soul
purely without any flaws.
TUXEDO
The soul you just ate has horror in
it. It is lost...
GOBLIN starts giggling. Slowly it turns into a historical
laugh. ELDER glances at GOBLIN.
ELDER
What are you talking about? Horror
is the best flavor to the soul.
This is written on the soul
draining 101, page 1.
TUXEDO
You guys believe in paper?
GOBLIN
We believe in our instinct!
TUXEDO
Instinct? What is instinct? An
excuse to do things you don't even
understand?
GOBLIN
Hey! You talk like if you are one
of those stupid humans...
ELDER stopped GOBLIN,
ELDER
So how do you drain other's soul?
Why not show us your superior
technique?
TUXEDO
There is a reason soul stays in
human body. It carries their
emotions, the moment you finish a
human's life, the emotion gets
burnt on the soul. Pain, desperate,
horror. They taste drastically
different.
ELDER
That's why soul with horror is the
best.
TUXEDO stands up and walks towards to the window. Tremendous
dark clouds cover the sky near the horizon. Thunder can be
heard from distance.
TUXEDO
Have you tried to drain a human's
soul without killing them?
TUXEDO closes his eye.
FADE TO BLACK.
GOBLIN
That doesn't make any sense. The
soul won't give up their body till
I rip them apart.
FADE IN:
TUXEDO
Ten years ago, my soul is
accidentally bridged with another
human's soul. I was very scared of
losing my soul at the moment. But
soon I found a completely new taste
by drain through this bridge.
It was a very strange taste at the
beginning. But soon you will get
addicted to it, and you can never
eat souls with any other tastes.
ELDER
What is that taste? How do you
bridge your soul with human's?
TUXEDO walk towards the other end of the room and brings back
a fainted young woman in his arms.
TUXEDO carefully put her on a couch. He blows to the woman's
nose. She opens her eye and wants to look around. In a gentle
way, TUXEDO fixes her head so that all she can see is his
eye.
A long time has passed, he looses his hands and leaves the
woman on the couch.
TUXEDO
We are connected.
ELDER and GOBLIN come up trying to figure out what is in
between TUXEDO and the woman. The woman stares her eye to
TUXEDO totally ignoring the two.
TUXEDO
You can neither see it nor touch
it. The bridge only exists between
our soul.
ELDER
How do you prove it exists?
TUXEDO raises his hand to his chest, and starts swimming with
his ten fingers as if he is pulling an invisible string
between the two. Slowly, the woman closes her eye and lies
down.
TUXEDO sits down on the couch. His eye is red and tired.
TUXEDO
She is still alive, but I don't
know when will she wake up. Maybe
tomorrow, or maybe never.
GOBLIN
Why not just kill her?
Silence
ELDER
In human's language. He is in love
with his prey.
TUXEDO
No, it is not, it was her.
TUXEDO murmurs, lies down besides the woman and closes his
eye.
FADE TO BLACK.
ELDER
So, kid. You are a soul drainer too
right? Do you understand your
master's technique?
FADE IN:
ELDER stands in front of EYE. EYE stands there as if he
didn't hear anything.
ELDER
Kid?
TUXEDO speaks with his eye closed.
TUXEDO
He is not my student. I picked him
up in a rainy day several years
ago. He doesn't speak nor listen.
The only way I can communicate with
him is to look at his eyes. That's
why I call him EYE. Though it is
just a name for myself.
TUXEDO smiles to the air.
ELDER
But he is not a human.
TUXEDO
He is the most weird soul drainer I
have ever seen.
GOBLIN
As weird as you guys?
TUXEDO
EYE never touches human. I found
him fond of watching his prey
without letting them noticed.
And watching them is all he did.
Strangely the people he watched all
died in the end. EYE will go to
catch their souls when they die.
GOBLIN
That sounds very easy.
TUXEDO
It may sound easy. But it is very
intensive to do. It requires a lot
of concentration usually take weeks
and even months. I can't even do
that for half a day.
GOBLIN
What? Months? That is ridiculous.
He must be the dumbest soul drainer
ever.
TUXEDO
I don't know. That's why I have
been taking care of him.
ELDER
What a big world...
ELDER sits down on a chair, falls into a meditation.
FADE TO BLACK.
TUXEDO
Oh I forget to mention the most
weird thing EYE does. He will
breath in his preys' souls and blow
them into a bunch of balloons. When
thunder storm comes he will release
those balloons in the rain...
A subtitle shows up
SUBTITLE
Soul Drainers: Lost angels who
forget their reasons to exist
The Soul Drainers
by Jenova Chen