Lost Souls

LOST SOULS Screenplay by Pierce Gardner FADE IN ON: Black screen SOUND OS -- a CHOKED BACK BREATH, GASPING, lungs looking for air, the struggle for life and we -- FLASHCUT TO: INT. LIMBO/WATER - ANOTHER TIME GASPING for BREATH continues, more relentless, harder, heavier and into the FRAME we SEE fragments, slowed into special motion, dreamlike, surreal: Dirty blonde hair lifts and tumbles; Bubbles POP through the murky water; A hand and then its attached arm swims, in trouble, trying to climb; And then floats as if disembodied, momentary; The SWIMMER drifts, then a brief effort twisting, signs of struggle; A leg pushes off the nothingness, threatened, an impossible fight; And the claustrophobic GASP, a last chocked back BREATH as other sounds begin to bleed in: the CRACKLE of a RADIO, a few VOICES MURMURING and then more clearly -- WOMAN'S VOICE (O.S.) Jesus, please... Jesus... The water blurs opaque, into a murky veil of illusion and we DISSOLVE TO: INT. FORD FIESTA - MORNING The cracked windshield of a blue Ford Fiesta.The clouded form of the drowning SWIMMER is replaced by a small plastic day-glo cross that sways as the Fiesta is lifted up on a tow truck hoist.A PARAMEDIC jogs over to the car as PARAMEDIC (O.S.) Hold it, hold on... The Fiesta stops its ascent.The passenger side door opens and the Paramedic reaches in and snares the bopping cross. EXT.