Post by Andrew Savage on Jun 25, 2012 19:21:33 GMT -6
[It wasn’t always complete darkness for her. She remembers a little bit, though dream or reality she is still unsure of. She remembers she fought. She fought the white coats and gloved hands and the poison filled metal they injected her with. She remembers in bits and pieces, laying on a hard, cold table, and finding small, silent ways to reject their poison. Once, once she ran for it. They’d moved her to a new table, something with straps. She panicked. As soon as she could, she opened her eyes to the world, and grabbed the tray from beside her, using it to hit the first body that got near her. As soon as he dropped, she sat straight up, ignoring the dizzying, pulsing pain in her head and crashed onto the floor. She pulled herself up though, and half ran, half stumbled for the door. She bolted through it.
What the hell was this place? She couldn’t help but think as she ran, breathless and bolting down the hall. She wasn’t searching for anything but an exit. It was like a maze though, this place. She heard people following her, and looked behind her while she ran. They had some kind of weapon and they were chasing her down. They sure as fuck weren’t security. Her distraction caught up with her though, as she banged into a wall, crumpling to the ground. Pulling herself up she turns and runs again, down the next hall, through a door, hiding. The men passed, running by the place where she hid. It was a small room, and she stepped cautiously to the window, pulling the blinds open. She was on the first floor.
She opened the door, and turned, heading straight down another hallway, looking for an exit. She heard the men coming back, one of them spotted her. she burst through another door, and found men ready, waiting with sights on her. she paused for a moment then took off again, just before the first shot would have hit her. Panting, out of breath she finally saw the exit sign and ran toward the doors. They’d been locked. While trying to pry them open she failed to notice the man with the beanbag gun creep up to her left. The impact knocked her to the ground and they were on top of her, dragging her back. Back to drugs and darkness, back to not knowing. She screamed.]
Ashley: No, NO, Never, let me go…
[The images blur..]
Ashley: let me go, let me out, no NO!
[Andrew Savage stands over the sleeping Ashley who is now swinging at the space between them.]
Andrew: It’s okay, your safe, your safe…shh.
[She wakes with a start, lashing out at him with her fist, but he blocks it and pulls her close as he murmurs to her, comforting her. She shakes with fear and rage and he holds her comfortingly until she calms. Once she does, he lets her go.]
Ashley: What’s wrong with me…
[She fights the tears. She won’t cry in front of him again. But she won’t make it long if she doesn’t move. Getting up before he can answer, she makes her way to the bathroom. She quickly pulls the door behind her and is once encased in privacy. She rests her hands on the sink, waiting. Looking up she sees her face again. Pain, grief, torment and an uncertain war in her eyes. What the fuck happened to her? She shakes with rage and suddenly, she hates the person in the mirror. She wants to break her, tear her down and apart. She wants to rip her up and kill her.
The bathroom, the suite that she’s in, it all seems to be shrinking. The uneasy feeling of the walls closing in around her causes her to look in all directions in fear, gasping for breath each time her head moves. She opens the door, passing Andrew and leaving only with an warning that she was going to get some air. Once the door shuts, she breaks into a run, throwing open the door to the emergency stairwell in order to keep moving.
She reaches the street outside and is welcomed with a driving rain that only Washington D.C.’s spring thunderstoms can bring. She calms to a brisk walk, moving through the people that seem so content with their lives, so secure in who they are. How is it fair that they know themselves and she can’t drudge up anything? She pulls the hood of her black sweatshirt up over her head and continues walking, weaving her way through the pedestrian traffic and being sure to keep her head down.]
Ashley: There has to be something…
[She trails off, keeping a wary eye on the settings around her. It’s not long before she finds herself staring at an electronics store. The televisions all face the picture-frame window that beads with the raindrops. She stops, facing the some dozen screens with an almost bewildered glaze over her eyes. The rain continues to drown her thoughts as it punishes the earth around her as well as her shoulders and head. The camera turns and stands over her right shoulder as we come into focus of the televisions. It is Andrew. The local station is replaying USPW Hell Frozen Over from Green Bay, WI and showing a preview for each match.
On the screen, Andrew Savage is dressed in his Ring gear. His eyes show no emotion in them. They show Max Douglas and then they show the highlights of the match when Andrew Savage drivers Max Douglas down hard with the Savage impact. Ashley Savage quivers at the sight of Max‘s predicament and thinks how cruel it is for Andrew to be treating someone like that, knowing that he just saved her from a similar hell. The televisions close in on Andrew Savage‘s eyes.]
Ashley: All the answers are right there…
[Again, she trails off, a rumble of thunder coming through. Car horns honk, people continue to shuffle behind Ashley, but she seems intent on looking into the eyes of her hero. As quickly as she was mesmerized by Andrew Savage, the televisions switch to Max who appears to be pouring champagne for himself at a party. At this moment, captions begin crawling across the bottom of the screen.]
‘"While the pair of you prep for Freedom
your focus seems to switch, more and more
your beady little eyes set their focus on...
Your sister right?
The second class citizen you house in your hotel,
the girl that has questions for the great Andrew Savage,
and Andrew holds all the answers is your
sister right? Why hold the drama Savage spit it out…."
[She didn’t hear anything anymore. It was if the world had put earplugs in. She couldn’t even hear her heartbeat. She felt numbness wash through her, like Novocaine in her veins. She stumbled to the picture window of the televisions, scared, and trying to take it in. He had to be wrong. He had to. Why wouldn’t Andrew tell her if that were the case? Why…why would he keep something like that from her?
Ashley turns and walks back the way she came, finding refuge from the rain in an alley. She leans against the building, sliding down until her knees have been pulled up into her chest. She can feel the nausea rising. She fights it back slowly, taking her time before standing again. She inhales deeply and releases it slowly as she comes back to a vertical stance. When she does stand, she runs, hard and fast. She needs to get back to him. He swore he wouldn’t lie to her. He swore that he wanted nothing but the best for her.
Every step felt like a mile and her legs ached as she ran toward a busy intersection. The crosswalk red “Don’t Walk” and she wasn’t going to allow that to stop her. She charged through the crowd of people standing at the corner, mowing down a mother and her son, causing them to land in a puddle to her right. To her left, a businessman in a suit covers his head with a newspaper as she clears the curb and doesn’t look twice. The businessman tries to reach for her hood but it’s far too late. She narrowly misses getting hit by a cab in the first of six lanes of traffic. The second lane is clear but she is clearly not going to make the third.
Almost as if instinct were carrying her at this point, she jumps, sliding across the nose of the car whose locked his brakes and is currently hydroplaning into oncoming traffic. She lands safely on the other side as the car slams into an oncoming police car. The collision plows the police car backward, instantly releasing the airbags into the cop’s face giving him no visual on who it was that caused the accident. This ties up the rest of the lanes instantly and Ashley is safely across the street, plowing through another group of pedestrians who, only moments ago, were mindlessly waiting for the light to change. After seeing all of this, the crowd parts like the Red Sea as she forges forward.
She ducks and dodges other foot traffic on the sidewalk and charges onward until she can see the overhang for the St. Regis Hotel and Resort. Confused and panicked, she enters the hotel, bypassing the lobby by slamming through the revolving door. She arrives at the elevator, frantically begins pushing buttons. Damn, aren’t elevators the slowest inventions when you need them to be RIGHT THERE? Again with the stairs, she charges upward and then she runs down the long hallway. One pause at the door, a long deep breath and she bursts through.
Andrew jumps from his seat on one of the couches and grabs for a whiskey bottle on the table between them. Once seeing her, he smiles.]
Andrew: Get the air you needed, little one?
[She huffs, walking with a purpose directly toward him. She has so much rage but doesn’t know where or how to release it. Does she attempt to fight him? If it is true, can she truly fight her brother? She had before…but had she known it then? Did he know it then? Surely he had to. Unless…]
Ashley: You told me to trust you.
[Andrew, now seeing this is not going to go well, puts his arms in a defensive position as she comes closer. His right hand is up and his left hand holds a crystal glass half-full with ice and whiskey.]
Ashley: You told me you wouldn’t lie to me.
[Andrew continues to back up until his back is against the fireplace. Noticing he’s cornered, he turns to his left and backs around the coffee table. Still, Ashley comes toward him.]
Ashley: You claim that you’re all the answers and, up until now… I didn’t know what to ask.
[Andrew continues to back up until he’s in front of the camera. The camera moves to his right, putting him on the left side of the screen with Ashley, shorter yet much more aggressive, on the right. She takes her hands out from her hoodie and puts a finger right into his face.]
Ashley: You woke me up. You brought me here. You rescued me. If you did it all as a sham, I swear you’ll live to regret it.
[Andrew takes a drink of his whiskey before she continues.]
Ashley: I saw Max’s promo.
[Andrew swallows, nodding and smacks his lips, releasing an “ahh” while she continues.]
Ashley: Is he right? Are you my brother?
[Again, Andrew takes the whiskey to his lips, tipping the drink back and finishing the glass. Again, he swallows, smacking his lips and releasing another “ahh.” Without saying a word or giving anything off, he pulls a pack of Winston cigarettes from his pocket along with a brown bic lighter. Who has ever seen a brown bic lighter? Seriously, they make all these bright colors and black… but they’ve never made brown. It’s crazy. He places a cigarette between his lips but does not light it.]
Andrew: Yep.
[He ignites the lighter producing a long orange flame. He raises it to the end of his poison and ignites it with a small plume of smoke rising to the ceiling. Ashley, however, does not move. She simply takes a moment to put together her own thoughts as Andrew places the box of cigarettes back into his pocket and takes his right hand and places it on her shoulder.]
Andrew: Come. Let me tell you the story of your life. Let me give you all the agonizing details. I honestly didn’t want to do this all at once, simply because of your fragile state of mind, but if Max has now put everything on front street, we may as well face it at once. I must admit, though, you may not ever want to know me by the time I’m done with the story.
[Before the lyrics come on, the scene fades to a light shade of brown and we see the grainy image of a house in the suburbs. It could be any suburb in middle America with the plush green lawns, white fences, and blue sky with white puffy clouds floating by without a care in the world. Seated on the large porch of this house is a man and woman probably in their early to mid 30s. She is almost a twin of Ashley except for her hair is all teased out and teased far too much with hair spray. What were people thinking in the 80s and early 90s? In the yard is a boy, possibly about 10, with a SWEET mullet and a girl, a few years younger wearing a New Kids on the Block t-shirt running about. Mom looks over at Dad… smiles and puts her head on his shoulder.]
It's easier to run
Replacing this pain with something numb
It’s so much easier to go
Than face all this pain here all alone
[The two kids continue to play in the front yard. Leaves fall to the ground and we see the family out in the yard raking up the leaves and the kids playing in the pile. The boy buries the girl in the leaves, hiding her from their parents. The parents turn and she pops out of the leaves like a monster. Everyone laughs. Snow falls, we see them all building a snow man in the yard. The perfect middle American family with no worries and nothing but love around them.]
Something has been taken
From deep inside of me
A secret, I’ve kept locked away
No one can ever see
Wounds so deep, they never show
They never go away
Like moving pictures in my head
For years and years they've played
[We see a giant Christmas tree in the corner of the room and dad in a pair of black sweatpants and a white t-shirt half-awake holding a cup of coffee. Mom sits on the hideously colored sofa looking at the pile of presents that Santa has brought the kids this year. The boy opens up a train set, the girl, a Barbie doll. Dad comes in from another room and, silently, points toward the dining room which is hidden by a door. Both kids run toward the door and we see they both have been given new bicycles! They jump around and celebrate Santa’s great visit. Mom turns to Dad and she points up. Mistletoe. They kiss.]
If I could change I would
Take back the pain I would
Retrace every wrong move that I made I would
If I could stand up, and take the blame I would
If I could take all the shame to the grave I would
If I could change I would
Take back the pain I would
Retrace every wrong move that I made I would
If I could stand up and take the blame I would
I would take all my shame to the grave
[We see both kids riding their bike in a park somewhere in their little town. They go their separate ways as the boy is carrying a baseball bat and glove and the girl simply rides her bike over to the jungle gym on the other side. We see a split screen of the two and, not surprisingly, they look like a very young version of Andrew Savage and Ashley Savage. Both smile.]
It's easier to run
Replacing this pain with something numb
It’s so much easier to go
Than face all this pain here all alone
[We see the boy laying in bed with a large cast on his right leg. The girl sits at his bedside and both are playing Nintendo. The boy smiles at his sister and then hits a few buttons on her controller, causing her to die. He laughs at her. She smacks him in the chest.]
Sometimes I remember
The darkness of my past
Bringing back these memories
I wish I didn’t have
Sometimes I think of letting go
And never looking back
I'm never moving forward so
There’ll never be a past
[We see the words “years later” flash across the screen. Mom and Dad are in the dining room screaming at each other. We see big demonstrative arm motions as Mom is making some sort of point. She hauls off and slaps Dad across the face. Dad, without missing a beat, rears back and punches Mom across the jaw and walks out the back door. He gets into the car in the driveway and drives off. Both kids stand in the hallway. Mom walks into the kitchen and grabs a bottle of whiskey.]
If I could change I would
Take back the pain I would
Retrace every wrong move that I made I would
If I could stand up, and take the blame I would
If I could take all the shame to the grave I would
If I could change I would
Take back the pain I would
Retrace every wrong move that I made I would
If I could stand up, and take the blame I would
I would take all my shame to the grave
[We see the words “U-Haul” pull away from the screen and we see Mom and the two kids on the porch. Both kids look sad and Mom seems quite angry. She storms past the children and enters the house. She grabs a bottle of whiskey and begins pouring herself a drink. The kids enter, see her drinking, and cower to their rooms.]
Just washing it aside
All of the helplessness inside
Pretending I don’t feel misplaced
It’s so much simpler than change
[We see the little girl’s body fly onto the floor over a couch. She cracks her head against the coffee table and instantly holds it, crying. Mom grabs her by the hair and drags her down the hallway to her bedroom. She holds a bottle of whiskey in her hand as she slaps the girl across the face and throws her into the room. She stands over her daughter, yelling at her, but no words are heard. She picks her up again by the hair and slams her head into the wall causing the sheet rock to break and leaving a gaping hole in the wall. A second time in a different spot causes only a dent. Now she’s found the beam. Again and again she slams her head into the beam before long the white paint on the wall is stained red.]
It's easier to run
Replacing this pain with something numb
It’s so much easier to go
Than face all this pain here all alone
[The boy enters the room, grabs Mom around the shoulders. She throws her head backward, slamming it into the boy’s nose. He is instantly bleeding. Mom then charges the boy, slamming him into the bathroom door and through it. They tumble onto the floor, the whiskey bottle flying up and crashing into the mirror behind them. It shatters and pieces of it fall all over both of them. Out in the hallway, the once beautiful family portrait falls to the ground, the glass protecting it cracks into a spider web.]
It's easier to run…
If I could change I would
Take back the pain I would
Retrace every wrong move that I made
[Mom stands, rage in her eyes as she turns and walks back toward the room where Ashley’s nearly unconscious body lays.]
It's easier to go…
If I could change I would
Take back the pain I would
Retrace every wrong move that I made I would
If I could stand up, and take the blame I would
I would take all the shame to the grave
[The boy stands, finding near him a shard of glass from the mirror. He grips it in his hand and stands, moving swiftly toward his mother. Without hesitation, he drives the sharp glass into the neck of his own mother causing a crimson fountain to erupt from her. The walls get sprayed, he gets sprayed in the face and his mother falls to a crumpled mass on the floor. She convulses a few times, bleeds a massive puddle in mere seconds and, soon, isn’t moving. The boy then walks over to his sister, holds her head in his hands. Both of them begin to cry. He holds her, both their foreheads touching and each looking down at the floor.
Quick fade to the present, and Andrew Savage and Ashley are in the same position, Ashley hysterical and… Andrew’s emotionless face tells the story.
The scene fades to black]
What the hell was this place? She couldn’t help but think as she ran, breathless and bolting down the hall. She wasn’t searching for anything but an exit. It was like a maze though, this place. She heard people following her, and looked behind her while she ran. They had some kind of weapon and they were chasing her down. They sure as fuck weren’t security. Her distraction caught up with her though, as she banged into a wall, crumpling to the ground. Pulling herself up she turns and runs again, down the next hall, through a door, hiding. The men passed, running by the place where she hid. It was a small room, and she stepped cautiously to the window, pulling the blinds open. She was on the first floor.
She opened the door, and turned, heading straight down another hallway, looking for an exit. She heard the men coming back, one of them spotted her. she burst through another door, and found men ready, waiting with sights on her. she paused for a moment then took off again, just before the first shot would have hit her. Panting, out of breath she finally saw the exit sign and ran toward the doors. They’d been locked. While trying to pry them open she failed to notice the man with the beanbag gun creep up to her left. The impact knocked her to the ground and they were on top of her, dragging her back. Back to drugs and darkness, back to not knowing. She screamed.]
Ashley: No, NO, Never, let me go…
[The images blur..]
Ashley: let me go, let me out, no NO!
[Andrew Savage stands over the sleeping Ashley who is now swinging at the space between them.]
Andrew: It’s okay, your safe, your safe…shh.
[She wakes with a start, lashing out at him with her fist, but he blocks it and pulls her close as he murmurs to her, comforting her. She shakes with fear and rage and he holds her comfortingly until she calms. Once she does, he lets her go.]
Ashley: What’s wrong with me…
[She fights the tears. She won’t cry in front of him again. But she won’t make it long if she doesn’t move. Getting up before he can answer, she makes her way to the bathroom. She quickly pulls the door behind her and is once encased in privacy. She rests her hands on the sink, waiting. Looking up she sees her face again. Pain, grief, torment and an uncertain war in her eyes. What the fuck happened to her? She shakes with rage and suddenly, she hates the person in the mirror. She wants to break her, tear her down and apart. She wants to rip her up and kill her.
The bathroom, the suite that she’s in, it all seems to be shrinking. The uneasy feeling of the walls closing in around her causes her to look in all directions in fear, gasping for breath each time her head moves. She opens the door, passing Andrew and leaving only with an warning that she was going to get some air. Once the door shuts, she breaks into a run, throwing open the door to the emergency stairwell in order to keep moving.
She reaches the street outside and is welcomed with a driving rain that only Washington D.C.’s spring thunderstoms can bring. She calms to a brisk walk, moving through the people that seem so content with their lives, so secure in who they are. How is it fair that they know themselves and she can’t drudge up anything? She pulls the hood of her black sweatshirt up over her head and continues walking, weaving her way through the pedestrian traffic and being sure to keep her head down.]
Ashley: There has to be something…
[She trails off, keeping a wary eye on the settings around her. It’s not long before she finds herself staring at an electronics store. The televisions all face the picture-frame window that beads with the raindrops. She stops, facing the some dozen screens with an almost bewildered glaze over her eyes. The rain continues to drown her thoughts as it punishes the earth around her as well as her shoulders and head. The camera turns and stands over her right shoulder as we come into focus of the televisions. It is Andrew. The local station is replaying USPW Hell Frozen Over from Green Bay, WI and showing a preview for each match.
On the screen, Andrew Savage is dressed in his Ring gear. His eyes show no emotion in them. They show Max Douglas and then they show the highlights of the match when Andrew Savage drivers Max Douglas down hard with the Savage impact. Ashley Savage quivers at the sight of Max‘s predicament and thinks how cruel it is for Andrew to be treating someone like that, knowing that he just saved her from a similar hell. The televisions close in on Andrew Savage‘s eyes.]
Ashley: All the answers are right there…
[Again, she trails off, a rumble of thunder coming through. Car horns honk, people continue to shuffle behind Ashley, but she seems intent on looking into the eyes of her hero. As quickly as she was mesmerized by Andrew Savage, the televisions switch to Max who appears to be pouring champagne for himself at a party. At this moment, captions begin crawling across the bottom of the screen.]
‘"While the pair of you prep for Freedom
your focus seems to switch, more and more
your beady little eyes set their focus on...
Your sister right?
The second class citizen you house in your hotel,
the girl that has questions for the great Andrew Savage,
and Andrew holds all the answers is your
sister right? Why hold the drama Savage spit it out…."
[She didn’t hear anything anymore. It was if the world had put earplugs in. She couldn’t even hear her heartbeat. She felt numbness wash through her, like Novocaine in her veins. She stumbled to the picture window of the televisions, scared, and trying to take it in. He had to be wrong. He had to. Why wouldn’t Andrew tell her if that were the case? Why…why would he keep something like that from her?
Ashley turns and walks back the way she came, finding refuge from the rain in an alley. She leans against the building, sliding down until her knees have been pulled up into her chest. She can feel the nausea rising. She fights it back slowly, taking her time before standing again. She inhales deeply and releases it slowly as she comes back to a vertical stance. When she does stand, she runs, hard and fast. She needs to get back to him. He swore he wouldn’t lie to her. He swore that he wanted nothing but the best for her.
Every step felt like a mile and her legs ached as she ran toward a busy intersection. The crosswalk red “Don’t Walk” and she wasn’t going to allow that to stop her. She charged through the crowd of people standing at the corner, mowing down a mother and her son, causing them to land in a puddle to her right. To her left, a businessman in a suit covers his head with a newspaper as she clears the curb and doesn’t look twice. The businessman tries to reach for her hood but it’s far too late. She narrowly misses getting hit by a cab in the first of six lanes of traffic. The second lane is clear but she is clearly not going to make the third.
Almost as if instinct were carrying her at this point, she jumps, sliding across the nose of the car whose locked his brakes and is currently hydroplaning into oncoming traffic. She lands safely on the other side as the car slams into an oncoming police car. The collision plows the police car backward, instantly releasing the airbags into the cop’s face giving him no visual on who it was that caused the accident. This ties up the rest of the lanes instantly and Ashley is safely across the street, plowing through another group of pedestrians who, only moments ago, were mindlessly waiting for the light to change. After seeing all of this, the crowd parts like the Red Sea as she forges forward.
She ducks and dodges other foot traffic on the sidewalk and charges onward until she can see the overhang for the St. Regis Hotel and Resort. Confused and panicked, she enters the hotel, bypassing the lobby by slamming through the revolving door. She arrives at the elevator, frantically begins pushing buttons. Damn, aren’t elevators the slowest inventions when you need them to be RIGHT THERE? Again with the stairs, she charges upward and then she runs down the long hallway. One pause at the door, a long deep breath and she bursts through.
Andrew jumps from his seat on one of the couches and grabs for a whiskey bottle on the table between them. Once seeing her, he smiles.]
Andrew: Get the air you needed, little one?
[She huffs, walking with a purpose directly toward him. She has so much rage but doesn’t know where or how to release it. Does she attempt to fight him? If it is true, can she truly fight her brother? She had before…but had she known it then? Did he know it then? Surely he had to. Unless…]
Ashley: You told me to trust you.
[Andrew, now seeing this is not going to go well, puts his arms in a defensive position as she comes closer. His right hand is up and his left hand holds a crystal glass half-full with ice and whiskey.]
Ashley: You told me you wouldn’t lie to me.
[Andrew continues to back up until his back is against the fireplace. Noticing he’s cornered, he turns to his left and backs around the coffee table. Still, Ashley comes toward him.]
Ashley: You claim that you’re all the answers and, up until now… I didn’t know what to ask.
[Andrew continues to back up until he’s in front of the camera. The camera moves to his right, putting him on the left side of the screen with Ashley, shorter yet much more aggressive, on the right. She takes her hands out from her hoodie and puts a finger right into his face.]
Ashley: You woke me up. You brought me here. You rescued me. If you did it all as a sham, I swear you’ll live to regret it.
[Andrew takes a drink of his whiskey before she continues.]
Ashley: I saw Max’s promo.
[Andrew swallows, nodding and smacks his lips, releasing an “ahh” while she continues.]
Ashley: Is he right? Are you my brother?
[Again, Andrew takes the whiskey to his lips, tipping the drink back and finishing the glass. Again, he swallows, smacking his lips and releasing another “ahh.” Without saying a word or giving anything off, he pulls a pack of Winston cigarettes from his pocket along with a brown bic lighter. Who has ever seen a brown bic lighter? Seriously, they make all these bright colors and black… but they’ve never made brown. It’s crazy. He places a cigarette between his lips but does not light it.]
Andrew: Yep.
[He ignites the lighter producing a long orange flame. He raises it to the end of his poison and ignites it with a small plume of smoke rising to the ceiling. Ashley, however, does not move. She simply takes a moment to put together her own thoughts as Andrew places the box of cigarettes back into his pocket and takes his right hand and places it on her shoulder.]
Andrew: Come. Let me tell you the story of your life. Let me give you all the agonizing details. I honestly didn’t want to do this all at once, simply because of your fragile state of mind, but if Max has now put everything on front street, we may as well face it at once. I must admit, though, you may not ever want to know me by the time I’m done with the story.
[Before the lyrics come on, the scene fades to a light shade of brown and we see the grainy image of a house in the suburbs. It could be any suburb in middle America with the plush green lawns, white fences, and blue sky with white puffy clouds floating by without a care in the world. Seated on the large porch of this house is a man and woman probably in their early to mid 30s. She is almost a twin of Ashley except for her hair is all teased out and teased far too much with hair spray. What were people thinking in the 80s and early 90s? In the yard is a boy, possibly about 10, with a SWEET mullet and a girl, a few years younger wearing a New Kids on the Block t-shirt running about. Mom looks over at Dad… smiles and puts her head on his shoulder.]
It's easier to run
Replacing this pain with something numb
It’s so much easier to go
Than face all this pain here all alone
[The two kids continue to play in the front yard. Leaves fall to the ground and we see the family out in the yard raking up the leaves and the kids playing in the pile. The boy buries the girl in the leaves, hiding her from their parents. The parents turn and she pops out of the leaves like a monster. Everyone laughs. Snow falls, we see them all building a snow man in the yard. The perfect middle American family with no worries and nothing but love around them.]
Something has been taken
From deep inside of me
A secret, I’ve kept locked away
No one can ever see
Wounds so deep, they never show
They never go away
Like moving pictures in my head
For years and years they've played
[We see a giant Christmas tree in the corner of the room and dad in a pair of black sweatpants and a white t-shirt half-awake holding a cup of coffee. Mom sits on the hideously colored sofa looking at the pile of presents that Santa has brought the kids this year. The boy opens up a train set, the girl, a Barbie doll. Dad comes in from another room and, silently, points toward the dining room which is hidden by a door. Both kids run toward the door and we see they both have been given new bicycles! They jump around and celebrate Santa’s great visit. Mom turns to Dad and she points up. Mistletoe. They kiss.]
If I could change I would
Take back the pain I would
Retrace every wrong move that I made I would
If I could stand up, and take the blame I would
If I could take all the shame to the grave I would
If I could change I would
Take back the pain I would
Retrace every wrong move that I made I would
If I could stand up and take the blame I would
I would take all my shame to the grave
[We see both kids riding their bike in a park somewhere in their little town. They go their separate ways as the boy is carrying a baseball bat and glove and the girl simply rides her bike over to the jungle gym on the other side. We see a split screen of the two and, not surprisingly, they look like a very young version of Andrew Savage and Ashley Savage. Both smile.]
It's easier to run
Replacing this pain with something numb
It’s so much easier to go
Than face all this pain here all alone
[We see the boy laying in bed with a large cast on his right leg. The girl sits at his bedside and both are playing Nintendo. The boy smiles at his sister and then hits a few buttons on her controller, causing her to die. He laughs at her. She smacks him in the chest.]
Sometimes I remember
The darkness of my past
Bringing back these memories
I wish I didn’t have
Sometimes I think of letting go
And never looking back
I'm never moving forward so
There’ll never be a past
[We see the words “years later” flash across the screen. Mom and Dad are in the dining room screaming at each other. We see big demonstrative arm motions as Mom is making some sort of point. She hauls off and slaps Dad across the face. Dad, without missing a beat, rears back and punches Mom across the jaw and walks out the back door. He gets into the car in the driveway and drives off. Both kids stand in the hallway. Mom walks into the kitchen and grabs a bottle of whiskey.]
If I could change I would
Take back the pain I would
Retrace every wrong move that I made I would
If I could stand up, and take the blame I would
If I could take all the shame to the grave I would
If I could change I would
Take back the pain I would
Retrace every wrong move that I made I would
If I could stand up, and take the blame I would
I would take all my shame to the grave
[We see the words “U-Haul” pull away from the screen and we see Mom and the two kids on the porch. Both kids look sad and Mom seems quite angry. She storms past the children and enters the house. She grabs a bottle of whiskey and begins pouring herself a drink. The kids enter, see her drinking, and cower to their rooms.]
Just washing it aside
All of the helplessness inside
Pretending I don’t feel misplaced
It’s so much simpler than change
[We see the little girl’s body fly onto the floor over a couch. She cracks her head against the coffee table and instantly holds it, crying. Mom grabs her by the hair and drags her down the hallway to her bedroom. She holds a bottle of whiskey in her hand as she slaps the girl across the face and throws her into the room. She stands over her daughter, yelling at her, but no words are heard. She picks her up again by the hair and slams her head into the wall causing the sheet rock to break and leaving a gaping hole in the wall. A second time in a different spot causes only a dent. Now she’s found the beam. Again and again she slams her head into the beam before long the white paint on the wall is stained red.]
It's easier to run
Replacing this pain with something numb
It’s so much easier to go
Than face all this pain here all alone
[The boy enters the room, grabs Mom around the shoulders. She throws her head backward, slamming it into the boy’s nose. He is instantly bleeding. Mom then charges the boy, slamming him into the bathroom door and through it. They tumble onto the floor, the whiskey bottle flying up and crashing into the mirror behind them. It shatters and pieces of it fall all over both of them. Out in the hallway, the once beautiful family portrait falls to the ground, the glass protecting it cracks into a spider web.]
It's easier to run…
If I could change I would
Take back the pain I would
Retrace every wrong move that I made
[Mom stands, rage in her eyes as she turns and walks back toward the room where Ashley’s nearly unconscious body lays.]
It's easier to go…
If I could change I would
Take back the pain I would
Retrace every wrong move that I made I would
If I could stand up, and take the blame I would
I would take all the shame to the grave
[The boy stands, finding near him a shard of glass from the mirror. He grips it in his hand and stands, moving swiftly toward his mother. Without hesitation, he drives the sharp glass into the neck of his own mother causing a crimson fountain to erupt from her. The walls get sprayed, he gets sprayed in the face and his mother falls to a crumpled mass on the floor. She convulses a few times, bleeds a massive puddle in mere seconds and, soon, isn’t moving. The boy then walks over to his sister, holds her head in his hands. Both of them begin to cry. He holds her, both their foreheads touching and each looking down at the floor.
Quick fade to the present, and Andrew Savage and Ashley are in the same position, Ashley hysterical and… Andrew’s emotionless face tells the story.
The scene fades to black]
