The Throat of the World (Becoming It)

Mise-en-scène: The boat breaks the surface—then falls. But there is no impact. They plummet through a thick, slow current where gravity makes no sense. The world hums, deep and ancient.

Mise-en-scène: The air turns heavy, like breathing through syrup. Everything distorts.

Protagonist: "We… are falling."

Companion (voice distant, merging with the world): "But there’s… no ground."

Mise-en-scène: Colors fold—green and gold, dark and wet.

Protagonist: "This isn’t a body. It’s… a world."

Companion (whispering, realization creeping in): "Did you… hear that?"

Mise-en-scène: (A voice, vast and formless, ripples through them—not sound, but understanding. The Whale is It. They are It. It has no edges.)

Whale’s Voice (inside them, outside them, always them): "Where do you end… And I begin?"

Mise-en-scène: A pulse—low and seismic—echoes through their bones.

Protagonist: "No. I… felt it."

Companion (faint, merging, slipping): "What if… we don’t stop?"

Mise-en-scène: The fall twists—up becomes down, then nothing. But nothing is not empty.

Protagonist: "Then we fall… Forever."

Companion (soft, exhaling, as if surrendering): "Then we are It."

Mise-en-scène: The air shifts. Not water, not sky. Something thick with memory. They breathe, and the breath is not theirs alone.

Protagonist: "Do you smell… Leaves?"

The Shard That Sees (The Healing and Warning)

Mise-en-scène: The fall stops. But there is no landing—only transition. Their feet touch something solid, but it moves—breathes. A crystalline surface, shifting, aware.

Mise-en-scène: The ground beneath their feet pulses—alive, absorbing them, mirroring them. They do not stand on It. They stand within It.

Protagonist: "We are the Whale. The Whale is… Us."

Companion (breathless, whole and yet breaking): "Then… Take us up."

Mise-en-scène: The crystals tremble—then crack. Hostility.

Protagonist (uncertain, speaking to Itself, to It, to whatever listens): "The Whale—Wills us safe."

Companion (wincing as shards lash, as reality resists): "But not… Unbroken."

Mise-en-scène: The shards test them. Not an attack, but a demand—proof of form.

(The crystals pause. Then hum. Then see.)