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28. INT. MOVIE THEATRE

Lilith sees all this from above, as if she were an angel, as if she were seated in a cameraman's chair atop a crane, or held aloft by Luis' powerful arms while the flying rig, with its wires and harnesses, creates the illusion of flight.

This is what Lilith sees: the theatre is dark, the only light present that which streams from the projection booth, and that which glows from the gigantic screen.

And this light, this rarefied, magical illumination, revelatory glow by which man learns truth in the climate-controlled dark, is enough by which to see.

There is an audience, modest in size, who sit, rapt, riveted to the screen, staring at some vast interiority they are now, quite against their will, a part of, each one both participant and witness.

(And whimsically, bizarrely, there are a number of animals there as well, cats and dogs; a few, each to its own chair, sitting obediently, silently, intent only on the screen.)

Lilith can see all their faces (human and animal) in that glow, and she knows them, knows them all (there, Marcia Tuason, poor, sweet Marcia), save one. A young woman, seated closest to the screen, the front row of seats all her own, a place of honor, perhaps. Or exile.

This woman's face is unknown to Lilith, and yet somehow, naggingly familiar.

She, like all the rest, watches the screen.

There, on its canvas, is an image of jerky black-and-white, without sound, or even subtitles. The only possible road to comprehension, the broad exaggerated gestures of the actors, pantomime in pancake make-up.

And this, in itself, is already a vast leap forward, from the beginning, when all the audience stared at-- far fewer back then, the young woman already there-- was a blank screen, a cyclopean emptiness.

The first films-- audience growing slowly-- were short; images, really-- a smile, an eye, the crook of an elbow-- chiaroscuro, disjointed. Without narrative.

Now, the films are longer; vignettes, sections of some possibly greater, sprawling tale.

And tonight, Lilith is there, on the screen, a Princess? Damsel?

Damsel, as her social station cannot be construed from what little context there is.

Lilith is a Damsel, in a billowing gown of some sheer material, as if she is clothed in air, and beneath that, nothing more. Her body, painfully perfect in every detail, its contours and hollows exquisite; the tender swell of breast, the gentle curve of thigh, the topography of her, ravishing.

Lilith, the Damsel, is chained to a rock, which stands beside the large mouth of a dark cave. Lilith stares at that maw, rapt, riveted.

Then, entering from screen left, on a white charger, is a Knight, clad in masterfully wrought armor, what appears to be a symbol of an eagle’s head, etched with delicate care across the armor's cuirass.

The Knight reins his steed to a halt, dismounts, and rushes to the Damsel's side.

The Damsel (and the audience) sees that the armor, from the comb of the helmet, to the solleret, has been cunningly hammered and shaped to mimic the human form, a perfect simulacrum of a warrior's muscled body; the besadeur follows the curve of the deltoid, the brassard the bicep, the cuisse the quadriceps, the greave the peronaeus.

Even the visor, with eye holes instead of a vision slit, is a smooth metallic face, familiar to Lilith as well, as are the eyes. (Surely she knows those eyes. The warm, confident glint of them.)

With gauntlets fashioned like perfect hands, the Knight removes his helmet, and Lilith sees that, of course, it is Luis.

And there is that eye, that smile, from the earliest films.

Laying his helmet on the ground, Luis proceeds to break the chains by brute strength. He is only half done though, when he jerks his head back, to stare at the cave mouth. Lilith (on the screen, the Damsel) flinches.

Something-- the lurking Beast-- has made a sound, a roar perhaps, or a hiss. It is a sound the audience cannot hear, can only imagine, in its terror, and inhumanity.

And though it is clear that the Damsel pleads with her would-be rescuer not to, for fear of his well-being, Luis gallantly, stoically, turns, helmet left on the ground, and walks to the cave; for this is, after all, what Knights do. This is their calling: to slay Beasts.

So he walks, steady, resolute, and even as he is about to step into shadow, the Beast emerges.

And the audience sees (frankly none of them surprised at all) that the Beast is Lilith as well. In the same billowing gown of air, while the Damsel (also Lilith) struggles in her chains.

The Knight, Luis, stands in awe of the Beast, of its glamour, and its beauty. And for all his youthful power, the strength and energy in him, so evident in the armor he wears, he is the rabbit, frozen by the slow sway, sinuous dance, prelude to a kiss fatal, of the cobra, hood flared, fangs exposed.

And the Beast leans against the Knight, breasts against the cuirass, the fingers of its hand tracing the etched lines of the plackart, the other brushing against the trailing edge of the habergeon below that, its fingers making delicate, unheard music on the sheet of chain mail, reaching, seeking hidden treasures.

The Knight has shut his eyes. He is in bliss, enraptured.

The Beast smiles, casting one long, languid look at the horrified Damsel, before it strikes.

It takes the Knight's perfectly chiselled jaw in one delicate hand-- the one that had been roaming the plackart; the other, still busy, intent-- bends him down, for a kiss.

And the kiss is long, and exquisite, and agonizing.

The Knight begins to tremble, violently, then to struggle against the Beast, but for all his youthful power, the strength and energy in him, so evident in the armor he wears, he is as nothing to the Beast.

And finally, the Beast releases its grip on the Knight's jaw, and the armor falls to the ground, breaking apart, metal jigsaw, no longer filled with flesh and blood, with muscle and sinew; only bone there now, dry, parched; wrought perfection, the armor, but in the end, hollow.

The Knight's skull breaks off, the cervical vertebrae shattering. The skull rolls, stops, finding rest facing the Damsel, the skull naked now, gone the dermis which had masked and clothed, protected; gone the fascia, which had enveloped the muscles; gone, those as well; all that power and life and vigor, flayed, made a meal by the Beast.

And the Damsel stares in cold, numb horror, despair planting a dry kiss on her cheek, the skull's black, hollow eye holes (gone those warm, confident eyes), speaking of mute condemnation.

And the Damsel screams, a long, tortured, silent scream.

A scream which builds to an audible sound when, at long last, Lilith awakens, alone, in the dark.

29. INT. ELYSIUM TOWERS - UNIT 78 - CONTINUOUS

And when her scream is spent, wound down to accusatory silence, just as eloquently condemning as the black eyeless holes of a skull, Lilith cries.

And though she could not do that alone, without an audience, before, she wonders, is she truly better off now, at this moment, now that she can?

FADE TO BLACK.

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