THE ONE ABOVE

CAST

HANNA The one above

EMILY The one below
MRS. MARIN Emily’s mother
POLICE investigators into the case

THE ONE ABOVE

SCENE ONE: INT. THE TOWN, UNDER THE WATER – CURRENT TIME
(Hanna, Emily)

MUSIC: LOW, MELANCHOLY SONG

HANNA (NARRATING): We hadn’t swum in ages. I suppose that’s what made this time
so special. After being away from home for so long it was refreshing to
feel the water beneath my feet again. I think Emily felt the same, we
had both longed for this day all winter; now the sun was finally out
again and had been warming the sea for us.

EMILY (NARRATING): I was so excited for Hanna to come back, she’d been away all
winter on family business and I was stripped of my swimming partner.
Sometimes when I get lost in my thoughts I wish she hadn’t come
back when she did, or maybe at all. Maybe if she hadn’t I wouldn’t
have returned to the water ever again. Deep down I know that’s
irrational though, I shouldn’t blame her for what she can’t control. For
what she didn’t cause.

HANNA (NARRATING): I haven’t returned to our spot on the beach since. My wetsuits
lying in my shed all covered in salt water and sand, I told mum not to
wash it. I said there’s no point. Well there isn’t! I’m not going back.
I’d rather not be reminded at all, I want to forget about it entirely and
pretend I never met her. It’s hard in this town though. Everyone
remembers, and no one’s trying to forget. Along the promenade
there’s a shrine, flowers, teddy bears… photos of her. I don’t know
why it’s there, it’s not like she can see it is it?

EMILY (NARRATING): I know my days are limited, I can’t survive under here much
longer with no food and no water, well maybe there’s too much water.
I didn’t plan to spend my summer trapped under the water and I know
I shouldn’t spend what remains of it hating Hanna. She wasn’t the one
that dragged me down here, she wasn’t even the one that suggested a
swim that morning; but she was the one that left me. Without even a
second thought. We were supposed to be best friends, it didn’t feel
that way as I watched her swim off. She didn’t call out. She didn’t
even turn around.
HANNA (NARRATING): I don’t do anything anymore, I barely go out, I mean, there’s
only so much I can do with this cast stuck to my leg. People tell me
that I’m lucky they send me flowers too. I don’t want them, I don’t
want to acknowledge what’s happened. Why can’t I just pretend? Why
can’t we all pretend? Who’s to say it wasn’t a dream anyway, I did hit
my head on the way up. The doctors said so. But it didn’t matter how
hard I hit it, I still remember every second, every gasp for air and
every plea for help from Emily. She’s gone but she’s everywhere, her
swim cap in my beach bag, her photo plastered all over the
promenade, a passer-by on the peer even had the same ringtone as her.
I wish I could ring her one last time, hear her laugh and see who can
go the longest without hanging up; but I guess she doesn’t have her
phone under there. Police said it must’ve been consumed by the tide
after she didn’t come up in time to reclaim it, but they couldn’t seem
to understand why their evidence recovery search didn’t uncover it…
nor her body. Of course I knew why it didn’t, no police diver is
capable of diving deep enough. But when I tried to tell them this from
my hospital bed they just smiled and proceeded to deem anything I
said inoperable as evidence as a result of the injuries I sustained to my
head. Most nights now when I do manage to fall sleep, it ends up in
me sat up, in bed and dripping in sweat. Often, I mistake it for sea
water and I freak out thinking I’m back there again, and then I am
devoured by guilt remembering that Emily still is.

MUSIC: *FADES OUT*

SCENE TWO: THE GIRLS HOUSES, EMILY’S CAR – TWO WEEKS AGO
(FLASHBACK)
(Hanna, Emily, Mrs. Marin)

SOUND: INCOMING AEROPLANE, WAVES CRASHING AGAINST

ROCKS, SEGULLS CHURPING, PHONE RINGTONE

EMILY (ON THE PHONE): “Hanna! Hey!”

HANNA (ON THE PHONE): “Hey Em! You good?”

EMILY (ON THE PHONE): “Course I am you’re back!”

HANNA (ON THE PHONE): *Laughs* “I know, I can’t wait to see you!”

EMILY (ON THE PHONE): “Come see me then! For a swim?”

HANNA (ON THE PHONE): “I don’t know Em its quite early, I’m jet lagged and all
my swim stuff is in my suitcase still.”

EMILY (ON THE PHONE): “Oh please Han, I’ve been waiting all winter. It will
finally be warm enough again!”
HANNA (ON THE PHONE): *Sighs*

EMILY (ON THE PHONE): “Look, if it’s not you can borrow my wetsuit.”

HANNA (ON THE PHONE): “The pink one?!”

EMILY (ON THE PHONE): *Laughs* “If you want!”

HANNA (ON THE PHONE): “Okay I’m sold. Sunrise swim it is!”

EMILY (ON THE PHONE): “Cool, be here in five my mum can drop us.”

HANNA (ON THE PHONE): “I’ll see you soon Em!”

SOUND: PHONE CALL DISCONNECT TONE

MUSIC: UPBEAT HAPPY SONG

SOUND: CAR DOOR SLAM

MUSIC: *ALTERS TO PLAYING ON THE RADIO*

HANNA: “Hey Mrs. Marin!”

MRS. MARIN: “Hey Em! Good trip?”

HANNA: “It was good. Not much swimming though!”

EMILY: “Well we are going to change that today!”

HANNA: *Laughs* “Did you bring the wetsuit?”

MRS. MARIN: “She did, but she wouldn’t have brought anything if I hadn’t been
there to remind her.”

EMILY: *laughs* “I almost left my bag in the kitchen.”

MRS. MARIN: “Too busy eating all the toast!”

EMILY: “I needed to fuel this swim somehow!”

MRS. MARIN: “Emily it was my toast!”

EMILY: “Okay and I left you a slice!”

MRS. MARIN: “You also ate three.”

HANNA: *laughs*

SOUND: CAR PULLING UP

MRS. MARIN: “Here you are girls!”

HANNA: “Thank you Mrs. Marin!”

EMILY: “Thanks mum.”

SOUND: CAR DOORS SLAM

MUSIC: *CUTS OUT*

MRS. MARIN: “Em!”

EMILY: “What!”

MRS. MARIN: “Your towel!”

EMILY: *Laughs* “Ugh.”

MRS. MARIN: “You’d forget your legs if they weren’t attached to you!”

EMILY: “Nah not my legs mum. I need them for swimming! Maybe my head
though.”

*Everyone laughs*

EMILY: “Bye mum, love you.”

MRS. MARIN: “Love you too Em, see you soon Han!”

HANNA: “Bye!”

SOUND: EAR RINGING

MUSIC: LOW, MELANCHOLY SONG

HANNA (NARRATING): I said no that morning, I don’t know maybe if she hadn’t
offered me the wetsuit I would’ve never even altered my decision. But
it was the pink one. Her favourite. Her stupid favourite, she should’ve
really thrown it away, it was getting too small anyhow. But that’s
Emily, she never disregards things she once loved… no matter how
small they get. Unlike me. The first sign of escape and I was gone, not
worried about who I was leaving behind.

EMILY (NARRATING): I think about that morning a lot, my last morning on land.
There’s not much else too think of down here, apart from estimating
how many breaths I’ve got left in me, before I then take my last glance
at the ocean above that is seemingly eating me alive bit by bit every
day. I want to blame Hanna, it makes it easier to distain the
responsibility of my situation and neglect the fact that it was me who
 pushed for a swim that morning. Me who offered up the pink wetsuit
in an attempt to change her mind, and me who was unable to keep up
with her as my body was pulled back down. As my days left decrease,
I feel my anger doing the same. It hurts far more to blame than to
forgive, and I feel that sink in my tummy every time I think I might
never see her again to let her know that I do. I do forgive her, and I
need her to know. I want my mum to know too, to know that I love
her. That I would make her all the toast in the word if I could. I just
want one more hug; every day I replay the moment that I took the
towel out of her hands and walked away without a second glance. If I
knew, if I just knew what was going to happen as I stepped onto that
sand, what would’ve happened if I’d stayed in the car. If I’d never
even woke up that morning.

HANNA (NARRATING): Mrs. Marin… Maria. She’s in denial, she’s so sad but she
struggles to allow herself to feel it; she keeps helping out at all the
local schools, cafés, she even got a job working at the pub. She
doesn’t like the silence, she stays away from her house just to avoid it.
She was a stay at home mum before, before Em, now she’s got no one
to stay at home for. Em’s older sister has been away at uni, I’m not
even sure that she knows; Maria’s adamant that she’s living a
nightmare, that when she wakes up so will Emily. I suppose we’re
similar in that way we both know Em isn’t dead, Maria must be able
to feel it, I know I can. My best friend is alive. I comforted her with
that when she came to visit me in hospital, she was one of the many
that brought flowers, it was reassuring to know that she didn’t blame
me… even if I blamed myself. We think about that morning a lot
replaying the moment that she took the towel out of Maria’s hands and
walked away without a second glance. If she knew, if she just knew
what was going to happen as she stepped onto that sand, what
would’ve happened if she’d stayed in the car. If she’d never even
woke up that morning.

MUSIC: *CUTS OUT*

SCENE THREE: THE BEACH, THE OCEAN – TWO WEEKS AGO (FLASHBACK)
(Hanna, Emily)

SOUND: WAVES CRASHING, THE SEA

HANNA: “Chuck me the wetsuit!”

SOUND: THROW

HANNA: “Thanking you!” *Pauses* “Should I just put it on here?”

EMILY: “Go for it! No one’s around.”

HANNA: “Cool.”
SOUND: RUFFLING

HANNA: “How do I look?” *Laughs*

EMILY: *Laughs* “Pink!”

HANNA: “Oh really?” *Laughs*

SOUND: RUNNING ON WET SAND, WIND

HANNA: “Come on! Come in!”

EMILY: “Wait!”

HANNA: “Come on, you were the one that wanted to swim so bad!”

EMILY: “Okay, lets jump from that rock!”

HANNA: “Huh?! Okay, let me test the water first!”

SOUND: FEET PADDLING IN WATER

EMILY: “Come up when you’re ready!”

SOUND: SCRAMBLING ON ROCKS

HANNA: “Coming!”

EMILY: “Okay, ready? Hold my hand!”

HANNA: “3…”

EMILY: “2…”

HANNA & EMILY: “1!”

SOUND: HUGE WATER SPLASH/ DIVING SOUND

MUSIC: EUPHORIC, SURREAL SONG

SOUND: SWIMMING

EMILY: “It’s freezing!”

HANNA: “You will warm up, wait!”

MUSIC: EUPHORIC, SURREAL SONG

SOUND: SWIMMING
MUSIC: STARTS TO FADE INTO DRAMATICS

HANNA: “Em, what’s that?”

EMILY: “What!”

HANNA: “That!”

MUSIC: INCEASES IN VOLUME

EMILY: “What the fuck?!”

SOUND: SIRENS SINGING

HANNA: “Swim! Em, swim!”

EMILY: “I’m trying!”

HANNA: “Not hard enough, quick!”

SOUND: WAVES CRASHING, EAR RINGING

MUSIC: SOFTENS AND FADES OUT

HANNA (NARRATING): It was more surreal than frightening, maybe it would’ve been
more so if I actually had time to process what was happening, but I
didn’t. It sounds cliché but it was just a blur, I barely had time to
appreciate my reunion with the ocean before being dragged deep
down into the darkest depths of the seas stomach as it swallowed me
whole. I still hear the muffled screams of Emily though. They echo in
my nightmares filling my hollow head with strain. I want to pick apart
my ears hold my breath reach into my mind and scramble my
thoughts. Reliving it is the real nightmare, the worst one of them all.

EMILY (NARRATING): Hanna tried to warn me, at first I couldn’t understand what she
was shouting about then I saw, I saw and I joined in. You know the
sirens you hear about in myths and tales horror films, stories. They
were right in front of us. Staring… glaring. There was something
weirdly enchanting about them though, alluring. Their scales glistened
and their eyes pierced through my skin, maybe my mistake was
studying them for too long, I begun to dissociate as my lungs
filled with water, and I tried to scream.

HANNA (NARRATING): We couldn’t have known what was going to happen that
day as the ocean submerged our bodies, that upon submersion we
would be greeted by what couldn’t have even been real? Sirens
aren’t creatures of the ocean. They’re the myth of ancient
Greek’s, inherent to every tale every hearsay. Not the ocean. But
 they were right in front of us, watching and dazzling our eye sight
before leaving it to go dark.

SCENE FOUR: THE OCEAN – TWO WEEKS AGO (FLASHBACK)

(Hanna, Emily)

SOUND: UNDERWATER SCREAMS

MUSIC: DRAMATIC BUT LOW

HANNA: “Em, em! Wake up!”

SOUND: SHAKING HER FRIEND, UNDERWATER GURGLES

EMILY: *tired and confused* “What’s going on?”

HANNA: “I don’t know Em, I don’t even know how we’re still breathing.
You need to swim before they come back.”

EMILY: *tired and confused* “Mm before who come back?”

HANNA: “What? You know the sirens… the creatures, the things that just
captured us.”

MUSIC: BUILDS IN VOLUME

EMILY: *tired and confused* “How… how long have we been down here
Han?”

HANNA: “I don’t kn-“

SOUND: SIRENS SINGING, SIRENS HISSING

EMILY: “What the hell!”

HANNA: *whispers* “Em hold my hand, hold it!”

SOUND: MUFFLED SCREAMS, SIRENS SINGING, SIRENS

HISSING, WAVES

EMILY: “Han help me!”

HANNA: “Hold onto my hand Emily.”

EMILY: “They won’t let go!”

HANNA: “Flipping swim!”

EMILY: “I’m trying. Please!”

SOUND: GRASP BREAK

EMILY: “Han, I’m slipping! Han!”

MUSIC: FADES OUT

SOUND: EAR RINGING, MUFFLED SONG

EMILY: *muffled* “Han?! Han! Hanna!”

SOUND: EAR RINGING, MUFFLED SONG

EMILY: “Hanna, help me please! Hannaaaaa-“

MUSIC: CUTS COMPLETELY OUT WITH “HANNAAAAA”

FADING OVER THE TOP

HANNA (NARRATING): Do you get it now? Why I wake up every night crying,
screaming. It’s because I never listened when she did. I have
many variations of those minutes in my mind. Alternative ones,
to please others, and to allow me to live with myself. They don’t
really work though, not when I’m falling asleep to be reminded
of the truth. Punished for being the one that made it out, out of
the grip of the waves and out of my best friend’s life. She’s alive
but she’s dead, I know she won’t be sleeping down there. Barely
breathing even. She’ll just be lying there helpless, the one below.

EMILY (NARRATING): I don’t think about those minutes a lot. Why would I? I
don’t need to, I’m still paying the consequences for them now; to
reminisce would be torment. But I remember how it felt… inside.
Like I was dying, but I was living, my throat closed by the
current and my legs unable to carry me to the top. I don’t know
why I was the one who got pulled down, but I suppose if I hadn’t
of been, Hanna wouldn’t have been the one that swam up. She
was always the stronger swimmer. When we were little and
having lessons, she passed her stage 3 before I had even started
on 2, I guess it payed off, making her, the one above.

SCENE FIVE: THE OCEAN, THE SHORE – FLASHBACK

(Hanna, Emily)

SOUND: SOMEONE COMING OUT OF THE WATER, WAVES, HEAVY

BREATHING
HANNA: *under her breath* “What the hell.”

MUSIC: FADES BACK IN, INCREASING IN SPEED MIRRORING HER

FRANTIC STATE

HANNA: “Emily! Em!”

SOUND: WAVES, POLICE SIRENS FADE IN, POLICE GRAB HANNA

POLICE: “Yeah we’ve got her!”

MUSIC: CALMS

SOUND: WALKY TALKYS, WATER, SWIMMING

POLICE: “You okay? We’ve got you.”

HANNA: “What’s going on? Did you see them? Did you get them? Did you kill
them?”

SOUND: WAVES, POLICE SIRENS

POLICE: “We received calls from passers-by that reported what they thought to
be a drowning. It’s okay, you’re safe now.”

HANNA: “What? No did you get them?”

POLICE: “Hanna, you’ve hit your head, but it’s okay we’re going to get you
some help.”

HANNA: “Huh? No you don’t understand, they were there!”

POLICE: “We’re going to get you into the ambulance Hanna.”

HANNA: “No you don’t understand. Emily’s still in there.”

SOUND: WAVES, POLICE SIRENS

HANNA’S MUM: “Hanna, baby!”

HANNA: “Mum, what’s going on?”

SOUND: STRETCHER MOVING

HANNA’S MUM: “You hit your head Han, it’s going to be okay.”

HANNA: “No mum, you don’t understand. Where’s Hanna?”

POLICE: “The police are searching the waters as we speak, we will find your
friend Hanna.”

SOUND: AMBULANCE DOORS SLAM, POLICE SIRENS CONTINUE

MUSIC: SLOWLY INCREASES IN VOLUME BEFORE CUTTING OUT

COMPLETELY, STAYS SILENT FOR A MINUTE BEFORE
FADING INTO A SOFT, SAD SONG

HANNA (NARRATING): My first breath of actual oxygen felt like being born again. A
mix of utter relief and utter guilt. They were dragging me out of the
ocean, but at the cost of my best friend. I wish they had just listened to
me as I pleaded with them, explaining what had happened. They were
listening, but they weren’t hearing, my words washing over their head
in synchronisation with the tide. It was already coming in again and the
sun had disappeared from the sky. How long had we been under there?
As I was loaded onto the stretcher and into the ambulance I felt
depersonalized, as if I was watching myself from an alternative body;
like the events unfolding before my eyes were just that, before my
eyes. Not through them. I wasn’t the one being dragged out the sea and
into the arms of paramedics. I can’t have been.

EMILY (NARRATING): I don’t know what happened after Hanna sought safety upon
escaping the waters, I could hear the faintest sound of sirens-

MUSIC: FAINT POLICE SIRENS

EMILY (NARRATING): - but I was in such a daze that anything I did hear was warped
by the sound of my head pounding and myself dipping in and out of
consciousness. In that moment, I had never longed more for a sign of
freedom, sign of hope, but as I made out the sound of sirens getting
further and further from me any hope I did have was robbed by their
surrender. They had Hanna, and for now, I guess that was good
enough.

HANNA (NARRATING): I felt selfish laying in that hospital bed. I didn’t feel lucky.
Everyone kept labelling me as just that though. “I’m so sorry about
Emily”, followed by “you must feel so lucky you survived that!” No. I
don’t. I feel heedless, insensitive, at fault, selfish. I don’t know if this
makes me more so however. Would admitting that maybe I am the
lucky one restore my humanity? Make me a better person? They say
ignorance is bliss, at least it is preferred to knowledgeable gloom. But
still, I don’t feel any happier. Maybe my ignorance isn’t effective
enough or maybe it’s artificial. Put on in an attempt to trick my mind.
Pretend I don’t know what has happened, and what to do next. But do I
know.

SCENE SIX: THE OCEAN, THE HOSPITAL – FLASHBACK

(Hanna, Emily)
SOUND: HOSPITAL ROOM BEEPING, FAINT HEART BEAT,
SHUFFLING

HANNA: “Mrs. Marin?”

MRS. MARIN: “Hey sweetie, I just wanted to see how you were doing, you okay?”

HANNA: “I’m confused.”

MRS. MARIN: “It’s okay hun, you hit your head on the way up. You’re bound to feel
un easy.”

HANNA: “No, you don’t understand. No one does!”

MRS. MARIN: “What don’t I understand? Talk to me.”

HANNA: “Emily is alive. I swear it.”

MUSIC: GETS DRAMATIC

MRS. MARIN: “Han, do you know what you’re saying? My Em is alive?”

HANNA: “She is.”

MUSIC: GETS REALLY DRAMATIC THEN CUTS OUT

HANNA (NARRATING): For a long while, after that conversation with Em’s mum, I
really thought she understood me, believed what I was telling her. I
was wrong, but why wouldn’t I have been? No one else believed me,
what would make her the exception? By the time I was discharged
from the hospital, I was naive enough to think that the police would
question me again and start considering what I was telling them. No
hospital means no reason to be incredulous right? Wrong. The police
did question me again, but only to go over previous details which only
ended in them leaving when they didn’t hear the ones that they wanted;
the same ones that I had told them time and time before. I was unsure
of how many more times it would take before any action was taken,
but was becoming increasingly conscious that there was most likely no
chance in a change in their heart. The police had arrived at their
conclusion, and nothing I could say would change it.

EMILY (NARRATING): My trust in Hanna to tell the truth and seek the help that I
needed was major, but it wasn’t my trust in Hanna that was my
concern. It was the polices trust in her. Or rather their open
mindedness and willing to believe a fantasy tale about two girls
abducted by sirens, it doesn’t exactly sound believable. Maybe to a
mermaid- obsessed six year- old, but not to an entire police force, not
to those I was relying on. Only if the mermaid- obsessed six year- old
was to hear my story I don’t think they’d like to believe it. The sirens
 that targeted Hanna and myself were not the kind in cartoons, they
weren’t Ariel and they weren’t magical. They were frightening… evil,
and were slowly killing me, picking apart my soul and distorting my
former childish love for Oceanids. At first it was unclear to why the
sirens were targeting us, but when Hanna left, they told me.

MUSIC: GRADUALLY COMES IN SPOOKY

EMILY (NARRATING): They spoke to me in an unnerving whisper and explained that

they wanted my lungs, human lungs so that they could breathe on land.
Gradually they would take more assets from me until finally it would
permit them a permanent life above sea.

SOUND: SIRENS WHISPER

EMILY (NARRATING): While to begin with they had allowed me and Hanna the ability
to breathe under here, it was taunting to know that when they were
done with me it would be no longer. On the fourteenth day, I would
find my anatomy entirely consumed by the sirens as they take on my
form, my vision will blur and I will take my last breath. It’s just a
shame that I never got to say goodbye to Hanna, I thought perhaps she
would’ve come back by now, at least to inhale the salty air. But she
hasn’t, it’s felt like forever, far from it though, it’s only the 3rd of April,
2022. Exactly fourteen days since the incident. *Deep inhale*

MUSIC: CUTS OFF

SCENE SEVEN: THE BEACH – FLASHBACK

(Hanna, EmilY)

HANNA: “It’s a nice day today!”

HANNA’S MUM: “It is! You should go on a walk. Clear your mind.”

HANNA: “Well there’s nothing to clear. But I think I will.”

HANNA’S MUM: *Sighs*

HANNA: *Sarcastic tone* “Bye mum!”

SOUND: DOOR SLAM, SILENCE, WAVES CRASHING, SEGULLS

CHURPING

HANNA (NARRATING): I’m at the beach now, I thought it would be hard to come back,
but I guess it’s different this time. I’m not scared, not like last time.

SOUND: ECHOES OF PREVIOUS LINES

HANNA (NARRATING): I didn’t want the guilt to win, but this way it doesn’t, nobody
does. This isn’t about my guilt anyway, it’s about doing what I
should’ve done at the beginning. What’s right.

SOUND: WAVES CRASH