Nan stays back to observe a moment, but Henry suddenly rushes forward, yelling Anna's name.
The figure by the elevator does not respond to Henry's call.
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Nan stays back to observe a moment, but Henry suddenly rushes forward, yelling Anna's name.
The figure by the elevator does not respond to Henry's call.
A clawed hand comes from behind and clamps tightly over Nan's mouth, dragging her roughly into the darkened stairwell. She drops the lantern on the floor by the landing, but it does not break.
A hoarse, scratchy voice whispers breathily in her ear. Something very sharp glints in the darkness, less than an inch from Nan's face.
The voice says that if she does not stay quiet, she will get her little throat slit wide open before she can get out two words.
The figure in the dark pauses for a moment, as if waiting for Nan's reaction.
Nan nods quietly and she's pulled back suddenly, a bit further into the darkness. The hoarse whispery voice speaks again, closer this time. She can feel hot breath against her ear.
The dry male voice says good.
He says he is going to ask a few questions and wants answers and no bulls***, or he will kill her. He wants answers.
Who is she? What is her name?
Why is she here?
How long has she been here?
What does she intend to do here?
He says to answer quick and she won't get hurt. All he wants is answers.
He removes his hand slowly but keeps the sharp instrument near her neck.
And don't try to scream, he says.
Nan answers obediently.
Her name is Nan. She's a repairwoman who was called to fix an outlet. Then she found she couldn't leave.
She's been here less than a day, as far as she can tell.
And she plans to leave.
There's a long, tense pause, and then a click as the sharp implement is drawn away from Nan's throat. The clawed hands release her slowly.
A scratching sound is followed by a sudden flare of light as the figure in the dark lights a match. Nan turns to look.
The strange man quietly introduces himself as Santiago.
His hands aren't clawed after all -- he's just ungroomed and his fingernails have grown long.
He gives Nan an odd look and asks why she would want to leave. Doesn't she know what this place is?
As Santiago pockets his switchblade, Nan hesitates, then answers no, she doesn't know what this place is.
Santiago grins broadly and gestures out grandly. He says HE does.
Everyone has a theory on this place. Everyone wants to KNOW, he says. They want to know too much. That won't do them any good.
He says Pablo thinks this place is like a mystery, like a dream.
Kim says this place is hell.
But Santiago says he knows.
This place is freedom.
Out there, there are rules. There are laws. There are morals. People fear God.
But in here, there is no right and wrong. And there is no God. There is only us. There is only what we do and what we feel. This is the absolute. This is freedom. This is a world, at long last, of man's design.
Kim and the others think they know so much about the world. But not this place. Maybe Nan thinks she knows too, but she's wrong. She has to forget that and just go with it.
Forget about everything you may never be able to know. Forget about if anything you do is anything good, or anything bad. Forget about if what you're doing is what you "should".
This place is the ultimate freedom.
So he asks, why would anyone... want to leave?
Nan responds nervously that as well and good as that may be, it's not worth people trying to kill her.
Oh, asks Santiago, and what's so bad about death?
He leans in closer.
He says a girl named Anna arrived the other day. She has an interesting idea about this place.
Does Nan know what Anna thinks?
She thinks everyone is here for a reason. That this is a prison they've all earned themselves a sentence in, through their own actions. Some horrible thing they've done. Some sin they've committed.
They're trapped here only by their own design. That this is their punishment.
Maybe Anna wants to be punished, Santiago says through his teeth. Maybe she thinks she deserves it so much, that's what she's waiting for.
Nan scoots back uncomfortably, and Santiago grins, leaning close to her ear.
He whispers another question in a hoarse voice.
"And what about you, Nan? What's your sin?"
Nan insists she has no idea what her sin is, and that she considers herself a generally okay person. Besides, didn't Santiago just say there are no sins in this place?
Santiago grins even wider and lets out an amused gasp. Evidently he and Nan are on the same page, he says. Anna's theory is baseless. It's only a product of her own desire to be punished. Maybe she should be punished.
Nan glances back at the stairwell door.
She tells Santiago politely that it's been nice meeting him but she really should get back to the group.
Santiago grabs Nan's arm lightly and asks if she's really going so soon. As long as she's here, wouldn't she rather stay and see the kind of fun truly free people can have in the dark?
Nan says she's... got to get going at the moment. She has a lot of thinking to do. As she turns, a light flickers into the stairwell from the hall above.
A voice calls out to Nan. Henry's voice. He's asking if she's there.
Nan turns back to Santiago, who has released her arm.
With a fizzling sound he extinguishes his match, leaving only a faint plume of dark smoke hanging in the air. He steps back down the stairwell, disappearing into the darkness.
He says to be patient. He says next time, he'll have some real fun with her.
Nan is torn between running away with the sick feeling in her stomach or forcing a wave goodbye, but Santiago has already left. Henry appears in the doorway a moment later, shining his flashlight in.
He seems relieved to see Nan hasn't gone far.
Nan says she ran into Santiago and Henry pales a little. She says he seems to be at home in the darkness.
Henry says perhaps he found a way to live in the dark safely. From what he heard, Santiago's been here for almost a whole month.
He turns to Anna, who stands quietly beside him. He says she was just waiting by the elevator, staring into it.
Anna very quietly explains she thought she heard someone calling her.
Nan asks Henry what he remembers after the last time they met, when Nan threw the lamp.
He says the room went pitch black and he didn't have a light source. He called out for her, but she wouldn't answer. He opened the door to the hall hoping to let some light in, but then he remembered the power was still off out there. Before he could close the door, something attacked him in the darkness, and he woke up in the shared room.
Anna follows quietly.
The pendant bears a striking resemblance to Nan's own, but when she checks her pockets, it's gone.
Nan explains her own ordeals, but it's so disjointed, like a dream that's hard to explain. Henry seems to get the gist of it though and says he's just relieved that Nan is all right after all that.
The group returns to the room where Kim and Anderson are waiting. Everyone is glad Anna is back safe.
Anna quietly stares at the floor and says they're not going to get out of here.
And maybe they don't deserve to
Nan tells Anna to stop being such a downer. Anna asks how she can possibly be optimistic in a place like this -- or has Nan just not looked around her?
They're trapped here, and Anna can't help but feel there's a reason.
Nan asks that if they're all here for a reason, what did Anna do to deserve it?
She's quiet for a moment, then answers that she's not about to say what -- but it's there. She's got her bad thing, and she'd bet that so does everyone else here.
She nods to Anderson as an example.
How many times do you think he's fired that gun?
Has he killed anyone?
Anderson says of course he has. He's a US Marshall. Sometimes it's part of the job.
If this is Limbo or Hell, why aren't there more people here?
Anna says this isn't Hell, because they're not dead -- they're just being punished. And they put themselves here. There are surely many others, but why they are here, rather than they, is anyone's guess. At the least, they couldn't all fit into one place, could they?
Henry interjects on Anderson's behalf, excusing the Marshall. He says it's sometimes necessary for a lawman to kill if innocent lives are endangered. But upholding the law and murder are two different things.
And surely, Anderson's never killed an innocent man.
Anderson scowls and speaks gruffly.
He says he's never met an innocent man.
Nan asks Anna what sin she could have committed that was so bad she would wind up here.
Anna says she hopes Nan will excuse her that she's not exactly itching to share.
Nan is fed up with everyone being a downer! She tells Anna that whether or not they "deserve" to be here doesn't make a difference now. If Anna just wants to sit in the corner and wallow in self-pity that's her choice, but Nan isn't about to give up.
Anna smirks oddly and corrects Nan.
She clarifies that she never said she was giving up. If they're here by their own actions, that means they can leave by their own actions, too.
And Anna for one doesn't plan to die in a place like this. She's getting the hell out of here first, and sorting out her absolution later.
There is a knock at the door.
Nan decides to defer to the others. Luckily, it seems they are prepared.
Anderson stands by the door and draws an old-fashioned revolver. He gruffly asks who's there, and a moment, later a familiar voice responds.
"It's Pablo!"
After a quick nod to the rest of the group, Anderson swings the door open and levels his pistol --
But it's only Pablo, after all.
He's understandably surprised by the gun pointed at him and tells Anderson to put it away as he stands in the open doorway.
Anderson lets Pablo in and he promptly notices Nan with pleasant surprise.
Pablo says that after she smashed that thing in his room everything went black and when the lights came back on a few seconds later, she was gone. He'd feared the worst, but evidently she's all right. And now she's here with everyone else, to boot. He thought he might not see her again.
Nan raises her hand and Pablo eyes it strangely, but with a quick gesture and a little encouragement they high-five, if a little awkwardly. Pablo smiles.
Nan asks him what year it is.