STORMERE
Season 2, Episode 5: "Nightmares"
EXT. WILLOWFORD SQUARE – NIGHT
The square is empty now.
Lanterns flicker beneath the looming statue of NOX.
The long shadow still cuts across the stone.
SOREN stands at its base, Hunter’s sword in hand.
Behind him, LYRA, ARIADNE, and RONIN watch in silence.
No one moves.
No one speaks.
A cold wind passes through the square.
The banners ripple.
For a brief second, the statue seems taller.
More watchful.
Soren turns away first.
SOREN: Tomorrow.
He walks past them.
Ronin studies him.
RONIN: Yeah. Tomorrow.
The group follows.
CUT TO BLACK.
SMASH TO
TITLE: STORMFALL
INT. THORNE & IRONWORKS – UPSTAIRS ROOM – LATE NIGHT
A cramped loft room above the forge.
Moonlight through thin curtains.
Lyra lies awake on a narrow bed, staring at the ceiling.
Ariadne sits cross-legged near the window, a journal open in
her lap, not writing.
Across the room, Soren lies on a cot facing the wall.
Still in his clothes.
Hunter’s sword resting beside him.
No one speaks.
Below them, faintly, the forge settles in the dark.
A long silence.
Then…
LYRA: You’re awake.
Ariadne doesn’t look up.
ARIADNE: So are you.
Lyra glances toward Soren.
He hasn’t moved.
LYRA: Is he asleep?
Ariadne follows her gaze.
ARIADNE: I don’t know.
LYRA: We should get some rest.
No answer.
The room sinks back into silence.
INT. DREAMSPACE – UNKNOWN
Darkness.
Then…
A forge.
Hotter. Brighter. Louder.
Hammering echoes from everywhere and nowhere.
Soren stands in the middle of it.
Alone.
He turns.
The workbench is covered in broken things:
- a
shattered mug
- a
bloodstained cloth
- Hunter’s
folded letter
- a
cracked blade
The hammering grows louder.
Then stops.
A voice behind him…
HUNTER (O.S.): You’re late.
Soren freezes.
Turns slowly.
Hunter stands by the forge.
Alive.
Whole.
Calm.
Exactly as he was.
Soren’s breath catches.
SOREN: Hunter...?
Hunter wipes his hands on a cloth.
Looks at him like nothing is wrong.
HUNTER: What?
Soren steps toward him.
Slowly.
Afraid he’ll disappear.
SOREN: You’re dead.
Hunter tilts his head.
HUNTER: That’s one way of putting it.
Soren stops.
The forge behind Hunter flares brighter.
The heat turns oppressive.
SOREN: I didn’t mean for…
HUNTER: I know… but you still let it happen.
The room darkens slightly.
The broken mug on the table falls and shatters again.
Soren flinches.
SOREN: I tried…
HUNTER: Did you really?
The forge fire turns black.
Hunter’s face doesn’t change.
That’s what makes it worse.
HUNTER (CONT’D): You wanted a world bigger than home.
Bigger than me. Bigger than all of this.
The walls of the forge begin to crack.
Dark sand spills through them.
Krystal Sands.
The battlefield.
HUNTER (CONT’D): And look where it brought us.
Soren backs away.
SOREN: Stop.
Hunter steps forward.
HUNTER: You made me follow you.
Another step.
HUNTER (CONT’D): And I died because of you.
Soren wakes with a gasp.
INT. THORNE & IRONWORKS – UPSTAIRS ROOM – NIGHT
He bolts upright.
Sweating. Breathing hard.
Lyra and Ariadne jolt awake instantly.
LYRA: Soren…
SOREN: I’m fine.
Too fast.
Too sharp.
He swings his legs off the cot and stands.
Ariadne rises slowly.
ARIADNE: You were dreaming.
SOREN: No, I was sleeping.
He grabs Hunter’s sword.
Moves for the stairs.
Lyra gets up.
LYRA: Where are you going?
SOREN: Out.
He leaves before they can stop him.
Ariadne and Lyra exchange a look.
Then follow.
EXT. WILLOWFORD STREETS – NIGHT
The town is nearly silent beneath curfew.
The streets empty.
The statue visible from almost every angle.
Soren walks fast through the dark.
Lyra catches up first.
LYRA: You can’t keep doing this.
He doesn’t slow.
SOREN: Doing what?
LYRA: Shutting us out.
Soren stops.
Turns.
His face is pale in the moonlight.
SOREN: I’m not shutting anyone out. I just
need space!
Lyra softens.
But only for a second.
LYRA: No.
Ariadne catches up behind them.
Ronin not far behind her.
ARIADNE: What did you dream about?
Soren laughs once.
Dry. Hollow.
SOREN: What do you think I saw?
No one answers.
Because they know.
He looks away from them.
Toward the empty road.
SOREN (CONT’D): I saw him.
A beat.
LYRA: Hunter?
Soren nods once.
Barely.
SOREN: He said exactly what I already knew.
That it’s my fault that he’s dead.
Ronin steps closer.
RONIN: Soren…
Soren looks at him.
SOREN: STOP! I need to be alone, please.
That shuts everyone up.
A bell sounds somewhere in town.
One low chime.
All four of them instinctively glance toward the square.
They start heading home.
EXT. THORNE’S HOUSE – LATER
The porch again.
Soren sits on the steps.
Lyra beside him this time.
Ariadne leans against the fence.
Ronin stands near the gate.
None of them want to leave him alone now.
The night deepens.
LYRA: What did he say?
Soren doesn’t answer at first.
Then…
SOREN: That I made him follow me.
A beat.
SOREN (CONT’D): That he died because of it.
Lyra looks down.
Pain in her eyes too.
LYRA: That wasn’t your fault.
SOREN: Stop saying that.
She turns to him.
LYRA: Why?
SOREN: Because it was my fault.
Silence.
Ariadne watches him carefully.
ARIADNE: The guilt that you’re feeling is
normal, Soren.
SOREN: Nothing about this is normal.
He grips Hunter’s sword tighter.
SOREN (CONT’D): And I’m tired of everyone pretending
I’m not the reason he’s gone.
Lyra stands.
Angry now.
LYRA: No one is pretending!
Soren rises too.
SOREN: Then say it.
A beat.
SOREN (CONT’D): Say it was my fault.
Lyra stares at him.
Hurt. Furious. Devastated.
LYRA: You want me to blame you so badly
because it’s easier than blaming the man who actually did it. We all lost
someone that day, Soren.
Soren’s expression flickers.
Lyra steps closer.
LYRA (CONT’D): If you make yourself the villain,
then at least you can punish someone. At least the pain has somewhere to go.
Her voice cracks.
LYRA (CONT’D): But that’s not the truth. And deep
down, you know it.
Soren looks away.
Can’t hold her gaze.
Ronin says nothing.
Because she’s right.
EXT. WILLOWFORD OUTSKIRTS – PRE-DAWN
The group walks to the edge of the fields.
No one wanted to go back to sleep so they went for a walk.
Mist hangs low over the grass.
Ariadne stops suddenly.
Feels something.
ARIADNE: Wait.
Again.
This time, Soren actually stops.
A pulse beneath the ground.
Faint.
Then another.
Like a heartbeat under the roots.
Ronin steps back.
RONIN: You felt that too?
Ariadne kneels.
Presses her palm to the earth.
Her eyes flash faintly blue.
ARIADNE: There’s magic under the town.
Lyra looks toward Willowford.
Toward the quiet houses.
Toward the statue.
LYRA: How much?
Ariadne slowly stands.
Shaken.
ARIADNE: Too much.
The wind shifts.
For a second, faint threads of pale light move beneath the
soil like veins.
Then vanish.
Soren sees them too.
His grief pauses.
Just for a second.
Replaced by something else.
Fear.
INT. THORNE & IRONWORKS – FORGE – MORNING
The forge is lit again.
Ronin works in silence.
Lyra sits at the bench sharpening a blade she doesn’t need to
sharpen.
Ariadne scribbles notes into her journal, pages filled with
symbols and observations.
Soren stands by the window.
Watching the town wake.
Again.
Like nothing is wrong.
ARIADNE: There’s a current of unstable magic
beneath Willowford. Maybe beneath all of Stormere.
Ronin looks up from the anvil.
RONIN: Can it be stopped?
Ariadne hesitates.
ARIADNE: I don’t know.
Lyra lets out a humorless laugh.
LYRA: That’s becoming a theme. We have a
problem and no clue how to fix it.
Ariadne closes the journal.
ARIADNE: Whatever Nox did to the world… it
didn’t just change people. It changed the way magic moves.
Soren finally turns from the window.
Still pale. Still tired.
But more present than before.
SOREN: Then we start here.
Lyra studies him.
LYRA: You mean the town?
Soren nods.
SOREN: If there’s magic here, we find out
why.
Ronin sets the hammer down.
RONIN: And if the wardens don’t like that?
Soren looks toward Hunter’s sword resting against the wall.
Then back to them.
SOREN: Then they can try to stop me.
A beat.
Lyra almost smiles.
Almost.
Ariadne doesn’t.
She’s still thinking.
ARIADNE: The dream you had...
All three look at her.
ARIADNE (CONT’D): If the magic is unstable, it could
be feeding on fear. Grief. Regret. It could be making what’s already inside us
worse.
Soren’s expression hardens.
SOREN: Good to know the world wants me dead
too.
LYRA: It doesn’t.
A beat.
LYRA (CONT’D): But it might want to break us.
EXT. WILLOWFORD SQUARE – LATER
Morning activity again.
Same bells. Same ledgers. Same hollow quiet.
But now the group sees it differently.
Soren walks ahead.
Not numb now.
Tense.
Aware.
The square’s order feels like a mask over something rotting
underneath.
A child laughs too loudly.
The mother silences him instantly.
A baker hands over bread without making eye contact.
A warden marks names into a ledger.
Everything clean.
Everything wrong.
Soren stops in the middle of the square.
Looks up at the statue of Nox.
This time, he doesn’t look small beneath it.
Not exactly.
But he doesn’t look powerless either.
Lyra, Ariadne, and Ronin come to stand beside him.
A long silence.
Then…
SOREN: No more waiting.
Ronin folds his arms.
RONIN: So, what’s the plan?
He keeps looking up at the statue.
SOREN: I didn’t sleep. I saw my brother.
And whether it was a dream, the magic, or my own guilt trying to tear me open…
I’m done letting it sit inside me.
Lyra looks at him carefully.
This isn’t peace.
But something else.
SOREN (CONT’D): Tonight, I’m going back out there.
Ariadne frowns.
ARIADNE: Out where?
Soren turns.
For the first time in a while, there’s real fire in him
again.
Dark fire.
Unstable fire.
SOREN: I’m taking back control of this town.
Ronin and Lyra exchange a look.
They both know what this means.
He’s not healing.
Not yet.
He’s hunting.
The bell tolls overhead.
The whole square shifts around them in practiced obedience.
And Soren stands still in the middle of it. We see something in his eyes… pure rage.
END OF EPISODE.