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The original was posted on /r/nosleep by /u/Saturdead on 2024-03-02 18:54:39.

[Part 1] - [Part 2] - [Part 3] – [Part 4] – [Part 5]

 

Over the next few weeks, most of the remaining shoots went off without a hitch. Dawn, or whatever passed as Dawn, was an immaculate professional – knocking out most scenes in one or two takes. It was sort of unnerving to watch, seeing her move in and out of character at the drop of a hat. Almost like she could make herself into different people. It wasn’t just acting, it was… different. Stronger, even.

Seb came back to work after a while, but he was a completely different person. Not only because he wasn’t allowed to do any heavy lifting, but because of the incident with Ariel and the white shirts. It had drained him, in a way. Knocked him off his pedestal. There were no quick quips or clever initiatives; he was broken and afraid. We both just kept our heads down and wished for it all to be over.

We had moved on to in-house sets, leaving about a third of the support staff without a clear assignment. Not me and Seb though. No matter where we filmed, there was always need for proper lighting. Still, we could see groups of bored staffers hanging out near the mess hall during our breaks.

 

There was a small celebration when we hit the final milestone. I wasn’t on-set for it, but we all got a small bottle of champagne. Seb just chugged his. We noticed a few more smiles as people skittered from station to station. There was still a bit more filming to do, but this was the final scene with any sort of dialog. The final days would be mostly foley, environment shots and reshoots. But from what we’d seen, there wouldn’t be many of those. A handful, maybe.

We had a small party. Most of us were just happy to be done with it – the optimism from those early days were gone. By now, we’d all figured out that there was more to this film than we’d first thought. Some talked about it being turned into more of an art film, while others were concerned about the effort spent on voiceovers. I remember overhearing a conversation between two of the camera operators.

“Every time we bring up an issue, it’s just… they say we’ll fix it in post. But no one is taking notes. No one. And some things you can’t fix in post.”

 

There were a lot of rumors floating around. Some of the people in the costume department had overheard a discussion about the film’s distribution. When we first started, we had been told there’d be early screenings in cinemas across 12 states, but according to more recent rumors that plan had always been speculative. There was no set plan in place.

Furthermore, there’d been a few visits from investors. As it turns out, the people who’d invested money into the movie weren’t from the entertainment industry. There was a small electronics company who’d invested a significant amount, and a publishing company. There was also a pharmaceutical rep with a sort of axe insignia who seemed to be the largest contributor – but they’d only been on-set for a single day. Either way, it was becoming increasingly clear that most of the people working with director Hampton didn’t seem all that interested in the movie itself.

Which begged to question; if these people weren’t interested in the movie, then what were they really investing in?

 

While I had to take over most of Seb’s responsibilities on-set, there wasn’t much left to do. It was mostly maintenance and staying on-call for possible re-shoots. It gave me a lot of time on my own, talking to the other crew members and staying updated on the schedule.

Turns out, there’d been talks of people pre-screening a couple of scenes. The director had been showing a few scenes of the movie to some of the part-timers. It was a strange rumor; a lot of people were talking about the screening itself, but no one had anything to say about what they’d seen.

The only evidence for people having been invited to it in the first place was the staff pins. Every staff member who’d attended a pre-screening were given a pin as a sort of show of trust. It became the mark of an inner circle of trustees, and people were eager to get one. It wasn’t a big deal in and of itself; it was just a little blue pin in the shape of a sunflower.

 

I wasn’t too eager to see it – I just wanted to go home at that point. We were only a couple of weeks from packing up and officially calling it a day. I was looking forward to throwing my hands up and just being done with it.

I wasn’t that curious about the pre-screening at first, but there were questions starting to build up. Mostly because of a woman named Sammy.

Sammy worked with the set designers. She was one of the most outgoing people in the crew, introducing herself to people with a handshake and a hug. Very much a child of the flower power era, she was the kind of person who just exuded positivity. There was no way not to like her, really.

She was one of the first people invited to the pre-screening. I wasn’t surprised, she’d made a lot of friends. But it was what happened afterwards that made me raise an eyebrow.

 

She started to zone out a lot. I’d see her eyes completely glaze over instead of light up when she recognized a friendly face. Most of the time she’d be looking down, as if deep in thought. She would also write a lot. I’d never seen her write anything, but all of a sudden she was carrying around a notebook at all hours of the day.

And once I’d noticed it, I couldn’t stop noticing it. A lot of the folks with pins had notebooks. It was strange though – no one had said anything about it. I tried asking Sammy about it, but she was very deflecting. The Sammy I knew could be set off to talk about anything for any length of time, so to have her shut down a conversation, for any reason, was very out-of-character.

“Just inventory,” she said. “Making sure we got it all covered.”

Yeah, no. I wasn’t buying it.

 

Still, we got ever closer to the final day on set. One afternoon, Seb came to see me. It was just after dinner time, and I’d horked down a couple of hot dogs. He walked up to me, flashing his very own sunflower pin.

“I’ve been invited to a screening tonight,” he said. “You, uh… you think I should go?”

“You want to?”

“I dunno,” he said, shaking his head. “I don’t like it.”

“So just… don’t go.”

“You think they’ll let us?”

After what we’d seen, I wasn’t so sure. There was no telling what was really going on behind the curtain.

“I mean… what are they gonna do?” I asked.

“Do you want to find out?”

 

Looking at Sammy’s lonely corner in the mess hall and her glassy-eyed stare, I didn’t know what to think. There was a part of me that just wanted answers. I think I realized, even then, that I couldn’t step away from all of this without answers. The things I’d seen during the filming of “The End of Eternity” would haunt me for the rest of my life – so any sort of idea of what it all meant might give me some peace of mind.

“I’ll go,” I said. “Then I’ll tell you about it.”

“You sure?” Seb asked.

“A man’s gotta have a plan.”

 

Seb handed over his pin. About an hour later, I was standing outside a meeting room at the far side of the main building, along with eight other anxious crew members. There were mixed feelings. Some seemed excited, others worried. I was somewhere in the middle.

It was so strange, in a way. Even now, no one knew for sure what parts of the script would make it into the final cut. There were a couple of scenes I was fairly sure were being cut, but then again, Roy Hampton was erratic at best and nonsensical at worst. There was no way for any of us to know for sure.

But yeah, I think all of us had long since realized that this would be no ordinary horror movie.

 

One of Hampton’s assistants checked our pins and lead us into a small room. There were black chairs placed in four rows of six. There were no lights. I got myself a seat in the second-to last row; far back enough to get a good overview, but not far enough to bring attention to myself. Others were already whispering with anticipation. Were they showing us a single clip? Several? Raw footage?

Before we got a chance to ask anything, I heard the familiar click of a projector rolling to life. I hadn’t noticed them rolling it in. Then again, it was a little too dark to see anything but the silver screen. All our eyes focused on that little shining square at the far end of the room. The bright light, and the clicking.

So… there isn’t much to say about the footage shown. Honestly, I can’t remember much of it. There were quick cuts, some kind of voiceover, strange music… but I have no visual memory of what was shown on screen. I just remember sitting there, mesmerized, until someone in the back row tapped me on the shoulder.

 

“I love this part,” they whispered.

“You seen this?” I asked.

“No. But I helped with the story.”

I was about to turn around, but they put a dry finger on my cheek, keeping my head looking forward.

“You don’t wanna miss this,” they said.

“You a co-writer?”

“We all are,” they whispered. “We put words to thoughts that were always there.”

“Sounds like something a writer would say.”

“How appropriate.”

 

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