Scene 1 – Beneath the Bones of London London is a city built on forgetting. Beneath its streets lie layers of silence—Roman roads, plague pits, crypts and catacombs—each one a scar stitched over with stone. But some wounds never heal. Some doors, once sealed, are not meant to reopen. Tonight, a poet, a magician, a novelist, and an aristocrat sink into one of the oldest, blood-soaked wounds festering beneath London—where something ancient stirs. They face a world-ending horror, a force of unmaking that seeks to drown the earth in eternal night. W.B. Yeats, Harry Houdini, Bram Stoker and their reluctant leader, Oscar Wilde descend in silence through the lantern-lit tunnels. Brick gives way to ancient stone, remnants of London’s forgotten past. With each step, the air grows colder, the stone beneath their boots slick with condensation. They are not just chasing a friend—they are hunting a nightmare. Arthur Conan Doyle, once a man of reason, has unwillingly become twisted by an ancient evil. The papers have named him Jack, but in truth, he is controlled by a dark spirit born of the low void—known as the Harbinger. Wilde clutches the emerald that once gleamed with power but now pulses with corruption. The emerald that enchanted Doyle for years and opened him to possession. They face sinister cults, corrupted relics and a force older than legend—something trying to claw its way into the world through a gate buried beneath the bones of London. The four men step into the chamber’s edge. It is vast and circular. The geometry bends subtly, as if the space resists being fully realized. At its center stands the Dark Gate—a towering arch of black stone that seems to absorb light. Its primeval surface covered in etched glyphs that pulse with a sickly green glow, like veins beneath translucent skin. The air hums with pressure, like the moment before a thunderclap. Within the arch, reality buckles. A churning mass of darkness, viscous and alive, writhes like oil spilled across a shattered mirror. It pulses with unnatural rhythm, distorting the air with whispers that claw at the mind. This is no mere shadow — it is a portal, a bleeding wound in the fabric of existence. Beyond it lies the Low Void, a place where time dies and thought unravels. And through this gate, doom seeps — not just for London, but for every trembling corner of the waking world. Their boots splash into the shallow water that surrounds the altar like a moat. The surface is black and still, but not calm. It waits, undulating ripples, not from movement or wind, but from a dark vibrational frequency emanating from the gate. Yeats speaks to the others, voice low and reverent. YEATS This place is older than the city. Older than the river. It was buried for a reason. Thirteen cultists stand in a wide circle spaced evenly around the gate. They remain motionless, their robes soaked heavy at the hem, their faces hidden behind masks carved from bone and polished brass. The figures chant in unison, whispers with the background hiss of evil coming from the gate. They are not men anymore, not entirely. They are vessels. Empty. Waiting to be filled. Upon the altar before the gate lies a golden amulet, a ring of forgotten symbols and forbidden knowledge. It is an artifact stolen by the cult and retrieved through spilt blood. It glows faintly in the surrounding darkness. Bram speaks quietly to Harry, pointing towards the altar. STOKER These fools are opening damnation and calling it a doorway. That amulet—on the altar. It’s the keystone. If we can take it, we can shatter the circle. That pawn shop owner didn’t just die—he was sacrificed, his blood fueled the artifact’s power. You weren’t chasing a murderer. You were following the trail of another ritual. Houdini nods once. His eyes begin scanning the cultists, already plotting his path. HARRY We’re going to need a distraction. The chanting stops. MacGregor Mathers, the man who began the Hermetic Order of The Golden Dawn but later split from it to form a darker, more sinister cult called the Alpha et Omega, stands at the altar, arms raised triumphant. MACGREGOR You may have caged Crowley, but you’re too late to stop what’s coming. The blood has been spilled! The gate opens and The First Magus returns! You’ve come to witness the rebirth of the world. How fitting that you should die in its first breath. Yeats steps forward, eyes locked on Mathers. YEATS You’ve named it wrong, MacGreggor! That thing is no magus. It is neither man, nor teacher. It is a wound. A parasite. A god of grief that feeds only on pain. Oscar Wilde smirks, but his voice trembles slightly as he takes the surroundings in. WILDE And here I thought I was the dramatic one. MACGREGOR [shouts] You fear what you cannot name, poet! But I have named it The First Magus. The architect. The first to speak the language of power! He will teach us! YEATS [shouts] You’ve named a storm and called it teacher! I’ve seen its shape in my dreams. Felt its hunger in the ley lines. This is not a man. It never was! You are not summoning wisdom—you are unleashing oblivion! A low growl echoes from the archway as the air thickens. The emerald in Wilde’s coat pocket pulses once, faintly, as if in response. He flinches. MACGREGOR You feel it, don’t you? The pressure in your skulls. The weight behind your eyes. He lets out a long, guttural laugh that echoes unnaturally throughout the chamber. MACGREGOR You speak of fear as if it were truth. But fear is merely the final curtain before revelation and I have torn it away! The cultists begin to chant again—low, guttural syllables of an unknown language. The water ripples outward from the altar and the runes on the gate flare brighter. And then—A sound. Not a footstep or voice. A scrape. Metal on stone. From the shadows behind MacGregor, a figure emerges. Tall. Coated in black. A top hat perched atop a pale, bloodless face. His eyes glow faintly green. In one hand, he holds a long, curved blade that glints ominously in the dim light—its edge slick with something that steams in the cold air. He drags it over the stones as he steps down from the altar. Oscar had held firm—until now. But as he stares into the twisted remnants of what was once his friend, something inside him buckles. His composure fractures, and terror begins to seep in, slow and insidious, curling around the edges of his mind like smoke from a dying fire. WILDE [whispers] Oh no Arthur… But it is not Arthur Conan Doyle who steps into the light. It is Jack the Ripper. Possessed. Transfigured. The Harbinger made flesh. His mouth curls into a smile that refuses to reach his eyes. JACK You came to save him. How quaint. His voice is layered and unnatural, partly Doyles, but corrupted. As he moves, the sleeve of his coat shifts slightly, revealing a glimpse of something dark and unnatural. A large, black tentacle slowly emerges, writhing and twisting as if it has a mind of its own. The tentacle is covered in glistening, slimy scales, and it pulses with a sickly, greenish glow. The sight is horrifying and unnatural. The squid-like limb slowly slithers its way towards his old cohorts. JACK Your friend is gone. There is only me. Yeats stumbles back, clutching his coat tighter around him as the tentacle slithers forward, dragging behind it a wake of glistening rot. Each movement bleeds contradiction—fluid yet mechanical, like something that forgot how to mimic life. The glyphs on the Dark Gate shimmer violently in response, their glow strobing faster, syncing with the creature’s breath. HARRY We’ll get him out of you! Even gods can be bound! And you’re no god. You’re a parasite. The Harbinger grins wide and exposes his teeth as the horrid tentacle writhes slowly in the space in front of him. JACK A parasite? No. I am the echo of what your species forgot. Doyle invited me with his longing for truth. You, magicians and poets, you chase illusions and pretty words. Doyle sought revelation. The tentacle lashes outward—lightning-quick. Houdini barely dodges as it crashes into the cavern wall, dislodging pieces of ancient stone that fall into the black water. The ripples move outward in geometric patterns as the surface of reality begins to bend. Bram Stoker runs to Oscar’s side. STOKER We’re losing the chamber. The geometry here is bending. Indeed, the room warps as if caught between dimensions. Angles defy understanding—pillars stretching infinitely upward in one breath, collapsing to the ground in the next. MacGregor speaks again, but his voice is hollow now, consumed by a chorus of whispers rising from the gate. MACREGOR Yeats, you clutch at sparks, yet you are mere kindling. Our magic is carved in bone, bound in blood AND we have the Harbinger at the helm. Yeates begins speaking a counterspell. YEATS Let no door open that cannot close. Let no wound fester without name. By blood, by dust, by syllable— Jack’s body convulses unnaturally as he recalls the tentacle, the slick appendage slithering back into his flesh with a wet, sucking sound. His eyes, now void of humanity, snap toward Yeats with predatory intent. In a blur of motion, he lunges forward, the curved blade in his hand gleaming with a sickly, iridescent sheen. He swings wide with a backhanded slash, the blade whistling through the air. Yeats reacts just in time, leaping backward—but not far enough. The edge catches his upper forearm, tearing through coat and skin alike. Yeats takes to one knee, clutching the wound. Jack pivots with inhuman grace, his body twisting like something boneless. With a guttural snarl, he thrusts the tentacle outward again—this time with brutal force. It lashes across the space and strikes Yeats squarely in the chest, sending him sprawling. He hits the ground hard and slides across the stone, the impact knocking the breath from his lungs. The tentacle retracts, twitching like a thing with its own hunger, as Jack stalks forward, blade raised and eyes burning with eldritch fury. JACK Language has no power here. The gate rewrites grammar with anguish. Oscar Wilde moves slowly toward Doyle—toward Jack—clutching the emerald that is now flickering erratically in his palm. Around him, the cultists twitch in tandem, bone masks cracking, brass edges warping into mocking expressions. WILDE [softly], [kindly] I refuse to believe he’s gone. You have his body. His voice. But you lack his silence. The part of Arthur that mourns. That regrets. The best part of Arthur Doyle is the part that resists. Jack pauses. The tentacle halts mid-air. For an instant, Wilde thinks he sees Doyle’s eyes—their softness, the sorrow—but it’s gone just as quickly. JACK He kneels to me in dreams. He offers names he never dared speak aloud. He bleeds stories and I am carved from his forgotten endings. Wilde closes the distance. The emerald glows brighter as if reacting to the power around them, its fractured core seething with latent memory. WILDE [shouts] Then you’ve mistaken him entirely. Doyle bleeds, yes—but he never stops stitching his wounds. He heals through confession, not conquest. The tentacle retracts slightly, shuddering. A pulse from the gate ripples again, slower this time—as if uncertain. The amulet at the altar emits a single, sharp ring, piercing enough to draw blood from Wilde’s ear. The water around the gate begins to boil. Steam rises, carrying whispers—words in old languages. Wilde kneels, ignoring the burning water, reaching for the emerald. He speaks softly to the man that was Doyle, his voice unwavering and gentle. WILDE Come back to the pain, Arthur. It’s yours. Not his. Jack convulses. The tentacle coils violently around his torso, constricting like a serpent unwilling to yield its prey. His mouth opens, and Doyle’s voice breaks through for a fleeting moment. DOYLE Oscar… Then, silence. WILDE Arthur! Come back to us! The emerald pulses once—violently. The gate flashes. And for the first time, something from inside begins to lurch forward. Oscar is hit with a force in his chest so hard it knocks him onto his back, bouncing the back of his head off the stone floor. His vision flashes white, then fades into a blur from the impact. Scene 2 – The Threshold Unravels From the gate, silence expands—not the absence of sound, but the presence of depth and darkness. It expands outward in a ring of collapsing reality, as though the world itself has forgotten the basic shapes and sounds of its own existence. Jack inside the body that once held Doyle—lurches forward. His face contorts beneath the top hat’s shadow, torn between two consciousnesses. One cries for anchor, the other sings for annihilation. He slowly rises into the air before his chest splits—not with blood, but with light. Cold, green and bright. From the fracture, a shape leaks forth. It is not a creature. It is concept given form. A pulsing lattice of memories forgotten by time, stitched with whispers and wrapped in shadow. The Harbinger has begun to manifest—first within Doyle’s body, now in the space around him. The flash of green light that was once Doyle floats above the circle of cultists, burning green to white hot lightning as eldritch energy crackles from its form. His physical form is a black silhouette surrounded by blinding white and green light, bursting like a star preparing to collapse. STOKER [shouting] This is no possession—it’s transfiguration. Call him back, Oscar! Call him by the names no one else remembers! Wilde steadies himself and rises to one knee, blood appearing just under his nose. He raises his arm, shielding his eyes from the light. The emerald in his hand glows as bright as the unnatural sunburst hovering in the chamber, which is now fully illuminated by an explosion that appears frozen in time. WILDE [exhausted], [struggling] Arthur Ignatius Conan Doyle. Lover of ghost stories. Defender of the unjustly accused. Writer of impossible tales and architect of heroes… Believer and skeptic… Father and Son… The green light flares violently. For a heartbeat, time fractures. The edges of the light stretch out like tiny tendrils curling back and forth in unison. What started as a miniature sun is now intensifying, shattering atoms and restructuring them into a kaleidoscope of fractured glass. The sight is impossible as it is maddening. Oscar lowers the emerald to the cold stones at his feet, his hand trembling with the weight of what must be done. He straightens, retrieves his cane, and with a cry that is part fury and part farewell, brings the solid bronze head crashing down onto the green stone. It does not break. He strikes again. The emerald remains unscratched. He throws the cane aside and picks up a nearby chunk of ancient stone. With all his remaining might, he swings the rock down onto the emerald. The stone shatters with a sound like breaking bone. The sickly glow dies instantly and is swallowed by the dark. And then, in the silence that follows, Oscar speaks the last forgotten name—softly, reverently. The one name that means more to Oscar than any spell or secret. The name that clings to the last thread of the man Arthur Doyle was and will forever be. OSCAR [quietly], [exhausted] …friend With the shattering of the emerald, the light surrounding Arthur's silhouette explodes and blinks out as if it was never there. Arthur's body drops from the air and lands on the stone floor. Oscar rushes to him, kneeling beside the figure that is no longer a twisted horror pulled from nightmares. He is Arthur. Broken, injured and not yet conscious. He looks around, hopeful that the ordeal is finally over, but his relief quickly turns to unbearable dread. They were too late. The swirling mass within the archway solidifies as The Dark Gate opens. His heart breaks one last time as the world begins to end. Scene 3 – Into The Low Void The abstraction of darkness through the arches crystallizes into shape as the air folds inward. The vision deepens as the veil between worlds thins. Wilde peers through the arch—glimpses of London rewritten into terrifying visions. Streets lined with skulls. Houses crumbling. The Thames runs black, thick as oil. Another world awaits—and Oscar realizes with dawning horror that it is no vision. It is real. The horrific spectacle yawns wide before him, vast and hungry. A monstrous silhouette looms in the distance—impossibly large and grotesque. It moves like a thought, not a creature, its form shifting with every blink. Tentacles stretch across the skyline, dragging across shattered rooftops, each one inscribed with symbols that burn into the mind. Its body is a cathedral of flesh and madness, eyes blooming and vanishing across its surface like cancerous stars. It’s coming. Not walking. It is ARRIVING. Reality bends around it, warping and screaming. The cultists chant louder, blood pouring from their eyes, mouths and ears. The gate pulses, and the air turns to glass. Wilde stumbles back, clutching his head as whispers claw at his thoughts. Madness tainted with promises of power and ruin. The cultists twitch. Some step forward without stepping—half-submerged in broken light, faces distorted by the gate’s hum. Stoker whispers something to Harry as he makes a move to clear a way through the cultists towards the altar. He intercepts the first one, barreling into the robed figure with a shoulder-check that sends both sprawling across hard floor. The cultist doesn’t scream. It just vanishes leaving nothing but a mask and an empty robe. STOKER [yelling] I’ve got one down! They’re... hollow. Empty suits. Will! Get MacGregor! Before him the gate continues its nightmarish display. A colossal tentacle slithers across London’s skyline, dragging behind it a trail of broken time. The ground inside the gate fractures, revealing a chasm filled with writhing limbs and whispering mouths. A cathedral made of flesh pulses in the distance, its bells tolling in reverse, each note is a psychic wound. W.B. Yeates scrawls a warding circle around himself in chalk and locks eyes with MacGregor Mathers, who lifts his arms to call forth a spiral of sigils in crimson light. Shadows converge, dragging meaning into the air like smoke. YEATS [bellowing] Let no wound name its hunger! By verse unspoken, I bind thy tongue! The counterspell, a sonnet encoded in warding verse, bursts outward in gold fractals. MacGregor falters, growling in Latin as his own symbols erode mid-cast. He lashes out with a spell, a violent push of force but Yeats returns fire—line for line, rhyme for rhythm. They duel like monks of opposing gospels, rewriting the air with faith and fury. Yeats stands calm, chalk-dusted fingers weaving incantations like a master sorcerer. MacGregor towers before him, his robes soaked in channeled energies, eyes wide with the madness of entitlement. He begins the Rite of Dominion, a spell lost to official records, one he learned in the unlisted hours between the Golden Dawn and the Alpha et Omega. With each uttered phrase, the tunnel bends—tiles crack, pressure rises. He’s invoking raw authority, attempting to overwrite Yeats with ancestral command. MACREGOR The strong do not ask. They command and the world obeys. Fortes non rogant. Imperant, et mundus paret! Yeats counters—not with power, but with rejection. Rather than duel blow for blow, Yeats unbuttons his sleeve and reveals a stitched verse sewn into linen—the poem no archive dares preserve. He recites not to overpower, but to deny permission. YEATES Where names lose breath, let titles fade. Let no heir claim what none have wrought. The ritual begins to fracture—not by force, but by contradiction. Yeats speaks into MacGregor’s spell like a virus into language, corrupting syntax and unraveling meaning. MacGregor stumbles. His body jolts, like a sputtering machine. He tries to reform the spell, but Yeats has already peeled away the foundation—MacGregor’s lineage, his self-ascribed authority has been rendered irrelevant. As a final stroke, Yeats invokes the forgotten verse, a tattooed line on his forearm, inked in ash from the burnt letters and correspondence between inner-circle members. He speaks it aloud. YEATES We are not names. We are the refusals. The rejection of power. We are those who dance in the moonlight and celebrate the goodness of this world. We are the love…and we are the light. With that, MacGregor folds—not with a scream, but a stunned silence, his spell devoured by the very idea that he cannot author meaning where none is granted. His body hits the stone like discarded parchment as the air around him loses its weight. Yeats doesn’t gloat. He simply wipes the chalk from his hands and murmurs a line only Oscar might understand. YEATES Authority without poetry is just…noise. Within the gate, the skyline of London twists like wet cloth, buildings folding into themselves as bone towers rise in their place. A train of shadow and flame roars through the fog—no tracks, no destination, only screaming passengers with hollow eyes. A clocktower of bone ticks forward, each second dragging reality closer to collapse. Houdini, meanwhile, has vanished. Or so it seems. Then—a flicker of movement as he breaks from cover, his boots skimming the slick water as he darts toward the altar. The amulet thrums violently, levitating just inches above its stone cradle. Tendrils of green lightning lash out like whipcords, defensive and reactive. He rolls low, narrowly avoiding a bolt of spectral light that slices a cultist clean in half—the robe falls empty, as if it was never filled. Without hesitation, Harry grabs the altar’s edge and uses its support to spring forward, snatching the amulet mid-spin. It burns against his palm, seeping heat into bone. He grits through the pain, lands on his feet and drives his elbow into a masked figure lunging from the side, cracking porcelain and bone alike. A second cultist rushes—Harry improvises and jerks the mask off mid-lunge and smashes it into their face. Brutal but efficient. Stoker, caught between masked cultists, recognizes each face as stolen. His sister. His mentor. A lost lover. All grins that appear weaponized against him. Whether real or imagined, Bram uses the visions to become a fury of fists and vengeance. He begins moving through the dark like a veteran specter, fury wrapped in flesh. A cultist springs from behind a cracked column. Bram’s revolver is already in his hand—not drawn, but ripped from the shoulder holster with surgical grace, hammer cocked. He fires once, the shot echoing like truth screamed in a cathedral. The mask explodes in ceramic shrapnel, the body crumpling to the floor. STOKER [grimly] You borrow the dead. I’ll pay them back. He pivots, but too slow. A second assailant charges from his blind side, catching Bram with a shoulder-hooked tackle. The revolver skids across the stone, clattering somewhere near the gate’s edge. No time to search. He turns, just in time to see a third attacker poised with a stiletto dagger, the point aimed straight at his neck. STOKER [snarling] Figures. Always with the flair. And then— A flash of silver splits the air. The cultist freezes, chokes, and collapses forward with Harry’s throwing knife sunk deep in his throat. The body drops mid-step, a flash of pale blood on old stone. Then silence. Bram spins just in time to catch Harry driving a brutal throat punch into the cultist who dared to frisk him. The man crumples without a sound. Harry flashes a cocky salute, already sliding another blade into his hand. His coat flares dramatically like a magician mid-performance, the amulet glinting in his grip. HARRY [shouts], [enthusiastic] Try to hang on to your gear next time, old man! Bram smiles back and retrieves his revolver. Harry charges forward, coat spreading behind him as he reaches Yeats just as the poet stumbles, blood soaking through the sleeve of his coat. Harry grabs him by the collar and helps him upright. Together, they sprint down the steps, the thunder of gunfire echoing through the chamber. Bram stands at the base of the archway, revolver roaring in his hand. Each shot is precise and brutal—cultists drop one by one, their chants cut short by the crack of lead and fire. Smoke coils around him like a cloak, the muzzle flash lighting his face in staccato bursts of fury. The remaining zealots fall or flee into the shadows as the three converge—Harry and Yeats sliding in beside Bram as he reloads with practiced speed. They rush to Wilde’s side, where Arthur lies collapsed, unmoving as the gate still howling behind them like a wounded god. The ground trembles. The air is thick with ash and embers beginning to blow through the gate into the tunnel. For a moment, the four stand together—bloodied, breathless and defiant. The gate’s swirling core pulsing with unnatural light. The air is electric—charged with chaos and madness. Cultists lie scattered, the last of them silenced by Bram’s revolver. Arthur’s body is still. The ritual is broken but the gate remains open, still hungering. Oscar shouts to the others above the roar of the gate. OSCAR Why isn’t this bloody thing closing?! Mathers is down, the ritual’s shattered, and the Harbinger’s been torn from Doyle! What else do we need to do—throw it a dinner party and pray it’s in a good mood? Yeats, still clutching his bleeding arm shouts in desperation. YEATS [desperate], [shouting] It’s the amulet! The gate’s tethered to it—anchored like a hook in flesh! Harry! Throw it into the portal before it pulls the whole city through! Harry stands at the edge, the amulet burning in his hand like a live coal. Its surface pulses—Behind him, Wilde shouts, Yeats bleeds and Bram reloads. Time is collapsing. The world is mere seconds from unraveling. With a roar, Harry hurls the amulet into the heart of the gate. It strikes the swirling void—and the effect is instant. A shockwave erupts outward, hurling the four men back as the gate convulses. The arches crack. The air screams. Inside the portal, the horror rears up—tentacles flailing, eyes blazing, its form unraveling as the tether is severed. It shrieks a sound that isn’t sound, a psychic detonation that rattles bones and minds. The gate implodes. Light and shadow collapse inward, folding space like paper. The arches crumble and crash to the ground before them. The fog vanishes and finally…silence. Harry lies on his back, chest heaving, ears ringing. Bram and Yeats scramble to their feet and quickly help Harry up. The three join Oscar, kneeling beside the crumpled mass that is Arthur. The chamber is quiet, lit only by small fires scattered among the debris and rubble. Shadows flicker across Doyle’s pale face. His eyes flutter open—bloodshot, unfocused. OSCAR Arthur, if you’re quite finished terrifying the universe, we’d appreciate your return. You’ve missed a rather dramatic finale. Doyle looks up at Oscar and grabs the lapel of his jacket, eyes wavering in madness. DOYLE They said I was chosen, but I was only claimed—dragged into a place where thought has teeth and memory bleeds. Time folded, voices pressed and I walked through myself until I no longer knew which version was screaming. I saw the girls through the Harbinger’s prison, their faces. I believed myself a hero but I was the blade. I was the silence. I was the end. He begins to weep—softly at first, then with a tremor that shakes his whole body. The firelight dances across his face, illuminating a man not merely broken, but hollowed. The others say nothing. There is no comfort for what has been spoken. Only the quiet, and the slow, steady sound of Doyle’s despair. Scene 4 – Epilogue A cozy, sun dapples the sitting room in Frank and Oscar’s apartment. There are books stacked in precarious towers and a half-finished sketch on an easel. Oscar Wilde lounges in a velvet armchair, legs crossed, reading a folded newspaper while Frank Miles sits nearby, sketching nonchalantly with charcoal-smudged fingers. Oscar reads aloud from the Pall Mall Gazette OSCAR “Whitechapel at peace again. Inspector Abberline declines to comment. No further murders expected.” How reassuring. London’s finest have declared the city safe—at least until the next tragedy arrives dressed in mystery and good tailoring. FRANK You sound almost disappointed. OSCAR Not at all. I’ve had quite enough of blood and shadows. Though I must admit, I’ll miss the attention. There’s nothing quite like a brush with death to make one’s poetry feel urgent. FRANK And here I thought you wrote poetry to impress critics. OSCAR I write poetry to impress myself. The critics are just collateral damage, my dear boy. Frank chuckles, setting his sketchpad aside. FRANK So how is Doyle? OSCAR [sighs] Melville’s tucked him away in some countryside asylum. It’s a quiet place without mirrors. They say he’s improving—slowly. He asked for a pen last week. That sounds like progress to me. FRANK Do you think he’ll write about it? OSCAR If he does, no one will believe him. Which is probably for the best. The truth is far too fragile to be handled by the public. FRANK And what about the rest of us? OSCAR Oh, we'll be fine, Frank. We’re artists. We turn horror into metaphor and sell it in hardback. Frank grins, pouring tea. FRANK To peace, then. However long it lasts. OSCAR To peace. And to the next beautiful, terrible thing that finds us. They clink teacups. Outside, London breathes a sigh of relief. The rain has stopped. A constable lights his pipe beneath a flickering lamp. Somewhere, a bell tolls. And in the quiet between heartbeats, the city dares to hope again.