Avatar Page #17

Jake breaks free and wheels away, down the corridor.

GRACE follows JAKE as he crosses to the Link. A sheet of

LIGHTNING flashes across the sky outside.

Norm is initializing the Link.

NORM:

Calibrating. Thirty seconds.

She puts her hands on his shoulders.

GRACE:

No matter what you prove out there-- you

are still in here.

(shaking him)

Right here.

JAKE:

I have to go all the way -- become one of

THEM--

GRACE:

(FURIOUSLY)

Goddammit, Jake, you can never be one of

them!

Norm looks up, startled at the VEHEMENCE in GRACE' voice.

GRACE:

Our life out there takes millions of

dollars of machinery to sustain. You

visit -- and you leave.

During this, Jake pulls himself from his wheelchair, levering

himself into the Link, hauling his useless legs inside.

GRACE:

(SOFTENING)

You can never truly be with her.

Jake stops, pinioned by the truth. He seems suddenly very

lost.

JAKE:

You know why I'm here? Because Quaritch

sent me.

NORM:

What?

84.

JAKE:

That's right -- to embed with the

Omaticaya. To find out how to screw them

out of their home. By deceit or by

force, he didn't care. And if it turned

out to be force, then how best to do it.

Norm is in shock. But Grace is eerily calm.

GRACE:

And what about now, Jake?

JAKE:

I'm not that guy any more.

Grace nods. She's been on his journey every step of the way.

GRACE:

I know.

JAKE:

But if I tell Quaritch the truth, he

yanks me out -- I never see her again.

And if I tell her the truth, the clan

throws me out -- that's if they don't cut

my heart out and show it to me.

Jake looks hopelessly at the two of them. In his own perfect

Hell.

NORM:

They won't understand what you've done.

JAKE:

They don't even have a word for "lie" --

they had to learn it from us.

Grace sees he is on the verge of tears. Lost and alone,

between worlds.

GRACE:

I know. I taught it to them.

JAKE:

(PLEADING)

Grace. I've gotta go. They're waiting.

NORM:

Link is ready.

Grace stops him as he tries to close the lid.

85.

GRACE:

Jake. You can't carry this burden much

longer.

JAKE:

(smiling wanly)

It's okay. Mo'at says an alien mind

probably can't survive the Dream Hunt

anyway.

Grace closes the lid. It feels like closing a coffin. She

watches his psionic patterns aligning to his avatar,

somewhere out in the night.

GRACE:

(to Norm)

Prep my link. I'm going in.

CUT TO:

INT. COMMONS/HOMETREE - NIGHT

JAKE SITS, eyes closed, as Neytiri and another young hunter

paint his face and body in preparation for uniltaron -- the

Dream Hunt.

NEYTIRI:

When your Spirit Animal comes, you will

know.

Their eyes meet with emotion neither can conceal any longer.

TIME CUT. GRACE stands with the crowd at the ramp to

HOMETREE'S LOWEST LEVEL. Jake barely sees her as he goes down

the spiral. She tries to follow, but is barred by a hunter.

BELOW, seemingly in the womb of the earth, Jake walks slowly

into the center of a tight circle of seated elders and

hunters. An ELDER is slowly rapping a large WATER DRUM.

TIME CUT -- MO'AT purifies him with smoke from burning herbs,

CHANTING in a low monotone. Jake, squatting, washes the

smoke over himself with his palms.

MACRO - MO'AT'S FINGERS unwrap a piece of wood riddled with

holes. She catches the end of a glowing purple WORM, and

draws it out of the wood.

MO'AT

(SUBTITLED)

Oh wise worm, eater of the Sacred Tree --

bless this worthy Hunter with a true

vision.

86.

MO'AT places the worm on Jake's out-stretched TONGUE. It

twists on itself, lighting his mouth before he closes it. She

indicates he should chew. He does.

MACRO -- AN EARTHEN JAR is opened. EYTUKAN removes a

writhing black ARACHNOID, the Pandoran equivalent of a

scorpion.

He places it against the back of Jake's neck and presses. The

insect drives its stinger into Jake's skin and --

Jake grimaces. Mo'at and Eytukan step back, leaving Jake

alone in the circle.

Neytiri watches intently, joining in the low chant.

SLOW DOLLY IN on Jake. His eyes OPEN. He looks around at the

faces -- they seem to TRANSFORM, becoming threatening.

Jake looks down at the palms of his hands.

JAKE'S POV -- his hands recede, his whole body, the ground

and --

INSTANTLY the circle of Na'vi recedes, as if to a distant

horizon, leaving vast ground in between. SPACE is utterly

distorted, and SOUND as well -- echoing, THUNDEROUS.

ECU JAKE -- pupils DILATED black. He looks around and --

The onlookers are gone, replaced by a ring of glowing trees,

which seem miles high. The whole image is bathed in spectral

radiance. Jake looks down --

JAKE'S POV -- his body and hands transforming -- fingers

stretching into tendrils, legs becoming roots which spread

outward across the ground, a thousand glowing dendrites which

connect to the roots of the trees and --

CUT TO REALITY -- Jake is on his hands and knees, PUKING in

the dirt. He contorts, crying out in agony as the venom

contracts his muscles but --

IN HIS VISION Jake stands serene on a FLOATING MOUNTAIN

CLIFF. A GREAT BLACK SHADOW covers him, the unmistakable X

silhouette of a diving LEONOPTERYX. The LAST SHADOW.

CAMERA SCREAMS down on him as the shadow grows larger -- WE

RUSH into his face, into the blackness of his pupil which

FILLS THE UNIVERSE and --

87.

REAL JAKE writhes in the dirt, his back arched as his muscles

seize. He foams and thrashes, his eyes rolled back in his

head, while inside --

TIME ITSELF HAS ACCELERATED -- clouds scream around the

mountain tops, mist boils through the forest. He feels the

wind of time blowing through him as --

REAL JAKE claws the ground, moaning, staring blindly while --

INSIDE, IN POV he FLIES over the landscape of Pandora --

--but the forest is BLASTED. Fires flicker among trees that

are BURNED black and lifeless in a smoky twilight.

A great WINGED SHADOW is cast below, rippling over the

devastated ground. AVATAR JAKE looks down at the shadow.

Realizes HE is casting it, and we RUSH IN to his PUPIL and --

PULL BACK from the eye of a GREAT LEONOPTERYX, flying lordly

and terrible over the land. It lets out an almighty SHRIEK

which seems to echo to eternity and --

SLAM CUT to Jake, on his back, GASPING -- back in his body.

He weakly rolls up to one elbow and looks around the room.

MO'AT

It is finished.

Neytiri's face is flooded with relief. The faces of the clan

elders look at Jake expectantly.

EYTUKAN:

(SUBTITLED)

Did your Spirit Animal come?

Jake looks from Eytukan to Mo'at, Tsu'tey and the elders. How

can he tell them what he has seen?

Mo'at puts her splayed fingers against his face, seeming to

peer into his troubled soul.

MO'AT

(to Jake)

Something has come.

(to the others, subtitled)

It will take time for the meaning to be

clear.

She steps back, and Eytukan motions for Jake to stand. He

gets up, weakly.

88.

OUTSIDE THE ENCLOSURE -- Eytukan emerges with Jake and the

others. The entire clan is gathered, waiting to hear what

has happened. Jake looks up at the Leonopteryx Skull Totem,

which seems to stare down at him.

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