Don't Scream

 **[SOUND: CRACKLE OF A NEEDLE ON AN OLD VINYL RECORD, FADING INTO THE DISTANT, MOURNFUL HOWL OF A SCOTTISH WIND.]**

**[SOUND: THE RHYTHMIC, METALLIC ‘CLICK-GRIND’ OF A HAND CRANK BEING TURNED. IT IS SLOW, DELIBERATE, AND TERRIFYINGLY QUIET.]**

**NARRATOR (Voice is gravelly, echoing as if from a tomb):**

Edinburgh. 1782. A city of stone, shadows, and secrets. In the lecture halls, the air is thick with the scent of pine wood and… something else. Something older.

**[SOUND: THE CRANKING SPEEDS UP SLIGHTLY. THE METAL TEETH OF THE CHAIN WHIRR.]**

**DR. AITKEN (Whispering, intense):**

Do you hear it, James? Not the screaming. No, ignore the screaming. Focus on the mechanism. The fine teeth. The way they bite into the cartilage… not tearing, but *parting*.

**DR. JEFFRAY (Breathless):**

It’s elegant, John. A surgical masterpiece. The chisel was a butcher’s tool. This… this is a whisper of steel.

**[SOUND: THE CRANKING STOPS ABRUPTLY. SILENCE, SAVE FOR A DISTANT, HUSKY SOB.]**

**DR. AITKEN:**

She is obstructed, James. The pelvis is locked tight as a vault. Nature has denied her passage. We are merely the key.

**DR. JEFFRAY:**

The pubic symphysis. A single, precise cut. The chain will do what no knife could ever achieve.

**[SOUND: THE CRANKING RESUMES, FASTER NOW. IT IS A METALLIC, SINGING SOUND—A HIGH-PITCHED ‘ZING’ AS THE TEETH ENGAGE.]**

**DR. AITKEN:**

(Voice rising in manic excitement)

Look at it bite! It’s a snake of serrated iron! It doesn't crush; it consumes. A symphony of bone and link.

**[SOUND: THE CRANKING REACHES A FEVER PITCH—A GRINDING, SHUDDERING SOUND OF METAL AGAINST CALCIFIED TISSUE. THE SCREAMING IS SUDDENLY CUT SHORT INTO A WET, GASPING SILENCE.]**

**DR. JEFFRAY (Voice trembling):**

It’s… it’s through. The canal is open.

**DR. AITKEN:**

(Softly, chillingly)

And to think, James… one day, men will take this design, this beautiful, hungry little invention of ours, and they will give it a roar. They will use it to fell the tallest pines in the forest. They will forget the blood. They will only remember the power of the chain.

**[SOUND: THE HAND-CRANKED TOOL SUDDENLY MORPHS—THE SOUND TRANSITIONS INTO THE DEAFENING, AGGRESSIVE ROAR OF A MODERN, ENGINE-DRIVEN CHAINSAW. IT IDLES, THEN REVVS LOUDLY.]**

**NARRATOR:**

The medicine of the past is the nightmare of the future. And the teeth? They’ve only grown sharper.

**[SOUND: THE CHAINSAW ROARS ONCE MORE, THEN A SUDDEN, ABRUPT CUT TO SILENCE.]**

**[SOUND: A SINGLE, DISTANT H

EARTBEAT.]**

**[FADE OUT.]**