100 YEARS AFTER...

The Year: 2025

Bird flu virus infects a young duck hearder, which is then spread throughout his entire small village of 1,234 people in the southern part of Vietnam. The virus then spreads to the capitol of the country, then a few passengers on planes unintentionally transport the virus, by plane to the other 6 continents of the world. Within 48 hours the virus is in 20 major cities across the world. The virus spreads something of greater impact: Fear. Pandimonia drives people out of the larger cities of every country, which spreads the virus faster. Then the people in the medium sized cities "catch" the fear and scatter to smaller areas. In a matter of months the virus kills 2/3rds of the populations of the modern world. Those who are left are in small pockets of communities that are no larger than 50-100 people, living in the wild... all the cities are abandoned.

100 Years After...

The setting is a small village in Upstate New York, called "Ember Springs", hidden away in the middle of the Adirondacks Mountains. Ember Springs looks like a small cluster of houses that have the appearance of almost an Amish community. There are dirts roads in the village, but all of them either connect from house to house or connect in the center. None of the dirt roads lead out of the village. The young people are told that they should never leave the village or interact with any foreigners that pass through the area. The young people can go into the woods, but are told to use caution because they don't want to wander off and end up into another village that could possibly have the virus. The village leaders decide that the modern society had created the problems that lead to the virus, so they decide to go back to the ways of the 19th century, including arranged marriages.

One day the main character, Damian, who is pledge to be married Kayla, stumbled upon a body of a traveller in the forest one day while hunting for firewood with several of the other young adults. They report the body to the adults, but Damian breaks the rules when he secretly finds the travellers' backpack. He stows away the books and maps that are in the person's backpack to look at later.

It is the books and the maps that spark his interests in the outside world. He sees that the book is from a public library in New York City and the map is of the state of New York. He sees pictures of the modern world that his people had left and finds them facinating. Eventually, though, his secret is found out which causes a big controversy in the village.

Damian, his pedge wife-to-be Kayla, and about a dozen other 20-something's decide to take a trip through the forest to the edge of the Adirondack Mountains. What Damian doesn't tell them is that he is in search of the city in the books he found: New York City. He hopes that maybe the people of the village are wrong and that the famed city isn't abandoned and that the virus is no longer around. Half of the group abandon the journey when they find out what his true intentions are. But him and Kayla lead 6 others through the woods and across what used to be populated areas of New York state.

When Damian and his group reach New York City the find a city that resembles a modern version of the remains of an ancient society like the Incas or Aztecs. The roads, bridges and buildings have crumbled and are over taken by nature. The group wants to turn back, but Damian persuades the others that if they had come that far they should continue.

The group gets to the Brooklyn Bridge which looks like it is about to completely collapse. Damian and Kayla lead he group across the bridge. But as they start to cross, the weight of everyone on the bridge is just enough to start the disintergration of the wires and beams. Most of Damian's group runs off the bridge to safety, but Damian and Kayla are stuck on what little is left of the bridge. He is given only one option: to say good bye to his friends and to lead his soon-to-be-wife across the bridge to the rest of New York City.

When he gets into the center of New York City they search around for the public library that the book had on it. When he finally finds the public library it is a heap of ruins. Most of the books are completely gone or destroyed. Damian is upset. Kayla asks him him what the problem is, what he was searching for. He tells her, I just wanted to know 'why'... why are we still around after all this had happened?"

She responds, "I don't know 'why' we are still around, but I know how we survived... love. I love you, you love me. We love our families and they love each other. We show compassion to people in the village and try to help each other out. Maybe this world, that was left behind, forgot about that?"

And so Damian and Kayla decide that since they can not go back home, that they would say their vows to one another and be married. Damian fixes up one of the abandoned buildings and they raise a family, starting over in a new New York City.

This was a simple film concept that popped into my head a few days ago. Just thought it was interesting concept, but I'll never make it into a film because I just have to many other projects, so I decided to share it with you.

I find the concept would have dealt with things like contrasting the one modern world of the past with the simplistic world of the future. Questions of the value society places on people, things and money would be brought up as the old society was driven my financial choices while the simplistic world didn't use currency but traded goods and services. In the end, the story would have asked what really makes up a society and what do humans really leave behind as society.