# sawedoff.hanging-on → THE LEAD HAIL · DEATH REALM · choreography doc v1 (C, 27 Oct)

Concept approved 27 Oct 16:15, with the coordinator's changes applied:
- No gold step: Faris shoots the umbrella apart from where he stands.
- The limbs vary: the free arm goes at the shoulder, and both raised hands are stripped to the bone. There is no knee.

**Story:** Fayiz is a strong spearman. The duel is going his way until Faris's second shot does not land. The report hangs, the spread slows into a falling hail, and they are both standing in THE LEAD HAIL: a plain where it has rained buckshot forever and nobody is ever dry. Fayiz shields under a gold umbrella. Faris walks through the hail untouched. The climax happens there. Then the arena returns, with only the shot.

**The cuts, the opening and the end, and why they belong here:**
- THE SPEAR ARM, TAKEN WHOLE AT THE SHOULDER. The hail flays it while it is outside his shield (volley 2); the last volley tears it away.
- BOTH RAISED HANDS STRIPPED TO THE BONE. The last human gesture against a falling sky.
- THE OPENING is the whole front, shoulders to hips, by attrition: hundreds of ragged holes merging into a torn open front (varied sizes, never dots or a grid). It is the realm's own wound: a man riddled, not cut.
- THE END: slumped back on his heels, his face up toward the iron sky as if waiting for the next volley.

**Needs:** `{ kinds: ['FLOOR'], space: { w: 380 } }`. The realm is a full-plate overlay drawn by the kill, so it works on any arena. The Deep skips.

**Casts:**
- (a) Fayiz · THE SPEAR ('blade'): his weapon.
- (b) Fayiz · THE UMBRELLA-SHIELD ('shield'): a gold canopy over his head. It is motivated survival, not decoration, and it is destroyed by Faris's double blast.

## THE REALM · THE LEAD HAIL (registered in 58k_REALMS.md)
- An endless black plain under a low iron sky.
- Grey lead shot drifted underfoot like hail, in banks.
- Strangers stand where they were caught, peppered with hundreds of ragged holes and swaying slightly. Some are on their knees, one has an arm still raised; each is posed differently.
- Volleys come down in sheets with a long slow hiss. A distant bell tolls once for each volley.
- Cold rim light, iron monochrome, grain, letterbox.
- Crossing: the second report HANGS. The pellets slow, thicken into a falling hail, and the arena drains to iron as the plain fades up over it.
- Return: the bell stops, the hail drops its last inch, and the arena snaps back warm. The grey shot stays on the arena floor.

1 FH ≈ 65 u. F at x 0 facing right; Fy at +180 facing left.

## BEAT SHEET

### PHASE 0 · THE SPEAR (0.0-1.8)
SHOT 1: a low two-shot drift.

| t | FAYIZ | FARIS | FX / CAM |
|---|---|---|---|
| 0.2-0.9 | **CAST (a):** draws a line in the air with his right hand; a gold spear inks along it. He spins it once behind his back and settles into a long stance. | Braced, gun level. | ink.cast.blade. |
| 1.0-1.7 | Two probing steps in. | One step back. | — |

### PHASE 1 · THE HOME FIGHT (1.8-5.0)
SHOT 2: the spear-tip POV on the first thrust. SHOT 3: a handheld medium.

| t | FAYIZ | FARIS | FX / CAM |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1.9 | THRUST: front foot lunges, arms extend. | LEANS back from the hips; the tip passes a hand from his chest. | SHOT 2 POV. |
| 2.4 | LOW SWEEP at the ankles. | HOPS it, both feet. | Whoosh. |
| 2.9 | OVERHEAD SMASH: the spear comes down two-handed. | ROLLS aside (2.9-3.4), up on one knee. | The spear cracks the floor: dust and chips (generic). |
| 3.7 | Thrust again. | PARRIES with the barrels and steps inside. | Clang, sparks. |
| 4.2 | — | FIRES barrel one. | Flash, kick. |
| 4.15-4.6 | DIVE-ROLL away from the muzzle. | — | The pellets graze him: a torn sleeve, a few ragged holes in the upper arm, blood. |
| 4.8 | Up, the spear level, a hand to the graze. | Tracks. | — |

### PHASE 2 · THE CROSSING (5.0-7.0)
SHOT 4: a medium on the report. SHOT 4b: the reveal crane up.

| t | FAYIZ | FARIS | FX / CAM |
|---|---|---|---|
| 5.0-5.5 | CHARGES, the spear forward. | Plants. | — |
| 5.6 | — | FIRES barrel two. | The report HANGS: an echo that does not decay. |
| 5.62-6.3 | Stops in mid-stride, looking up. | Lowers the gun slowly. | **SLOW 0.12x**, then held: the pellet cloud slows, thickens and spreads up into a falling grey hail. The grade drains to iron, the arena plate fades out, and THE LEAD HAIL fades up (sky, plain, banks of shot, the peppered dead). |
| 6.3-6.9 | Turns a full circle, seeing the dead. Fear (terror58). | — | SHOT 4b crane up: the plain to the horizon. The first bell (6.6). |

### PHASE 3 · UNDER THE HAIL (7.0-13.4)
SHOT 5: a handheld under the drumming shield. SHOT 6: an orbit on the break.

| t | FAYIZ | FARIS | FX / CAM |
|---|---|---|---|
| 7.0-7.3 | **CAST (b):** throws his left hand up; a gold umbrella-shield inks open over his head. | — | ink.cast.shield. |
| 7.2 | — | — | VOLLEY 1 (the bell): a sheet of shot hisses down. It drums on the gold (sparks, gold flecks) and bounces off its rim into the banks. |
| 7.4-8.0 | Crouched under the canopy, the spear in his right hand. | WALKS toward him through the falling shot. The hail PARTS around Faris in a clear ring. | — |
| 8.2 | Jabs from under the shield. | Slips it. | — |
| 8.9 | Jabs again, lower. | Sidesteps it. | — |
| 9.4-10.2 | Edges back under the umbrella. | Breaks the gun, flicks out both hulls, loads two, snaps shut, walking. | Brass falls into the shot banks. |
| 10.4 | A long low swing at Faris's legs; the spear arm goes OUT past the shield's edge. | Steps over it. | — |
| 10.8 | — | — | VOLLEY 2 (the bell). |
| 10.85-11.3 | THE HAIL STRIPS THE EXPOSED SPEAR ARM: the sleeve and skin shredded, the muscle torn ragged down to the bone in places. The arm drops useless, hanging from a shoulder half torn through; the spear falls and un-draws. He screams. | — | Blood mist in the hail. |
| 11.5-12.6 | Huddles under the umbrella, the flayed arm hanging at his side, pumping. | Stops at two strides. | — |
| 12.9 | — | Raises the gun at the canopy from where he stands. | — |
| 13.0 | — | FIRES BOTH BARRELS. | THE UMBRELLA BURSTS: gold ribs and panels fly apart and un-draw in the air. Snap, shake 6. Orbit. |

### PHASE 4 · THE LAST VOLLEY (13.4-16.4)
SHOT 7: a crane down with the volley, slow-mo.

| t | FAYIZ | FARIS | FX / CAM |
|---|---|---|---|
| 13.4 | Exposed. Looks up. | Steps back one pace. | The bell, closer. |
| 13.6 | RAISES BOTH HANDS over his face: the good hand, and the flayed arm lifted halfway on what is left of the shoulder. | — | — |
| 13.7-14.3 | THE HAIL ARRIVES. BOTH RAISED HANDS ARE STRIPPED TO THE BONE (skin and meat torn away, finger bones bare and splayed, threads of sinew). Then it walks down him and OPENS HIM FROM THE SHOULDERS DOWN: hundreds of ragged holes merging into a torn open front, ribs showing through, bone off-centre. **EXPLODING LIMB:** the half-torn right shoulder gives, and the flayed arm tears away whole AT THE SHOULDER and drops into the shot. | Still. | **SLOW-MO 0.12x:** each pellet visible, the bell stretched, the heartbeat. |
| 14.3 | — | — | SNAP to speed. |
| 14.4-15.2 | Sags to his knees, then back onto his heels. The hand falls to his lap. The face turns up to the sky. | — | Letterbox. |
| 15.4-16.3 | Still. | — | The last hail patters to nothing. |

### PHASE 5 · THE RETURN (16.4-18.2)
| t | FAYIZ | FARIS | FX / CAM |
|---|---|---|---|
| 16.4 | — | — | The bell stops dead. |
| 16.5 | — | — | The last inch of hail drops. |
| 16.6 | — | — | SNAP: the arena returns warm; the realm plate is gone. |
| 16.6 | The body is unchanged (the wounds came back). | Stands two strides off. | The grey lead shot lies scattered on the arena floor round him: the only thing that came back. |
| 17.2-18.0 | — | Turns and walks out of frame. | — |

### FINAL (18.2-21.0)
SHOT 8: low and close, three-quarter front, a slow drift.

**XT:**
- Slumped back on his heels, his face upright (the head tilted only slightly back, the eyes rolled up to the sky): half-lidded, bloodshot, small drifted pupils.
- The front torn open shoulders to hips by the hail: the holes vary in size, cluster and merge into one torn opening, ribs showing, wet depth. No dots, no grid.
- The right shoulder: a ragged socket, the humerus head torn away, the collarbone end standing out off-centre, torn sleeve.
- The left hand stripped to the bone in his lap. The flayed right arm lies in the grey shot beside him, its hand bare bone.
- Grey lead shot scattered on the arena floor round his knees, with a few pellets stuck in the blood.
- No Faris.

**Sound:**
- Spear ink and whooshes, the floor crack, the parry clang, the graze.
- The hanging report (a reverse-reverb swell).
- In the realm: low wind, the long hiss of each volley, shot drumming on gold, the bell.
- The umbrella burst and the tearing hail.
- The snap of the return: room tone and silence.

**Ladder** (built after the XT pass):
- VH: the same, without the bone hand.
- H: dark wounds.
- M: the crossing fails; the shot knocks him down at home, X eyes.
- L: the graze; he faints at home.
- VL: the hail is rice, falling like at a wedding; he sits in it, bewildered.