APEX
INT. DIRT ARENA – MORNING
The ground is hard-packed mud. Blood-colored from past lives. The kind of soil that remembers. Overhead, the sky drools sun like a heatlamp in a slaughterhouse.
One hundred men.
Shirts off.
Some ripped. Some soft. One guy still wearing a Bluetooth earpiece.
They look around at each other like prison meat. One guy’s doing pushups. One’s praying. One’s vaping.
Then, it enters.
A gorilla the size of a compact car, radiating kill-energy. A living middle finger to man’s illusion of dominance. Not roaring. Just watching. Like God with nothing left to prove.
CLOSE-UP: GORILLA’S EYES
Jet black. Bottomless. Like staring down a history of extinction.
BILL (30s, accountant, dad-bod)
“This is just... a metaphor, right?”
GREG (19, ROTC dropout)
“Metaphors don’t smell like copper and piss.”
ROUND ONE – THE COCKY DIE FIRST
The gym bros charge first.
Protein farts and delusion.
They swing.
The gorilla grabs one by the leg, uses him as a bat to swat two others.
Another gets a bite — from chin to spine. Like peeling a banana in reverse.
Six men down. Thirty seconds in.
The rest pause. Reconsider life choices.
ROUND TWO – THE STRATEGY PHASE
The nerds start shouting ideas.
“We can blind it!”
“Trip it!”
“Use numbers! Like ants!”
They form a circle. Like ants.
But ants don’t bleed out screaming.
SLOW MOTION SEQUENCE
Forty men jump.
The gorilla spins, like a blender full of knuckles and hate.
One man’s arm flies. Another lands ten feet away, spine-first.
Somewhere, a guy’s livestreaming.
“YO, SMASH THAT LIKE BUTTON IF YOU THINK JEFF’S DEAD.”
MONTAGE – MID-BATTLE CARNAGE
- A dentist uses his belt like a whip. Dies instantly.
- A chef tries to choke it with a towel. Ends up wearing his own intestines like a scarf.
- One dude just lies down. Pretends to be dead. Smart. Possibly a sociopath.
THE TURNING POINT
Blood makes the ground slippery.
The gorilla, breathing hard now.
Foam at the mouth. Eyes manic.
The men?
Feral. Shirtless. Covered in blood, shit, and purpose.
They’ve stopped thinking. Stopped planning. Now they hunt.
GROUP DOGPILE
Like a crashing wave made of desperation.
They grab fur. Cling to limbs. Gouge. Stab with fingers.
One guy jams his thumbs into an eye socket and just screams prayers to no god in particular.
The gorilla thrashes.
Bones crack.
Men fly.
But they hold.
FINAL SHOT
The gorilla, gasping.
Chained in human bodies.
Chest rising once.
Then silence.
The men stand.
Broken noses. Broken lives.
But they stand.
GREG
“We... won?”
BILL
“No. We survived.”
A beat.
Then someone throws up.
FADE OUT.