Legendary

By
ML

INT. KENS CUBICLE - DAY

Present day.
KEN REED, 25, sits in his cubicle. Its nondescript, lacking
in any personal touches or sentimental pictures. He is just
as plain--just as boring--to look at.
He scrolls through the news on his computer. A headline
reads: "NUCLEAR CLOCK MOVED TO 1 MINUTE TO MIDNIGHT". He
hovers over the link.
JAMESON (O.S.)
Reed?
Ken quickly closes out of the news site, revealing an
untouched Excel spreadsheet.
JAMESON, 52, with an eternal salt-and-pepper stubble and
wearing a jacket and tie with jeans combo dumps a stack of
papers on Kens desk.
JAMESON
Reed. These reports. No good.
Boring.
KEN
Im not exactly sure what you mean,
sir.
JAMESON
Theyre a snoozefest. No fun to
read. Cant you spice these things
up?
He picks up a paper from the pile.
JAMESON
Have to read hundreds of these.
Would enjoy a bit of levity. Some
zaz.
We see one of the papers hes picked up, titled: "MORTALITY
RATE HIGHER THAN PROJECTED FOR US PATENT #4385389".
INT. HALLWAY - DAY
Water cooler. A few of Kens coworkers, KIRKWOOD (male 24),
DOLSON (female 23), and SMALL (male 29) pal around, sipping
drinks from novelty mugs and cracking jokes.
Ken walks in. He fills up his plain white mug with water and
joins the circle of friends.
(CONTINUED)

CONTINUED:

2.

KIRKWOOD
--and she had to walk all the way
home like that!
DOLSON
Yeah, yeah, real funny.
Everyone chuckles. Ken tries to fit in, but laughs a bit too
hard.
KEN
Heeey everybody, whats going on?
SMALL
Oh, hey Reed.
KEN
You guys telling stories? I got a
good one.
KIRKWOOD
Lets hear it.
KEN
Well, I was on my way home after a
day at the office. And I thought
Id stop in, you know, Walgreens.
Pick up a prescription, an M&Ms or
something. And Im walking down one
of the aisles, I think it was like
the soda aisle-The other three exchange sidelong glances.
KEN
Anyway-INT. KENS CUBICLE - DAY
Ken is sitting in his cubicle again, defeated. He scrolls
through Twitter. He drops his mug and looks away while
scrolling, missing a tweet reading "NUCLEAR ARMORY RAIDED BY
NATIONALIST TERRORISTS".
He sees he has a new email in his inbox.

3.
INT. JAMESONS OFFICE - DAY
Jamesons office is surreal. Posters of gangster movies,
portraits of himself and his family, and a medieval sword
hang on his walls. His office is furnished all fancy-like,
and he sits in an exotic chair. His desk is enormous--the
chair in front of it dwarfed by its immense height.
On his desk sits a desktop duck hunt toy--tiny little
plastic ducks, set up in a line, that he shoots at with a
rubber-band gun.
SNAP! The first duck goes down.
JAMESON
Survival of the fittest.
KEN (O.S.)
Whats that?
Ken sits in the tiny chair, hidden from Jamesons view.
JAMESON
Darwin. Strong survive. The weak-SNAP! He shoots down another duck.
JAMESON
--perish.
KEN
Am I the weak, sir?
JAMESON
Impressive record, son. Due a
promotion.
KEN
Thats great, siJAMESON
Boring reports. Remember what I
said? Fix that. Then promotion.
KEN
Of course, sir. Ill get on that
right away.
JAMESON
Youre a good worker. Be my
right-hand man. Expect great things
from you.
Ken gets up to leave.
(CONTINUED)

CONTINUED:

4.

JAMESON
In my office. Tomorrow. Accept
promotion. Got it?
Ken nods and walks out.
JAMESON
Oh and, Reed?
SNAP!
JAMESON
Dont let me down.
INT. PRINTER ROOM - DAY
Ken has printed out a few papers--photos of him and his
girlfriend VIRGINIA, a scaled up and goofy still of BATMAN
from The Dark Knight, and a few band posters.
Outside the room, Kirkwood, Dolson, and Small are gathered
around the water cooler. Again, they laugh and tell jokes.
Ken sighs.
INT. KENS CUBICLE - DAY
MONTAGE OF CLIPS OF:
-Ken decorating his cubicle with his pages
-Buying a book on Amazon titled: "HOW TO TELL COOL AND
INTERESTING STORIES AND WIN FRIENDS"
-Checking his cell phone. On the mostly-empty wall behind
him, a text bubble pops up reading: "txting u is like oding
on ambien" He types back--as he does, the words "I love you
too, dear" pop up on the wall.
-Swapping back to his still untouched Excel spreadsheet as
Jameson walks by
END MONTAGE
Ken puts up one last photo of him and Virginia.
Out the window, a nuclear explosion goes off deep in the
background.
Ken doesnt notice and readjusts his photo.

(CONTINUED)

CONTINUED:

5.

KEN
(oblivious)
Today is a new day.
SMASH CUT TO:
EXT. THE WASTES - DAY
SUPER: 6 Years in the Future (Give-or-Take).
Empty, scarred landscapes dotted by countless craters. In
the distance, a single twisted tree, scorched bare. A dirty
and scruffy Ken marches towards it.
The City sits far away, silhouetted in a great cloud of
smog.
Ken sits under the tree. He pulls a beaten up notebook out
of his backpack.
He flips through countless pages. On each one, titles such
as "KENS JOURNEY THROUGH THE APOCALYPSE", "MY APOCALYPSE
DIARY" and "APOCALYPSO KEN REED" are struck-through.
Suddenly inspired, he rummages through his backpack and
pulls out a pen.
He begins to write.
KEN
"The Legends of the After-World".
He thinks it over.
Crosses it out and flips to the next page.
KEN
"The Heroic Journey of Ken R-er,
Ken Steel, Hero of the Apocalypse".
He crosses that out too.
KEN
I got it! "Tales of the Wastes"!
He writes again, but the pen runs out of ink. Ken
frantically tries to get it to write again.

6.

EXT. CITY OUTSKIRTS - DAY

Ken stands just outside the smog-covered City. Covering his
face with a mask, he stares at the City, longingly.
EXT. THE WASTES - DAY
Another part of the wastes. A TORTOISE slowly trudges along
the gray sand. Ken sneaks up behind it.
He picks it up.
KEN
Hello there, Mr. Tortoise. How are
you today?
He dashes it on the ground.
EXT. KENS HOUSE - SUNSET
Surrounded by junk and craggy rocks sits a small,
four-walled cubic hut.
The red sun droops.
INT. KENS HOUSE - SUNSET
The hut is sparse. Photos hanging on the wall are set up
exactly like Kens cubicle. A wooden table has replaced the
desk and on it sits a pot.
Ken throws his notebook into a ridiculously large pile of
similarly beat-up notebooks.
He pulls out a match and lights a fire under the pot,
dropping Mr. Tortoise into the water.
EXT. KENS HOUSE - SUNSET
Ken sits out on one of the craggy rocks and looks off into
the setting sun. The sky simmers red. Tiny puffs of steam
chug out of Kens hut.
Far off in the distance, a billowing cloud of dust follows a
band of figures on large motorbikes.
Ken ducks his head down. He notices the smoke coming from
his hut.

7.

INT. KENS HOUSE - SUNSET

Ken runs inside, puts out the fire, and drops a blanket on
the pot to hold the steam.
EXT. KENS HOUSE - SUNSET
Ken runs outside and peeks over the rocks. The figures on
motorbikes are closer. We can hear the engines in the
distance.
Ken ducks down again and mumbles frantically.
The motorbikes continue riding. They ride right past Kens
hut and dont look back.
Ken gets up and dusts himself off.
He looks out and stares at all the crisscrossing tracks left
by the motorbikes.
INT. KENS HOUSE - NIGHT
Ken pulls the blanket off the pot. He pulls Mr. Tortoise out
of the water. Mr. Tortoise is rubbery and boiled to hell.
Ken gingerly takes a bite.
INT. KENS HOUSE - DAY
Ken puts a series of items into his backpack: another
notebook, a handful of pens, a gas mask, a compass, rope,
and an empty 5-gallon jug from an office water cooler.
He thinks for a second.
KEN
Defense.
Ken looks around the hut. He spies a baseball bat and tries
to fit it into the bag. Failing that, he opts for a
beaten-up frying pan instead.
He puts on the bag--it looks awkward to carry and takes on
the shape of the water jug.

8.
EXT. KENS HOUSE - DAY
Ken exits the hut.
He glances at the sand looking for the tracks from
yesterday, but they are gone.
EXT. THE WASTES - DAY
Ken trudges through the wastes.
We see a To-Do list written in the notebook:
-1. Find food.
-2. Find water.
He ponders for a moment.
-3. Have adventure.
He smiles.
EXT. THE WASTES - DAY
A MUTANT PRAIRIE DOG, frantic and as big as a bloodhound,
tackles Ken to the ground and tears at him. Ken screams.
Pinned and still screaming, he reaches for his dropped
backpack and tries to unzip it.
He cant unzip it--its stuck!
The prairie dog snaps at him.
The two roll around a bit. The prairie dog bites Kens hand.
Ken screams even louder.
His hand searches frantically--and grabs hold of his
backpack. Ken swings it around and it makes contact with the
prairie dog--CLANG!
The prairie dog goes flying.
EXT. THE WASTES - DAY
An exhausted Ken crosses 1. Find Food off his list. He
angrily scratches out 3. Have adventure.
The dead prairie dog hangs off of the backpack limp,
dragging through the sand, leaving tracks.

9.

From far off, we see that Ken has been walking for
hours--covering miles and miles of wasteland.
EXT. THE WATRING HOLE - DAY
Ken stops at a cropping of jagged rocks surrounding a very
large hole. Leaning against one rock is a sign with
blown-out neon lettering reading, "The Watring Hole" in
fancy script.
He drops his backpack and things on the edge and pulls out
the water jug.
He throws the water jug into the hole. We hear a CLUG sound
and then it splashes in some very shallow water.
Ken ties one end of his rope to a rock and holds it as he
lowers himself into the hole.
INT. THE WATRING HOLE - DAY
Ken lowers himself down. Inside the hole, cliffs make up a
sort of stairway down--very steep ridges that form sort of
layered rings of stone. Ken lowers down one slowly.
He looks down.
The water jug sits in a very small pool of maybe 1 inch deep
water.
He lowers himself down another step.
A BAT flies out from a hole and knocks into Ken. He panics,
yelling, and frantically trying to bat the bat away.
He falls the whole way down, rope in hand, and lands on the
ground hard.
KEN
Oh...
EXT. THE WATRING HOLE - DAY
The rope flies as it follows Ken down, catching the backpack
and pulling it down.

10.

INT. THE WATRING HOLE - DAY

Ken rubs his back.
KEN
Jeez.
CRASH! The bag, and the prairie dog corpse in tow, falls on
top of Ken.
CUT TO:
Ken fills the water jug up with the meager puddle. He rubs
his head and then his back, grimacing.
Theres not much water. He gets as much as he can, but its
all dried up.
EXT. THE WATRING HOLE - DAY
Ken pulls himself up over the ledge and then pulls at the
rope. He raises his backpack up. As he pulls the backpack
over the ledge, the prairie dog comes loose and falls back
in.
Ken hangs his head. He looks up at the position of the sun
in the sky--its getting late.
EXT. THE WASTES - SUNSET
Ken drags everything--the prairie dog, the backpack--as he
marches wearily across the wastes. He looks at the sun
again--its just about to set. He keeps moving.