Armistice (2013)

3-1
Alpha, roger so far, over.
3-1 Bravo,
roger so far, over.
3-1 Charlie,
roger so far, over.
There is
suspicious vehicle movement
from subjects
in paramilitary uniforms
at grid 0-9er-
9er-1-4-5-9er-9er-8.
Safety patrol
and cordon required, over.
3-1 Alpha, roger that.
They just pulled out.
3-1 Bravo, roger.
ETA 6. 3 out.
3-1 Charlie,
roger that ETA figure. 6 out.
Come on.
Come on.
Come on.
Hello? Hello?
Hello?
This is 2-1 Bravo!
Contact!
IED device detonated, heavy
machine-gun fire inbound!
One serious casualty!
Come back!
Come back!
Come back!
Aah!
Please.
Please.
A.J. Budd.
My name...
is A.J. Budd.
My name is A.J. Budd.
Wait! Wait! Wait!
Just stop!
Just fucking stop!
Be nice! Be nice!
Fuck!
Just wait a moment!
Just... Fuck!
I will fucking drop you
where you st...
Aah!
2-1 Bravo, contact!
IED device detonated!
One serious casualty!
Anyone else injured?
Cease fire!
Aah!
Someone's watching.
I'm getting out.
I'm getting out!
My name is
Lieutenant Edward Sterling
of the 12th London Regiment.
I have been trapped
inside this awful place
for what feels
like a lifetime.
I fear I will
never leave it alive.
I write this for whatever man
is next trapped in this prison.
Let me tell you the rules,
which, though unwritten,
you must live
or surely die by.
You will be fed
and watered every day,
the same food
every day, forever.
You will grow to hate
the sight and smell of it.
You are trapped here.
There is no escape
from the house.
It is sealed by unholy means.
The house never changes.
It is eternal.
I have smashed
and hacked and burned,
but every day, I awake
to find it the same as before.
Most important of all...
every day the bell will ring...
Come on, you barmy bastard!
And every day
you must fight or die.
You must prepare for war.
You must kill or be killed.
There is no mercy.
They never stop coming.
You must slaughter
them all...
or die yourself.
These creatures
are unnatural.
No matter what you do,
by morning,
they will vanish...
and when the bell tolls,
they will come
for you again.
Your worst enemy is time.
The empty, endless days
will grind you down to nothing.
Occupation and industry
are key.
Find work or go mad.
If you have succeeded me
into this life of pain,
then I truly pity you,
my friend.
"Improvise..."
"adapt..."
"overcome."
Thank you, Wembley,
and good night!
If not for my faith,
I'd have taken
my life years ago.
If you are reading this...
Then you are lost
and damned like me.
Front support position!
Place!
Arms bend!
And stretch!
And bend!
And stretch!
And bend!
And stretch!
Fuck!
Fuck's sake.
These creatures
are murderers...
Wild things without souls,
rabid beasts to be put down
like mad dogs.
Animals are better
trapped than fought.
I use brains, not brawn.
It's simple enough work.
I use my prison
against itself.
Rope made
from curtain cloth...
attached and used as a hoist
for the beam from the cellar...
Made to prey on
the creature's blinded eyes.
A single sound
is all it takes
to lure them in.
Swift and deadly.
It leaves a subject
for examination.
I've scoured every inch
of this cage,
and now I shall look
elsewhere for answers.
Royal Marines!
Royal Marines!
Yeah!
Come on, you fucking
snarly grub fuck!
Yeah!
Come on, big boy!
Come on!
Come on!
Yeah! Royal Marines!
Yeah!
Brrr brrr.
Brrr brrr.
Hello?
Stand to!
Stand to!
Wait till you see the whites
in their eyes!
Hello, 5-1 Alpha,
this is 2-1 Bravo,
fire mission! Over!
Snarly grub fucks inbound!
I say again, snarly
grub fucks inbound!
I need H.E. and Woolly P.
on my FPF now!
Out!
Stick with me.
Here we go.
Grenade!
Grenade!
Grenade!
Take cover!
The dream comes every night.
Always the same dream.
I lie, pinned
in the cold, wet mud,
unable to rise,
staring at the clouds.
A lifetime ago, I would
have called it a nightmare...
But now...
now I yearn for it.
Every night,
I see the sky again...
and every night,
I'm free.
Com group!
Another endless day,
another hateful breakfast,
another vile death.
A day of grim tedium
loomed large ahead.
I thought to pass the time
by hacking at the cellar wall,
as I'd done the night before.
At first, I didn't see it.
The single brick
I smashed out
the previous day was still
in pieces on the floor.
It had not returned
as I'd slept.
For the first time,
I had changed something.
Maybe there was a way out of
this damned prison after all.
Stand by!
Go!
Come on, Budd!
If you're not puking
in the bucket,
you're not working
hard enough!
Bend! Stretch!
Bend! Stretch!
Bend! Stretch!
Bend! Stretch!
Bend! Stretch! Bend! Stretch!
Bend! Stretch!
Bend! Stretch!
Another day.
I wipe the blood
from my hands
and climb the stairs
to carve my mark.
It feels sinful
to keep score,
but I cannot see
even these ungodly lives
pass from the world
without some small memorial.
In their deaths,
I mark my days.
Aah!
Aah!
I found the crosses.
He climbs the stairs
to carve his mark.
There was a lot.
How do you do 30 years?
How do you
keep yourself... sane?
How do you keep
yourself sane
for fucking...
30 years is...
28 left.
I've done two.
Done two fucking years.
Two fucking...
Fuck you.
Fuck you for carving
those fucking crosses.
Fuck you!
You know
I counted the days, too?
I did.
I marked my days.
Not with...
but...
but I did it.
I did.
Um, I marked...
and, um...
I don't...
It was nice
for me to find.
I'm fucked.
I remember my first day.
That's the first thing
I remember.
That's fucked up,
isn't it?
That's the first thing...
I remember...
Is my first day
in the house.
That's the first thing
I remember.
Not...
Not falling down the stairs
when I was 5.
Not fucking brothers
or sisters or...
I remember waking up...
and putting on
my uniform...
and looking in the mirror...
and thinking,
"Where the fuck am I?"
And I just...
I just...
I thought they'd come back.
Come back.
I just don't
know what to do...
because I'm
fucking stuck here...
and I just
don't know what to do,
and I want you
to tell me what to do.
I want you to tell me
what to do so I can go.
Just... Just tell me what
to do so I can go.
Just tell me what to do,
and I'll do it.
I'll do it.
I don't care what it is.
I don't care what it is.
I just want to know,
so I can go!
That's what I want to know.
Did you even
think about that?
How do you think
it makes me feel to...
to... to find that
and to know that that's...
that's...
how... how long
you were here?
How's that...
How's that make...
Oh, fuck.
Ohh.
I'm talking to a coat.
Oh...
I'm getting out of here.
IED device detonated,
heavy machine-gun fire
inbound!
I need
immediate helo evac!
Well...
Returning fire
in section 8!
One serious casualty!
Oh, fuck.
Fuck.
Oh, fucking shite.
Easy way,
or...
the hard way.
Let me tell you
how this is going to work.
Explanation.
Demonstration.
Imitation.
Explanation:
You are going to tell me
exactly who
or what you are.
Demonstration:
I am PO40516-Echo,
Corporal A.J. Budd,
Her Majesty's
Royal Marine Commandos.
You are?
Where's
your point of entry?
How can I extract?
Give me
a fucking sit-rep now!
Rembrandt me.
Put me in the picture.
The hard way then.
I just want to know...
how do I get out?
You don't even
have to...
even tell me any
of the other things.
Just that.
How hard is that?
Okay.
I think you should
sleep on it...
okay?
It's fucking chewing me!
Anyone else injured?
IED device detonated!
Aah!
Then I found it,
the only thing
I can ever remember wanting...
a way out.
At the end of my tunnel,
a door buried
so deep beneath the house
that it didn't seem real.
It filled me with fear.
It pains me to say
that what was through there
was too terrible to face...
And I had not the courage
to accept my fate.
I am lost.
What reserves I've built up
against this prison
have crumbled to nothing.
The dream of escape
has long been
the only thing
to give me hope,
and now all is lost,
and I can find
no comfort in my God.
I cannot
go back down there.
I have made the decision
to leave by other means.
It is a mortal sin
to take one's life,
but I know that
I am already damned.
At least I won't
have to wake
in this godforsaken
house again.
I woke up alive.
I thought I hadn't
cut deep enough,
so I went at it again
with a will.
Again, I awoke,
still living,
still trapped.
If death was no escape,
then the doors held no fear.
I crawled to them.
Cruel joke.
They are barred
against me now,
a reward
for my cowardice.
There is no escape for me,
and I am damned.
My final act.
I will place this book
by the doors
as a warning
for any who follow me.
That done,
I aim to escape
by the only way left to me.
I will carve away at myself
until there is nothing left.
I take my own life
again and again.
From agonizing
over one mortal sin
to endless floods of them,
I use death as an escape.
Hours
of unknowing blackness,
leaping past the days
and starting again
each morning.
I destroy myself
inch by inch.
I cut pieces from myself
that aren't restored.
My hands, crippled.
All comfort
from art and music, gone.
My mind, weakened.
I'm changing.
Stitched, mindless.
I am becoming
what I've killed.
I write this
while I still can.
Still, I climb the stairs
to make my mark.
No blood on
my hands now but mine own.
Broken.
Beaten.
Damned.
A prisoner here
forevermore.
In my deaths...
I mark my days.
Aah!
Aah!
I'm getting out.
This is my way.
I'm getting out.
I'm getting out.
I'm getting out of here.
Cas rep!
Cas rep!
Medic!
Anyone else injured?
I need a cas evac!
IED device detonated,
heavy machine-gun fire inbound!
One serious casualty!
6-Bravo-9er, we're returning
fire at section 8!
Immediate area secured!
I need immediate helo evac!
Helo,
roger, so far. Helo inbound.
Cease fire!
Aah!