BTS_S01E01_PILOT

BENEATH THE SURFACE -- "SECOND TERM" PILOT BENEATH THE SURFACE "SECOND TERM" Written by Tawanda Mikola Season 1 | Episode 1 BLACKWOOD HEIGHTS ACADEMY "SOME SECRETS WERE NEVER MEANT TO GRADUATE".

BENEATH THE SURFACE -- "SECOND TERM" PILOT TEASER EXT. BLACKWOOD HEIGHTS ROAD -- BEFORE DAWN TITLE CARD: "BLACKWOOD HEIGHTS ACADEMY -- SECOND TERM." Darkness first. Just pine trees and fog. Then headlights -- two pale cones pushing through mist so thick it looks solid. The sound of a diesel engine working hard on an incline. A YELLOW SCHOOL BUS rolls slow and deliberate around a forest bend, as if the road itself is reluctant to arrive. The RAVEN CREST of Blackwood Heights Academy appears painted on the bus's side: a raven clutching a key, the latin beneath it worn nearly smooth. VERITAS NUNQUAM DORMIT. Truth Never Sleeps. Inside the bus -- the particular hush of thirty teenagers in the last hour before something begins. Some sleep. Some stare at phones. Some look out the window as if they left something behind them on the road and are watching to see if it follows. NOAH BENNETT (17, broad jaw, the settled physical confidence of someone the world has always been kind to) sits alone in the third row from the back. One earbud in. One earbud out. His phone screen rests face-up on his knee -- a text thread with JAMES. The last message Noah sent: "You around this week?" Sent four days ago. Delivered. Not read. Noah turns it face-down. He stares out the window. Across the aisle, one row back: OLIVER GRANT (17, angular, economical with everything -- movement, expression, speech) sits with a 35mm film camera raised to his eye. He shoots out the window in a slow methodical rhythm. Trees. Gap. Sky. Trees. Gap. Sky. Click. Click. He lowers the camera. Winds the film. Raises it again. He zooms into a gap between two pines -- a space fifty meters from the road, pure darkness between the trunks. Click. Oliver drops the camera from his eye. His hand holds it at his chest. He looks at the gap. Nothing there..

BENEATH THE SURFACE -- "SECOND TERM" PILOT He stares for another three full seconds. Then raises the camera again and shoots the same space twice more. Noah has been watching him from across the aisle. NOAH (nodding at the forest) See something? OLIVER I don't know. Noah looks out at the trees. Nothing. He looks back at Oliver. NOAH You always shoot things you can't see? OLIVER Only when I think I should be able to. Noah considers this. It doesn't fully make sense. He decides to leave it. The bus rounds a final bend. The gothic iron GATES of Blackwood Heights Academy appear through the fog -- enormous, ornate, the kind of gates that don't apologize for what they are. The raven crest again, twice as large, in wrought iron above the arch. The bus passes through. The gates do not close behind them. They were never open. They have simply always been there. CUT TO: EXT. SCHOOL COURTYARD -- MORNING The academy in full winter morning light. Five stories of dark stone, arched windows that catch no warmth, gargoyles along the roofline staring down with the professional indifference of things that have seen a great deal. The ivy has grown into the mortar so deeply it is now structural. Students arrive in waves -- buses, private cars, a few taxis. Rolling cases on old cobblestones. The particular noise of two hundred teenagers who know each other too well for first-day politeness but haven't yet settled back into their routines. A sleek black sedan pulls to the kerb near the main steps. The door opens and SCARLETT HAYES (17, cheekbones like she means them, the kind of.

BENEATH THE SURFACE -- "SECOND TERM" PILOT walk that owns whatever space it crosses) climbs out pulling a large case. She stands, tilts her head back, and looks at the building the way you'd look at something you have unfinished business with. SCARLETT (to the building, under her breath) We meet again. The driver's door opens. MARGARET HAYES (late 40s, once beautiful in a way that has sharpened rather than faded, wearing composure the way people wear heavy coats in cold weather -- because they need it) steps out. She does not look at the building immediately. She takes a long breath. Then she looks. Something moves across her face. Deep. Complicated. Twenty-five years of something compressed into a single expression. SCARLETT You're doing the face again. MARGARET I don't have a face. SCARLETT You have several faces. This is the one where you're remembering something you're deciding whether to tell me. Margaret opens the boot of the car. Pulls out Scarlett's second case with the practiced efficiency of someone who has done this three years running. She carries it to Scarlett. But she holds on to it a beat longer than the handoff requires. MARGARET You'll call on Sundays. SCARLETT I always do. MARGARET Every Sunday. Not just when something's going wrong. Every Sunday, even when everything's fine..

BENEATH THE SURFACE -- "SECOND TERM" PILOT SCARLETT Mum -- Margaret's hand finds Scarlett's wrist. Not rough. Precise. MARGARET (dropping her voice) I need you to listen to me carefully. SCARLETT Okay. MARGARET This school will ask things of you. It may not do it directly. It may feel like it's coming from your friends, or from a tradition, or from something that just seems normal because everyone around you accepts it. And when it does -- whatever it is asking -- I need you to say nothing. Give nothing. Do you understand? SCARLETT (a careful pause) What specifically are you worried about? MARGARET I'm not being specific. I'm being serious. SCARLETT Mum, you went here. You survived it. You turned out fine. Margaret looks at her. A long, complicated look that contains an entire argument she's decided not to have. MARGARET Some doors in this place were closed for very good reasons. I am asking you not to look for them. And if you find them by.

BENEATH THE SURFACE -- "SECOND TERM" PILOT accident -- SCARLETT Walk away? MARGARET Run. The word lands differently than Scarlett expects. It's not drama. It's instruction. SCARLETT (quietly) What happened here? When you were a student. What actually happened? Margaret releases her wrist. She straightens her coat. She is becoming Margaret-in- public again before Scarlett's eyes -- the composure reassembling itself. MARGARET Sundays. Don't forget. She gets back in the car. The sedan pulls away. Scarlett stands in the middle of the arriving students, holding both her bags, watching the car until it's gone. She turns back to the academy. A gargoyle looks down at her from above the main arch with blank stone eyes. Scarlett picks up both bags. SCARLETT (to herself, to the gargoyle, to the building) Right then. She goes in. CUT TO: INT. BOYS DORMITORY -- ETHAN & ZAYN'S ROOM -- MORNING The room has two distinct personalities at war with each other. ETHAN CARTER's half: books arranged by subject, then alphabetically by author within.

BENEATH THE SURFACE -- "SECOND TERM" PILOT each subject. Desk clear except for a yellow legal pad, a mechanical pencil, and a single coffee mug. Bed made with the geometry of someone who finds disorder genuinely distracting. ZAYN BROOKS' half: controlled chaos that would look like mess to a stranger but clearly has its own internal logic. Two laptops (one personal, one project-specific), cables managed with zip ties, a corkboard of sticky notes organized by colour, three energy drink cans in a precise row. The suitcase still by the door because the suitcase's contents are now distributed optimally across the available space. ETHAN CARTER (17, lean, the quality of stillness that reads as either very calm or very controlled -- possibly both) is shelving books when we arrive. He does this with the satisfaction of someone who considers the physical organization of knowledge an act of respect. ZAYN BROOKS (17, tall in a way he hasn't fully inhabited yet, brilliant with the specific impatience of someone whose brain moves faster than the situations around him) is already on his laptop, cross-legged on his bed, three tabs running simultaneously. ETHAN Your suitcase is still by the door. ZAYN (not looking up) I know. ETHAN You've been home for two weeks. ZAYN The holiday did not significantly require me to live out of a case. Therefore the case remained packed. ETHAN You did not unpack once during the entire holiday. ZAYN I unpacked the essentials. The rest stayed mission-ready. ETHAN.

BENEATH THE SURFACE -- "SECOND TERM" PILOT Mission-ready for what? ZAYN For coming back here. Which we're now doing. So I was right. Ethan puts the last book on the shelf. Looks at his finished work with quiet satisfaction. ETHAN How was the holiday actually? ZAYN (a slightly different energy) Fine. Mum made me eat every meal at the table. Dad had opinions about my career direction. The usual choreography. ETHAN And? ZAYN I found a dead government satellite still broadcasting encrypted traffic on an old military frequency. So the holiday wasn't a total loss. ETHAN (stopping) A government satellite. ZAYN Technically decommissioned. Technically. But the broadcast is ongoing. Same packet structure, rotating encryption -- it's being maintained. Someone is maintaining a satellite that is officially dead. ETHAN Zayn, we have A-Levels this year..

BENEATH THE SURFACE -- "SECOND TERM" PILOT ZAYN I'm aware of the academic landscape. ETHAN When I say A-Levels, I mean the exams that determine whether we go to university, which determines -- ZAYN Ethan. I'm going to the same university as you regardless of what I score on any exam in this country. We both know this. A short, honest pause. This is probably true. ETHAN Still. The satellite will keep being dead. The revision schedule will not. ZAYN I'll look at your revision schedule. ETHAN You'll do the revision schedule. ZAYN I'll enthusiastically engage with it. That's my offer. A knock. The door opens before they answer -- the knock is courtesy, not a request. NOAH BENNETT fills the doorway. He has the natural physical ease of someone who has never once worried about how he comes across in a room. Bag over one shoulder, blazer half-buttoned, the particular expression of someone who is performing casual because the alternative takes more energy than he has this morning. NOAH There they are. The only two people in this building who are actually excited to be back. ETHAN.

BENEATH THE SURFACE -- "SECOND TERM" PILOT I'm not excited. I just find it -- structurally satisfying. ZAYN I'm definitely excited. I have three new projects. NOAH See, that's what I said. Excited. He drops into Zayn's desk chair, spins it once, stops it with his foot. NOAH (CONT'D) How was everyone's holiday? Real answers only, no 'it was nice.' ZAYN Dead satellite. Parental opinions. Some solid takeaway. ETHAN Revision. Ran every morning. Read four books. NOAH You read four books for fun. ETHAN One was for fun. Three were prep. NOAH What about you -- actually wait. I know what you did. You stayed home and prepared for coming back here. You both did. ZAYN That's not entirely -- NOAH.

BENEATH THE SURFACE -- "SECOND TERM" PILOT I'm not judging. It's honestly a lifestyle. He spins the chair again. A restlessness in it. ETHAN (noticing the energy) How's James? The spin stops. Noah stills the chair with his hand. NOAH Fine. He's fine. ETHAN I heard he came back early. NOAH Yeah. Couple of days before term. Didn't mention it until I got back myself. ZAYN (carefully) Did he say why? NOAH Said he wanted to get settled. Catch up on some reading. A beat. All three of them know James Bennett, and James Bennett catching up on reading during the holidays is not a thing that happens. NOAH (CONT'D) (preemptively) He's fine. I talked to him. He's just -- in a bit of a mood. You know how he gets in winter. ETHAN Yeah. He doesn't push it. Noah doesn't want him to and Ethan knows when not to push..

BENEATH THE SURFACE -- "SECOND TERM" PILOT NOAH Right. Breakfast? Because I'm not surviving first day assembly on an empty stomach. CUT TO: INT. GIRLS DORMITORY -- EMMA & SCARLETT'S ROOM -- MORNING The room has been theirs for two years. You can feel it. Books are stacked on every horizontal surface on Emma's side -- not carelessly, but with the density of someone who lives in reading. Photographs pinned above her desk: coastlines, open fields, empty rooms. No people. The way certain kinds of watchers prefer it. Scarlett's side has a large mirror with photographs tucked into the frame (people, not places), a collection of rings on a ceramic stand, and approximately four textbooks she will open a combined total of eleven times this term. EMMA REED (17, quiet in the specific way that comes from listening more than speaking, dark-haired, a quality of attention in her face that can feel like it sees past what it's looking at) unpacks with slow care. Each book placed. Each item positioned. She moves through the room as if reading it. She comes to the window. Sets her hands flat on the sill. The glass is cold. Below: the arriving students, the rolling suitcases, the noise of first day. Normal. Ordinary. The particular texture of a Tuesday in January when school resumes. Emma watches. Her breathing slows -- not quite consciously. Something is pulling at the edge of her attention. Not a sight or a sound. More like a -- change in atmosphere. A pressure differential in the room, as if something has displaced air that wasn't there before. She keeps her hands on the cold windowsill. And for a moment -- a fraction -- she sees it. Down in the courtyard. A figure standing completely still among the moving students. White. Wrong era. Looking up. Emma's hands press harder on the glass. The figure is gone. The door BANGS open. Emma spins. SCARLETT drags two enormous cases through the door, drops them both inside, and throws herself face-down onto her bed with the total commitment of someone completing a performance..

BENEATH THE SURFACE -- "SECOND TERM" PILOT SCARLETT (into the pillow) Home sweet, profoundly expensive, Gothic nightmare of a school. EMMA (steadying herself) Good drive? SCARLETT (rolling over) Mum was odd the entire way. Not normal odd -- odd odd. EMMA What kind of odd? SCARLETT She barely spoke for the first two hours. Then right before we arrived she grabbed my wrist and gave me what I can only describe as a prophetic warning about not opening certain doors. EMMA Literal doors? SCARLETT That's what I said. She did not clarify. She made it extremely clear that she wasn't going to clarify, which is somehow the most unsettling part. She sits up. Looks at Emma properly. SCARLETT (CONT'D) Are you okay? You look like you just saw something unpleasant. EMMA (turning from the window) I'm fine. Just tired from the journey..

BENEATH THE SURFACE -- "SECOND TERM" PILOT SCARLETT Mm. She says it like she doesn't fully believe it but is choosing not to push. She pulls off her coat and reaches for her phone. SCARLETT (CONT'D) I'm thinking we find the others, eat something terrible from the vending machine, and collectively mourn the end of the holiday. Sound good? EMMA (something in the word landing strangely) Sounds good. But Emma looks back at the window once more before she follows Scarlett out. The courtyard below is full of ordinary arriving students. Nothing unusual. Nothing at all. CUT TO: INT. MAIN HALLWAY -- MORNING The corridor is its first-day self -- lockers clanging, timetables being held at every angle, the noise and motion of a school reoccupying itself after weeks of empty. OLIVER GRANT moves through it as he moves through everything: with quiet intention, slightly apart, camera carried at his side. He's not unfriendly. He simply processes the world at a different frequency -- through a frame, through a lens, through the specific question of what a scene would look like if you took the people out of it. He reaches his locker. Works the combination. Opens it. His corkboard inside has been here all holiday -- photographs he left pinned up when he went home. He looks at them now as if he's checking in on them. The grounds at dusk. The east stairwell from below. The library reading room through the window. A long shot of the science wing in fog. In the corner of the science wing photograph, at the very edge of the frame: a blur. Not motion blur. Not lens flare. A blur shaped like a person..

BENEATH THE SURFACE -- "SECOND TERM" PILOT Oliver looks at it. He's looked at it many times. He has no explanation for it and he is not someone who accepts not having explanations. VOICE That's a remarkable photograph. Oliver turns. BENNATON CRUZ (17, new -- you can tell because he isn't performing familiarity with the space the way returning students do -- tall, the particular ease of someone who has made a first impression in enough new places that he's stopped being anxious about it) stands with a school map in one hand and a look of genuine lost-ness that he's managing with good humour. BENNATON I'm not being polite. It genuinely is. The light in it is unusual. OLIVER Thank you. BENNATON Do you know where the Year 12 common room is? This map was apparently designed by someone who has never been inside this building. There are three staircases marked here that I cannot find. OLIVER Third floor. East stairs -- not the main ones. BENNATON Why not the main ones? OLIVER Fourth step from the top has been loose since my first year. No one's fixed it..

BENEATH THE SURFACE -- "SECOND TERM" PILOT BENNATON (amused) And no one's reported it? OLIVER People report it every term. Every term nothing happens. I think it's been there so long the school considers it original architecture. BENNATON That's either charming or a liability lawsuit waiting to happen. OLIVER Probably both. Bennaton smiles. Holds out his hand. BENNATON Bennaton Cruz. I saw you on the bus -- you were shooting the forest. OLIVER Oliver Grant. They shake. BENNATON Did you get anything good? In the forest? A beat. Oliver looks at the photograph in his locker. OLIVER I don't know yet. I won't know until I develop the roll. BENNATON Film. Not digital. OLIVER Digital shows you immediately. Film.

BENEATH THE SURFACE -- "SECOND TERM" PILOT makes you wait. I prefer not knowing what I have until I've earned the knowing. Bennaton considers this properly. BENNATON That's a real philosophy you've built around a camera. OLIVER I've had time. BENNATON I'm your new roommate, by the way. I checked the list. OLIVER (a small pause) I know. I checked it too. BENNATON And you didn't think to mention it before I introduced myself? OLIVER I was waiting to see what you led with. Bennaton laughs. Genuine. BENNATON I like you already, Oliver Grant. CUT TO: INT. BOYS DORMITORY -- JAMES & DANIEL'S ROOM -- MORNING The curtains are drawn. The room hasn't properly aired. There's a quality to the space that suggests someone has been living in it for longer than they should have been living alone. JAMES BENNETT (19, used to being the largest physical presence in a room, but currently trying to take up less space -- shoulders forward, jaw working, the.

BENEATH THE SURFACE -- "SECOND TERM" PILOT restlessness of someone whose body wants to move but whose mind knows that moving calls attention) sits at his desk. He is not working. He is staring at the wall. He has been doing this since six in the morning. DANIEL (18, compact, the steady quality of someone who has made himself essential to others -- not through force but through reliability) comes in from the corridor carrying two cups of tea. He sets one in front of James without being asked. Sits on his own bed. Watches James. James doesn't acknowledge the tea for a moment. DANIEL You were up before five. JAMES Light sleeping. It comes and goes. DANIEL You've been light sleeping since October. That's four months of light sleeping. At what point does that become just not sleeping? JAMES (picking up the tea) Thank you for this. DANIEL Don't change the subject with the tea. I made the tea so you'd feel cared for while I changed the subject back. James looks at him. A fraction of something -- not quite a smile. JAMES There's nothing to tell. DANIEL There's quite a lot to tell and you've been choosing not to tell it for four months..

BENEATH THE SURFACE -- "SECOND TERM" PILOT JAMES Dan -- DANIEL Noah's here. He came back with the morning bus. He's going to ask you how you are, and you're going to say fine, and he's smart enough to know it isn't fine, and then you're going to spend the rest of the term in this particular stalemate where he watches you and you pretend not to notice. JAMES That's a very detailed prediction. DANIEL It's not a prediction. It's a description of last term. James is quiet for a moment. JAMES There are things I can't tell you. DANIEL Can't or won't? JAMES Both. The difference doesn't matter. DANIEL It matters to me. JAMES (looking at him directly) If I tell you, I put you in the same position I'm in. And I wouldn't do that to you. Not for anything. The weight of that lands in the room. Daniel looks at his friend..

BENEATH THE SURFACE -- "SECOND TERM" PILOT DANIEL How bad is it? James picks up his tea. Looks at it. JAMES I've got it managed. This term is -- there are things I have to do. But I have it managed. DANIEL Things you have to do. With them. James doesn't confirm or deny this. DANIEL (CONT'D) James. Whatever they have over you -- whatever you think would happen if you walked away from it -- JAMES I know what would happen. DANIEL Tell me. JAMES I can't. Another silence. The kind that contains everything that isn't being said. DANIEL At least tell Noah something. Not everything. Something. JAMES Not yet. DANIEL He came back from the holiday and texted you four times. You didn't answer any of them..

BENEATH THE SURFACE -- "SECOND TERM" PILOT JAMES (pained) I know. DANIEL He's your brother. JAMES Which is exactly why. He stands. Picks up his blazer from the back of the chair. The motion of someone who has decided to be in motion -- to end the stillness. JAMES (CONT'D) Some things are safer unsaid. That's not an excuse. It's a fact. DANIEL It's both. James goes. Daniel sits with his tea. He picks up his phone. Looks at Noah's number in his contacts. Puts the phone face-down on the bed. Not yet. END OF TEASER.

BENEATH THE SURFACE -- "SECOND TERM" PILOT ACT ONE EXT. COURTYARD BENCHES -- MORNING There is a specific bench in the east corner of the courtyard where the six of them have been meeting since the start of second year. No one assigned it to them. No one else uses it. These arrangements happen without negotiation at boarding schools -- territories claimed by repetition. They arrive at different speeds and from different directions. ETHAN first -- already carrying his timetable, coffee in hand. ZAYN beside him -- laptop bag over one shoulder, looking at his phone. NOAH from across the quad, hands in pockets, the performance of easy. SCARLETT from the main door, double bag, the air of someone who has already had more morning than she signed up for. OLIVER from nowhere perceptible -- simply there. EMMA comes last. She stops for just a moment at the edge of the group before she steps into it -- a habit she can't break, this pause before joining, this checking. NOAH We all survived. Against reasonable expectation, the group is intact. SCARLETT Barely. My holiday was two weeks of my mother burning things in the garden. ZAYN Burning things? SCARLETT Letters. Possibly diaries. I didn't ask because I had a feeling about the answer. ETHAN (to Oliver) Good holiday? OLIVER It was fine..

BENEATH THE SURFACE -- "SECOND TERM" PILOT NOAH That's the least descriptive assessment of a holiday I've ever heard. OLIVER It was two weeks. I took a lot of photographs. I went to my parents' house and ate things. NOAH There it is. The full Oliver Grant holiday debrief. Oliver holds up his camera by way of response. Points it at Noah. NOAH (CONT'D) Not before I've had coffee. Ethan holds out a cup toward Emma. She takes it. Their fingers overlap on the cup for a second. ETHAN Machine was out of oat. It's whatever the powder is. EMMA Thank you. She sits. Wraps both hands around the cup. She's been quiet since she arrived but it's a different quality of quiet from her usual -- tighter. Interior. ZAYN (dropping his bag) Right. Complaints and celebrations. Scarlett's already delivered hers. Anyone else have official first-day feelings to register before we accept the term? NOAH I officially feel that A-Levels are a system designed by people who wanted to ensure that the most interesting.

BENEATH THE SURFACE -- "SECOND TERM" PILOT years of a person's life are spent revising. ETHAN They're designed to prepare you for -- NOAH I know what they're designed for, Ethan, I'm registering a feeling. SCARLETT Accepted and noted. Ethan? ETHAN I'm looking forward to the term. SCARLETT That's a fact, not a feeling. ETHAN (slight smile) Structurally. I'm feeling structurally ready. ZAYN Accepted under protest. Oliver? OLIVER I photographed something in the forest on the drive in. The figure was in the shot but wasn't there when I looked. A beat. The group adjusts. SCARLETT A deer? OLIVER Not a deer. SCARLETT.

BENEATH THE SURFACE -- "SECOND TERM" PILOT A person? OLIVER Not the right word, I think. He says it simply. Not for effect. That's almost more unsettling. NOAH ...He's going to say 'I'll know more after I develop the film' and that's going to be the end of the information we get. OLIVER I'll know more after I develop the film. NOAH There it is. A small laugh. The group settles. Emma has been sitting with her coffee and saying nothing. Ethan looks at her. ETHAN (quiet, just to her) You good? EMMA I'm good. She isn't. You can see it in the particular way she's held since they sat down -- the attention she keeps pulling back from somewhere else. NOAH (raising his can) Alright. Second term. A-Levels, whatever else this place has planned for us -- He looks around at all of them. NOAH (CONT'D) To surviving it. Same as always..

BENEATH THE SURFACE -- "SECOND TERM" PILOT They clink cups and cans. Laughter. The genuine warmth of people who have been through things together and know the value of this particular corner, this particular bench. Emma smiles with them. Then she looks up. She can't not. The stone BALCONY above the east wing of the courtyard. And there -- standing at the railing, completely still in the noise of the arriving school -- the PALE GIRL. White dress that belongs to another decade. Dark hair. Eyes that don't move from Emma. Emma's cup stops halfway to her mouth. The girl raises one hand. Slowly. Not waving. Pointing. Down. At Emma. Emma's heart is visible in the stillness of her face. She blinks. The balcony is empty. Everyone else is talking. Scarlett is laughing at something Noah said. Zayn has his laptop open already. Ethan is watching the courtyard with a thoughtful expression. No one saw. Emma puts her cup down very carefully. Keeps her hands around it so they don't shake. CUT TO: INT. ASSEMBLY HALL -- MORNING The hall is the oldest room in the school. Dark oak panelling, plaster crests above the stage, rows of wooden pews that have absorbed a hundred and thirty years of compulsory attendance. It smells of wood polish and old paper. Two hundred students file in with practised resignation. Sixth formers at the back. The hall fills with the low-grade noise of people taking seats who would rather be elsewhere. PRINCIPAL DR. RICHARD BLACKWOOD (early 60s, silver at the temples, a quality of authority so deeply established it has become structural -- he doesn't perform command, he simply occupies it) stands at the podium. He does not call for silence. He waits. The silence comes to him. BLACKWOOD Welcome back to Blackwood Heights.

BENEATH THE SURFACE -- "SECOND TERM" PILOT Academy. He says it the way he always says it. Not warmly. Not coldly. As an objective statement of fact. BLACKWOOD (CONT'D) One hundred and thirty-seven years. This institution has stood, has taught, has shaped the men and women who came through its doors, for one hundred and thirty-seven years. That duration is not an accident. It is the result of rigour. Of continuity. Of an understanding that what we do here -- the way we do it -- matters precisely because it has always been this way. Polished, practised applause from the senior rows. Emma sits between Scarlett and Ethan in the fifth row. She is taking in the hall with the careful attention she brings to new spaces -- cataloguing exits, windows, the upper levels. Zayn is two seats down, ostensibly with an open notebook but writing something that isn't assembly notes. Noah sits beside him, doing an excellent impression of someone listening. Oliver is at the end of the row, camera on his lap, watching the stage. BLACKWOOD (CONT'D) This term will bring its challenges. A- Level preparation for our upper sixth. New faces joining us. And as always -- expectations. High ones. I trust you to meet them. Emma's eyes move upward. The STAIRCASE BALCONY at the back of the hall. Overlooking the seated students. Dark wood railing. And standing at it -- The PALE GIRL. Here. Inside. The same white dress. The same dark hair. The same complete, fixed attention directed at Emma. Emma's hand finds Scarlett's sleeve..

BENEATH THE SURFACE -- "SECOND TERM" PILOT EMMA (barely above a breath) The balcony. Do you see the girl on the balcony? White dress, dark hair -- do you see her? SCARLETT (looking) Where? EMMA Right there. At the railing. She's right -- SCARLETT (low, careful) Emma. There's no one there. Emma looks back. The girl is still there. She has not moved. She has not reacted to being looked at or not looked at -- she is beyond the register of being noticed or ignored. She is simply present. She opens her mouth. From here -- from this distance and this noise -- Emma cannot hear her. But she watches the girl's mouth and reads the shape of it. R -- U -- N. Emma's grip tightens on Scarlett's sleeve. SCARLETT (CONT'D) (alarmed now) Emma -- Emma blinks. The balcony is empty. Not gradually. Immediately. As if the girl was a light that someone switched off. Ethan, on Emma's other side, has noticed her stillness. He leans toward her slightly. ETHAN (very quiet) You okay?.

BENEATH THE SURFACE -- "SECOND TERM" PILOT Emma releases Scarlett's sleeve. Smooths it. Faces forward. EMMA Yes. Sorry. She stares at the stage where Blackwood is still speaking. On the balcony above and behind her -- empty, empty, completely empty -- the camera holds for a beat. Then moves on. CUT TO: INT. SENIOR CORRIDOR -- DURING ASSEMBLY Above the hall. The corridor that runs along the upper level, looking down through high windows at the assembled school below. JACK VALE (18, broad-shouldered, the kind of face that photographers like -- strong jaw, dark eyes, a quality of attention that reads as intensity until you realize it's actually calculation) stands at the window. He did not attend the assembly. He never attends the assembly. Blackwood knows this and says nothing -- because Jack Vale is, in the specific architecture of this school, a figure whose absence from certain events is preferred to his presence in them. VICTORIA (18, polished in the way certain girls become polished at schools like this -- every surface managed, every reaction chosen) stands beside him with her phone. She's been scrolling but her eyes keep returning to the window. EVE (18, Victoria's constant but not her echo -- quieter, darker, with the particular quality of someone who knows a great deal and has decided that knowing is more powerful than telling) leans against the wall opposite. They've been looking down at the assembly for five minutes. VICTORIA There she is. Fifth row. Dark coat. JACK (without looking at Victoria) I see her. VICTORIA She looks different from last term. Older,.

BENEATH THE SURFACE -- "SECOND TERM" PILOT somehow. Like the holiday didn't agree with her. JACK It wouldn't have. She'll have spent the holiday the way she always does -- inside her own head. Trying to make sense of what she sees. VICTORIA And you know this. JACK I've been watching Emma Reed for six months. ADRIAN VALE (18, younger than Jack by eleven months but years younger in the specific kind of certainty Jack has already grown into -- lean, coiled, the permanent tension of someone standing too close to a fire he can feel but can't name) comes from the far end of the corridor. He sees them at the window. He stops. ADRIAN Jack. JACK Come and look at something. ADRIAN I don't want to look. I want to talk to you. JACK Come and look first. Adrian comes to the window. Looks down at the assembly below. Emma, small from this angle, in the fifth row. ADRIAN What am I looking at? JACK The girl in the dark coat. Fifth row, far.

BENEATH THE SURFACE -- "SECOND TERM" PILOT end. ADRIAN Emma Reed. What about her? JACK She can see Isabella. A silence. ADRIAN How do you know? EVE (from the wall, without moving) Because Isabella is showing herself to her. She's been visible in this building since the students returned this morning. Emma Reed has been looking at her since the bus arrived. ADRIAN (to Jack) This is what I wanted to talk to you about. This is exactly -- JACK I know. ADRIAN If she's choosing a seer, Jack. If Isabella has found someone who can actually see her and hear her -- JACK I know, Adrian. ADRIAN Then she's going to tell her what happened. She's going to --.

BENEATH THE SURFACE -- "SECOND TERM" PILOT JACK (turning from the window, measured) She's going to try. Yes. And Emma Reed is going to start looking. And she's going to start finding things. And when she does -- I'm going to be exactly where she needs me to be when she finds them. ADRIAN That's -- JACK Controlled. It's controlled. VICTORIA You're going to let it happen? JACK I'm going to manage it. There's a difference. Adrian stares at his brother. ADRIAN A girl died, Jack. Twenty-five years ago. In this building. And you want to -- JACK (cutting across -- precisely) Enough. One word. The corridor goes quiet the way rooms go quiet when something specific has been threatened. JACK (CONT'D) (very controlled) Don't say things out loud that don't need saying. Not here. Not anywhere. He looks at Adrian for a long moment..

BENEATH THE SURFACE -- "SECOND TERM" PILOT JACK (CONT'D) Watch Emma Reed. Keep your distance. Report anything that looks like she's making progress. He walks away down the corridor. Victoria follows. Eve stays a moment. She looks down at Emma in the assembly below. EVE (to herself, or to the school) She's already making progress. She turns and follows the others. Adrian stands alone at the window. He looks down at Emma. Then at the empty balcony across the hall. He knows what's on that balcony. He just can't see it. END OF ACT ONE.

BENEATH THE SURFACE -- "SECOND TERM" PILOT ACT TWO INT. SCHOOL CAFETERIA -- LUNCH The cafeteria at full capacity -- noise and steam and the specific social geometry of two hundred teenagers, where where you sit is a constant low-level negotiation of alliances and avoidance. The core group plus Bennaton take the long table near the east windows. It's the same table they've used since last year. Bennaton arrives with his tray and Oliver nods him into the seat between them without ceremony. SCARLETT (looking Bennaton over with the frank assessment she applies to everything) Right. New person. I'm Scarlett. This is Emma, that's Ethan, Zayn, Noah. You've already met Oliver. BENNATON I have. He gave me directions and a philosophy of photography. SCARLETT That tracks. Where are you from? BENNATON St. Edmund's before this. Hartley before that. Before that, a school in Cape Town for a year. ZAYN You've moved a lot. BENNATON My father works for an international company. The kind that moves offices frequently and expects its employees to follow. I've had approximately one first day of school every year since I was ten..

BENEATH THE SURFACE -- "SECOND TERM" PILOT NOAH So you're an expert at this. Starting over. BENNATON I'm very good at first days. It's the first weeks that take the work. NOAH What's the secret? For first days. BENNATON Honesty, mostly. Don't perform. People can tell when you're performing and they hold it against you later. Just -- be what you are. If they don't like it, better to know quickly. SCARLETT I respect that enormously. NOAH I'm Noah, by the way. Bennett. BENNATON I know. You play soccer. NOAH How do you know that? BENNATON Your bag has boot polish on the outside left pocket. Old marks, not new. You're right-footed, so you load the left side, so the marks are on the left. A beat around the table. ZAYN I like him..

BENEATH THE SURFACE -- "SECOND TERM" PILOT SCARLETT He's very observant for someone who just arrived. BENNATON Second skill for first days. Pay attention before you start talking. Laughter. He earns his place at the table in real-time. Emma has barely touched her food. She has been checking the cafeteria -- doorways, the upper walkway, the far corners -- since she sat down. Ethan is watching her do it. ETHAN (low, just to her) You've looked at the door four times since we sat down. EMMA (not denying it) I'm just -- ETHAN Looking? EMMA Yes. ETHAN For something specific? Emma's hands are flat on the table. She's keeping them flat deliberately. EMMA I saw something this morning. In the assembly. I saw someone. And before that in the courtyard when I arrived. ETHAN Someone? EMMA.

BENEATH THE SURFACE -- "SECOND TERM" PILOT A girl. White dress, dark hair. She's in a photograph from 1999 in Mrs. Vance's history notes. I could see the name under her portrait. Isabella Moore. Ethan doesn't react visibly. He processes. ETHAN When you say you saw her -- EMMA I mean she isn't here. Not the way we're here. A beat. ETHAN Okay. EMMA That's all you're going to say? ETHAN I'm going to say more. I just needed a moment. He reaches over and picks up Emma's fork. Hands it to her. ETHAN (CONT'D) Eat. And after lunch, tell me everything. In order. Noah, across the table, is watching Emma with the particular noticing expression he uses when he suspects something is wrong but hasn't decided to name it yet. NOAH (topic-switching with the instinct of someone who respects other people's privacy) So, Bennaton -- what do you think of the building?.

BENEATH THE SURFACE -- "SECOND TERM" PILOT BENNATON It's genuinely beautiful and genuinely sinister. I didn't know you could achieve both simultaneously in architecture. SCARLETT That's Blackwood Heights in one sentence. NOAH They put that on the prospectus. 'Genuinely beautiful and genuinely sinister. Come send your child here.' ZAYN The prospectus says 'Gothic revival architecture in a heritage setting.' SCARLETT Which means exactly what he said. CUT TO: INT. HISTORY CLASSROOM -- AFTERNOON MRS. ELEANOR VANCE (early 50s, hair secured with an efficiency that suggests she finds personal ornament an obstacle, the precise diction of someone who has taught the same subject for twenty years and considers every word a choice) writes the term's topic on the whiteboard in her careful hand. BLACKWOOD HEIGHTS: AN INSTITUTIONAL HISTORY -- 1887 TO PRESENT. Fourteen students settle into their seats. The projector hums to life. MRS. VANCE This term we begin at the beginning. The founding of Blackwood Heights Academy in 1887. From there we move forward through the decades -- the institution, its architecture, its alumni, and its place in educational history. She clicks to the first slide. The original founders: Victorian photographs, dark coats, the school behind them young and raw..

BENEATH THE SURFACE -- "SECOND TERM" PILOT MRS. VANCE (CONT'D) The academy was built by Sir William Blackwood on land purchased in 1883. The design was intentional -- gothic revival, meaning it was built to look older than it was. A statement of permanence before permanence had been earned. SCARLETT (quietly, to Emma) Love that for them. Emma's attention is on the slides, not on Scarlett. Click. 1910s. Click. 1930s. Click. 1950s. Click. 1970s. MRS. VANCE The post-war years saw a significant expansion of the student body. The school's academic reputation was cemented through this period -- three prime ministers, two Nobel laureates, and the chief architect of the modern NHS were all alumni of Blackwood Heights within a forty-year span. Click. 1980s. Click. 1990s. A class photograph. Late nineties -- the fashion places it precisely, the hair, the specific cut of the blazers. Two rows of students formally posed on the front steps. Emma's pen stops. She leans forward. In the back row, standing slightly apart from the students on either side -- a girl with dark hair and a quality of stillness that is different from the posed stillness of the others around her. She is looking at the camera with an expression that is not quite the expressionless formality the photograph calls for. There is something in her face. Something directed. The small name placard below her in the photograph: ISABELLA MOORE. EMMA (a breath, involuntary) Isabella....

BENEATH THE SURFACE -- "SECOND TERM" PILOT SCARLETT (beside her) What? EMMA That girl. Back row. Do you see her? Scarlett looks. SCARLETT Which one? EMMA The one slightly apart from the others. On the right side. SCARLETT Yeah, I see her. What about her? Emma stares at the photograph. It's her. The white dress has become a white uniform. The dark hair is the same. The face, smaller here on a projected screen, is the same face that stood on the balcony this morning and pointed down. Emma's hand goes up. EMMA Mrs. Vance -- could we go back to that slide for a moment? Mrs. Vance turns. She registers who asked. Something moves across her face -- small, controlled, gone almost before it arrives. But it was there. MRS. VANCE We're following a chronological progression, Miss Reed. EMMA I know. I just wanted to look at the class photograph. The one from the nineties -- I think there's a student I recognized..

BENEATH THE SURFACE -- "SECOND TERM" PILOT MRS. VANCE The students in that photograph are adults now. If they're still associated with the school, you can find them in the alumni directory in the library. EMMA What about the ones who aren't still associated with the school? A slightly longer pause this time. MRS. VANCE That isn't relevant to this syllabus. Moving on. She clicks forward. The photograph is gone. Emma writes in the inside cover of her notebook: ISABELLA MOORE. 1999. She underlines it twice. Then draws a line to a question mark and writes: WHERE IS SHE NOW. She already knows. But she writes it to make herself answer it properly. Mrs. Vance keeps talking about the 2000s expansion of the east wing. Scarlett looks at what Emma has written. She says nothing. She copies it into her own notebook. CUT TO: EXT. SPORTS FIELD -- LATE AFTERNOON The clearest space on the grounds. Flat, open, the far end bordered by tree line. The sky has cleared into a grey-blue winter afternoon light. Noah has been on this field for forty minutes, alone, running drills with the intensity of someone who has decided to resolve something through his body that his mind can't resolve. He drives the ball, pulls back, drives again. Harder than training. Harder than enjoyment. SCARLETT sits on the low stone wall at the pitch's east edge, watching him. She has been here for fifteen minutes. He knows she's here. Neither has acknowledged the other. BENNATON comes down the path from the main building. He sees Scarlett. She nods toward Noah..

BENEATH THE SURFACE -- "SECOND TERM" PILOT SCARLETT He does this when something's on his mind. BENNATON How long has he been out there? SCARLETT About forty minutes. BENNATON And you've been here -- SCARLETT Fifteen. I like to let him get it out before I go in. Bennaton watches Noah for a moment. BENNATON He plays well. Real technique under the frustration. SCARLETT He plays for the first team. Has done since lower sixth. BENNATON I'm going to go in. SCARLETT He might blank you. BENNATON That's fine. He drops his bag beside Scarlett and jogs onto the field. Noah sees him coming. Doesn't slow down. Bennaton picks up a loose ball near the edge and passes it to Noah. Not introducing.

BENEATH THE SURFACE -- "SECOND TERM" PILOT himself. Not asking. Just -- joining the drill. Noah receives it, passes back. They run a simple exchange for two minutes. Then three. The rhythm settling. NOAH (still moving) You play? BENNATON Enough to keep up. NOAH That's either modest or accurate. BENNATON Bit of both. Another minute of play. NOAH You're the transfer. Cruz. BENNATON Guilty. NOAH How are you finding it? BENNATON The school's good. The people seem real. That's more than I expected on a first day. NOAH Give it a week. BENNATON Famous last words?.

BENEATH THE SURFACE -- "SECOND TERM" PILOT NOAH (with the ghost of a real smile) Just an honest preview. Noah traps the ball. Stops. Puts his hands on his knees. NOAH (CONT'D) My brother. He's been acting strange. Since before the holidays. Secretive. Like he's somewhere else even when he's in the room. BENNATON Older or younger? NOAH Older. He's in upper sixth. James. BENNATON And you haven't been able to get him to talk? NOAH Every time I try he goes very still and says he's fine. And he's so obviously not fine that it's almost -- He stops. Picks the ball up. NOAH (CONT'D) It's almost like he thinks keeping me away from it is protecting me. BENNATON Maybe it is. Noah looks at him. BENNATON (CONT'D) I'm not saying don't push. I'm saying -- if he thinks protecting you means keeping quiet, then the way through might not.

BENEATH THE SURFACE -- "SECOND TERM" PILOT be pushing. It might be making him feel like it's safe to let his guard down. NOAH How? BENNATON Just be around him. Without an agenda. Without the question in your eyes. Sometimes the question is the barrier. Noah looks at him. NOAH You're very -- perceptive -- for someone who's been here nine hours. BENNATON Lots of first days. You notice things. Scarlett, from the wall, watches the two of them. Something in her expression -- the easing of a small, longstanding worry. CUT TO: INT. PHOTOGRAPHY DARKROOM -- LATE AFTERNOON Red light. The smell of fixer and developer. The meditative hush of a room where time works differently. Oliver works alone with the methodical care of someone who considers this a practice as much as a process. Each step in its order. No rushing. The darkroom rewards patience. He drops a fresh sheet into the developer tray. The timer ticks. He develops the roll in sequence. Most prints are what he expected -- the journey in, the gates, the courtyard on arrival. He pegs them to the line. Moves on. The forest frames. He develops three of them. Trees. Road edge. The school from the bus window. He studies each one under the red light. Good. Technically right. Nothing unusual. He drops the fourth sheet -- the one he shot at the gap between the pines. He watches the developer tray..

BENEATH THE SURFACE -- "SECOND TERM" PILOT The image forms the way all images form: background first, then the foreground detail filling in from grey to contrast. The pine trunks. The space between them. Oliver leans in. He has leaned over this tray hundreds of times. He knows what images look like at every stage of development. He knows what is shadow and what is form and what is artefact. The figure in the gap between the trees is not any of those things. It is clear. It is distinct. It is white, standing upright, facing the camera with its full face forward. Dark hair. An expression he can't read from here but which is not incidental -- it is deliberate. It was not there when he took the shot. He looked. He checked. He shot twice more at the same space and saw nothing. He lifts the print from the tray with tongs. Holds it to the red light. His hand is very still. OLIVER (to himself, to the photograph, to no one) Alright. He pins it to the drying line. Steps back. Looks at it with the same dispassionate attention he brings to every photograph. A KNOCK. The door opens the small approved crack. BENNATON (through the gap) Oliver? OLIVER Yes. BENNATON Is it alright if -- OLIVER Close the door completely before you open it. One motion..

BENEATH THE SURFACE -- "SECOND TERM" PILOT Bennaton does this precisely. Stands in the red light while his eyes adjust. Oliver has already returned to his work. BENNATON These are very good. He's looking at the prints on the line. He moves along them slowly, spending real time on each one. BENNATON (CONT'D) You have a way of making buildings feel like they're thinking. OLIVER Buildings hold everything that's happened in them. I think that shows. BENNATON In the light? OLIVER In the atmosphere of the light. Where it settles. What it avoids. Bennaton arrives at the last print. He stops. He looks at the figure in the gap between the pines. A long silence. BENNATON This was in the forest. On the way in. OLIVER Yes. BENNATON Was she there? OLIVER No. I checked immediately after I shot it. I shot it two more times and got nothing..

BENEATH THE SURFACE -- "SECOND TERM" PILOT The space was empty. Bennaton keeps looking at the print. Something moves across his face. BENNATON (carefully) Does this happen often? In your photography here? OLIVER (a pause) More than it should. BENNATON But this one is clearer than the others. OLIVER This one is the clearest I've ever had. They both look at the print in the red light. BENNATON What are you going to do with it? OLIVER I don't know yet. I need to think about what I'm looking at before I decide what to do with it. BENNATON That sounds like the same philosophy as the film. OLIVER The same principle applies. END OF ACT TWO.

BENEATH THE SURFACE -- "SECOND TERM" PILOT ACT THREE INT. SCHOOL LIBRARY -- AFTER CLASSES The library is the oldest interior in the school. The shelves go from floor to ceiling with rolling ladders. Lamplight pools on heavy tables. The card catalogue drawers have never been replaced despite the digital terminals beside them because the librarian believes in redundant systems. Ethan and Zayn at the back table. This is their first-afternoon-of-term ritual and has been for three years. Ethan maps the term's reading. Zayn supposedly does the same. ETHAN You're not doing the reading schedule. ZAYN I'm doing research adjacent to the reading schedule. ETHAN What does that mean? ZAYN I found something in the school's admin system during the holiday and I've been thinking about it for two weeks. ETHAN You were in the school's system during the holiday. ZAYN I was in the school's system during the holiday. Passively. I maintain a passive monitoring script. ETHAN I don't know what 'passive monitoring script' means in this context..

BENEATH THE SURFACE -- "SECOND TERM" PILOT ZAYN It means I have a piece of code that sits quietly in the system and tells me if anything changes. File movements. New access events. Anything unusual. ETHAN Is that legal? ZAYN The code is in a part of the system that is technically publicly readable if you know where to look. The ethical case is genuinely nuanced. ETHAN What did you find? ZAYN An archived incident report from 1999 was accessed during the second week of the holiday. It was accessed, and then it was moved -- from six folders deep to three folders from the surface. Someone brought it closer. Ethan looks up from his planner. ETHAN Moved it closer. ZAYN So they could find it again quickly. Or so someone else could find it. ETHAN What's in the report? ZAYN I don't know. The file itself is sealed. Accessing it would create a log entry at admin level. I'm not going to do that on.