By Nicolai G.H Johansen

FREJA and LUKAS (both mid-thirties) have just moved to a new house in the countryside. It’s pretty run down and there’s a lot of renovation to do, but it lies in a quiet and isolated location, among the forests and the trees, and close to a lake. Freja and Lukas’ relationship though is far from idyllic. The main reason the couple has moved out of the city is because of Lukas’ deteriorating mental health, which has created a chasm between them. Both the depression itself and the medication he takes to better it, has left Lukas a distant and apathetic shell of himself, and Freja is nearing the end of her rope. They fight all the time and are no longer intimate, completely out of sync.

One day, they are at the lake bathing. Freja has heard of a specific spot hidden deep in the forest, and wants to go there to swim. Lukas reluctantly comes along. Freja tries to make the whole ordeal romantic, but it fails miserably. They get into a fight, as the spot is hard to find, and Lukas really does not want to go in. As the weeds get thicker, he doesn’t think that part of the lake looks safe, getting so frustrated that he turns around and goes home. Freja is stubborn, and when she finds the spot, she goes in even though the water does look a little murky. To her dismay, she cuts herself on something in the water. She wraps it up in a towel, and goes back to the house. She returns home to find Lukas working on the house - the atmosphere is tense and it feels like an argument is always on the cusp of breaking out. We see the inside of their home - it’s definitely a work in progress, their living room being iin the process of being painted, the floors completely covered in clear plastic tarp.

In the middle of the night, Freja can’t sleep. She goes to the bathroom - her wound is bleeding and dirty, full of mud and leaves. She tries to clean it. Lukas knocks on the door. She reluctantly lets him in, embarrassed that she ended up hurting herself doing what Lukas advised her not to do. He looks over the wound, insisting that they should go to the emergency room.

We cut to a close-up of a nurse cleaning the wound. In close up, we see Freja getting a tetanus shot directly in the wound. She squirms with pain. We cut to Lukas waiting in the waiting room, Freja comes out, limping a little bit. Lukas asks about it - Freja says it’s fine, but that they gave her a tetanus shot and some antibiotics, just in case. Lukas tries not to say I told you so, but he doesn’t have to - it hangs thick in the air. We cut to them sleeping at home, with their backs to each other. A close up of Freja’s leg, which she has elevated, reveals that something is moving underneath the bandages.

The next morning. The sun has just risen, the morning fog weighing heavy on the early spring landscape. Lukas is out running on a forest trail. His running feels almost like self-harm, he’s panting frantically, his visible breath mixing with the misty air. He ends up pushing himself so hard that he throws up. He sits down on the road. We see a close up of him wiping away the vomit, putting a water bottle to his lips. Vomit is still in the corner of his mouth, sweat dripping down from the tip of his nose, as he tries to drink water while also catching his breath.

Meanwhile at home, Freja wakes up. She checks her wound - it has gotten worse. It has formed a weird, itchy outgrowth. She starts to pick at it, scraping at the surface, making the wound leak pus. She bites her teeth as she touches it. She pulls out a stringy worm-like thing from the wound. She can kind of insert her finger into the mount of the outgrowth, which is almost shaped like a little volcano. It hurts - but it also feels a little satisfying. She hears Lukas enter the house, which breaks the spell - she quickly pulls out her finger, washes off the goo that now envelops it, wraps the wound again - and takes a couple of antibiotic pills.

Meanwhile Lukas is in the kitchen - he takes the second to last antidepressant pill out of its packet and throws it back. Freja comes into the kitchen. She hugs him, trying to lighten the mood. She starts to come on to him, but he rejects her, saying that he feels disgusting because of his sweat. She says she doesn’t care. He tells her that he doesn’t really feel like it. He seems distant, looking melancholy right through her. She spots the pack of pills on the table and understands that this is a lost cause. She tries to hide her disappointment, and instead puts on a smile. Her desire turns to tenderness as she tries to cheer him up.

We cut to later that day. The couple are working the garden, separately without any contact. Freja is working with a pair of rusty garden shears - but she has a hard time focusing. She is getting light-headed and queasy. She tells Lukas that she is going to go lie down. She drops the garden shears on the living room table, before going to the bedroom.

Later, after the sun has set, Lukas comes back inside. Freja is not in the living room or kitchen. He hears something in the bedroom. He enters - Freja is on the bed. She is sweating and panting, saying she doesn’t feel well. She feels a little confused and out of it, a little panicky. She says that it must be the antibiotic pills, and that the wound itches like crazy. She asks him to help her clean it. He slowly unwraps the wound. It is bigger now, and it is pulsing, leaking pus and blood. He tries very carefully to dab it with some toilet paper, but the paper just kind of sticks to its gooey surface. She tells him to get some towels, so as not to get too much stuff on the sheets. He does - when he comes back, Freja has put her finger in the wound. He asks what she is doing, and she says that it’s the only thing that helps. As Lukas is laying out towels, Freja grabs his hand. She pulls him closer. “I should call an ambulance”, he says, but she rapidly refuses - “No, just stay with me”.

She pulls his face closer. Lukas feels kind of weirded out by it, and rejects her at first, but she slowly convinces him. She pulls out her hand from the wound, and guides Lukas towards it. He’s of course reluctant, but she literally forces his hand, and as soon as his fingers enter the wound - he feels it too. While his fingers burrow into the wound, their faces are close, looking each other in the eyes. Freja caresses his cheek, smearing a combination of pus and blood on his face. We see a close up of his hand - wormlike tentacles have wrapped around his fingers, pulsing and vibrating. The pulses from the tentacles vibrate through their bodies, and soon they both breath in sync with the rhythm, sharing the same air, while locking eyes. They haven’t felt this connected in years. They share an ecstatic smile - then, they kiss.

We cut to the next morning. We see a wide shot of the two tangled up in each other on the bed, the towels and sheets all curled up, both sleeping soundly. The very early morning sun’s glow bathes them in soft gentle light. We cut to later, in the bathroom. The two are in the shower together, helping each other wash the goo off. No words are said, as Lukas tenderly runs his fingers through Freja’s soapy hair. She returns the favor, by washing his hair.

Later. Freja is painting the living room, while Lukas is out in the garden, cutting wood on a miter saw. She glances lovingly at Lukas through the window. His pack of antidepressants lie on the kitchen counter, the last pill of the pack untouched. Then, suddenly, she starts to feel sick. She feels an intense pain radiating from the wound, which almost paralyzes her leg, making her fall to her knees. She frantically rips off her bandages, revealing that her wound has worsened again. The wormy tentacles have sprung out from the wound hugging her leg, pulsing as if feeding off her. She tries to get a grip on one of them, but she is not able to rip them off. While the screaming sound of Lukas’ saw cutting through wood is heard in the distance, Freja takes a hold of a paint scraper, and tries to prick at the tentacles, but it is incredibly painful, so she stops. She goes to lie down instead.

She is awoken when Lukas returns from the garden. He comes into the bedroom asking how she’s doing. She says that she feels better. He tells her to stay put, and that he will finish painting the living room, tenderly caressing her face before exiting. Freja looks at him leaving, torn between pleasing him, and the pain emanating from her leg.

We cut to later. They are in bed kissing, Lukas seemingly filled with passion, Freja in pain, but trying to play along. He pulls down her pants, revealing the wound. He instantly burrows his fingers into it, sending a rush through both of them - though it is hard to tell if Freja feels more pain than pleasure. In the beginning, their faces are close to each other, but soon Lukas moves down closer to the wound. As Lukas enters his hand further into the wound, the wormy tentacles start creeping out the wound, wrapping around his wrist, soon enveloping his forearm entirely. Freja looks at him, scared. She says his name, and he looks up at her, his eyes filled with joy. She sticks it out. We cut to later that night. Lukas is sound asleep beside her, Freja stares into the ceiling. The wound is pulsing.

We cut to the next morning. Freja pretends she’s asleep, while Lukas puts on his running clothes, kisses her on her forehead and leaves. As she hears the door shut, she gets up. She looks at the wound, pulsing away causing her pain. She tries to pick at it again, scratching it, but it has grown tough. She goes to the living room, using her paint scraper to try and scrape the tentacles off. She gets progressively more frantic. She spots the rusty garden shears. We intercut with Lukas, running, this time not as hard as earlier, a weight having lifted off his back. He stops at the spot where Freja went bathing. The mist lies heavy there, as he looks towards the edge of the water. We cut back to Freja, who grabs the garden shears, and starts cutting off the tentacles and wound outgrowth, every cut of the scissor filling her with unimaginable pain.

Blood and pus sputter out from every cut. She knocks over a paint bucket, and the paint and blood and pus combine on the floor. We cut to Lukas arriving at the house. He catches his breath, before entering. The house is dead quiet. He goes into the living room - a wide shot of Freja lying on the floor unconscious, in the middle of a big puddle of blood, pus and paint. Beside her, the outgrowth lies, seemingly dead. He rushes to her. We cut to black.

We cut to the hospital. Lukas is waiting for Freja in the parking lot. She comes out the sliding doors on crutches, her leg in bandage. He heads for her, taking her bag as to help her cross the parking lot. We cut back to the house. A close-up of Freja’s leg, no longer in a cast. Lukas is on his knees, helping Freja rub ointment on her new - and perfectly normal - scar where the outgrowth used to be. She looks down on him with empathy. Lukas seems to be overly careful in his cleaning. When he is done with the cleaning, he washes his hands. Freja gets up, limps over to him, and hugs him from behind. He turns around and hugs her back.

Freja is put at ease by their intimacy. It seems to her that the whole ordeal has brought them closer together. We cut to the next morning. Freja kisses Lukas goodbye, as he leaves for his morning run. She smiles while seeing him disappear down the road, onto his usual running trail. The pack with one remaining antidepressant still lies untouched on the table. Time passes. Freja is lying with her leg up on the couch. She checks her watch - Lukas has been gone for a long time. She looks across the room. A dry blood stain on the floor, her blood, puts a worrying thought in her head, and she gets up.

We cut to Freja making her way between the thick weeds close to the spot where she went in the beginning. Her limp makes it an awkward struggle. She sees Lukas’ clothes lying on the ground near the water’s edge. She makes her way out to the water. We only see her horrified close-up, as the sounds of splashing water, and a deep vibrating sound, like something big growling from underneath the water, pierces our ears. We cut to black.