The screen faded to black, Anastasia’s wide smile the last thing visible. Less than a second passed before the screen turned white, and a familiar animation appeared on screen. The simple drawings with significant line boil made most of the people watching – Americans and those in their sphere of influence, anyway – immediately recognize it as a Red Bull commercial.
A splash of blue at the bottom of the screen and a few scattered seashells indicated it was a beach scene, and a squiggly man with an incredibly long nose walked in from off-frame. He spotted what was meant to be a beautiful woman, represented in Red Bull world by having an exaggerated chest and blonde hair, and walked toward her. As he arrived, he accidentally kicked some sand, hitting the very large man lying beside her. The large man rose menacingly, clearly prepared to pound the small man into oblivion.
A voice came on for the first time, deep and booming, giving the standard tagline that Red Bull gives you wings. A new direction for the commercials was clearly in play, as the owner of the voice entered the frame. What would have to be an 8-foot-tall anthropomorphic red bull walked toward the man as he tossed him a can of the energy drink. The animation of the bull was nothing like the rest of the commercial – it looked like top-of-the-line CGI for the creature. The bull’s physique made the large man look like a ten-year-old, and he quickly backed down. The first man smirked as he cracked open the can and drank it all in one go.
The changes to the ad style didn’t end there, as the man began to grow the familiar wings. The simple drawings with line boil transformed with the drink, and the man became as real as the bull. His t-shirt ripped as wings sprouted from his back, and as he changed from cartoon to CGI, his chest became defined enough to believe he could actually support the enormous span that stretched behind him. He grabbed the woman by the hand, and the two flew off, as she began to become closer to real as well. The bull, meanwhile, stalked towards the beach bully as the screen faded to black, the last clear thing on the screen being the look of terror crossing the bully's face as he scrambled back from the bull creature. An end slate filled the screen with a static image of a Red Bull can and the slogan. As the commercial ended, one of the bulls on the can snorted ouot a small plume of steam.
The sound came first for the next spot, over a pitch-black screen. It began with the wind passing through trees, then the sound of a bow on a waterphone played softly underneath. Light slowly appeared on the screen - a sliver of the moon behind a clouded sky. As the clouds moved away, and the moon was revealed to be near full, the foreground became visible. A lumber port stretched out on the screen, the only activity a night bird of some sort flitting quickly across the screen. The camera panned away from the water, turning toward a small but wealthy city, and the sound of the waterphone became faster and louder, screeching in the viewers' ears.
The sound abruptly stopped, and the camera began to move towards the city, slowly at first, but eventually moving faster and closer to the road. As the camera flashed by, a few things could barely be made out - broken glass, debris from a crash, a utility pole lying on the ground, wires sparking in the night. The camera moved faster and faster, closing in on the town center where a large grove of trees stood, a dark silhouette against the moonlight. It continued to pass things, but the speed made it a blur - was that a body, or just an animal? Is that puddle oil, or blood? The camera gave no time to ponder, as the waterphone began to screech again and the images flashed by faster and faster.
Finally, the camera slowed as it approached a copse of enormous trees - giant trees extending hundreds of feet toward the night sky. The volume of the waterphone died off, although it was still there at the bottom end of hearing, just enough to set the nerves on edge. The grove of trees was lit, and the camera circled the grove to the source of the light. From behind the trees, a dome could be seen glowing bright orange at first, slowly shifting to yellow. Floodlights shone on the trees and the victims hanging from them. The lowest branches of each tree were over a hundred feet high, so the bodies weren't hanging from them - instead, each tree held a crucified body, spikes driven through the wrists into the trunk a dozen feet off the ground. Most were still alive and twitching, although they wouldn't be for long. The luckiest, those already dead, had their throats slit, and beneath several of them was what looked to be a young child, head leaned back, letting the blood from those slit throats drip down upon them.
A single figure walked among the children. Tall and gaunt, dressed in ancient clothes that had mostly rotted away, it moved from child to child, stroking each one's hair and murmuring something that couldn't be made out. The children looked up at the figure, bloody mouths smiling as they licked their lips. Each child the figure touched followed them to the next body, where it reached up with a clawed hand and ripped the throat open. The children bathed in the streams of blood, drinking what they could, and eventually licking the excess.
After this repeated itself a few times, the figure looked directly at the camera, and its eyes glowed red and hot. The camera zoomed in close, until the entire frame was filled by a pale face dappled with blood, stringy black hair covering its left side, with glowing red eyes a shade brighter than the blood itself. The light in the eyes flared, and the face approached the camera with dizzying speed. A scream echoed across the screen, and the camera spun away from the creature before falling to the ground. A giant crack ran across the screen, and the world was slightly tilted. Just off center was a large sign that once announced the person was in Redwood City, CA. Bloody letters crossed out the Red, replacing it with the city's new name, "Deadwood City".
The screams continued for the rest of the commercial, as the words "Coming Soon" slowly faded into existence beneath the city sign.
