Dust
is a Science Fantasy Short Film created and kickstarted by independent production company EmberLab, and directed by Mark Grier. Set in the Near Future, Gaia's Vengeance has turned Earth into a Death World of miraculous, dangerous rapid-evolving wildlife and flora.
For centuries, Trackers have helped mankind maintain a careful balance with nature. But as technological advances overtook nature for control, humanity isolated itself behind great walled cities. Shunned by mankind, the few remaining Trackers have become a combination of wildlife researchers, alchemists, and healers. Considered societal outcasts, they keep meticulous records of the dangerous, ever-changing Amazing Technicolor Wildlife outside the safety of the walls.
To make matters worse, a mysterious plague now surrounds Kabé, the oldest such city. On the day before it permanently locks its gates from the outside world, Retired Badass Irezúmi is contacted by a Black Market medicine merchant for One Last Job.
Reluctant and disgruntled, the former Tracker agrees to venture outside the walls to find the source of the strange blight that is attacking the countryside. All that is known of the elusive affliction is that it is based in mysterious, glowing dust...
This short film provides examples of:
- Animal Nemesis: Part of the plague's source is a large, bipedal hunter that Irezúmi must fight.
- Amazing Technicolor Wildlife: The rapid evolution of the wildlife and plants has resulted in this.
- Badass Normal: Given what they must survive, Trackers are this by default.
- Body Horror: Part of the plague's source, thanks to Festering Fungus.
- Dead All Along: We see glimpses of Irezúmi's daughter, Mitsuki.
- Festering Fungus: The source turns out to be toxic, dust-releasing growths on corpses.
- Find the Cure!: Irezúmi's abandoned mission, which the medicine merchant pushes him towards.
- Green Aesop: The dust is a warning against humanity for disrespecting nature.
- Healing Factor: the Animal Nemesis's immune system makes its body a powerful cure.
- Healing Potion: Irezúmi saves the medicine merchant with a paste made from the predator's corpse.
- Heal It With Fire: The medicine merchant gets this treatment, courtesy of a hot ember.
- In Harmony with Nature: Trackers. Their goal is to restore this to mankind.
- Nature Hero: Trackers fit this role to a T.
- No One Gets Left Behind: Realizing the medicine merchant is Not Quite Dead, Irezúmi defends himself against the Animal Nemesis and heals him with the body.
- One Last Job: By the time
- Only in It for the Money: The medicine merchant's motivations for finding the cure.
- Irezúmi, on the other hand, repeatedly turns down payment.
- Pragmatic Hero: Irezúmi attempts to send the medicine merchant back after discovering the source. However, this apparently sends him straight into an evolved predator.
- Sanity Slippage: Irezúmi gets a mild case of this, thanks to a spore-based defense mechanism of the source.
- The Reveal: The plague's source is actually a hyper-evolved predator that has bonded with the spore plants, spreading them by killing prey weakened by the dust.
- The Symbiote: The true nature of the Animal Nemesis; the dust weakens prey, and the creature leaves spores as it eats their bodies.
- Troubled Backstory Flashback: Irezúmi's hallucinations give us the reason he abandoned his cause as a Tracker. An herbal treatment accidentally killed his Delicate and Sickly daughter, and he possibly lost his wife in the aftermath.
