Going Down In Flames
Gabriel Norrington is sitting alone in the game room at Shady Pines Mental Institution in Chicago, IL. As a patient for over one year, he has found it easier to keep to himself. Recently admitted patient Sidney Barrett, however, won't allow that to happen. By expressing that she is drawn to people who are dark and mysterious, Sidney convinces Gabriel to open up to her about the reasons for his being admitted to the hospital. Upon hearing her story about a miscarriage that resulted in abandonment by her husband, Gabriel decides it is time to open up.

To her shock and disbelief, Sidney discovers that Gabriel was a member of Special Operations unit that engaged in covert missions to stop a large terrorist cell made up entirely of vampires. According to Gabriel, vampires have roamed the Earth as far back as the Crusades. They quenched their unending thirst for living blood by drinking from humans, just as legends and myths had always described. While picturing themselves as dominant, vampires always held a fear that one day a human would unite a group whose ultimate goal was the eradication of their kind. Most vampires believed that they had finally met this person when Adolf Hitler came to power.

With WWII coming to an end, leaders of the vampire nation called a meeting with Allied leaders, offering a truce and vowing to live in peace amongst humanity. The leaders agreed and granted the two million strong vampire population their own tract of land that would become their home. Surveillance of the nation, however, became a top priority for all nations, the CIA being formed as the U.S.' answer. While prospering as a country, the vampires soon found themselves threatened from within by a dictator named Victor Hidalgo.

Using brutal force to convince his countrymen that they must rebel once and for all against humanity, Hidalgo created a large force known as the Shadow Warriors. By engaging in terrorist activity, the Shadow Warriors became a threat to both humanity and their own kind. Gabriel and the other members of his squad, known as the Blood Pack, vowed to stop them. One night, however, Gabriel discovered that men within his unit were conspiring along with the Shadow Warriors and Hidalgo. Before he could present evidence of this manipulation, Gabriel was highly drugged by his captors and placed into a mental institution, where his rants about vampires and terrorist cells where written off simply as the lies of a delusional heroin addict.

To further ensure his silence, Gabriel's entire family was slaughtered, with the exception of his nephew Connor. Now, Gabriel is confiding in a complete stranger with the hopes that she might be willing to help him seek vengeance upon all those who betrayed him...

-- Script Pitch III Co-Host Commentary --
by Stephen Lucas