"IF I HAD LEGS I'D KICK YOU" (2025)

LINDA looks just on the edge of being put together. She wears pricey and stylishly professional clothing with a hip edge. Tattoos reveal she was maybe cool once. Her entire look says, “Look, I’m trying here. What do you want from me?” Her face says she has been through a lot and really could use a nap.

NOTE TO READER: We never SEE the character of CHILD. Her physical presence in a scene is always felt, but only indicated. Sometimes we may see her hand or maybe her hair blowing into the frame, etc. She sounds like a spirited, highly intelligent 7-year-old girl, not frail or sick.

As CHILD is speaking we are very tight on LINDA’s face.

LINDA looks at CHILD intensely. She is clearly surprised and possibly hurt, but does not say anything.

LINDA scrunches up her lips. She really does not want to cry.

LINDA looks like she might burst.

LINDA can’t take it anymore.

Linda darts her eyes in the direction of CHILD.

LINDA starts to cry.

Silence in the room. LINDA wipes the tears off her face and gets very serious.

We slow zoom into LINDA’s face as the sound of DR. SPRING’s voice drones on a fades into nothing.

We are in a pleasantly upper-middle class neighborhood in Del Mar, California. It’s sunny and beach-y feeling but also somehow completely and blandly suburban.

LINDA walks down the street holding a pizza box with one hand and holding the hand of CHILD with the other.

Weighted pause.

Suddenly LINDA trips. She manages to not fall but the pizza box lands upside down on the ground in a thud.

LINDA bends over to pick up the pizza box. She flips it over and opens the top: all the cheese has stuck to the roof of the box.

CHILD cheers off screen.

LINDA and CHILD laugh.

****START OPENING CREDITS****

LINDA enters the apartment with the pizza box. We can hear CHILD coming in behind her.

We hear CHILD run in another direction as we follow LINDA through her apartment. She goes directly to the kitchen and starts setting up plates and napkins for the pizza.

LINDA takes a piece of the already mangled pizza and starts scraping every last bit of cheese off of it. She takes all the scraped cheese and stuffs it in her mouth, along with cheese that is stuck to the box.

LINDA arranges plates and napkins on the table while she quickly eats a slice of the pizza. She sits at the table with her head in one hand, as if she is thankful for this little moment of peace, quiet and solitude. She is barely even chewing, just inhaling the pizza.

3A LINDA runs to the bathroom and opens the door, pizza still in3A hand...and mouth. We catch a glimpse of CHILD’s feet dangling from the toilet as we see an inch of water on the floor.

LINDA looks up at the ceiling in the bathroom. Looks normal. She opens the shower curtain to look at the bathtub. Dry and normal.

LINDA turns slowly and looks at the floor behind her. There is water on the floor in the hallway outside of the bathroom too. She looks up at the hallway ceiling. Nothing.

LINDA begins to walk in the water, which seems to be rising. We can hear the water slush as she walks. The water takes her to a closed door near the bathroom. There is water seeping out of the crack at the bottom of the door.

She stands outside the door eating the remainder of her pizza slice for a moment.

LINDA opens the door to find her bedroom completely soaked in water. There is two or three inches of water on the floor, the bed is soaked and dripping. A desk in the corner is completely flooded. She looks up and sees the the ceiling over her bed is flowing water at a furious rate through several cracks.

LINDA continues to eat the pizza, now down to just the crust, completely overwhelmed at what she is seeing.

She enters further into the room and walks right up to the edge of the bed, looking carefully at the ceiling. She pulls her phone out of her pocket and dials.

Suddenly BOOM! CRASH! The ceiling gives way and bursts!

Chunks of ceiling land on the bed and the floor in loud, angry thumps. The bed collapses, the desk falls over. A waterfall comes pouring out.

LINDA screams and covers her head as she runs out of the room. We can hear CHILD shrieking.

We stay in the bedroom after LINDA and CHILD leave the scene. Water continues to pour and more parts of the ceiling crumble. It is a disaster. Chunks of plaster float around the bed. The pizza crust LINDA was eating also floats in the rising water. It is completely quiet except for the sound of the water pouring out at a steady rate.

We zoom slowly toward the hole. It is huge. It is dark. The water seems to be coming out in endless supply. Globs of thick, black sludge start to ooze out with the water. The flow of the water begins to take on a kind of pulsation.

We go further into the hole. It is silent. We start to hear a sound:

We abruptly pull back from the white light -- like getting sucked by a vacuum -- back into complete blackness.

The void now feels like we are drifting in dust, weightlessness -- particles drifting around until we see something forming into a female-type figure.

The figure is hard to make out, we cannot see her face. She is pacing back and forth in the darkness. She looks toward the camera and reaches out a hand to the viewer. She reaches with two hands. The camera is getting closer but it never seems to reach her. Are there more figures looming behind her as well??

The camera backs away from the void until we see the moldy edges of the HOLE IN THE CEILING. A milky white substance drips from deep inside. The figure abruptly retreats into nothingness as particles fall out of the hole.

It’s creepy. Nightmarish. Gross. Silent UNTIL--:

LINDA is fast asleep, completely out. It is dark in the room, the only light coming from a light out the window and some sort of machine on the other side of the room, seemingly floating and emanating a red light with with flashing “0.”

The beeping is coming from this machine. It continues along with a mechanical whirring noise. The beeping gets faster, louder. LINDA stirs and finally opens her eyes. She groans and looks across the room to another bed.

We see the form of CHILD curled up under blankets- the machine is attached to a pole near the bed. From the pole hangs a bag nearly empty of a white chalky liquid. It has tubing that connects to somewhere under the blanket.

The beeping reaches a high pitch as LINDA stumbles out of her bed and frantically presses buttons on the machine to make it stop THEN--

BOOM!

LINDA busts through the stairwell doors of an extended stay hotel. It is very bright. She squints as if emerging from a cave. She is clutching a baby monitor in one hand.

TITLE CARD: IF I HAD LEGS I’D KICK YOU

It is very dark outside. Headlights from a few passing cars pierce the fog. The extended stay hotel glows a few hundred yards away from this overgrown little league baseball field.

LINDA is sitting on a bench in the dugout, smoking a joint. The baby monitor is beside her, lights blinking and emitting the sound of mechanical whirring from the machine in her room. With one hand she holds up an iPhone to her ear-- the tinny sound of the song “Hot Freaks” by Guided by Voices fights with the noise of cars passing and the sound from the baby monitor.

She looks at the sky, trying to get lost in the stars and fog. Transfixed by this, LINDA drops the joint in the grass.

She frantically feels around the grassy ground. She finds the joint and picks it up. It’s no longer lit. She pops it in her mouth quickly, pulls matches out of her pocket and lights it.

The joint catches fire as she takes a deep drag -- it burns her lips.

LINDA abruptly drops the joint, still on fire, into her lap. Her shirt catches fire -- LINDA jumps up, coughing, and tries to brush the fire off of her--

LINDA enters the lobby of the hotel. The interior is over-lit with fluorescents, and she squints. The sound from the baby monitor seems to take over the whole room.

The front of LINDA's clothing is drenched in water and there is a burn hole at the bottom from her joint.

LINDA is QUITE HIGH---

JAMES laughs hard.

LINDA pretends to have a hard time deciding between all the different sodas that are for sale in the refrigerator case next to the front desk, but she is actually looking at the two wine bottles on the bottom shelf. She takes them both out.

The FRONT DESK GUY nods seriously at JAMES and then focuses on LINDA.

LINDA holds up the bottles of wine.

LINDA grabs a package of peanut butter cups from a basket on the counter at the last second.

JAMES stares at her. She looks at him curiously.

The two men look at each other and then back at LINDA with a smirk. She sounds high.

LINDA walks away from the front desk. We can hear the two men resume their conversation with lots of laughter.

As LINDA exits the lobby and enters the stairwell she opens the peanut butter cups and eats them with an incredibly disgusting speed, but with no enjoyment. She gags.

LINDA runs up the stairs and out onto the second floor hallway.

The second floor hallway looks exactly the same as the first floor. LINDA uses a keycard to enter a room.

LINDA closes the door completely, leaving us in the dark before turning on the light. She turns the monitor off and casts it aside.

LINDA undresses. She picks up crumpled pajamas from the bathroom floor and puts those on.

LINDA washes her hands, then smells her arms and washes again, this time all the way up to her elbows.

LINDA examines herself --“Do I look high or normal?” when she hears from the other room:

A faint child’s voice.

LINDA freezes, like a deer who has just heard a hunter.

LINDA and CHILD are sitting at the breakfast buffet area at the extended stay hotel. The other patrons are varied, but everyone in the room has an air of not being in the best place in life at the moment.

LINDA is on the phone with her husband CHARLES trying to keep a fight cordial.

LINDA sees JAMES from last night approaching the table.

LINDA hangs up the call.

JAMES does a magic trick in which he makes a cookie appear in his empty palm.

JAMES takes the overt hint and walks away.

LINDA shakes her head. Her phone rings again. Exasperated, she picks up the phone.

LINDA watches JAMES as she replies to CHARLES.

She hangs up the phone.

LINDA and CHILD are singing along to Roger Miller’s “My Uncle Used to Love Me But She Died” at the top of their lungs. They are laughing and having a great time.

LINDA pulls into a parking lot in the back of a nondescript medical type building. She passes a PARKING ATTENDANT booth with an older, uniformed man standing outside of it (Latino, 50s-60s). He is watching all the cars coming in and out of the lot like a hawk. This guy is serious about his parking lot. He gives LINDA an extra-long glare that is deep with implied history.

LINDA avoids his eyes. She scans for spots. There are only two open ones, one on each side of a huge SUV. She slows down in front of one of the spots and starts to pull in.

She looks in the rearview mirror and sees the parking attendant still looking right at her. Judging her.

She stops abruptly as a MAN gets out of the giant SUV. She lowers her window and sticks her head out.

The MAN looks bewildered.

The MAN dashes away. LINDA is super annoyed. She does a three- point turn without looking and hastily double parks in front of the building.

LINDA stands in the hallway of a hospital-like facility.

LINDA is transfixed by a display of child-sized body cutouts taped to the wall. The cutouts are drawn and colored in by children and have descriptor words on them in children’s handwriting such as: fat, big, too much, soft, jiggly, full, pain, hurts, want to die, sick, ugly, worried...

She is carefully examining one in particular in which the body tracing seems to resemble her, but in child form. Over the stomach there is a crude drawing of a huge black hole with a tube coming out of it and the word “HELP.”

LINDA snaps out of her trance to see DR. SPRING.

LINDA laughs and tries to make light -- DR. SPRING is all business...

The two women stand in silence for a beat, looking at each other.

LINDA is exiting the building quickly, making a beeline for her car.

LINDA gets into her car in time to see THE PARKING ATTENDANT storming towards her. She tries to slip into her car unnoticed, but it is impossible.

LINDA rolls her eyes.

Linda shakes her head dismissively and gives him a quick middle finger as she quickly pulls out of the spot.

THERAPIST is a white man in his early 50s -- his is the MALE VOICE we heard asking LINDA about time earlier. The room tone is a loud white noise machine.

LINDA lays on the couch in the fetal position.

THERAPIST sits at the chair by the desk, facing out but the two are not looking at each other.

THERAPIST is silent.

THERAPIST is silent.

LINDA stares at the ceiling and then closes her eyes.

Brief pause.

THERAPIST is listening to LINDA intently, but looks uncomfortable.

THERAPIST is stone faced. He looks at the clock.

THERAPIST doesn’t say anything. Silence. He clearly just wants her to leave.

THERAPIST says nothing but rather pointedly glances at the clock that only he can see.

LINDA is incredibly annoyed. She stretches her body out on the couch. She covers her face with her hands. She sighs and languishes for a moment on the couch.

She sits up and looks at THERAPIST squarely in the eyes. He meets her eyes and then turns away.

LINDA gets up and walks toward the door. THERAPIST turns back to his desk. LINDA exits the office quickly and closes the door with a passive aggressive slam behind her.

Outside the door, LINDA stands indignant. Her phone rings.

We are in a long white hallway, lined with doors. This is an office suite housing lots of therapy offices. All the doors have white noise machines whirring right outside them. The sound is deafening.

LINDA looks at the phone-- immediately annoyed when she sees who it is, but answers. She walks down the hall as she speaks.

LINDA passes many doors as she approaches a specific one down the hall-- a woman, CAROLINE (any race, late 20s-early 30s, mousy but attractive and squarely upper middle class looking), is waiting sitting in a chair outside of it. CAROLINE is sheepishly holding a baby carrier in her lap, looking like she wants to disappear.

LINDA holds up a finger to her and whispers:

CAROLINE nods.

LINDA enters an office door -- HER office door.

LINDA closes the door behind her quietly.

There is a desk and a chair on wheels, a stuffed chair and a couch, much like THERAPIST’s office.

LINDA sits down at the desk. She hits her head on her desk repeatedly.

LINDA stares at her phone. She’s been hung up on. Even so she whispers directly into the phone:

LINDA violently shakes her whole body out in a sudden seizure- like movement before opening her door and addressing CAROLINE.

CAROLINE sits across from her on the chair. On the couch is the baby carrier with a blanket draped over it. Neither woman is speaking and there is an awkward tension to it. There’s a buzz on LINDA's cell phone, which is on her desk. She desperately wants to turn around and check it but resists.

Silence.

LINDA's phone buzzes on her desk again.

LINDA grabs her phone quickly and sees a text message from CHARLES: “did you check on the apartment this morning?” LINDA shoves the phone into a desk drawer.

CAROLINE leans her body toward LINDA and whispers:

CAROLINE stares at LINDA. RILEY stirs a little in the carrier and we see the blanket move a little. Silence. LINDA moves her chair closer to CAROLINE.

The camera begins to move closer into LINDA as she speaks.

The camera continues to slowly move into her face. Her voice is soothing and slow, but a little far away. Like she is wishing she could enact her own advice on herself.

The camera is tight on LINDA’s face now. Do her eyes seem a little teary? Does she wish someone was giving her permission to take care of herself in this way?

CAROLINE looks at her with rapt attention, as if she were listening to a spiritual leader.

LINDA quickly blinks and snaps out of whatever zone she was in. She finishes the rest of her advice in a more impersonal, clipped tone.

LINDA is standing in a little kitchen area off of the hallway in her office building. It’s very small. She is drinking tea, eating a huge piece of cake and browsing on her phone.

We see her screen. On a new age healing website there is a link called “Holotropic Breathwork Will Get You High As Fuck!” She clicks on it and it leads to a video:

In the midst of this video playing, THERAPIST enters the kitchen area.

LINDA smiles at him awkwardly and lowers the volume but does not turn it off. He also smiles awkwardly and doesn’t say

anything. THERAPIST makes a cup of coffee quickly and leaves as the video continues to play.

An overweight, professionally dressed woman enters the kitchen area. This is MICHELLE (any race, 40-45, overweight and meticulously styled), another therapist.

LINDA gives her a nod but doesn’t look up from her phone. MICHELLE proceeds to make tea.

LINDA is irritated but sucks it in as she goes back to her video. MICHELLE is taking a very long (and very noisy) time stirring her tea, hovering around LINDA

LINDA sits at her desk eating a miserable looking salad from a fast food place. She has a milkshake as a beverage.

LINDA's computer screen. It is an article about the nanny murderer in New York that CAROLINE was talking about. She clicks on a video link labeled “Murdering Nanny’s Sentencing Statement!”

The video begins. It is tight on a 60 year old, unassuming looking Hispanic woman sitting at a defendant’s table in a courtroom. She has bandages around her neck. The woman speaks in Spanish and is crying, emoting and gesturing wildly but her words are translated by a flat, emotionless, English- speaking female translator off-camera, making the whole thing very off-putting and eery:

LINDA scrubs through the video timeline, previewing the thumbnails of the rest of the NANNY’s speech until she sees the JUDGE begin to speak.

There is a knock on the door. Begrudgingly LINDA pauses the video, closes her laptop and goes to answer the door.

She opens the door and wordlessly lets in a female patient, with just a nod and slight smile.

The patient (KATE, White, 25, wears intense privilege and entitlement like a neon sign) hurries in carrying a giant designer bag and sits down, not even looking at LINDA. She holds her bag like a security blanket as she begins talking before LINDA has even returned to her chair.

LINDA is buckling CHILD into the car.

CHARLES is on speaker phone.

LINDA hangs up the phone, gets into the drivers seat, slams the door and puts on her seatbelt.

The lights are dim in the room. LINDA stands next to CHILD’s machine. She is opening a container of thick, white liquid and pouring it into a bag attached to the machine. She takes the tubing that is attached to the bag and pops a cap off the end of it.

LINDA reaches under some blankets where CHILD is lying and fiddles around. Then she turns the machine on. Immediate whirring.

Pause.

LINDA turns off the lights. The room is dark except for the red lights and descending numbers on the machine.

LINDA gets into the bed with CHILD. She gets under the covers.

Extremely tight close up on LINDA’s lips against CHILD’s ear as she sings Harry Nilsson’s “Think About Your Troubles”:

Etcetera. The two alternate the lines of the song, ending very calmly, quietly, sleepily:

After this line LINDA’s lips kiss CHILD’s ear.

26A LATER. CHILD is asleep. LINDA is sitting on top of the covers26A on the other bed, drinking wine, eating from a huge bag of Doritos and watching TV. Still dark, but now added to the machine lights and numbers is the light from the television.

LINDA is watching DR. PHIL:

In a taped piece, hidden camera footage shows MAD MOM yelling at a child: “WHAT ARE YOU GOING TO DO WHEN ONE DAY I’M NOT HERE!”

Hidden camera footage shows MAD MOM yelling at the child again: “YOU ARE LAZY, YOU DON’T DO ANYTHING FOR YOURSELF AND YOU’LL NEVER GET IT!”

Hidden camera footage shows MAD MOM yelling: “IS ANYONE EVEN LISTENING TO ME?”

LINDA is engrossed in the show, drinking her wine, shoveling Doritos. LINDA gets up and goes to the kitchenette to pour another glass, but the bottle is empty.

LINDA enters the lobby of the hotel holding the baby monitor and lingers around the refrigeration case. She pulls out a bottle of white wine and shows it to the man behind the desk.

FRONT DESK GUY pauses.

JAMES approaches the front desk out of nowhere.

JAMES looks at LINDA and winks.

LINDA is sitting in a corner of the field, hunched over and concentrating greatly on something. Then we see: in her hand is a little pouch and a rolling paper. She is trying to roll a joint from a ridiculously small amount of weed remnants. She stops to take a huge swig from the bottle of wine, which we notice is nearly empty. The baby monitor is in her back pocket and we can hear CHILD’s machine loudly through it. It’s dead quiet except for this sound. LINDA gives up and sprinkles what amounts to seeds and dust into the grass.

She takes out her phone and sends a voice-to-text:

Almost immediately a response comes. We see on the dimly lit phone it is from someone saved in her phone as JOVIAL SEAN:

She watches tensely as the grey dot-dot-dot of JOVIAL SEAN writing appears. The dots keep going. For too long. And then disappear without any response.

Just then, LINDA sees JAMES exiting the hotel. He pauses and looks in her direction. She makes no moves to acknowledge him as he waves and starts to walk toward her.

As JAMES is getting closer, LINDA drinks what’s left in the wine bottle. JAMES jogs up to her.

LINDA takes off walking very fast.

LINDA heads toward the hotel and then right past it. It is as if she suddenly remembered something she had to do and must do it this instant. She turns down a sidewalk on a main street with traffic. The noise from the baby monitor noticeably cuts out. Silence now. She’s out of range...

LINDA continues walking very fast, she’s on a mission. Her phone rings.

LINDA puts the phone back in her pocket and keeps walking fast.

LINDA bursts into the door of her apartment.

LINDA rushes into the bedroom. It is dark. There are no lights working in the room, so LINDA uses her phone’s flashlight to look around.

LINDA rips a tarp off of something to reveal her desk, opens the drawer and rummages around before she pulls out a baggie of pot, a small ceramic pipe and two lighters.

She looks up at the hole. There is a faint light coming from it. Iridescent dust particles seem to be dancing around inside of it. LINDA is taken with the sight. It is weirdly beautiful and ethereal.

Then water trickles down in what seems like slow motion. She is fascinated.

She haphazardly takes some photos with her phone and texts them to CHARLES:

Instantly CHARLES texts back.

LINDA hastily puts the tarp back on the desk and walks out to the living room, texting CHARLES.

31A In the living room, LINDA turns on the TV instead of turning31A on the lights. She throws her phone onto the couch and sits on the floor, quickly packing the tiny bowl with pot. She lights it and takes a deep inhale.

LINDA lays on her back. She breathes deeply a few times with her eyes tightly closed. She opens them again.

LINDA grabs the remote and flips through channels in a complete daze. She lands on a channel just as a promo for “A Question of Guilt” (TV Movie, 1978) comes on. She takes a long, deep drag on the pipe and then we see are full screen on the TV:

LINDA’s eyes are wide as she takes another very long toke.

LINDA’s interest is definitely piqued. She takes another deep inhale off of the pipe and grabs her phone. She activates SIRI:

Suddenly -- BANG! -- a crashing sound from the bedroom.

LINDA is startled, frightened. She gets up and dashes to the bedroom. As she does this SIRI is still speaking.

31B As she enters the room she turns SIRI off. Now it is 31B completely quiet. Unnaturally quiet.

The room is pitch black, except for that very faint light coming from the hole. LINDA flips her phone’s flashlight on and points it chaotically around the room, looking for what caused that loud noise. Everything looks the same as it was, though.

She goes to leave the room but something catches her eye-- a full length mirror leaning against the wall. It is standing upright but the glass is completely shattered and sitting almost neatly piled in front of it. Next to that is a chunk of ceiling paster, but it is too far away from the mirror for it to completely make sense.

LINDA approaches the mirror. She starts to pick up the broken pieces but then stops cold-- she is looking in the glass that remains in the mirror and what she makes her freeze:

In the reflection of the mirror it appears that behind LINDA are a trio of ethereal shapes or blobs of light. It is very hard to make out what exactly it is. LINDA abruptly turns around to see it for herself. She is faced with the light shapes. They are beautiful but creepy. LINDA looks awestruck.

Suddenly, nothing is there. Pitch blackness. Stillness. LINDA flashes her light all around the room, frantically. She points it directly into the hole. The hole has an energy to it - there’s an essence to it that makes it seem like it is capable of watching, hearing. LINDA stands directly under it.

Suddenly an impossibly bright light floods the room from the hole. It is as bright as looking directly into the sun, and as painful. LINDA winces and covers her eyes but at the same time is struggling to look. The light is so bright that it is causing her actual physical pain. She falls down with a thud.

As soon as she falls the light is gone. There is complete, unearthly silence, as if the entire universe was put on pause. Extreme close-up on LINDA’s face as her watery, pained eyes widen in fear.

LINDA runs down a sidewalk like a mad woman. She is distraught and is holding onto the baby monitor for dear life.

LINDA hits herself a few times on the head in frustration - really hits herself.

CHILD is singing loudly to whatever is on her headphones.

LINDA sees an empty spot but it is in between two giant SUVs and is very tight. She winces. The Parking Attendant is staring at her, waiting for her to attempt this. She looks him in her mirror, defiant.

LINDA inches into the parking space excruciatingly slowly. It’s so slow it’s almost as if the car is not even moving. Horns are honking. She looks in her mirror and sees a line of cars that she is blocking. THE PARKING ATTENDANT is approaching. She aborts mission, quickly backs up and speeds around the lot, toward the front of the building.

A car beeps. LINDA looks in her mirror and sees that there are several cars waiting behind her so they can pass.

PARKING ATTENDANT starts to approach her car. CHILD shakes her head, puts her headphones on and starts singing again. LINDA spots another mother (EVA) walking up to the building with a pre-teen child (ADDIE). LINDA lowers her window and calls to her. Cars continue to beep.

EVA turns around.

The PARKING ATTENDANT is almost at LINDA's car. The parent in the car behind her starts to get out of her car.

We hear CHILD squeal with delight.

We hear the car door open and then slam.

LINDA speeds off amidst continued beeping.

LINDA drives.

LINDA stands in the elevator and pushes a button. As the doors are about to close a hand extends between them and they reopen. The hand belongs to THERAPIST. He enters the elevator. They looks at each other and awkwardly smile but do not speak.

LINDA is in the middle of a session with a man named STEPHEN (any race, late 20s, lanky and somewhat creepy). He sits upright on the couch and LINDA sits at her desk chair. Her body language is slightly closed off as she keeps herself turned away from him.

Silence.

LINDA is curled up on the couch.

Pause.

Silence.

Silence.

LINDA covers her face with her hands and looks like she might gouge her eyes out.

LINDA is driving and nervously looking into the rear view mirror at CHILD. We see her little hands tightly gripped around something in her lap: a cardboard box with holes in it. We see her hands opening the flap a little and the pink nose of a hamster peeks out.

We see CHILD trying to close the flap of the box as a hamster paw pokes out and desperately claws at CHILD’s hand.

We see the hamster head pop out. His face is maniacal and reminiscent of Jack Nicolson busting through the bathroom door in The Shining. He is trying to escape from the box frantically, bearing his teeth and waving his paws as CHILD is screeching and begins to cry.

LINDA is driving fast as she reaches her arm behind her to the back seat.

LINDA manages to get the box in her hand and throws it onto the passenger seat. She shoves the hamster’s head into the box as he bites her hand.

With one hand she is trying to keep the box closed and with the other she is steering. She swerves and someone honks.

The hamster is feverishly trying to get out of the small opening available to him as LINDA keeps shoving him back in the box. He bites LINDA on the hand again. When she recoils he jumps out.

LINDA pulls over to the shoulder of the busy street. CHILD is hysterically crying. LINDA takes a deep breath and looks at the passenger seat. The brown and white fluffy hamster is sitting there staring at her silently. He looks shocked to be out of the box and face to face with her. LINDA grabs him roughly and puts him in the box. She turns the box upside down and puts her purse on top of it. The box is rumbling around underneath the purse.

LINDA is very rattled but carefully pulls back into traffic. As soon as she does there is a red light. She stops and -- WHAM-- she is rear ended. The purse and hamster box fly on to the floor. CHILD is now screaming. LINDA looks back at her.

LINDA gets out of the car and walks around to the passenger side. She opens the door and grabs the hamster box. She holds it tight against her chest as she approaches the man who has exited the car behind her.

The hamster is trying to get out again but LINDA is so angry at this man that she isn’t paying attention. The hamster’s nose pokes out.

The man points at the box just as the hamster breaks free, jumps out and runs into the street. He is immediately run over by a car. LINDA stares at the street in disbelief.

LINDA sits, knees bent over the front edge of the bed, chugging a glass of wine, eating a large family-size tray of microwave lasagna and looking at her phone. She whispers a voice-to-text to CHARLES:

CHILD is asleep in the other bed. Her machine is whirring as usual.

But now there is another noise in the room: the metallic creaking of a hamster wheel going a million miles an hour.

LINDA looks over the side of her bed and we see a cage placed between her bed and CHILD’s bed. Inside a totally different hamster, this time a black skinny one with short hair, runs on the wheel. It stops for a second to twitch it’s nose at LINDA. LINDA throws a pillow on top of the cage.

LINDA makes her way to the other bed and silently lays down beside the lump under the blanket that is CHILD. She puts her arms around her and cuddles her.

LINDA snaps up from the bed at this rejection. She gets her arms caught the machine’s tubing for a moment and shakes them off in frustration.

Her phone rings. She runs to her side of the room for it. She is alarmed because it is so late at night, but also relieved to have something to attend to. She is kind of drunk. Her face is puffy from crying.

LINDA is momentarily disoriented but gets her bearings.

As LINDA talks on the phone, she grabs the baby monitor and leaves the room to stand in the hallway.

The hallway is extremely bright in comparison to the room and LINDA has to squint until her eyes adjust. She switches on the baby monitor and sticks it in her back pocket. Loud machine whir as always.

LINDA hangs up the phone and looks very irritated as she goes to open her door. She discovers she didn’t bring her key with her. She’s in pajamas with bare feet.

She knocks on the door. No answer. She knocks louder. No answer.

LINDA enters the lobby and is annoyed to see no one is behind the desk. Before she even gets to the desk she starts calling for someone.

When she stands right in front of the desk she sees a sloppy hand-written sign that reads: “BB IN 20”

LINDA’s frustration, anger and general misery is on full display on her face. Her eyes dart to the case of wine. She quickly grabs a bottle and exits the lobby to the outside.

LINDA is sitting on the bench drinking directly from the wine bottle. The baby monitor sits on the bench, blasting the machine noise at top volume. She has her phone on her lap, playing a deep cut Janis Joplin song “Let’s Don’t Quit”.

JAMES appears behind her shoulders out of nowhere.

LINDA is startled. She quickly and clumsily turns off the music, clearly embarrassed and feeling exposed.

Silence.

LINDA gets up, gathers her stuff and starts to walk quickly toward the hotel. JAMES walks behind her.

LINDA does not turn around. She keeps walking with JAMES walking behind her as they talk.

JAMES laughs in an easy, amused way that further embarrasses LINDA, who is wound so tight she could pop.

LINDA stops in her tracks and turns around to face JAMES.

JAMES looks at her carefully, almost up and down and laughs again.

JAMES shrugs.

LINDA stares at him.

LINDA ignores him as she keeps walking, chugging at the bottle of wine simultaneously.

She suddenly turns back around, throws the bottle at him and walks fast into the hotel. The bottle lands with a thud by JAMES’ feet but does not break.

LINDA goes into the lobby, but there is still no one behind the front desk. JAMES follows her.

LINDA pounds on the desk.

No answer. JAMES stands quietly to the side, watching her. LINDA ignores him, grabs another bottle from the case and fake-casually walks out of the lobby. JAMES follows.

They walk down the hallway in this way. LINDA clearly wants to look behind her but is fighting it. She stops in front of the elevator and pushes the button. JAMES catches up and stands right next to her. LINDA goes to open the wine bottle but notices it is a cork, not a twist-off. She’s pissed.

LINDA ignores him. The elevator opens and they both enter.

LINDA and JAMES stand at opposite sides of the elevator.

LINDA ignores him. The doors open and she rushes to her room.

LINDA runs up to her door and knocks. Nothing. She knocks again. She puts her mouth directly to side of the door frame, where it meets the wall.

JAMES is walking down the hall to his room and leans against his door watching. LINDA looks over quickly. She sits in front of the door and ridiculously attempts to open the cork with her nails. Then her teeth. She looks at JAMES again, who is watching her like one might a crazy person on the sidewalk. Then she gets up and charges at him like a bull.

LINDA starts to walk backward.

LINDA turns on a dime and walks back to her room and knocks, hoping CHILD will wake up and let her in. Nothing.

LINDA knocks louder. Still nothing. LINDA slumps in front of the door.

She bangs her head against it as one last effort. Nothing.

Pause and silence. LINDA turns to look at him down the hall.

JAMES shrugs and smiles.

LINDA and JAMES are in front of JAMES’s laptop. They are drinking the wine LINDA had. The baby monitor sits next to the laptop, blasting that machine sound as usual.

JAMES types a long and complicated web address. A weird website marketplace comes up and he types “molly” into a search bar. Pictures of pills come up with descriptions.

Silence.

LINDA is silent, staring at the computer.

JAMES types stuff into a browser while LINDA drinks her wine and looks around the room. She looks at her phone. 2:43am.

LINDA gets up, grabs the baby monitor and starts to walk toward the door.

Pause. LINDA is thinking deeply.

LINDA pauses for a second, clearly truly considering getting in a car and doing this, when suddenly there are noises coming from the baby monitor. Groggy, sleepy noises from CHIILD. LINDA puts it to her ear.

46A LINDA dashes out of JAMES’ room and is in front of her own46A door in no time. She bangs on the door as loud as she can.

JAMES can be seen in the background slowing peaking his head out of his door. He’s laughing at her. She ignores him.

CHILD’s voice is in stereo because we can hear it through the door AND through the baby monitor at the same time.

JAMES continues to linger in his doorway, watching the scene as if it were a sitcom.

JAMES slowly recedes into his, shutting the door with a huge BANG that makes LINDA jump.

LINDA sits across from CAROLINE in her office. LINDA looks more worse for wear than usual. If a bad headache was an entire person it would be LINDA in this moment. RILEY is in his baby carrier on the couch. He is quiet. CAROLINE is quietly sobbing and looking at the floor.

CAROLINE looks at LINDA. She grabs a bunch of tissues and aggressively wipes her face.

CAROLINE shakes her head. She gets up to leave without even looking at the baby carrier.

CAROLINE looks at LINDA intently.

LINDA eyes the baby carrier. It is completely silent and motionless. She looks at CAROLINE who is completely frazzled and agitated.

CAROLINE dashes out of the office leaving the door open.

LINDA sits still for a moment staring at the open door. She gets up and walks over to the baby carrier. She lifts up the blanket that covers the carrier and peaks inside. As she does this we hear the baby wake up and begin to cry. The crying starts quietly and quickly escalates to loud and piercing sounds. She quickly puts the blanket back over the carrier.

LINDA rocks the carrier back and forth on the couch. She lifts the carrier up and goes to the door of the office. She stands in the doorway and looks down the hall. She steps out into the hallway. Riley continues to cry.

The hallway is completely empty. LINDA stands outside her office with the carrier. RILEY is now losing his mind, wailing and crying. LINDA walks down the hall toward the bathroom.

LINDA enters the women’s bathroom. It’s a small, sterile office bathroom with three stalls. Inside the bathroom RILEY’s crying echoes and becomes ten times louder. The noise is completely unbearable to LINDA and it’s clear the bathroom is empty. She panics.

LINDA pushes open each one of the empty stalls. She runs out of the bathroom, now holding the carrier in both arms.

LINDA runs down the empty hallway with the crying baby.

She gets to her office. The door is still open. She stops for a second to peak in but then keeps going down the hallway to THERAPIST’s office.

As LINDA runs down the rest of the hallway the blanket falls off the carrier and RILEY’s arms and feet can be seen flailing about like an alien creature as he screams.

She gets to the outside of THERAPIST’s door. She knocks. No answer. She knocks again. No answer. She knocks harder. Finally the door opens, but just a tiny bit. We can just see about half of THERAPIST’s face through the slit of the door opening.

LINDA looks in the door and can make out the feet of someone on the therapist’s couch. This seems to bother her more than RILEY’s continuous crying.

LINDA looks at him blankly as he starts to shuts the door. She kicks the door open.

THERAPIST tries again to shut the door but LINDA sticks her foot into the opening. Riley continues to cry.

THERAPIST quickly and gently kicks her foot out of the way and shuts the door. We can hear the click of a lock as well. LINDA kicks the door hard, almost losing her balance from the impact.

A door across the way opens slowly. MICHELLE looks out.

LINDA rushes over to MICHELLE’s door. She sees a young man sitting in the office watching all this with interest.

LINDA doesn’t wait for her to finish and dashes back toward her office with the screaming baby.

LINDA is sitting on the couch holding RILEY, who is still crying, but softer now. She is extremely uncomfortable holding him and he is squirming. She is also dialing her phone. She looks terrified. RILEY is red from crying.

LINDA hangs up the phone. She looks at the still-screaming RILEY. She puts him back in the carrier and puts the blanket back on top of him. She sits next to the carrier and rests her head back on the couch and closes her eyes.

A buzz startles LINDA. She gets up and pushes a button on an intercom on her desk.

LINDA groans as she buzzes him into the building.

RILEY is quieter now. He is making a lot of noises but has exhausted himself from screaming and crying for so long. He looks sleepy.

A knock at the office door. Still holding RILEY, LINDA opens the door. She is surprised to find THERAPIST standing there instead of STEPHEN.

THERAPIST sits on the couch next to RILEY’s carrier.

There is another knock on the door. STEPHEN opens it and enters before waiting for LINDA. He is shocked to see another person in the room already.

LINDA doesn’t know what to do in this moment-- she looks to THERAPIST.

THERAPIST doesn’t say anything.

STEPHEN starts to say something and then sees the baby carrier.

STEPHEN looks at LINDA like a hurt child and then leaves.

They are both silent. LINDA sits in her chair as THERAPIST leans back on the couch.

Silence.

LINDA puts her head in her hands.

THERAPIST gets up and goes to leave the room.

THERAPIST leaves without turning around. It isn’t clear if he heard what LINDA said.

LINDA hands over the baby carrier to a police officer as she answers questions in her doorway.

POLICE OFFICER looks annoyed as he scribbles all this down.

LINDA stands in line at CVS, she’s next up. She’s on the phone and it is ringing. A voicemail picks up.

BEEEEEP. The time on her message has run out.

LINDA quickly shoves her phone in her pocket and approaches the check-out counter.

She flashes a super smile and her tone is a drastic shift from the anger and frustration that’s just happened.

LINDA steps off an elevator and walks down a hall to a waiting room.

There is a cluster of OTHER MOTHERS in the waiting room, but LINDA sits apart from them. They look at LINDA while they continue talking in hushed tones. Its clear from this moment that LINDA puts no time or effort into knowing these other women.

DR. SPRING enters the room and approaches before LINDA can take a seat.

DR. SPRING leads LINDA into a corner of the waiting room away from the other moms.

LINDA looks at her in suspicious disbelief.

LINDA crouches in a corner of the bedroom under a clear tarp.

LINDA looks up at the hole through the tarp. It seems to have gotten much bigger than the last time we saw it. As she looks into it the hole seems to begin to emanate a kind of steam. Suddenly flies swarm out of the hole in massive numbers and begin to cover the room. The flies are pounding against the tarp that covers LINDA.

CHILD begins screaming.

LINDA is on the phone. She is livid. We can hear CHILD sobbing and screaming in the background.

LINDA knocks on JAMES’S door. An attractive African-American Vanessa (20s) answers.

LINDA sits on the bathroom floor talking to MICHELE on the phone. As she talks she is plucking her leg hairs out with a tweezer. It is clearly painful, but the only way this shows is how her eyes begin to water as the scene progresses.

Pause. LINDA plucks several hairs in quick succession.

LINDA examines the small, red, inflamed bald spot on her leg.

58A LINDA is lying on her back on the floor of the bathroom with58A her phone next to her head. It is playing a holotropic breathwork tutorial.

LINDA complies. Her stomach rises and falls with very deep breaths.

LINDA does the breaths. Her face is tense.

LINDA's hands begin to stiffen and freeze in a lobster claw like way. She looks like she is trying to move them but cannot.

Black. An oval shape takes form in the darkness. It swells and expands in rhythm with LINDA’s breathing pattern. We start to move toward it.

As the BREATHWORK VOICE sounds farther and farther away we are inside of the oval. An image up ahead starts to take shape. A scene. It is in the distance and not fully visible...until suddenly we are -- WHAM -- zoomed right into the scene:

LINDA is helping to hold down a screaming and completely hysterical CHILD. We see her thrashing limbs and hear her screams, but continue to not see her in full. The room is loud, bright and chaotic. There seem to be a dozen nurses and doctors all trying to subdue CHILD.

We are tight on LINDA as she holds in tears and attempts to comply with the instructions being wielded at her. Lot’s of limbs and backs of heads come in and out of frame. The tone is frantic.

LINDA tries to comply. The screaming is ear piercing. Tears start to leak from LINDA’s eyes as she attempts to remain stoic. Very abruptly, we snap out of this scene--

LINDA suddenly gasps deeply and loudly. She is on her back, beginning to move her hands, breathing deeply. She opens her eyes and looks terrified. She is shaking. She jumps up from the floor, unsteady on her feet, dizzy, scared and clings to the sink. She frantically splashes cold water on her face as we hear the recording continue to play:

Suddenly, without warning, LINDA’s legs completely give out underneath her. She’s on the floor, on her knees. She puts her head on the tile floor and stares blankly.

LINDA paces the room, checking CHILD’s machine, not sure what to do with herself. She is extremely freaked out and agitated. She looks like she has the urgent need to jump out of her skin.

She crouches in front of the hamster cage. The hamster is frantically running on its wheel. LINDA reaches through the bars and stops the wheel from moving. The hamster continues to run and falls off. She takes the wheel out of the cage and shoves it under her bed.

She looks out the window. She sees JAMES swimming by himself in the pool. She looks around to see if anyone else is out there.

LINDA, now wearing a bathing suit, dashes toward the pool and jumps in. JAMES is at the other end of the pool. LINDA swims over to him. The two tread water as they talk.

After the breathwork experience LINDA seems almost manic. Disturbed. Completely ungrounded.

Awkward pause as they continue to swim around each other.

LINDA and JAMES walk through LINDA's dark apartment toward the bedroom door. They are passing back and forth a joint and a bottle of wine.

LINDA opens the bedroom door and braces herself for a fly invasion but...there are no flies.

JAMES sees the hole.

JAMES takes a deep drag on the joint and exhales out toward the hole. The hole seems to suck the smoke into itself and then spews it back out with dust and gravel, which hits JAMES and LINDA with force.

LINDA and JAMES enter the apartment above LINDA's. It is empty and dark. LINDA tries some light switches but they don’t work.

They wander into a room and see the hole on the floor.

JAMES gets on the floor and crawls toward the hole.

When he gets to the edge of the hole and looks in it he freezes as if he has seen a ghost.

JAMES looks at LINDA and silently motions for her to come and look. He puts his finger to his mouth to tell LINDA to shut up. LINDA gets on the floor and crawls over next to JAMES.

LINDA looks down into the hole.

There are lots of quick movements happening beneath the hole. It is as if lots of energy is dashing from one end of the room to another.

JAMES ignores her and keeps looking.

65pt From above, through the hole, we see a woman standing in65pt front of a full length mirror, which no longer has a tarp over it. In fact, we can see that the bedroom appears without any tarps, fully furnished and clean. The woman takes a knife out of her pocket.

The woman takes the knife and plunges it into her chest. Instead of blood pouring out a wide, black hole starts to open on her chest. She puts the knife into one arm and does the same thing, and then the other arm. The openings on her body keep widening. They are cavernous, black and full of nothing. She sticks the knife into the back of her head. It opens up into another empty black hole.

The woman freezes, she has heard them. She turns her head slowly to look up into the hole. The woman is LINDA. We see the impression of her face for just long enough to recognize it, but just as fast her face is sucked inward and a cavernous black hole is where the face should be.

LINDA is s scared that she goes to grab on to JAMES, to pull him back from the hole, but it all happens so fast he loses his balance and falls into the hole instead. He screams on the way down. We hear a loud thud when he lands below. Then there is silence.

65pt2 Horrified, LINDA slowly peaks into the hole. It is back the65pt2 way it was in the room, tarps and dust everywhere. JAMES is on his back clutching his leg to his chest and whimpering.

LINDA sits in her car with her head on the steering wheel. There is a loud tapping on the window. LINDA looks up and sees THE PARKING ATTENDANT angrily hitting the window with a flashlight. She lowers the window.

THE PARKING ATTENDANT points to a sign directly in front of LINDA’s car. It reads: DR. NISHAWALA ONLY.

THE PARKING ATTENDANT stays put as LINDA carefully pulls out. He is watching her like a hawk.

LINDA sits at a large conference table looking around anxiously.

Other parents are also sitting around the table and still others are milling in. DR. SPRING enters and approaches LINDA.

LINDA awkwardly nods. As DR. SPRING settles at the table and organizes some handouts, EVA enters the room and makes a beeline for LINDA.

LINDA looks up, completely wear but still offended.

LINDA is pissed.

DR. SPRING stands up and claps her hands as if the grown-ups in this room were rowdy children. Everyone is immediately quiet. EVA hurries to an empty seat on the other side of the table, far away from LINDA.

All eyes are on DR. SPRING.

All the parents in the room nod, giggle or otherwise acknowledge this statement in recognition. LINDA’s face tightens. EVA is staring at her.

LINDA looks around at the other parents. Everyone is attentive to DR. SPRING’S words. One mother is quietly crying. Some others are taking notes. EVA is texting under the table while pretending to listen. LINDA looks agitated.

Just as DR. SPRING opens her mouth to respond, LINDA snorts. All eyes whip over to her.

MELANIE is crying again.

LINDA stands up.

Melanie starts crying harder. The parents are whispering to each other. There is confusion in the room about what to do. EVA is shaking her head in irritated disbelief.

LINDA walks backwards toward the door.

LINDA walks quickly down the hallway, looking like she needs to get out of this building like her life depends on it. She heads directly to an elevator and pushes the button. She barely waits for it before she opens a door and runs down the stairs.

LINDA sits in her car hyperventilating. She makes a call.

Pause.

PARKING ATTENDANT suddenly knocks on the window. LINDA lowers it.

LINDA throws her phone onto the passenger seat and without acknowledging PARKING ATTENDANT or looking behind her she turns the car on and drives backwards at breakneck speed, clipping the mirror of the car next to her in the process.

PARKING ATTENDANT yells after her something about the police as LINDA peels out of the parking lot, just as a police car is entering.

LINDA is on the couch in a fetal position. There is complete silence in the room for several beats.

Silence.

Silence. LINDA uncurls her body and lies straight on her back, looking at the ceiling.

Silence.

Silence.

LINDA starts crying. It comes on suddenly and intensely. She is sobbing so heavily she can barely breathe. She is hyperventilating. She sits up.

Silence.

Silence.

Silence.

Silence.

LINDA abruptly stops talking. THERAPIST is looking at her, but is still remaining silent.

Silence.

Silence.

LINDA looks like she’s been punched in the face.

LINDA is coming out of THERAPIST’s office. She closes the door very gently and walks down the hallway to her own office.

As she approaches her door we see her patient KATE standing standing by it.

KATE looks annoyed but doesn’t say anything.

LINDA enters her office and closes the door. She sits at her desk and sees a red light on her office phone is blinking. She puts her voicemail on speaker.

LINDA skips the message.

LINDA skips the message.

LINDA skips the message.

LINDA skips the message.

LINDA hangs up the phone. It immediately starts ringing but she ignores it. Her cell phone also begins to ring and buzz. She ignores this too.

LINDA mindlessly moves the mouse around on her desktop and her computer wakes up. Her eyes widen as she clicks on something.

It is an email from CAROLINE! There is one line of text: I AM TRYING NOT TO BE HER.

There is a video attached. LINDA clicks on it.

The image of ANDREA YATES fills the screen. She is sitting in an interrogation room.

LINDA is looking at KATE, appearing to listen and nodding her head. KATE is talking in an animated way. We can’t hear her words, instead we hear the following voiceover:

LINDA is snapped back into the present by KATE’s voice.

LINDA looks at her in the rear view mirror.

The hotel phone buzzes. LINDA, who has been drinking in bed, gets out of bed to answer it.

The phone clicks off. LINDA hangs up the receiver.

LINDA opens her door and carefully checks her pocket for her keycard before closing it. She is holding the baby monitor, which is making it’s usual noise. Just then JAMES pops his head out of his door, clearly having heard her.

LINDA stops and looks at him. She gives him a pathetic little wave.

He emerges from his room and stands balancing on a huge plaster leg cast. LINDA stares down at his leg and the cast.

JAMES hobbles away. She turns and calls to him.

LINDA enters lobby and stops in her tracks as if she has seen a ghost. CAROLINE sits on a couch biting her nails. She sees LINDA and jumps up. LINDA rushes to her and grabs her by the shoulders.

Suddenly, without warning, CAROLINE slaps LINDA clean in the face. LINDA is so taken off guard that she falls backward. CAROLINE runs out of the lobby.

LINDA jumps up and chases her. CAROLINE has a good head start, but LINDA is running very fast and gaining on her. She holds the baby monitor in her hand as she runs. Her fast breath and pounding feet mix with the sound of CHILD’s machine coming through the baby monitor.

LINDA runs after CAROLINE through the pool area of the hotel.

- through the parking lot

- past the little league field and then down a narrow path.

As fast as she runs CAROLINE is running even faster.

The path leads to a railroad track, which CAROLINE dashes across and momentarily disappears.

LINDA crosses the tracks and sees CAROLINE climbing down a small cliff onto the beach. It is dark and no one is around.

CAROLINE briefly stops on the beach and looks up at LINDA, who is having a hard time climbing down the cliff. LINDA drops the baby monitor! We see it break into a million pieces on the rocks.

CAROLINE takes off down the beach.

LINDA makes it onto the beach and starts to run in the same direction but it is too dark to see where she’s gone. The moonlight is not enough. She can’t see CAROLINE anymore. She’s disappeared into blackness.

LINDA stands still, panting, trying to catch her breath.

LINDA is frantically pacing around her bathroom while leaving a message with THERAPIST on the phone.

She hangs up. From the other room we can hear CHILD’s machine beeping loudly.

LINDA is pushing some buttons trying to quell the machine’s beeping but it but it isn’t working. She opens the top of the bag of milky liquid that hangs from the pole on the machine and the liquid sprays up into her face.

LINDA coughs and spits the liquid out and puts the top back on. She pushes more buttons but the beeping seems to get louder and more frantic. She pulls at the tubing attached to the bag on the machine to see if there is a kink in it. She keeps pulling and pulling.

LINDA keeps pulling as she throws the blankets off of sleeping CHILD. We still don’t see her face, but we see LINDA lift her shirt and expose her torso. We see that the tubing goes directly into a hole in CHILD’s abdomen. There are no bandages around it. The hole in her stomach appears to widen and contract with every breath. The hole is black. There is some pooling of excess milky liquid around it, right where the tube enters.

LINDA looks hypnotized as she keeps pulling the tubing out of CHILD’s body. It seems impossibly long. She keeps pulling. CHILD stirs, wriggles around. LINDA keeps pulling. Suddenly, POP! The last of it comes out. The machine’s noises go wild! LINDA runs to the wall and unplugs the machine. All is silent.

The room is completely silent for the first time.

LINDA looks at CHILD, who hasn’t woken up during this but is wriggling around. LINDA is scared, fascinated, triumphant, transfixed...all at once.

Close-up on the hole in CHILD’s abdomen, which is leaking a white, vaporous, smokey liquid. It reminds us of the hole in the ceiling of the apartment: otherworldly, scary and wrong.

Close-up on LINDA's face. Her eyes widen to impossible proportions.

Slow zoom to the hole in CHILD’s stomach as we see LINDA’s hand gently, lovingly wiping the liquid away with a tissue. As the zoom gets right up against the hole we see it slowly tightening and closing in the tiniest of movements.

Cut to LINDA, looking gobsmacked, frightened and elated all at the same time. Slow zoom into her face as a realization begins to dawn on her. We see it in her eyes as we realize it ourselves. If this hole is closing then maybe---

LINDA runs in a mad dash in the familiar route toward her apartment. She looks frightened but determined. She is moving at a superhuman speed.

As LINDA approaches the building she runs past a HULKING BODY in shadow. The HULKING BODY is hauling a giant sack to a waiting truck. She slows down to a walk as she gets closer to the building’s entrance. TWO HULKING BODIES carrying giant sacks exit the building, hunched over, shrouded in complete darkness. A bit of light hits them and it’s revealed that they are completely covered in a white powder.

LINDA halts to a stop and stares at them. Something is registering, but it is unclear what.

The MYSTERIOUS HULKING BODIES pass right by her on their way to the truck and seem to not even see her standing there. LINDA watches as they rather mysteriously and ominously enter into the back of the truck.

She enters the building just as a LARGE MAN comes out of the elevator, completely covered in white powder and carrying two bulging garbage bags. He walks past her as if she is invisible.

LINDA runs down a hallway and is disturbed to see the front door of her apartment is wide open. She stops in her tracks and then enters. The lights are all on. There are white dusty foot prints all over the floors.

There are no noises. She walks further into the apartment. She sticks her head into the kitchen. It’s empty but the lights are on. She is scared as she sticks her head into CHILD’s room. Again, the lights are all on but it is empty.

She very slowly approaches her bedroom door.

Suddenly the bedroom door whips open! LINDA screams.

It is CHARLES (White, 50).

LINDA stands face to face with CHARLES. She smiles weakly.

CHARLES steps aside and LINDA looks into the room. THREE MEXICAN MEN are quietly and efficiently sweeping the floor and painting the ceiling. There is no longer a hole.

LINDA peaks her head further into the room, but can’t see the hole from where she is.

LINDA looks at the men working. None of them will meet her eye. It’s unclear if this is purposeful. LINDA looks up at the ceiling. It is fully repaired and glistening with wet paint.

CHARLES and LINDA in the backseat. Both are silent. CHARLES is gritting his teeth and staring straight ahead.

LINDA wears the weight of everything on her face: everything that has just happened and everything that she knows is facing her at the hotel. She is on a rollercoaster of personal hell that she knows she can’t stop now. She looks at CHARLES. He looks at her.

CHARLES bounds down the hallway toward the hotel room with LINDA rushing after him.

He reaches the room first.

She catches up and squeezes her body between CHARLES and the hotel room door.

LINDA slowly takes a key card out of her pocket and slips it into the door. Her face bares the weight of the entire world.

The door opens and there sits JAMES on CHILD’s bed. He gets up and hobbles on his cast to the door. He is giving LINDA death darts from his eyes. He pushes LINDA and CHARLES away from the door and into the hallway, closing the door behind himself.

JAMES tries to push past CHARLES but CHARLES blocks him.

CHARLES registers what CHILD has said and looks in her direction. His eyes become wide with a mix of emotions, disbelief, and fear.

A momentary, tight close up of the hole of CHILD’S stomach, which almost seems to shrink and close in front of our very eyes.

CHARLES is transfixed, paralyzed. He looks at LINDA, who is looking at him as a scared child might to a parent who is about to enact a punishment. They lock on this look for an intense moment. This look is heavy with history, pain, fear, love, and more meaning than we can even understand. He is snapped out when--

As if someone has splashes ice water on his head, CHARLES is snapped out of the moment and whips his head around to meet JAMES’ glare.

CHARLES instantly punches JAMES square in the face. JAMES and CHARLES fight sloppily for a minute while LINDA stares at the men with complete helplessness.

Amidst the chaos, without warning, LINDA bolts.

She runs through the hallway, down the stairs, through the lobby.

There is a second set of footsteps behind her.

LINDA does not turn around, she does not stop. She runs past the pool. The footsteps behind her continue.

LINDA runs through the field as fast as she can. She keeps running past the field.

She runs along railroad tracks. We can hear the ocean. She keeps running, crossing the tracks. This is the same route that she chased CAROLINE through.

LINDA runs from the tracks to the cliff. She climbs down the cliff and is on the beach.

It is so dark we can only make out her moonlit outline and she runs to the water, slowed down by the sand.

Without stopping, LINDA runs into the water and tries to swim out but waves keep pulling her back to shore. She tries three more times, each time getting thrown farther onto the sand.

Finally she backs up onto the sand, runs at full speed and dives into the water. She is thrown out of the ocean with a supernatural force and lands with a thud on the sand. The universe is not letting her escape.

She is on her back gasping for breath. She starts to breath deeply. Then she switches her breath to the holotropic breathwork breathing pattern.

We can hear LINDA's breathwork breathing pattern loudly in the blackness. She breathes faster and faster, louder and louder as light begins to swirl. The FEMALE FIGURE from the first time we went into the void emerges, seeming to beckon us further and further in. Far away we hear CHILD’s voice.

We hear it again, closer this time. We are moving back out, away from the figure. There is a feeling of sadness that we are leaving her there.

97A Abruptly we are out of the void and tight on LINDA’s face.97A She opens her eyes and gasps for breath.

Close up on LINDA’s ear. CHILD’s lips are right by it, softly singing:

The camera pans out from LINDA’s ear and CHILD’s lips. We see CHILD, all of her, kneeling beside LINDA. LINDA turns and looks at her full in the face. So do we. She truly is a child- version of LINDA. She looks incredibly serious for a child.

CHARLES is in the distance, walking toward them. He’s smiling.