FADE IN:

INT. SU'S APARTMENT — BEDROOM — MORNING

Black. Then — a phone screen blazing 6:00 AM in the dark. A hand reaches, silences it. Not groggy. Practiced. Like he's done this ten thousand times and resented each one equally.

SU (36, lean, the kind of stillness that reads as either discipline or exhaustion) sits up. No stretch. No yawn. Feet on the floor like a man reporting for duty at a job he never applied for.

He reaches past the phone — doesn't check it — and picks up a glass of water from the nightstand. Drinks. Slow. Deliberate. As if this is the one thing today he'll do entirely on his own terms.

INT. SU'S APARTMENT — BATHROOM — CONTINUOUS

The shower handle turns. All the way cold. February in Gurugram and the man takes ice water like it's a ritual, which it is. Five years of this. His jaw tightens. His breath catches for half a second. Then nothing. He stands under it. Eyes open.

INT. SU'S APARTMENT — HALLWAY — MOMENTS LATER

Dressed. Hair still damp. He walks down the narrow hallway. A mirror hangs on the left wall — the kind you pass every day and eventually stop seeing.

Su passes it. Doesn't look. Doesn't slow down. The camera holds on the mirror for a beat after he's gone. His reflection was there and he refused it.

Front door. Keys. Out.

INT. OFFICE — CO-WORKING SPACE — DAY

The office hums with the specific frequency of people performing productivity. Fluorescent panels. Standing desks nobody stands at. A whiteboard with last month's goals still unchecked.

Su at his desk. Three monitors. Slack pinging. A Zoom call loads — his face fills one of the boxes on screen. The smile arrives. Warm, competent, just self-deprecating enough to be charming. He talks about timelines, deliverables, "circle back on that." His hands gesture with the easy confidence of someone who could sell you your own furniture.

The camera catches his eyes. Dead. The smile stays perfect. The eyes are somewhere else entirely. He's terrifyingly good at something he doesn't love.

INT. OFFICE — EVENING

7:00 PM. The office empties like a theatre after a mediocre show. Colleagues pack bags, say their goodbyes — "see you tomorrow, bro" — and the door swings shut behind the last one.

Silence. The fluorescents buzz. Su sits at his desk. Doesn't move. Doesn't reach for his phone. Doesn't do anything. A full beat of absolute nothing.

Then he picks up his bag. Walks — not to the exit. Down the hall. Toward the podcast studio at the back of the office.

CUT TO:

INT. PODCAST STUDIO — NIGHT

Small room. Soundproofing panels. A camera on a tripod — not professional, not amateur. The kind of setup that says "I've been thinking about this for longer than I'll admit."

Su sits in front of it. Adjusts the mic. The red recording light blinks on.

CUT TO:

INT. SU'S APARTMENT — LIVING ROOM — LATE NIGHT

11:00 PM. The apartment glows with the blue wash of a massive screen. Su on the couch, legs folded under him. A glass of scotch on the side table — barely a finger's worth. The man's a miser with his vices.

On screen: a film. We don't see which one. We see Su watching it. Not casually. Devotionally. The way some people watch sunsets or sleeping children — like the thing in front of him contains a secret he's been trying to crack his whole life.

Credits roll. He doesn't move. Sits in the feeling. Then — the useless smile. Not happy, not sad. The smile of a man who knows exactly what he wants to do and has no idea how to start doing it.

His eyes close. He falls asleep on the couch. The screen goes to its home menu. The blue light stays.

CUT TO:

INT. SU'S APARTMENT — BEDROOM — MORNING

6:00 AM. The same phone. The same hand. The same silence.

Water. Cold shower. Hallway. Mirror — doesn't look. Keys. Door. Gone.

The loop. Sealed tight. Nothing entered. Nothing escaped.

END OF CHAPTER ONE

INT. SU'S APARTMENT — DESK — SATURDAY MORNING

Weekend light. Softer than weekdays, or maybe it just feels that way because nobody's paying for his time.

Su at his laptop. Screen open. A blank document. The title bar reads: UNTITLED SCREENPLAY. The cursor blinks after the colon in "FADE IN:"

He types a line. Reads it. His face does something subtle — not a wince, more like a quiet internal conviction that the words are wrong. He selects all. Deletes.

Types another line. Faster this time, like speed might outrun the editor living in his skull. Reads it. Worse. Deletes.

Types "FADE IN:" again. Stares at it. Thirty seconds. The cursor blinks. And blinks. And blinks.

He closes the laptop. Not gently — slams it. Gets up. Paces the apartment. Opens a kitchen drawer, stares into the chaos of it, closes it. Fills a pot. Makes chai. The ritual of making chai when you can't make anything else.

Sits back down. Opens the laptop. "FADE IN:" still there. The cursor still blinking. Patient. Infinite. Mocking.

He closes it. Slowly this time. Pushes it away. Leans back. Stares at the ceiling.

The ceiling doesn't blink.

INT. OFFICE — CONFERENCE TABLE — WEEKDAY

Su and MEERA (32, co-founder, the kind of organized that makes you feel guilty about your own desk) sit across from each other. Laptops open. Timelines on screen. Client logos. Deliverables color-coded by urgency.

She's mid-sentence about a campaign deadline when she pauses. Tilts her head.

MEERA

So how's the film thing going?

She says it the way people ask about your new diet — genuine curiosity wrapped in the suspicion that it won't last.

Su's mouth opens. Closes. He watches her eyes. They're trying. They're really trying. But somewhere behind the effort, a glaze — not disrespect, different wiring. She lives in deadlines and deliverables. He lives in a place she can't visit.

He sees it. She doesn't know he sees it.

SU

It's going. So, this client deadline—

The dream goes back in the drawer. The drawer doesn't even creak anymore.

INT. PODCAST STUDIO — NIGHT

INT. SU'S APARTMENT — LIVING ROOM — LATE NIGHT

Headphones on. Su at his desk, laptop open. He's listening to his own recording from the studio. His voice plays back — tinny through the speakers, but the words land differently when you're not the one saying them.

He hears a line. His finger hovers over the trackpad. Rewinds. Listens again. His expression changes — not recognition, more like surprise. Like finding a good sentence in someone else's book and then remembering you wrote it.

He reaches for a Post-it pad. Yellow. Writes the line. Stands up. Walks to the bare wall next to his desk — nothing on it, just paint and a single nail hole from a picture that used to hang there.

Sticks the Post-it on the wall. One yellow square on a field of white.

He steps back. Stares at it. One note. One line. The first physical evidence that the film exists outside his head.

He stands there longer than he should.

END OF CHAPTER TWO