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Mid-day. We open on a shot of a girl sitting in the centre of a very messy room. There are piles of toys and junk everywhere; clothes are haphazardly strewn about. The girl has cleared out a circle and is playing with two dinosaur dolls. The sun shines through the window and casts a shadow on her pale blonde hair as she chatters away, gesturing each doll in turn. All is well until heavy footsteps are heard ascending the stairs. The girl stops playing and looks at her door as it is opened, her mother trying (and failing) to step into the extremely messy room. She tells the girl that she has to clean her room today and the girl agrees. The mother shuts the door and the girl listens attentively, head cocked in the direction of the retreating parent, until the sound of footsteps has faded away. The girl then gets up and looks around her room, eyebrows furrowed as she silently counts each pile of junk in her room. Then, with a shrug, she makes her way to the window, opens it, and slides out.
As she runs away from the house, a mischievous smile on her lips, we pull back to see a wide expanse of forest, stark against a bright watercolour landscape. The trees are dark and threatening but the girl doesn’t hesitate, plunging right in.
We hear a running stream as the girl walks through the forest, smiling and closing her eyes as the wind ruffles through her hair. A rabbit runs by and startles her, but she shakes it off quickly and keeps going. Suddenly, we hear the voice of a young boy wafting on the wind: “Hello?” The girl blinks and looks around. The voice continues: “Is anybody there?”
The girl follows the voice, responding hesitantly. The voice leads her to a clearing, with a slight hill in the centre. On the hill is an ordinary wishing well. It’s a bit old, with a deep brownish-red top and crumbling brick exterior. A worn bucket on a rope with a handle hangs above the mouth of the well. The grass in the clearing is lush and green, but wherever it touches the well, it is dead and prickly. The girl doesn’t notice; she follows the sound of the voice to the well and peers in. All she sees is blackness, but the voice keeps speaking.
They talk the whole day, about parents and dinosaurs and all matter of different things. As the sun sets, the girl says that she has to leave. The boy wistfully asks her to say and she says she’d like to, but she really has to go home before her parents start to worry. She sneaks back into her window and climbs into bed.
A time-lapse or something showing the next week and her visits to the well coupled with not cleaning her room! The boy keeps telling her to come live with him away from nagging parents! She keeps refusing but hesitates more and more each time before saying no!
Nighttime. The girl is startled as her mother opens her door loudly. She tells the girl that she has been telling her to clean her room all week and she hasn’t done it. She works herself up into a motherly rage: nothing too mean or excessive, but clear exasperation. After she leaves, the girl slams the door behind her and climbs out her window, running to the well. She starts venting to the boy about parents and how mean they are and all the restrictions they put on her. He soothes her, saying that his parents were mean too and that’s why he ran away. He says that life really is perfect down in the well and she really should join him. She hesitates. Finally, she agrees. She turns the lever to lower the bucket until the rope is taut, then grabs onto it and begins to lower herself down. As she descends into blackness, the rope snaps. She screams as she falls.
We hear a sickening thud. As the full moon rises over the well, the girl is revealed at the bottom, clutching her ankle. She groans in pain, eyes clenching shut. The boy’s voice is heard again, reverberating through the well. He mentions that the girl is finally here and he’s so happy to meet her in person. As she opens her eyes and looks towards the voice, the moon rises higher, making the shadows fade from the spot where she’s looking. We look at her eyes as the shadows disappear and they widen in horror. The last shot of the film is the boy’s decaying skeleton: leg broken, jaw askew, cobwebs strung between bones and mossy wall.
For the middle, you could do one part where she brings him a cupcake, muffin, or another similar adorable baked good and drop it down the well for him. Then she can see it uneaten when she falls inside.
ReplyDeleteAnother day you could have her sitting near the well, drawing a crayon picture of herself and the boy (Or, more accurately, what she thinks the boy looks like). They could be holding hands near the well, or riding a dinosaur together, or something.