INT. VANCOUVER LOFT – TWILIGHT
The skylight glows violet as the sun dips. Nelly Furtado is sitting cross-legged on a velvet couch, strumming a quiet melody on an acoustic guitar. HAYLA leans against the kitchen island, sipping mint tea, her eyes sharp and curious.
JOSEPH CHRISTIAN JUKIC (JCJ) stands by the window, looking out toward the harbor, hands clasped behind his back like a general carrying ancient grief.
JCJ
(soft, reflective)
Of course Tom Cruise was an old neighbor. Before all the madness. Before the handlers and the watchful eyes. We were just kids with bicycles, racing down the street like the world was small enough to hold in our pockets.
HAYLA
(smiling)
You’re telling me Tom Cruise used to chase you down the block?
JCJ
Not chase. Compete. Even then he needed to win. But he was good. Honest good. A soul still untouched by the machinery that was waiting for him.
Nelly pauses her guitar. She knows this tone—JCJ slipping into a kind of cosmic sadness, the kind he usually hides under jokes and bravado.
NELLY
What happened to him, Joe?
JCJ exhales, long and heavy, like releasing decades of dust.
JCJ
A nefarious cult happened. They wrapped him in doctrine and destiny. They said they’d unlock his potential, but all they unlocked was a cage. He didn’t walk into it—
(beat)
—he was carried.
HAYLA steps closer, her voice a whisper.
HAYLA
You think he’s still in there? The kid on the bike?
JCJ
Yeah. I do. Souls don’t vanish. They get buried. But buried isn’t gone.
Nelly rests her guitar against her knee.
NELLY
Joe… do you want to save him?
JCJ turns, eyes burning with a mix of loyalty and the weight of a thousand battles he never asked for.
JCJ
I don’t want to save him.
(softens)
I just want my friend back.
The room falls still, the purple light deepening as though the universe itself leans closer, listening.