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Chapter 8 - The Final Draft

"Writer's Block..." I thought to myself. To be honest, I can't help it but think of Writer holding a huge chuck on grass with his bare hands... So I went ahead and rushed my way to the books that had been given to me by that old guy.

"Oh, this looks like an interesting read." I told myself as I scoured through the pages. It didn't take me long before I melted, my nose bleeding in exhaustion.

"Aueuueugh~ Dawhrn ich, i'm tcho tchired tcho reaadd."

RULE 1: TAKE A BREAK!

So I made my way outside, looking at the corridors for something... I remembered feeling my stomach grumbling as I walked by.

"Ugh, come on, not now! I gotta finish my screenplay!"

I walked into the vicinity of the conference room. Hearing noise, I knew I had to be all ears. The people can't seem to think of anything but a substandard plot. I touched the window with my bare face and heard them clearly.

"We can't just make Stev beat the Final Dragon, that'd be too predictable for the fans!"

"Well how about the Wither Storm?"

"We're not licensed to use that, Curacao."

"Then the heck are we supposed to with this goddamn movie, then?"

He threw all the papers flying.

"Screw your plot points, negotiations have broken down!"

"You can't say that, we're already funded!"

"Oh shoot, yeah, right. Well we gotta have to figure this out."

The situation's getting interesting; I JUST had to butt in.

"...Did your client even give you guys a framework to follow?" I asked them.

RULE 2: FOCUS ON SOMETHING ELSE!

"Well, for starters, no..." Their head with the bald head replied.

"Then why did you guys accept it?"

"We didn't accept it or anything, our parent company forced us to and left us all alone to figure this out."

"Oh."

From the window, I started screaming from the top of my lungs. I breathed in and said these words...

"SCREW YOUR PARENT COMPANY!"

And for some apparent reason, they followed suit. I laughed it out; I hope they don't get fired, though.

RULE 3: ENJOY THE LITTLE THINGS IN LIFE!

So it goes, I made my way to the studio's cafeteria and saw a few hundred posters, all giving prompts of sorts.

"Create a haiku based on your lunchtime meal..." I read one of the posters.

"I had pickles for lunch today at 12 PM, and speaking of lunch, that was eight hours ago..."

"Wait, why the heck are the people from the conference still working?" I asked myself. "And in any case, why am I still writing beyond work hours?"

"Oh, right. Deadlines..."

RULE 4: DON'T OVERWORK YOURSELF!

I remembered The Director walking up the stairs from the studio's basement.

"Oh, it's you. How's the script going?" She asked me.

"My head is like a hydraulic press. It's squished, and therefore out of ideas."

RULE 5: WRITE SOMETHING IN YOUR MIND!

"...You missed out on dinner. Your dinner box is ready at the Oval Office, if your hungry."

Damn, of course, I am. But then I saw how soggy the food has become. Baby corn, Carrots Broccoli, and rice on the side.

"I got used to seeing these vegetables with faces..." I told naGran and Pickle with this tiresome face of mine.

RULE 6: EAT SOMETHING APPETIZING! (IN THIS CASE, DO NOT FOLLOW IGGY)

Chewing...

"...Writer's Block, huh?" Old man naGran asked me.

"H~ How did you know?" I told him, my mouth stuffed with food.

"For starters, you've been there in the room for a couple of hours without any breaks. Secondly, your mind is squished into mush and now you have a tiresome face."

"...Father, rhyming breaks with face doesn't really work." Pickle told him, though I was confused why he called naGran 'Father'...

"That wasn't a poem, kid." He replied, then he went and looked back at me. "Well, I had one a few hundred times already... and you know what a common solution is to that?"

"What is it?" I asked him curiously.

"Work on something else."

RULE 7: WORK ON OTHER PROJECTS!

"H~ how can I work on other things when you have a strict deadline of 12 hours?" I uttered another question.

He makes me sit down on his seat. I didn't notice it beforehand, but on the table was a digital typewriter; something I had never even seen before.

"I digitized your work now. No need for white-outs, things are made easier for you." naGran told me. "As you can see, the lights in this typewriter have turned blue. That is the standard color when working on a second draft in screenwriting."

"I want you to add a scene where Hop loses all of his children. Can you do that for me?"

I was supposed to object so I could focus on the 12-hour script deadline, but I can't help but think of the possibilities with how I can expand my rabbit script...

But I kinda followed through, anyway...

 ---

INT. LE'COSMOS ANIMAL TESTING LABORATORY - DAY

HOP in one of the cages. Her wife, LEAP, is with seven of her children in a steel cage. LAB TESTERS come close to Leap's rabbit cage.

LAB TESTER 1

...Are these the rabbits?

LAB TESTER 2

Yes, sir.

Dilated eyes from Hop. The first lab tester opens up Leap's cage, taking Leap out of cage and into the first lab tester's arms. He takes the children along with him.

HOP

LEAP! NO!

Hop mindlessly ravages his cage. Leap TRYING DESPERATELY to break free from the first lab tester's hold.

LEAP

NOT MY CHILDREN! YOU PROMISED, LENO! YOU PROMISED!

HOP

LEAP!!! LEEAAP!!!

LATER...

Pus in Leap's eyes. She is in a weakened state; stitches in her everywhere. Her paws are red and inflamed.

Two coughs from Leap.

LEAP

Hop... Our kids...

Hop preparing for the worst.

LEAP

They're... dead!

HOP

SHIT!

He smashes the cage, wounding his paws.

LEAP

They MERCILESSLY injected chemicals to our kids, Hop!

Hop screams in anger.

---

With the push of a button, the typewriter prints what I had created thus far. Old Man naGran and Pickle look at the revision, and I waited nervously for the result.

"Hmm... A four." naGran says.

"SHEESH, YOU DON'T HAVE TO BE THAT HARSH!" Pickle replied with full force, which made me jump off the seat.

"The transition from Scene 11 to Scene 12 is a dogshow. It breaks the story's suspense by a big shot."

"I was thinking of adding a quick cut to the final result of the experiment~"

"Then go add a quick cut transition."

"Shoot, How could I have forgotten about that..."

Holding the revised draft, Pickle butts in.

"Oh, and technical remarks; Scene 12 is a new scene in there; you can't just insert numbers in between scenes. That should be Scene 11A right... here."

"Ooh, that's new..." I told Pickle.

"Oh, God, he doesn't know about that... 1KX is so screwed." A facepalming naGran told everyone in the office; To be honest, that kinda made me a downer...

"Just because he's learning things he should've learned doesn't make his creativity any less capable, Old Man naGran." The Director rushed to my defense. "Besides, the emotion is there. I'd give it a 6." She added to her remarks.

"Six seems solid!" Pickle adds to the conversation.

Those sixes added to the frail smile on my face...

"I think I'm ready to write your prompt again, naGran."

"I'm looking forward to seeing the final draft, brat."

I bumped my own fist.

After hours... I heard the ring of my old trusty typewriter again. I can barely recall things from the tired mind but I knew in my heart that it was smooth sailing from there.

I kept typing... and typing... and t y p i n g . . .

...

The ball point pen falls from Iggy's desk.

RULE 8: SLEEP!

It's 8 AM. His 10-page draft is filled with colorful pages. Iggy is snoring like he's in the confines of his own home.

Pickle and The Director open the door to his room. Looking at each other, they snatched his final draft and bind it to a cover.

From the Oval Office... naGran reads his script in silence. His eyes dilate in denial.

"This is a strong premise..." He says.

He scours through the pages even further. Pickle is shaking...

"Nervous?" The Director asks.

"Yeah... This could determine whether Iggy can join me or not..."

"He's joining you either way~ I'm just letting him doing this for the hell of it."

Pickle's invisible mouth opens in shock.

"Then what's the point?" Pickle calmly, yet angrily replies.

"The point is to see whether that friend of yours is going to be a useful asset, or an emotional side support character. If he gets that eight, he'd be valuable as hell, no doubt."

Pickle looks back at naGran...

naGran continues reading...

Heartbeat's steadfast.

Impaled.

What was written pierces through Old Man naGran's heart. His heart shaking, a rollercoaster of emotions.

"This is..."

He drops the script to the ground and looks at Pickle and The Director.

"A Nine."