Unconditional

UNCONDITIONAL – One Page Synopsis.

ACT ONE.

Hannah’s only friend in the world is her big orange cat, Bert. Her abusive mother, Sharon, has taken a job out of state – we open on them driving up to the new house for the first time, as Sharon bitches to the moving company on the phone.

The house is haunted. Sharon is oblivious, as nothing happens around her. Hannah sees some things, some blood in the snow under her window, Bert hissing and running from that room, a shadow – but Sharon doesn’t want to hear about it. Then one morning, Sharon discovers Bert’s frozen-solid body.

ACT TWO.

Waking up Hannah and having a difficult conversation about pet mortality doesn’t sound fun, so Sharon goes to work. Hannah spends the day looking for Bert, even struggling through her social anxiety to take posters around to the neighbors – all alone.

The haunting shifts. What seemed to be directed at Hannah is now very clearly directed at Sharon – a little boy appears, attempting to give her a toy, to bond with her. She rejects him, of course, and calls around for a psychic.

That night Hannah manages to piss Sharon off, so she produces Bert’s mysteriously still-frozen body. Here’s your cat. Hannah sees the boy for the first time, and he pities her.

The boy reappears as a cat (taking the form of what haunted him in life – his own abusive mother always choosing her many cats over him, to the point of kicking him out when he accidentally hurt one). Knowing how much it will hurt Hannah, Sharon makes a big show of adopting the cat and loving on him.

The cat soon understands that Sharon is only pretending to accept him. The next morning, there’s no cat, but Sharon wakes up covered in ectoplasm, having small hallucinations. The psychics show up (a two-sister team). They’re alarmed at the sheer amount of power at play here, and by Sharon’s behavior. They show concern for Hannah, so Sharon fires them.

ACT THREE.

The hallucinations ramp up. The ghost makes her see Hannah instead of himself, and tricks her into thinking that Hannah mouthed off until she hits “Hannah” – and then he convinces her that she has just accidentally KILLED Hannah.

Real Hannah watches, and understands that upon thinking that she has killed Hannah, Sharon’s response is to just go about covering it up, irritated as though someone spilled a soup and made a mess. But she still keeps trying to get her mother’s attention, to warn her that the ghost has control of her.

The ghost wounds Hannah. She’s going to bleed out if she stays here and tries to fight this, to help Sharon.

Hannah chooses herself. She escapes the house and the situation, calling upon the psychics for help. Sharon meets a brand new little boy ghost, who knows her criminal secret, and who is happy to break her legs when she tries to escape. Hannah will be okay, eventually. Sharon will be in the prison that she created.