SUDDENDEATH

A novel in development · story bible

SUDDENDEATH

The President's genius daughter, the funniest person in any room, spends 28 years hunting the 22 people who buried her brother's death in one night, while falling in love with the boy next door to all of it. The search ends at her own dinner table, and the last name on the list is her father's.

Storyboard Read the bible

Storyboard

The key frames, in story order. Frames marked Tower are set at the WorldTowers building and will be rendered in Blender.

Act 1 THE MARRIAGE AND THE MACHINE

p01 — The Last Light

p01

The Last Light

"Next summer we come back. Same beach. Rematch."

Scene and shot
Scene
Porto Santa Margherita beach, last evening of August, Year 0. Ari (5) and Declan (16) over a cheap folding chessboard in the sand; chipped black king. Declan's hand rests on his chest pocket, where a gold-edged card sits: his invitation to the Headmaster's Homecoming weekend, sent by his godfather, Conrad Vail, chair of the trustees. Cate under a blue umbrella in the background, Aperol in the sand.
Shot
low wide at sand level, board in the foreground. Sun setting behind them over the land; the sea in front turns shell-pink to lilac. Warm gold, soft grain.
Beat
1, 6 · Art: keep. The gold sliver under his hand, drawn as the old Society envelope, now reads as the Homecoming card. (Working plant, J: the Vails are in the first frame.)
p02 — The Gate

p02

The Gate

The last frame. She will run it ten thousand times.

Scene and shot
Scene
Logan Airport, late August, Year 0. Declan walks backwards toward the gate and salutes Ari with a chess knight from their board, then pockets it. She stands small at the rope line.
Shot
Ari's eye level, long lens; Declan sharp, crowd blurred. Flat airport fluorescent white with one warm window of morning sun on him. Freeze-frame feel: the frame she replays for 28 years, and replays again on her wedding day.
Beat
1 · Art: keep.
p03 — Headmaster's Homecoming

p03

Headmaster's Homecoming

Upstairs, the band plays on. Downstairs, the story is decided before anything else.

Scene and shot
Scene
mid-October, Year 0, after midnight. Split vertically by a wet fence line.
Shot
wide from the river looking up: boathouse low in frame, the lit hall high on the hill above it. The ladder of the image is the theme: the party above never hears what happens below. Black water, cold flashlight white, warm gala gold far off. No identifiable faces.
Beat
backstory for 7, 22, 30 · the night 12:15–1:00 a.m. · Art: redraw (replaces the lantern-and-pledge rite).
p04 — Every Face But Two

p04

Every Face But Two

Guilt has a look. She memorizes every one, except grief she believes and the man who isn't in the room.

Scene and shot
Scene
the funeral, Boston, Year 0. Ari (5) by the casket in a black dress, looking up at the receiving line. Bennett Thorpe cannot meet her eyes. Daisy Fenwick's lips move, counting. Conrad Vail, Declan's godfather, holds Cate's hand in both of his and weeps; real grief, so she files him under family. Far behind, blurred, at the back of the church: Patrick, turned away, phone to his ear, half out the door.
Shot
child's-height close-up on Ari's face, adults cut off at the chest above her. Cold gray church light, muted color. The father is the one figure she isn't looking at.
Beat
7 · Art: redraw (Conrad's hands move from Patrick's sleeve to Cate's hand; Patrick moves out of the line to the back door, on the phone; add Fenwick).
Frame Not drawn yet

p19

The Wedding *(new)*

The one place she isn't working.

Scene and shot
Scene
Year 19, late summer, the dock of the Vail summer house. Ari (24) in her wedding dress and Julian Vail doubled over laughing at something she just said, her face deadpan, his forehead on her shoulder. Behind them under the tent: Conrad on his feet mid-toast, glass raised ("We were always one family. Now it's on paper."); Eleanor dabbing her eyes; Sterling charming a waiter. At the very back of the tent, Patrick on the phone.
Shot
mid-wide from the water, the couple sharp at the end of the dock, the tent glowing soft behind. Golden hour, string lights coming on. The same dock reappears in p22; frame it so the two rhyme.
Beat
1–3 · Art: new.
p05 — The Girl in the Corner

p05

The Girl in the Corner

Cameras slide past her. She reads everyone they miss.

Scene and shot
Scene
Inauguration Day, Year 20. Patrick Halloran takes the oath; Cate beside him in name only. Ari (25) at the edge of the stand, plain and forgettable. Matt Reyes, a former Marine sergeant, at her shoulder, eyes on the crowd. Press cameras all turned the other way.
Shot
over-the-shoulder from behind Reyes; Ari soft at frame edge, the President sharp and far. Cold January daylight, white marble, flags.
Beat
4, 5, 9 · Art: keep.
p06 — The Nineteen Minutes

p06

The Nineteen Minutes

Declan did not slip. Someone waited.

Scene and shot
Scene
night, Year 20. Ari alone in a dark room, her face lit only by a screen. On it, one line from a twenty-year-old message in Lyle Brannock's private archive, sender scrubbed: "Remember the nineteen minutes. Remember who you called." Story level only: what she found, never how.
Shot
tight close-up, three-quarter profile. Pale blue screen light on her face, the rest black. The text reflected backwards in her eyes.
Beat
9 (inciting incident) · Art: keep (the drawn text never named a sender).
Frame Not drawn yet

p20

Christmas Eve *(new)*

The warmest room she has ever been in. Mark it.

Scene and shot
Scene
Year 21, Christmas Eve at the Vails'. Conrad in an armchair with newborn Maeve on his knee; Eleanor at the piano; Sterling refilling glasses; Cate laughing for once. Julian has just made a joke at his own expense and Ari is laughing so hard she has to hold the mantel. Every adult hand in this room is on the boathouse film; the frame is built to be reread after p10.
Shot
wide from the doorway, fire and tree lights, everyone in one warm pool. Hearth amber, deep green, gold. The happiest image in the book.
Beat
13 (the fleeting thing is the happiness) · Art: new.
p07 — The Knight in the Pour

p07

The Knight in the Pour

Every known name is bound in. The guilty chose their own floors.

Scene and shot
Scene
groundbreaking, Year 21, at the WorldTowers waterfront site. The President at the podium. Ari in the second row, Maeve on her hip, Julian's hand on her back; Conrad beside them, pleased, having just taken the top four floors "for my family and my oldest friend." Later, alone at the edge of the foundation pour, she lets a chess knight drop into the wet concrete.
Shot
overhead down into the pour: grey concrete, rebar grid, the small knight sinking. Inset context: the empty site, the river, the three tower footprints staked out. Hard midday light.
Beat
14 (lock-in) · Tower: yes.

Act 2 THE ANSWER

p08 — Two Drawings

p08

Two Drawings

Two exiles, one shape.

Scene and shot
Scene
split frame. Left: Nadia Kerrigan, NSA analyst, Fort Meade, Year 23, sketching the program's errors into a shape like a hand behind a curtain. Right: Callum Rees, clerk to Parliament's Intelligence and Security Committee, London, Year 24, alone late in a basement office with a dead file, circling one name that is missing: Mallory.
Shot
matched mid-shots, same angle, same pose, two continents. Left in fluorescent government green; right in lamp-lit amber with rain on the window.
Beat
16–17 · Art: keep.
Frame Not drawn yet

p21

The Leash *(new)*

He thanks her. The leash tightens, and she never touches it.

Scene and shot
Scene
Year 25, the West Wing, late. The Chief of Staff's office, door half-open, one desk lamp. Lyle Brannock sits behind his desk, gray, unable to lift his eyes from his hands. Ari stands at the door, one hand on the frame, kind and quiet, mid-sentence: "I've never told anyone. I never will." He is thanking her. The tape is never shown and never described; the frame is about his fear and her calm.
Shot
from the corridor through the half-open door: her in soft focus in the foreground, him sharp and small behind the desk, boxed in by the door frame like a cell. Cold institutional white with one warm lamp; flag in the corner of the office.
Beat
8 (off-page backstory), 20 · Art: new. (Off-page and non-explicit, per J.)
p11 — The Daughter

p11

The Daughter

They give the ghost a name as a joke. It isn't one.

Scene and shot
Scene
Year 25, a Washington hotel room. Kerrigan and Rees meet for the first time and lay their two drawings on top of each other on a bed. The shapes match. A hotel notepad with one word in Rees's hand: "DAUGHTER?"
Shot
overhead straight down on the bed and the overlapping papers, four hands at the edges. Neutral hotel white with a hard desk lamp.
Beat
21 · Art: keep.
p10 — Topping Out

p10

Topping Out

That night, the answer to who? will have carved every Thanksgiving turkey of her life.

Scene and shot
Scene
Year 26, autumn. The last beam goes up on the Crown tower, 250 floors, about a kilometer high, a small flag and an evergreen on it. Ironworkers on the steel; Owen Kilbride among them. On the roof deck the Vails pose for photographs: Conrad, Eleanor, Sterling, Julian, Maeve and Dec in hard hats. Ari stands a step apart. In her coat pocket a phone has just lit: Prescott Vane's offline film has been reached. She won't watch it until the kids are asleep. She smiles for the camera.
Shot
extreme wide from below up the full height of the Crown, cranes against the sky, then hold on the family as a small group at the top, Ari slightly apart. Late-afternoon steel-blue sky, orange safety vests.
Beat
22 (midpoint) · Tower: yes.
p09 — Sunday Dinner

p09

Sunday Dinner

She's never been funnier. He's never been more afraid of a joke.

Scene and shot
Scene
Year 26, the Sunday after the film, the Vails' dining room. Conrad stands at the head of the table carving and says grace. Sterling teases Maeve. Eleanor leans toward Ari to ask if she's sleeping enough. Ari has the whole table crying with laughter; it's the best performance of her life. Only Julian, beside her, isn't laughing: he's looking at her, noticing the edge in the jokes.
Shot
wide down the table from the foot, Conrad standing at the far end with the knife. Warm candle orange, deep shadow behind. Ari mid-punchline, the one sharp face; Julian's turned head the second.
Beat
23 · Art: redraw (was the retired Strand Thanksgiving; keep the composition, carving man at the far end, but the room is full and laughing, and Patrick's empty chair goes).
Frame Not drawn yet

p22

The Dock *(new)*

He chose her.

Scene and shot
Scene
Year 27, late summer, after midnight, the Vail summer house. The house behind is lit in every window and utterly still. Julian sits at the end of the same dock as p19, in the dark, shoulders down, the chess knight she gave him years ago in his closed fist. Ari has just come down the lawn and stopped at the top of the dock. No bodies, no weapon, no blood: the horror is the quiet house.
Shot
from behind Ari at the top of the dock, long lens, her silhouette in the foreground, Julian small at the far end; the lit, silent house reflected in the black water between them. Moonlight blue, the windows a sick yellow. Rhymes with p19 exactly: same dock, same angle reversed.
Beat
29 (aftermath only, per J) · Art: new.
Frame Not drawn yet

p23

Before Sunrise *(new)*

By sunrise there is a story. She learned how from them.

Scene and shot
Scene
Year 27, just before dawn. Fog on the point. The Vails' boat is gone from its mooring. Ari walks back up from the water alone, dry, composed, checking her watch. At the corner of the house, on post, Matt Reyes watches her come. He doesn't move and doesn't ask. Story level only: what she decided, never how.
Shot
wide, low, from the edge of the lawn: Ari coming up out of the fog toward camera, Reyes a dark vertical at frame right. Fog gray, first blue light, one porch lamp still burning. Rhymes with p03: an adult walking away from the water with a story ready.
Beat
30 · Art: new. (Open, J: where Reyes was that night. Default as drawn.)
p12 — The Truman Balcony

p12

The Truman Balcony

She lies to the one person she never lies to.

Scene and shot
Scene
3 a.m., the White House, Year 27, after the triple funeral. The net is closing. Ari alone at the balustrade; Matt Reyes in the doorway behind her, asking for the first time: "Are you in trouble?"
Shot
over Reyes's shoulder from inside, Ari in silhouette against the floodlit Washington Monument. Deep night navy, one warm light from the room behind.
Beat
31 (dark moment) · Art: keep.

Act 3 THE LAST FILE

p13 — Opening Day

p13

Opening Day

Every living name under one roof for the first time since the boathouse.

Scene and shot
Scene
Year 28, spring. The three towers on the water: Harbor (75), Meridian (150), Crown (250). Security boats in the harbor, motorcade on the causeway, broadcast trucks, crowds. A national special security event.
Shot
aerial wide, early morning, low sun raking across the glass curtain walls. Three floors near the Crown's crown are dark. Silver and pale gold, water mirror-flat.
Beat
36 · Tower: yes.
p14 — Floor 246

p14

Floor 246

Every floor below him has a note too. So do the three dark ones above.

Scene and shot
Scene
Baron Mallory's penthouse, Crown floor 246, the highest occupied guest floor. A chess knight on a side table by the floor-to-ceiling window. A folded note under it: "No. 11. You held his arms." Mallory, back to camera, looking straight down a kilometer. Through the ceiling glass of the atrium above, three dark floors (247–249).
Shot
over-the-shoulder past the knight to the window, the city tiny below. Cold white morning, the knight in sharp focus, Mallory soft.
Beat
37 · Tower: yes. (Was Floor 250 / Sterling; Sterling is dead and 250 is the President's.)
p15 — The Glass Ring

p15

The Glass Ring

He had it. Now everyone does.

Scene and shot
Scene
sky lobby, Crown floor 228, 11:20. The two-story glass ring becomes one continuous screen showing Vane's film: the boathouse, black water, the dock, the phone call instead of 911, then the Vails' car arriving in the dark, every face named with the name it wears today. Under it: "NINETEEN MINUTES BEFORE ANYONE CALLED FOR HELP." In the room: Mallory gripping the rail, Brannock stabbing a dead phone, Vane watching his insurance air on his own network, Kilbride with his hat in his hands, Rowan's palm flat on the glass. Three reserved chairs, empty, with the Vail name cards.
Shot
wide 360-degree ring view from the center, the guests in silhouette against the screen glow. Dark room, the film's flicker on every face.
Beat
38 · Tower: yes.
p24 — One Forty-One *(new)*

p24

One Forty-One *(new)*

The last file. The 22nd name.

Scene and shot
Scene
Year 28, Crown lobby, the ribbon. The scissors have just closed; the ribbon is falling; flashbulbs. Ari has stepped in to kiss her father's cheek for the photograph and is speaking into his ear under the applause: "One forty-one, Dad." His smile holds. His eyes don't. For the first time in her life she is reading his face, and it's all there.
Shot
tight two-shot, his face toward camera over her shoulder, the falling ribbon and the press wall soft behind. Steel and glass silver, flash white. The one face she never had time to read, finally read.
Beat
41 · Tower: yes. (Open, J: expose / spare / leave him knowing she knows. Drawn as the default: leave him knowing. The expose version cuts to the call text on every screen; the spare version has her walk away without speaking.)
p16 — The Stair

p16

The Stair

"One. Two. Three." She does not stop counting.

Scene and shot
Scene
the north stair of the Crown, minutes later. Reyes steers Ari down, his body between her and the chaos, scanning for threats. He does not see the one beside him. She is calm, counting steps.
Shot
overhead down the square stairwell spiral, two small figures descending, floors falling away into the dark. Emergency-light red and concrete grey.
Beat
42 · Tower: yes.
p17 — Two Passes and a Knight

p17

Two Passes and a Knight

They know. They will never prove it. Neither wants to.

Scene and shot
Scene
the press center, top floor of the Harbor tower. Empty chairs, dead monitors replaying the film. Kerrigan and Rees at a table: two press passes and a chess knight. The Crown fills the window behind them. Every gap in their drawings is closed.
Shot
close on the table, the two hunters' faces soft above it, the Crown sharp through the glass. Late-afternoon gold coming in low over the water.
Beat
43 · Tower: yes.
p18 — Rematch

p18

Rematch

Same beach. Rematch. She is never caught.

Scene and shot
Scene
weeks later, Porto Santa Margherita, the Adriatic by Caorle. A café table on the waterfront. A woman with a new name sets up a chessboard with two places, one empty. Behind her on the sand, Maeve and Dec are building something. The empty chair is Declan's.
Shot
wide, the same low angle and sunset as p01, the frame rhymed exactly. Lagoon light, warm gold returning, lights coming on along the breakwater.
Blender notes and open questions

Notes for the Blender pass (tower = yes)

  • p07: construction-site state of the WorldTowers model (foundation slab, rebar, staked footprints).
  • p10: Crown with steel topped out and cladding incomplete; cranes; a small group on the roof deck.
  • p13: finished three-tower skyline from the air; floors 247–249 dark.
  • p14, p15: interiors on the Crown's upper floors (246 penthouse with the dark floors above; 228 sky lobby glass ring).
  • p24: Crown ground-floor lobby, ribbon line, press wall.
  • p16: Crown north stair core.
  • p17: Harbor top floor, looking across to the Crown.

Open for J (affects these frames)

  • p01: the Homecoming card as a first-frame plant for the Vails (working).
  • p23: where Reyes was the night of the killings (drawn: on post, sees her, asks nothing).
  • p24: expose, spare, or leave him knowing (drawn: leave him knowing).
  • p18: alone, with the children, or with Julian and the children (drawn: with the children).
  • p15: what the reveal does to the 18 (drawn as exposure).
  • Names (working): Julian Vail, Maeve, Dec, the Academy, "Headmaster's Homecoming".
  • The tower's city: unnamed; frames avoid identifiable real skylines.

Retired in rev. B

  • p09 Thanksgiving at the Strands' (the stepbrother twist carries no beat) → Sunday dinner at the Vails'.
  • p14 Floor 250 / Sterling Ashcombe → Floor 246 / Mallory (Sterling is now Sterling Vail, dead in Year 27).
  • p04 Conrad holding Patrick's hand in the receiving line → Patrick was never in the room.

The Bible

Contents · 24 files

Bible 23_soundtrack.md edited Tue 3 Nov 2026, 2:19 pm

Soundtrack — cue sheet (draft, 2026-10-31)

Shape: a summer blockbuster on the surface, a secret underneath. Big orchestra for the machine and the Tower, intimate piano for her, and one Italian summer melody that keeps coming back damaged until the very end.

The themes

  • Her theme ("Ariadne"): solo piano over a ticking chess clock. Light and playful when she's funny, ice-cold when she isn't. Each time she seals a crack, it returns one note shorter.
  • The summer motif ("Porto Santa Margherita"): 1960s Italian warmth: mandolin, strings, a soft voice humming. Every replay of the memory brings it back, a little more distorted (tape warble, a missing bar, a wrong chord).
  • The machine ("SUDDENDEATH"): pulsing synths, low brass, data-like rhythm. Reznor & Ross territory.
  • The 22: a choir chord that adds one voice each time a name is opened; on opening day nineteen voices and three silent rests, for the dead Vails.
  • The father: a warm, presidential brass hymn that curdles in Act 3.

Cue by cue

CueSceneMusic
1M1Opening: sunset on the beach at Porto Santa Margherita, chess with DeclanThe summer motif, full and clean, the only time it's whole until the end
1M2The airport goodbyeSummer motif slows; her piano enters underneath
1M3Headmaster's Homecoming: the galaPeriod string quartet, elegant and cold
1M4The hidden party in the off-limits buildingBass and kick from the party bleed through the quartet
1M5He diesHard cut to silence. Only room tone.
1M6The overnight cover-upLow drones, clocks ticking; no melody, because no one's feeling anything
1M7The call to Boston, five years old on the stairsHer piano, one note at a time; the chess clock starts
1M8IQ test, "220", she hides 475Her theme, playful, wicked
1M9The Swiss school and the royal tormentorBaroque harpsichord turned sinister
1M10MIT nights, the first hidden doorsThe machine theme is born: synth pulse under her piano
2M1The Chief of Staff, the silent videoMuted strings, a held breath; no resolution
2M2SUDDENDEATH goes liveFull machine theme: brass, synths, percussion. The blockbuster moment.
2M3Each of the 22 openedOne more choir voice per name
2M4Falling in loveA new, warm melody, the first in her life that isn't hers alone
2M5The years, the childrenThe love melody grows; the summer motif appears inside it, healed for a moment
2M6The search lands on his familyThe love melody and the 22 choir collide
2M7The killingsSilence again, as at 1M5. The mirror.
2M8Her overnight cover-upThe 1M6 drones return, now under her piano. She's become what she hunted.
3M1The Tower rises, topping outHeroic orchestral build, ironworkers' rhythm
3M2Opening dayFull orchestra + choir, nineteen voices and three silent rests: the crescendo
3M3The last file is her father's (at the ribbon)Everything drops away to her piano and the chess clock. Then the clock stops.
3M4Every screen and the façade show the night (the film, the nineteen-minute clock)The summer motif, completely broken, over the crowd's silence
3M5The escapeHer theme speeds up, playful again: she's having fun
3M6Final shotThe summer motif one last time, finally clean: the beach, the chess, Declan

Reference composers (for the mood board, not to copy)

  • Hans Zimmer (Inception, Interstellar): the machine, the Tower
  • Trent Reznor & Atticus Ross (The Social Network, Gone Girl): surveillance, coldness
  • Ludwig Göransson (Oppenheimer): the father
  • Ennio Morricone / 1960s Italian cinema: the summer
  • Max Richter, Jóhann Jóhannsson: grief, the replay
  • Hildur Guðnadóttir (Joker, Chernobyl): dread

Playlist track list (reference, in story order)

  1. Gino Paoli — Sapore di sale (1M1, the summer)
  2. Mina — Il cielo in una stanza (1M1–1M2, the summer)
  3. Max Richter — On the Nature of Daylight (1M2, the goodbye / the replay)
  4. Max Richter — Vivaldi Recomposed: Spring 1 (1M3, the gala)
  5. Hildur Guðnadóttir — Bathroom Dance (1M5–1M6, after)
  6. Trent Reznor & Atticus Ross — Technically, Missing (1M6, the cover-up)
  7. Trent Reznor & Atticus Ross — Hand Covers Bruise (1M7, her piano)
  8. Trent Reznor & Atticus Ross — In Motion (1M10, the machine is born)
  9. Jóhann Jóhannsson — Flight from the City (the replay, grief)
  10. Ludovico Einaudi — Experience (2M4–2M5, the love)
  11. Hans Zimmer — Dream Is Collapsing (2M2, SUDDENDEATH goes live)
  12. Hans Zimmer — No Time for Caution (3M1–3M2, topping out, opening day)
  13. Ludwig Göransson — Can You Hear The Music (the father)
  14. Hans Zimmer — Time (3M3, the last file)
  15. Ennio Morricone — Gabriel's Oboe (3M5, the escape)
  16. Ennio Morricone — Cinema Paradiso: Love Theme (3M6, the summer, finally clean)