A dark and grungy downtown alley slowly fills with the crunching sound of heels as JAMIE (30’s, tearfully smeared makeup and hair, a white dress on) tears down the alley, staring down at her phone, trailed by HANNAH (30’s, beautiful, athletic).

Jamie! Slow down.

Jamie aggressively taps on her phone, holds it to her ear. It goes to a man’s voicemail.

It’s Todd, you know what to do. BEEP.

Pick up. Just-- pick up! You fucking coward! Did I mean NOTHING to you? After I gave you everything?

She starts sobbing into the phone. Hannah grabs it from her and hangs up in one motion.

Jamie. Honey. You need to slow down.

No. I--

She claws at the phone in Hannah’s hands.

Yes. Can you just breathe for a second? I know this feels like the end, but it’s not. Let’s just go get something sweet. Fresh cookies!

It’s not fair. Why does this always happen to me? Why am I so fucking unloveable?

Jamie, that’s not true and you know it. This isn’t about Todd. You just hate being alone. You’re this way every time you two break up.

That’s not fair —-

-- you always do this. You pattern yourself into whatever he wants. You disappear. And then when he leaves, there’s nothing left of you. Okay?

A voice on her phone interrupts them.

You have arrived at your destination.

But, there’s nothing there it seems like. Hannah looks down at the phone.

Jamie. Where are we?

Jamie makes delirious eye contact with Hannah.

No. Come on. Don’t tell me you actually... He’s just some loser!

Jamie snatches her phone back from Hannah and looks down at it. It’s just turned 11:11 at night.

Jamie. I don’t like this.

Hannah grabs Jamies hand to leave, but freezes in place. As a door forms behind them, mystically, in the center of the wall. Dented metal rising from beyond with a faint glow of crimson around the edges.

It’s real.

Hannah is gobsmacked, stuck in place. Jamie makes a bolt for the door.

Jamie! Wait!

Hannah chases Jamie over to the door. She’s already there, hand on the handle. Hannah slams her hand on the door, holding it shut.

Jamie this is crazy!

Hannah. Let go! He loved me and was everything. He’s the one Hannah. If I could just be what he wants! I’m going to get him back. I swear.

She tugs at the door and Hannah presses it back again.

What about me? Your family? We love you! You’re gonna give up everything for what? One lactose intolerant douchebag who doesn’t even want you anymore.

Jamie turns her fury at Hannah and SHOVES her friend back and onto the pavement.

Hannah is stunned. Jamie snarls the shrill metallic door open with strength and turns to Hannah.

I’m sorry!

Jamie, Wai--

But Jamie is committed, and steps through the door.

Jamie stands on a murky grey concrete floor and peers around.

Hello?

Her words echo into the hollow space and we see a single small red thread on the floor that Jamie unwittingly steps on as she comes into the darkened room.

Is this it?

We hear the sound of a single leaf drop, muted against the concrete floors.

I was thought there’d be someone here.

She takes another step into the room, both feet now on the thread. The door SLAMS shut. Jamie YALPS. Gasps. Flails and grabs the handle. Jiggles it. Nothing.

Hannah!?

But there’s no reply, only stillness. The sound of her breath.

The Red leaves in the corner have multiplied. They rustle again. A small pile.

Are you here?

The Red leaves in the corner are large enough to take form, they’re a coiled and rust red pile.

Yes.

The pile elongates and twists into the form of a human dressed in effulgent red draped cloth. It shivers and shakes in a mesmerizing twist of crimson. Leaves falling off of it.

What are you?

I am.

Jamie freezes in place and looks at the figure in awe.

The RED MASS is a tall and slender woman, covered in Red satin, silk, and glossy cloth. The billowing cloth drapes around her skin and flows onto the floor. On her face a smiling, kind eyed, but otherwise featureless red mask.

Sit. We begin.

Suddenly a table with two chairs is drug with a clatter into the center of the room from apparently nowhere.

Jamie can’t see it, but there’s almost invisible tiny red strings attached to the table and chair, manipulated by the red thing.

Jamie shakes her head in disbelief. She sits and puts her hands on the table in awe.

I-- I want.

Jamie breaks down. Sobs. The red thing is unmoved, unbothered. She sighs and straightens herself out.

I want to--

Look.

Jamie, startled, dries her eyes and looks down at the table curiously. She rubs her hands over the grooves in it.

This-- This is Todd’s kitchen table. I was just sitting here with him a few days ago, when he dumped me.

Jamie looks up at the dimly lit crimson mass and really takes it in for the first time.

What are you?

You know.

Red, motionless, lets that statement fall flat.

I guess I thought you’d be scarier.

The demon takes a red gloved hand and touches the mask.

Shall I?

Jamie recoils. There’s a skittering sound of leaves, as if the demon is releasing a small chuckle.

No. I’m good. I’m good.

The red shape relaxes its hands and gestures to the side. They sit.

So, You must know why I’m here. You see my boyfriend dumped me! He said he needed space but I know he still has feelings for me. I just need to be what he wants. I want to be loved.

You want to be filled.

Jamie is gobsmacked.

Inhabitation.

No. You don’t understand. I want him back. For his feelings to come back like when we started. I just want him to call me and say he was wrong. I want him to need me the way that I need him and to... To be loved. I want him to pick me. To pick me.

She begins to cry, and the Red thing reaches its hand across the table in a most unnaturally elongated manner to catch a tear on her red gloved hand.

You want.

Yes, I. You see Todd--

His love.

The red thing withdraws its hand. Jamie waits.

It can be done.

Jamie puts her hand out to be comforted by the red thing, but it does not respond. It sits stoically, unnaturally still. Jamie, unnerved, pulls her hand back awkwardly.

They cannot refuse you.

Todd?

Especially Todd.

Beat.

And?

The cost.

The red thing claps. It sounds like thunder hitting a tree branch. Jamie winces instinctively, closing her eyes.

After a moment, she opens them to see sitting on the table a gooey cinnamon roll, and a chocolate chip cookie.

Jamie peers at them quizzically. Then looks up at the Red thing with incredulity.

Deserts?

After a beat.

Wait. This is my favorite desert. And Todd’s favorite desert!

Beat.

Jesus, they’re both fresh.

The red thing is unmoved.

Choose.

I-- I really can’t. This doesn’t feel right.

The treats sit. The Red thing is unmoved.

I shouldn’t.

You have.

Jamie stares blankly. She squirms in the chair, looks to one plate, and then the other.

On the floor, we see Red threads ‘sewing’ the table to the floor, slowly. Vining around Jamie’s chair, and up.

Maybe I could try just a little of both?

A small rustling of wind and the sounds of leaves.

Release yourself. Empty vessel. Choose.

Jamie pulls the plates toward herself with a small scrape. Jamie hesitates.

The sounds of a large rushing wind fills the room for a moment. The Red thing bristles.

CHOOSE.

With one last look over at the Red thing, She picks up the gooey cinnamon roll and sinks her teeth into it and her eyes light up with a RED GLOW!

This... Oh my god. This is so good. It’s unreal. I.. Todd’s cinnamon rolls were never this good.

Correct.

Jamie relaxes a bit and continues in the cinnamon bun. Maybe she’s gotten this whole thing wrong?

As she gleefully munches, the Red thing soaks it in silently, unnervingly still. It CACKLES.

We see the threads on Jamie’s chair crawl up to her neck, and start weaving around her chest, binding her to the chair.

Suddenly A CRASHING SOUND startles Jamie, and in the corner, a broken plate is there with a cookie on it. There’s only the cinnamon roll before Jamie now.

What? What’s that?

You.

Jamie looks back at the Red demon as it leans forward.

I-- Look, What’s going on here? I thought that I would pay some sort of price?

You have paid.

Jamie shifts in her chair. The cinnamon bun drips sugar in her hands, which have small tendrils of thread creeping onto them as she’s entranced by this cinnamon roll.

I don’t understand.

Jamie slowly takes the last bite of the roll viscerally enjoying it. She licks sugar off her fingers.

The red thing lifts its hands and claps again.

Another cinnamon roll appears on the plate in front of Jamie. She considers it, pulls the second roll over and sinks her fingers into it. Playing with it.

When will I hear from Todd again? I’ve done what you asked, now you do your part.

Eat.

Jamie rolls her eyes and takes both hands this time and grabs the roll. Icing oozing out of it and onto her hands.

Ugh, they’re so messy but so damn good.

She licks her fingers and looks around. She sees another plate with another roll and grabs it, starts in on that one too. Speaks with her mouth full of cinnamon roll.

Will I still be in control? Still me?

The Red things laughs a scuttling laugh. Jamie is gorging herself on cinnamon rolls now, helplessly voracious.

Were you ever?

Jamie stands up angrily and throws the plate off the table. Roll still in hand, eating.

No more riddles! Talk dammit. What’s going to happen to me? Will I still in control of my life?

No less than before. No more than now.

Jamie digs into another roll, cinnamon sugar dribbling down her mouth. The red thing’s dress billows, the wind from nowhere flowing it around the room. Threads now also flowing from Jamie, behind her towards the door.

I feel so energized. So warm. I could eat a million of these things.

It consumes you as you consume it.

Suddenly in the space we see ANOTHER Jamie! She’s slightly different, different clothes, different hair. She stands up and takes the plate with the cinnamon roll on it and SMASHES it on the ground.

NO! Not again. NOT AGAIN. Todd, please, you don’t mean it. Do you?

Jamie sits and watches this other Jamie.

That was the last time I talked to Todd. He hasn’t answered any of my calls.

The red thing gestures. All around the room there’s a ton of OTHER JAMIE’s. Each saying something to another invisible person all at once.

It’s alright. I can skip my appointment for your show--

One Jamie holds a solo cup, shrugs her shoulders, and chugs it.

A Jamie is trying on a dress she clearly feels uncomfortable in.

Oh you like it?

The Red thing cackles.

What? Why are you showing me all these?

The Red thing stands and shoves the chair back. As it stands up we see it moves unnaturally, almost flowing like webbing. It towers over Jamie.

I shouldn’t have come here.

Jamie stands up and backs away slowly, and only now notices the strands of thread starting to form on her body, she yanks on them and sees that she’s connected into the room!

No!

The Red thing makes a sopping wet lip licking sound.

No! Make it STOP. LET ME OUT. I DON’T WANT THIS ANYMORE. I WANT OUT. I NEVER AGREED TO THIS!

You DID.

The threads are now wrapping around Jamie’s arms and legs, forcing her into a semi-cocooned state. Her voice is muffled as the threads wind and wind around her.

JAMIE looks back at the door. Ominous. It glows and the light shapes and moves behind the outline of it impossibly fast, like a VHS on fast forward.

You were empty.

Jamie, covered in icing, moves across the floor, slipping and sliding, and over to the door, that she tries in vain to open.

Jamie turns to the demon in horror. It stands, trailing crimson robes covering one side of the room. They seem to move and seek the edges of the space, billowing.

Now you are Inhabited.

Jamie SCREAMS

The door behind Jamie slowly grows in intensity. Glowing more and more.

The red demon removes its mask in a FLASH of bright red light which THROWS Jamie across the room and into the door, pressing her against it as if it were a trick room.

She groans and leans over, opens the doorknob which FLINGS open the door as gravity in the room is now emptying everything inside it downward towards the door which is suddenly the bottom of the room. Several gloopy sticky cinnamon rolls fling through the door.

Jamie takes one last look at the Red demon, whose face is HER OWN.

She releases her grip on the door frame and falls down into a black abyss as the door is SLAMMED shut.

Black Screen.

Jamie Screams--

The scream morphs into a howling laugh, as Jamie is holding court, champagne in hand, at a fancy hollywood hotshot party. She’s wearing the red dress from the Red Thing.

A man comes up to her and puts his hand on her arm. He’s dashing.

Oh my god Jamie? You look - different.

Jamie’s warmth has vanished, replaced with coldness.

I know.

In the background is Hannah, alone, laughing with a girlfriend. She looks over at Jamie. Her friend notices.

Do you know her? She seems famous.

Hannah sighs and puts her drink down.

No.

Beat.

I thought I did. Once.

Jamie looks over in their direction, holds eye contact with Hannah, but her face registers nothing. It’s like she’s looking right through her.

The crowd around Jamie LAUGHS.