My plot: The Gift

The film starts on a young boy's birthday, and shows him opening all his gifts. His mother then tells him he has one more, and that she found it on the door step. The present is very tattered, and has no gift tag, so no-one knows who it’s from. Under the ripped wrapping paper are warnings not to open it.

He takes it to his room and opens it. Inside the box is nothing but a shell and a note, telling him 'she'll be here soon'. He laughs it off, thinking it’s one of his friends, and puts the box to a side.

Later that night he's awoken by a strange gurgling sound, and sees a shadow in his mirror, suddenly the shadow moves forward and slowly pulls itself from the mirror. He can just make out her features, black eyes, blood dripping from her mouth. She lets out a large gurgle, and lifts one hand. She whispers 5 days, then disappears. He lays awake all night, terrified of what he's seen, not noticing the five bruises on his arm.

The next day he sets off researching, and finds that in his area there have been mysterious deaths for years, where people have just been found in a frozen state in their bedroom, their hair white, their lungs full of water, the evidence showed they'd drowned, but they weren't near any water. He researches all day, and then throughout the night, he refuses to sleep, scared she may come back for him.

The next day stumbles across an old web page with an old newspaper article, describing a woman, Marge Lower, who has been admitted to a mental asylum, who describes a woman who visited her, and predicted her death. The newspaper article was from seven years ago, so 'the boy' decides to visit her. He arrives at the mental asylum, and after asking the receptionist for Marge Lower, makes his way down the white halls, each identical, until he reaches her room. Inside he can’t help but notice the lack of mirrors. He introduces himself, but she does not speak, instead she looks through her window towards the lighthouse in the distance. He sits speaking to her for hours, waiting for any reply. Finally he breaks down, tears roll down his face as he tells her about the gift and the girl. As soon as the boy mentions the gift, the women's face becomes twisted in agony, death, she mumbles. She grabs his arm and counts the three bruises, 'her mark' she says, 'three days'. She tries to make him leave, saying that the girl might come back for her. The boy refuses; he says that if she refuses to help him, she's pretty much killed him herself. Hearing this, the woman once again stares towards the lighthouse on the cliff.

Later that night the boy is starting to becoming exhausted, he still refuses to sleep, terrified. He sits opposite the mirror, waiting. But eventually his eyes become heavy and he falls to sleep. Footsteps awake him, a dark figure stood in the door way, dark hair at each side of her face, she moves closer and closer. He's petrified, frozen to the spot, unable to make a sound. 'What you doing there?' His mother asks, turning on the light, she notices his white complexion, and goes to sit next to him, 'anything you want to tell me, you don't look very well?’ He lets out a big sigh of relief, and says he's feeling a bit ill. His mother leaves the room, and he once again stares at the mirror, just waiting.

As soon as the light of day touches his face he begins researching on his computer, becoming desperate, he now knows about his bruises, and only had two left. Hours went by, there was no mention of the girl visiting anyone, then he remembered the lighthouse, the woman just stared at the lighthouse. Running out of ideas he decided to look up its history. He finds that in the 1800's a young girl had died there by falling off the cliff, her body had never been found. He rushes out the lighthouse, under the cliff is beach. The tide is quickly going in; he notices a rock sticking out of the water. And on it is a small shell, identical to the he received in the gift. He ran to the protruding rock, and saw a crisp white piece of paper, with curly white handwriting on it. It was a long note, but a few words stood out to him, 'I can’t cope anymore, he did it', he thought back to the web page about the lighthouse, about the young girl, she lived with her father, did he push her, did he mistreat her, which made her jump?

He needed to visit the old woman again, to tell her what he knew. Tell her the curse was broken.

He went to the mental asylum, and gave the woman the shell and note, but he was surprised that she appeared to already know. 'The curse isn't broken, you've only uncovered her motif''. Hearing this he broke down. He asks her how she survived; out of all the victims, only she survived. She goes quite then says, 'resend the gift. It’s the only way; if you give the gift to someone else the curse is lifted for you. But you’re the reason someone else dies, can you really live with that?'

He goes home to decide what to do. He only has one bruise left; she's coming tonight for him. Can he really do it, be responsible for someone’s death? Its 10pm, two hours and she'll come. Nearly hysteric, he rewraps the gift, writing his own message on it in big bold red letters, 'don’t open this, I’m so sorry'. He runs out of the house, close to 11pm, and finds a house at the opposite end of town, and sits there wondering what to do. He looks at his phone, 11.59pm, he must decide now, can he really kill another person...
Eden Clark