(Sequence: ELEVATOR. Night. A claustrophobic space of steel and tarnished mirror. SCORPIO, back turned, stares at the numeric panel that refuses to move. The door opens. SAGITTARIUS enters, vibrating with a different energy, as if arriving from a party. The door closes. Silence.)

SAGITTARIUS (Exhaling, relieved to be in an enclosed space) I thought I’d have to climb all twenty floors. The universe provides.

(SCORPIO doesn’t turn. Keeps staring at the panel, where the light blinks on “10”.)

SAGITTARIUS (Looking at his reflection in the metal, adjusting a leather jacket) Stuck? Feels like a metaphor for something. Bureaucracy, the soul, I don’t know… something.

SCORPIO (Without turning. Voice low, flat.) The only metaphor is a metal box suspended between floors. Everything else is noise.

SAGITTARIUS (Wide, genuine smile.) Exactly! Noise. I love noise. It means something’s happening. Here, the only thing happening is… the buzz of the light. (Points to the fluorescent tube.) A sound designed to drive you mad.

(Pause. The buzzing becomes audible—sharp, piercing.)

SCORPIO (For the first time, lowers his gaze from the panel, but not toward Sagittarius. Toward the floor seam.) You need something to happen. I need to know what already happened.

SAGITTARIUS (The smile freezes for a second. He really looks at Scorpio for the first time.) That sounds like a prison. Only searching in the past.

SCORPIO (Softly, almost to himself.) It’s not searching. It’s excavating. Until you reach the root. Until it hurts. Until the truth becomes impossible to ignore. (Then, slowly turns his head and looks at him through the reflection in the metal, not directly.) Your philosophy is an arrow. Shot toward a horizon it never reaches. You never have to see up close what it pierces.

SAGITTARIUS (The joviality has vanished. His face is serious, uneasy.) I prefer the horizon to… to this box. To this silence that examines everything.

SCORPIO (One corner of his mouth tightens—not quite a smile.) The horizon is an illusion. A promise that never delivers. This box… this box is real. Like the edge of a knife. You can’t pretend you’re not here, on the blade.

(Suddenly, the elevator jolts into motion. The “10” light goes out. “11” lights up.)

SAGITTARIUS (Exhales, relieved by the movement.) See? You always get out. You always keep going.

SCORPIO (Turns back to face the closed doors.) You get out of the box. Not off the blade.

(The doors open on floor 15. Sagittarius steps out almost in a leap, without looking back. Scorpio remains motionless. The doors begin to close. Just before they seal, Scorpio’s voice reaches him—clear and low:)

SCORPIO Your next arrow… look where you planted the last one.

(The doors close. The elevator, now empty except for Scorpio, continues upward. He watches as “16” lights up. His expression hasn’t changed. The camera freezes on his profile reflected in the metal, just as the fluorescent light flickers and makes his image vanish and reappear for a fraction of a second.)

(CUT TO BLACK)