August 1998—The Dunphy House
The kitchen smelled of toast and orange juice.
Alex banged her spoon against her high chair tray, delighted by the racket. Sometimes Neil noticed that she pattern matches her cereal as she eats. 'She really is different. Don't know what surprises you'll bring sis.'
Claire tapped the table. "Okay, you two. Big news." Her eyes glancing at the twins with polar oppsoite personalities. Hailey's spoon froze midair. Neil studied her hands, waiting for the reveal.
"We're having another baby," Claire said, flat outwardly but her brows rising north in glint.
Hailey gasped. "Another one? But we already have Alex!"
Alex squealed and flung cereal, as if recognizing her worth being diminished by new addition to the Dunphy Clan.
Neil frowned. 'Oh, so that's what it was. I should've guessed that it wasn't the cakes making mom fat. Families multiply like equations—messy, but predictable.'
Out loud he said, "I'm going to be a big brother. Again?"
Claire laughed. "Yes. Because this one will be littler. You have to be more patient with him."
'Bet'
Hailey scowled. "Fine. But I'm naming it Barbie."
Phil wandered in with the paper. "We'll… see about that."
---
Two weeks later, Claire waved an envelope. "Guess what, Hailey? You've been admitted to Campbell Elementary!"
Hailey shrieked. "Real school? Not preschool—real school?"
"Grade One starts in September," Claire said proudly. "It's time to ditch the dollhouse and move to the real worl, young lady."
Hailey twirled, almost knocking Alex's juice. "No. But I need sparkly backpacks! And pencils! And shoes that light up!"
Neil stacked Legos calmly. 'So begins her path—shiny path and a world full of half-truth as life teachings. Protected, but progressive.'
Aloud: "That means homework."
Hailey stuck her tongue out. "Homework means you're important."
If only it did, Neil thought.
---
September 1998
One evening Phil burst into the living room waving the newspaper. "Cisco splits three-for-two again!"
Claire sighed. "Phil, not at the dinner table. Also the news is two days old. You should really read the emails they send to all the shareholders about major company decisions and votes."
Neil, barely looking up: "That doesn't make more cake. Just more slices."
Phil stopped cold. "How—who told you that?" He gave a puzzling look to Neil. Claire he can understand, but how is his son beating him so soon in market knowledge. He was the one who decided to invest in the company, even though Claire will never admit to that.
Neil drew a quiet line with his crayon. Patterns repeat. Stocks, families, scripts. Everyone thinks they're gaining more, but it's the same story, divided.
Hailey giggled until milk sprayed from her nose.
---
After the second split of 3 for 2 in September, Neil's number of shares that were earlier 80 x 100 = 8000 shares, suddenly rose up to 12000 (x1.5) Making his individual Option Contract worth shoot up to $19.50 * 150 shares = $2,925.00.
His total worth in the September of 1998 rose to $2,925 * 80 = $234,000
Neil recycled them again for further OTM Call Options and this time he only put $100k of his Options money on double strike of $38.50; netting him 6000 contracts (600,000 shares) for an average buy of $16.
It was quite expensive for double OTM Calls, but he had no options (pun intended).
There weren't many sellers willing to take bets in such a volatile market. However, by keeping the next split in mind for 1:2 at around the $70 mark. His net worth should be close to a million by the time the stock hits $75.
'The market is on its final leg till Jan 2000, Dad recently sold a condo. I need to somehow convince Dad to put more money into Cisco or Qualcomm. Of course, Mom should never get the hold of this, otherwise it will be bloodbath.'
The rest of his $240k windfall, was invested in his first tech startup TheLetterBox. The site work was coming along nicely, most of its design provided by Claire(Neil).
Cindy even hired a 5 person team from her own company who are solely responsible for collating movie reviews from different platforms and critics.
To not get into a legal battle with IMDB, only publicly available information will be catalogued in sites database and on his first release the classic movies from 80s and most of the movies from 90s will be available with posters and interactive features like watchlist and reviews.
Users will be allowed to create Lists with movie names that are not there in the platform, but each entry had to be clearly verified within and mapped properly to the correct movie code in the backend. This was a huge task and required most or their capital.
The site coding, on the other hand progressed smoothly, handled largely by Claire with Neil as the final approver. He silently modified her new code every night with bug fixes and any glaring loopholes like infinite comments, multi like counting by same user, authentication error leaking user email, etc.
Most of the data entry and verification was a manual job, and the company was already running into a cash crunch; left with only $15k in bank off the total $30k/$50k that Cindy provide two months ago. It was time for Neil Dunphy to step up as the founder.
He invested $140k from his $240k stock market win. Cindy was left speechless when she saw the figures in company's ledger and bugged Neil for a whole week regarding the source. Neil had to bribe her with stock tips in order to keep things hidden from the family and not let a word out.
Rottenbox was released in August last month, and it had a positive reception amongst the movie audience; but not significant. It was not feature rich as the half cooked LetterBox currently in production and lost on building a brand because of negligence in marketing. It was to be expected from college students who created the site as a hobby project for their favourite movie star Jackie Chan. All of it worked in Neil's favour. The more mistakes RottenTomatoes did, the better their product will be.
Cindy was sure that once they are ready to launch the platform during the New Years movie frenzy, they would be the best. Using her marketting worth, she planned to quickly become the number one online movie platform, behind only IMDB in the scale of database, but ahead of everyone in features and design. Cindy called the minimalist design from the future as 'Candy to children's eyes or balloons to Phil.'
---
Set of Sixth Sense
The heat clung to everything. Claire led Neil into the studio, Cindy close by, and Hailey chattering about "ghosts" and "zombies," particularly fascinated by the zombie-like ghosts by the van. This was her last few days of vacation before the start of school.
The second AD crouched to Neil's height, handing him sides. "Here you go, buddy. Remember—stand on your mark, look at Mom, wait for the cue."
It was the final climax scene where Cole reveals the truth to his mom.
Neil nodded, gripping the pages.
Around the car set, lights blazed like false suns. Toni Collette crouched, warm and patient. "Ready, Neil?"
"Quiet on set. Roll sound… action!"
Neil spoke his line, steady, natural. Toni's eyes filled with tears.
"Cut!" Applause rippled softly.
Claire clutched Cindy's arm. "He's really doing it."
Of course I am, Neil thought.
---
During resets Neil watched.
The boom dipping overhead.
The script supervisor scribbling corrections.
The gaffer shifting a lamp by inches.
The AD's bark: "Back to one!"
It's a machine. People think they make art, but it's gears and levers, mechanical. The trick is to not let the audience see the cogs turning.
He filed the rhythm away in his memory. This was his first movie in two lives.
Hailey slipped away while Neil sat for powder touch-ups, talking to the staff about interesting stories on set.
Inside the makeup truck further away, it smelled of gum and latex. A ghost extra grinned at Hailey. "Wanna see something cool?"
The artist tore tissue, glued it to skin, brushed purple paint. Veins bloomed like dark rivers.
Hailey's eyes went wide. "That's so cool! Can I try?"
They handed her a sponge. She dabbed clumsily, tongue sticking out in concentration. A bruise appeared on the extra's cheek.
She squealed so loud the trailer shook. "This is so cool. I'll be the best ghost in halloween."
Cindy snapped a photo. Claire, arriving at the door, muttered, "God help me."
But Hailey only spun, proud of her wound creation. "When I grow up, I'll make monsters!"
Neil heard about it later, half-smiling. Every spark has its first flame. Hers is blood and wounds.
The set emptied. Cables coiled. Lights dimmed. Neil clutched his stapled packet—the one he had been scribbling in all summer.
He walked up to Shyamalan, who was bent over his notes.
"Mister Shy-man?" Neil asked.
The director looked down. "Yes, Neil?"
"I have an idea. The movie shouldn't end. There should be something more. For the people who stay."
"Oh? You mean like Behind-the-scenes gags or the Musical? But it won't suit the movie genre!" Shyamalan blurted out.
"No. Not that. I wrote a scene in my acting class. I thought, we can show a grown Cole. Can you take a look."
The young director was surprised, but with nostalgia. The expectations in Neil's eyes reminding him of his first attempts at screen writing and being brushed off.
"Okay. Hand it over," Shyamalan flipped it open casually—then froze. Scene headings. Dialogue. Action lines. Crude but real.
"Who showed you how to write like this? Did someone help you?"
"No. Summer acting class, this was one of the tasks. Teacher said I'm good," Neil said. "But I just copied the shape with my idea."
Shyamalan skimmed faster, eyes narrowing. He snapped it shut. "You didn't show this to anyone else right?"
"Not yet. Not even the tutor. It's for you, because you created Cole."
---
Shyamalan sat at his desk late at night, Neil's pages beside his coffee.
He read again. Rough, childish, spellings that are alien, but strangely… pointed. The idea lingered: 'endings shouldn't stop, they should echo'.
His other half-formed thought—accidents, survivors, a man unbreakable—suddenly felt sharper. The idea of Cole investigating weird phenomenon across the country is great. It increases the scope of the world from a little ghost boy to a supernatural world with stories. Especially the business card with only a logo and a number, it is mysterious and leaves a taste of wanting more to the audience.
"This is genius. Why has nobody thought of seeding their next work into the post credit scenes before?"
"... No. Not that nobody thought of it, they couldn't. Post credit were always a means for behind-the-scene gags and music, they couldn't imagine seeding their next work. This is surprisingly innovative."
Gears running in Shyamalan's head at breakneck speed. "...But it also poses great risks! What if the audience doesn't like the movie, it risks the next works reputation too. However, if the movie is a super hit, the next sequel has the potential of becoming the blockbuster of the decade."
"...I need to think more. Can't be taken over by the novelty of it."
But What if, he wondered, I slipped a newspaper clipping of an accident at the end? A tease. Not a universe or a sequel. Just a taste of my next work?
He tapped Neil's stapled packet.
A child had handed him a door. The only question was whether to walk through.
The lamp buzzed. The pages waited.