EYES WIDE SHUT - THE GAME

EYES WIDE SHUT II: THE DEBT RITUAL
A Story by [User]

INT. ROTHMIRE HALL – A SECRET SOCIETY BALLROOM, NIGHT

Tom Cruise returns as Dr. William Harford, older now, haunted but sharper. He’s no longer naïve. The last time he donned the mask, he barely escaped with his life. This time, he returns with an ally — Joseph C. Jukic, a cryptographer and philosophical hacker whose algorithms exposed Vatican black budgets and IMF shell games.

The masquerade ball is more twisted than ever — a fusion of occult ritual, financial tyranny, and surreal performance art. Billionaires dressed as Babylonian gods sip wine filtered through gold coins. Every dance is a coded transaction. Every mask hides a debt collector.

INT. ROTHMIRE HALL – OBSIDIAN CHAMBER

Tom Cruise and Joe Jukic sit across from each other in a candlelit chamber beneath the gala. There are no masks between them. Only truth.

DR. HARFORD (Cruise):
I thought it was just about sex and secrecy. But this—
This is about control.

JOE JUKIC: (nods)
It always was. Sex is just the bait.
Debt is the leash.

HARFORD:
They offered me a line of credit before I even stepped into med school. Called it "aid." I thought it was kindness.

JOE:
The system never lends real money. It lends debt. The principal doesn’t even exist. It’s numbers typed into a screen. But you owe it forever. With interest that was never created.

HARFORD: (tense)
So we chase what isn’t real… and we pay for it with our lives?

JOE: (calm)
Exactly. It's negative alchemy. They conjure debt out of nothing, but you give them your house, your labor, your children’s future.

HARFORD:
So the rich play these games, dressed like pharaohs, and we kneel like beggars to numbers that don’t exist?

JOE:
Not just numbers. Rituals.
Every signature is a spell. Every contract is a covenant.
And you can’t break a curse you don’t believe in.

INT. ROTHMIRE HALL – THE ALTAR

A masked high priestess calls forward a banker in chains. A theatrical "forgiveness ritual" begins, where his symbolic debt is "pardoned" in front of the elite. Applause echoes, but Joe leans into Harford’s ear.

JOE:
It's all fake. A performance.
They forgive each other's debts…
But never yours.

INT. BACK CHAMBER – VAULT OF SHADOWS

Joe decrypts a file hidden inside a painting — a financial codex showing how every nation on Earth is entangled in infinite compound interest. There is no finish line. No exit. Only servitude.

Harford looks around at the candles, the gold, the faces.

HARFORD:
They knew.
Stanley tried to warn us. That’s why he’s dead, isn’t he?

JOE: (softly)
Eyes wide shut.

EXT. NEW YORK CITY – SUNRISE

Harford and Joe walk the empty streets of Manhattan. The spell is broken. Behind them, Rothmire Hall burns in a mysterious fire. No news will cover it. No arrests will be made.

JOE:
The debt only exists if we believe it does.
We stop playing the game…
And it ends.

HARFORD: (with clarity)
Then let’s teach the world to stop playing.

FADE TO BLACK
Title Card: EYES WIDE OPEN