The Enemy Within.
While James Sandin was downstairs hunting the stranger, a second crisis was unfolding upstairs.
In Zoe's bedroom, her boyfriend, Henry, stood by the window. He wasn't supposed to be there.
"Henry," Zoe whispered, terrified. "You have to go. If my dad finds you..."
"I didn't come here just to see you, Zoe," Henry said. His voice was cold, devoid of emotion. "I came to see your father."
"What?" Zoe blinked.
"He can't keep us apart," Henry said, pulling a pistol from his waistband. "It's ridiculous. But tonight... tonight, everything is legal. Tonight, I can fix the problem."
The audience in the theater gasped.
"Is he..." Jordan from Paramount whispered. "Is he going to kill the dad?"
"That's the logic of the Purge," Jeff Bezos murmured. "No laws. No consequences."
Henry walked out onto the landing. Below, James Sandin was pacing the hallway with his own gun.
"Hey! Mr. Sandin!" Henry shouted.
James looked up. Before he could speak, Henry fired.
Bang!
The bullet missed James by inches, shattering a vase.
"Oh my god!" Mary screamed.
James reacted on instinct. He raised his weapon and returned fire.
Bang! Bang! Bang!
Henry crumpled to the floor, dead.
Zoe screamed, collapsing to her knees. Her boyfriend had tried to murder her father because he wouldn't let them date. It was insanity. But on Purge Night, insanity was the new normal.
The Compassion Trap.
While the chaos erupted upstairs, the youngest son, Charlie, found the wounded stranger cowering in the living room.
"Shh," Charlie whispered.
Instead of turning him in, Charlie led the bleeding man to a secret compartment in his closet—a hiding spot only the kids knew about.
James stormed back downstairs, his heart pounding. "Where is he?! Where is the man?!"
James knew the truth: Keeping a stranger in the house was a death sentence.
Then, the doorbell rang.
The Polite Monsters.
James checked the surveillance monitors. His blood ran cold.
A group of masked figures stood on the front porch. They were dressed in prep-school uniforms, wielding machetes and axes.
The leader stepped forward and removed his mask.
It was Joaquin Phoenix.
(In this timeline, Phoenix had worked with Wald Pictures before on Final Turn. His casting here was perfect—a precursor to the chaotic energy he would later bring to Joker).
Joaquin smiled into the camera. It was a charming, terrifying smile.
"Hi," Joaquin said politely through the intercom. "Good evening, Sandin family."
"We are a group of reasonable, educated young people," he continued smoothly. "We have prepared for this night to cleanse our souls. But, unfortunately, our target has escaped."
Joaquin leaned closer to the lens.
"Your lovely neighbors told me you let him inside. That dirty, homeless pig. He doesn't belong here. He threatens our sense of justice."
"So, here is the deal," Joaquin said, his voice dropping an octave. "Return the pig to us, alive, so we can purge him. If you do... we leave you alone."
"But if you don't..."
Joaquin's smile widened.
"We will unleash the beast. We will break into your home, and we will kill everyone inside. Because after all... that is the fun of tonight."
"I'll give you some time," Joaquin chirped. "Don't force us to be rude. We are wealthy people, not animals."
The screen went black.
The Lie.
Inside the house, panic set in.
"James," Mary sobbed, clutching his arm. "What do we do? We have the security system, right? They can't get in. Tell me they can't get in."
James looked at his wife. He looked at the steel plates covering the windows—the same plates he sold to hundreds of families.
"I don't know," James whispered.
Mary froze. "What do you mean you don't know? You sell these things!"
"Mary," James said, his voice breaking. "We tested the system for deterrence. It looks tough. It stops looters. It stops random thugs."
"But it wasn't designed for a siege," James admitted. "It wasn't designed for heavy equipment. Nothing is indestructible."
The audience in the theater felt the chill. James Sandin had built his fortune selling a lie, and now he was trapped inside it.
"We have no choice," James said, his face hardening. "We have to find the stranger. We have to give him to them."
"James, no," Mary gasped.
"It's him or us, Mary!" James yelled. "Do you want Zoe to die? Do you want Charlie to die?"
In the darkness of the theater, John Lasseter shook his head.
"This is terrifying," Lasseter whispered. "To survive, you have to become a monster."
The hunt began. But this time, the monster wasn't outside.
It was Dad.
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