“LEBANON, 2024 CE”
EXT. BEIRUT PORT – MORNING
Rain. Heavy and sudden. The skyline is fractured glass and scaffold. A new pediatric hospital gleams where a crater once was.
INT. HOSPITAL LOBBY – MORNING
SEBASTIAN ADONAEV, mid-30s, wiry, dressed in blue Kurdish fatigues with built-in suspenders, enters damp from the downpour. He’s calm, practiced.
He speaks to the RECEPTIONIST in English.
SEBASTIAN
I’m here to meet Dr. Robert Sacy. Eleven o’clock.
The receptionist nods. He waits. Smokes. Watches the storm swallow the road.
EXT. KIOSK OUTSIDE HOSPITAL – MOMENTS LATER
Sebastian huddles under the awning of a little kiosk. DOMINOS click on a plastic table. The OWNER’S WIFE in a black chador beckons him inside.
They drink instant coffee in silence. Her SON, 20s, talks fast, offers a haircut, hands over a barber card.
SON
You draw? Draw me New York. Bronx or Chiya — who’s poorer?
Laughter. Rain beats down like bullets.
INT. HOSPITAL LOBBY – LATER
11:00AM. Still raining.
DR. ROBERT SACY, late 50s, fragile but fast-moving, steps out of a black SUV. Elegant disrepair in his manner. The two men shake hands briskly.
DR. SACY
This is Lebanon! Beautiful women, plastic surgeons, no taxes, no cops. We have world-class medicine no one can afford. And war. Always war.
SEBASTIAN
Thank you for seeing me on such short notice, sir.
DR. SACY
You heard about the port blast?
SEBASTIAN
Fertilizer explosion, yes?
DR. SACY (shakes head)
Media story. Truth is, Mossad missile hit a Hezbollah shipment too close to a nitrate depot. Mistake. Big one. Like Hiroshima big.
He shows Sebastian a photo on his phone — a collapsed NICU, a baby in rubble.
DR. SACY (CONT’D)
Neonates dangling out the floor. One survived. Swiss pulled her out. Miracle.
SEBASTIAN
Madness.
DR. SACY
Madness made in Tel Aviv and Tehran. But paid for here. 263 dead. Dozens were my colleagues. Nurses now make $25 a month. The Lira is toilet paper. Banks robbed us blind.
INT. HOSPITAL – WALKING TOUR
They move fast. Clean hallways. Neonates in incubators. A ward of glowing RESIDENTS. Two critical-care ambulances idle outside.
DR. SACY
Only pediatric ER in Lebanon. We retrieve babies from 30 hospitals. It’s all new. All reborn.
INT. STRETCHER BAY – LOWER WARD – LATER
They sit on a stretcher in a shadowy ward.
DR. SACY (quietly)
I cannot be seen meeting a Jew. Especially not one dressed like PKK. But for Souheil? I make time.
SEBASTIAN
I’m grateful. I don’t have a request. Just a story. Maybe an offer.
DR. SACY (grim smile)
This is the Middle East. Time is elastic. Offers come wrapped in tea.
He swipes through photos: newborns dumped in trash bags.
DR. SACY (CONT’D)
Prostitutes trafficked here from Moldova, Kenya, Philippines. Artist visas. Pregnant. Abandoned. We find babies in dumpsters. Sometimes dismembered.
(pause)
You see? Not tourism. Something else brought you.
SEBASTIAN
I’m part of a movement in New York. 1,800 EMS. We trained all of Haiti’s EMS post-quake. Trained Kurds and Arabs in field trauma care during the Daesh wars. I think we can tell your story. Maybe rally support.
DR. SACY
Nice. Noble. But this is Lebanon. Not Haiti. Here, services are sectarian. Red Cross is Christian. Hezbollah has its own ambulances. Palestinians their own. Sunni charities. Druze volunteers.
SEBASTIAN
What if we supported an inter-confessional EMT Academy hosted here? Volunteers from each sect, trained side by side. Except the Jews. You don’t have any of those left.
DR. SACY (smirks)
If you find a Jewish EMT, I’ll give him tea and a stretcher.
(beat)
Your proposal is utopian. But maybe… maybe. Send me materials. Let’s talk again. Bring tea next time.
SEBASTIAN
Thank you, Doctor. For your time. For the truth.
DR. SACY
Old Druze saying — “if a Jew falls from the sky, at least hear his offer before you deny it.”
SEBASTIAN
You just made that up.
DR. SACY (grinning)
I most certainly did.
TEXT ON SCREEN:
That was the last time they ever saw each other alive.
EXT. HOTEL – NIGHT
Sebastian walks into the dim lobby. Across the street, a SYRIAN MECHANIC makes a call. Two CLEANERS enter a car. Lights out.
NARRATOR (V.O.)
The reason you introduce people hunting into a failed state is because you can.
MONTAGE:
- CCTV of girls lured into limos at dawn.
- Nightclubs in Jounieh. Girls in chains backstage.
- Blood trails behind a shuttered “massage parlor.”
NARRATOR (V.O.)
The state should be a predator, but a predictable one.
This—this is feral entropy.
In Lebanon, every virtue is a mask for vice.
And every border is made of bone.
FLASHES:
- Casino du Liban, flooded with Saudis.
- Irish UNIFIL troops, eyes averted.
- A Hezbollah funeral procession. Missiles overhead.
NARRATOR (V.O.)
You can dress soldiers like peacekeepers, but they act like soldiers.
People hunting isn’t new.
Might be the oldest sport in the world.
FADE TO BLACK.
TEXT ON SCREEN:
“Based on actual conversations and credible rumors.”
ROLL CREDITS
WALTER SEBASTIAN ADLER 
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