The Warped Track
A gifted runner experiences a terrifying distortion during his morning run, leading him to an eccentric professor who hints at unseen forces drawn to his athletic prowess.
# The Warped Track
**Format:** Short Film / Anthology Episode | **Est. Length:** 10-12 minutes
## Logline
A dedicated college runner’s record-breaking performance shatters his reality, revealing that his peak physical state has attracted a dimension-warping entity, forcing him to learn a new kind of discipline to control it before he is consumed.
## Themes
* **The Unseen Cost of Perfection:** Explores the idea that pushing human limits to their absolute peak can breach unseen boundaries, inviting dangerous and incomprehensible consequences.
* **Perception vs. Reality:** The narrative constantly questions the protagonist's senses, blurring the line between physical exhaustion, psychological breakdown, and a genuine supernatural event.
* **Art as a Conduit:** Posits that supreme athletic achievement, like any art form, is a focused expression of energy that can act as a doorway, resonating with forces beyond our understanding.
* **The Limits of Rationality:** A world governed by physics and biology is confronted by an event that defies both, forcing a logical mind to seek answers in the esoteric and arcane.
## Stakes
Ethan must learn to control the otherworldly force attracted to his running before it consumes his mind, his body, and his very reality.
## Synopsis
ETHAN, a disciplined and talented college track runner, is on the verge of a new school record. During a training run, his familiar world begins to unravel. A low, vibrating thrum emanates from the ground, the track surface ripples like water, and his vision distorts as if reality itself is being stretched. He catches a warped, monstrous reflection of himself before blacking out.
He awakens sprawled on the track, disoriented. The world is back to normal, but the scoreboard and his watch display an impossible achievement: he has run five laps in the time it should have taken for two. Haunted by the memory and unable to reconcile it with logic, Ethan’s performance suffers. The track, once his sanctuary, is now a source of deep-seated fear.
Driven by a desperate need for answers, he finds himself in the university library, where he overhears students discussing DR. ANTON CALDWELL, an eccentric professor of "Perception and Performance." Seeking him out, Ethan finds Caldwell in a dusty, relic-filled office. Caldwell is not surprised by Ethan's story. He explains that peak human performance—a form of kinetic art—can create a "resonance" that attracts extra-dimensional entities, or "distortions." These entities are drawn to such focused energy, and Ethan's perfect run has opened a fissure.
Caldwell warns that this event will not be a one-off; the entity will return, seeking to entwine with and feed off his energy. He presents Ethan with a strange, ancient book, explaining it contains exercises not for the body, but for perception. Ethan's race is no longer against the clock, but against a force that threatens to warp him out of existence. He must learn to navigate this new reality or be consumed by it.
## Character Breakdown
* **ETHAN (19):** A gifted and highly disciplined collegiate runner. His world is built on logic, precision, and the predictable physics of cause and effect. He is grounded, focused, and finds his identity and anchor in the rhythm and physical certainty of running.
* **Psychological Arc:** Ethan begins as a confident athlete in complete control of his physical domain, believing fully in a rational, measurable world. He ends as a terrified but resolute individual, his entire worldview shattered, forced to trade the familiar discipline of physical training for a dangerous, metaphysical education to survive.
* **DR. ANTON CALDWELL (60s):** A reclusive, eccentric academic whose studies have moved far beyond conventional science. He is a gatekeeper to a hidden world, understanding the intersection of physical performance, art, and dimensional physics. He is unnervingly calm, acting as a grim mentor who offers not comfort, but a difficult and terrifying path forward.
## Scene Beats
1. **THE RHYTHM:** Ethan runs on the track, in his element. The world is crisp, familiar, and under his control. He is pushing for a personal best, the physical strain a welcome friend.
2. **THE THRESHOLD:** The run shifts. A deep thrum vibrates through the ground. The track surface undulates, his vision blurs, and the scoreboard's numbers dissolve into liquid fire. Reality is breaking.
3. **THE IMPOSSIBLE RESULT:** Ethan wakes up on the track, the world jarringly normal. He checks the scoreboard and his watch: he has completed an impossible distance in an impossible time.
4. **THE HAUNTING:** In the following days, Ethan is paralyzed by fear. He hesitates on the track, the memory of the warping ground vivid and terrifying. His identity as a runner is fracturing.
5. **THE WHISPER OF HOPE:** Searching for answers in the library, Ethan overhears students mocking the esoteric theories of Dr. Caldwell, whose strange ideas about motion and energy strike a chord of desperate recognition.
6. **THE SANCTUM:** Ethan finds Caldwell's office—a chaotic den of books, diagrams, and artifacts that smells of copper and damp earth. The atmosphere is thick with unspoken knowledge.
7. **THE REVELATION:** Caldwell calmly explains his theory: Ethan’s perfect performance created a resonance that attracted a "distortion" from another plane. He frames peak athleticism as an art form that can open doors.
8. **THE NEW TRAINING:** Caldwell warns the entity will return. He gives Ethan an ancient, symbol-etched book, telling him he must now learn to perceive and control the forces he has unleashed. A new, more dangerous race has begun.
## Visual Style & Tone
The visual style will begin with grounded, kinetic realism, emphasizing the grit, sweat, and physical exertion of running through intimate, sharp cinematography. As the distortion begins, the style will shift dramatically to reflect Ethan's subjective experience: subtle lens warping, colors bleeding at the edges of the frame, and disorienting slow-motion matched with a deeply unsettling sound design dominated by the low-frequency "thrum."
The tone blends the grounded reality of a sports drama with the creeping dread of psychological horror. Tonal comparisons include the uncanny reality-bending of *Annihilation* and the concept-driven suspense of a *Black Mirror* episode, focusing on sensory distortion and existential fear over jump scares. The final scenes in Caldwell's office will be claustrophobic and shadowy, steeped in academic arcana and a sense of ancient, dangerous knowledge.
**Format:** Short Film / Anthology Episode | **Est. Length:** 10-12 minutes
## Logline
A dedicated college runner’s record-breaking performance shatters his reality, revealing that his peak physical state has attracted a dimension-warping entity, forcing him to learn a new kind of discipline to control it before he is consumed.
## Themes
* **The Unseen Cost of Perfection:** Explores the idea that pushing human limits to their absolute peak can breach unseen boundaries, inviting dangerous and incomprehensible consequences.
* **Perception vs. Reality:** The narrative constantly questions the protagonist's senses, blurring the line between physical exhaustion, psychological breakdown, and a genuine supernatural event.
* **Art as a Conduit:** Posits that supreme athletic achievement, like any art form, is a focused expression of energy that can act as a doorway, resonating with forces beyond our understanding.
* **The Limits of Rationality:** A world governed by physics and biology is confronted by an event that defies both, forcing a logical mind to seek answers in the esoteric and arcane.
## Stakes
Ethan must learn to control the otherworldly force attracted to his running before it consumes his mind, his body, and his very reality.
## Synopsis
ETHAN, a disciplined and talented college track runner, is on the verge of a new school record. During a training run, his familiar world begins to unravel. A low, vibrating thrum emanates from the ground, the track surface ripples like water, and his vision distorts as if reality itself is being stretched. He catches a warped, monstrous reflection of himself before blacking out.
He awakens sprawled on the track, disoriented. The world is back to normal, but the scoreboard and his watch display an impossible achievement: he has run five laps in the time it should have taken for two. Haunted by the memory and unable to reconcile it with logic, Ethan’s performance suffers. The track, once his sanctuary, is now a source of deep-seated fear.
Driven by a desperate need for answers, he finds himself in the university library, where he overhears students discussing DR. ANTON CALDWELL, an eccentric professor of "Perception and Performance." Seeking him out, Ethan finds Caldwell in a dusty, relic-filled office. Caldwell is not surprised by Ethan's story. He explains that peak human performance—a form of kinetic art—can create a "resonance" that attracts extra-dimensional entities, or "distortions." These entities are drawn to such focused energy, and Ethan's perfect run has opened a fissure.
Caldwell warns that this event will not be a one-off; the entity will return, seeking to entwine with and feed off his energy. He presents Ethan with a strange, ancient book, explaining it contains exercises not for the body, but for perception. Ethan's race is no longer against the clock, but against a force that threatens to warp him out of existence. He must learn to navigate this new reality or be consumed by it.
## Character Breakdown
* **ETHAN (19):** A gifted and highly disciplined collegiate runner. His world is built on logic, precision, and the predictable physics of cause and effect. He is grounded, focused, and finds his identity and anchor in the rhythm and physical certainty of running.
* **Psychological Arc:** Ethan begins as a confident athlete in complete control of his physical domain, believing fully in a rational, measurable world. He ends as a terrified but resolute individual, his entire worldview shattered, forced to trade the familiar discipline of physical training for a dangerous, metaphysical education to survive.
* **DR. ANTON CALDWELL (60s):** A reclusive, eccentric academic whose studies have moved far beyond conventional science. He is a gatekeeper to a hidden world, understanding the intersection of physical performance, art, and dimensional physics. He is unnervingly calm, acting as a grim mentor who offers not comfort, but a difficult and terrifying path forward.
## Scene Beats
1. **THE RHYTHM:** Ethan runs on the track, in his element. The world is crisp, familiar, and under his control. He is pushing for a personal best, the physical strain a welcome friend.
2. **THE THRESHOLD:** The run shifts. A deep thrum vibrates through the ground. The track surface undulates, his vision blurs, and the scoreboard's numbers dissolve into liquid fire. Reality is breaking.
3. **THE IMPOSSIBLE RESULT:** Ethan wakes up on the track, the world jarringly normal. He checks the scoreboard and his watch: he has completed an impossible distance in an impossible time.
4. **THE HAUNTING:** In the following days, Ethan is paralyzed by fear. He hesitates on the track, the memory of the warping ground vivid and terrifying. His identity as a runner is fracturing.
5. **THE WHISPER OF HOPE:** Searching for answers in the library, Ethan overhears students mocking the esoteric theories of Dr. Caldwell, whose strange ideas about motion and energy strike a chord of desperate recognition.
6. **THE SANCTUM:** Ethan finds Caldwell's office—a chaotic den of books, diagrams, and artifacts that smells of copper and damp earth. The atmosphere is thick with unspoken knowledge.
7. **THE REVELATION:** Caldwell calmly explains his theory: Ethan’s perfect performance created a resonance that attracted a "distortion" from another plane. He frames peak athleticism as an art form that can open doors.
8. **THE NEW TRAINING:** Caldwell warns the entity will return. He gives Ethan an ancient, symbol-etched book, telling him he must now learn to perceive and control the forces he has unleashed. A new, more dangerous race has begun.
## Visual Style & Tone
The visual style will begin with grounded, kinetic realism, emphasizing the grit, sweat, and physical exertion of running through intimate, sharp cinematography. As the distortion begins, the style will shift dramatically to reflect Ethan's subjective experience: subtle lens warping, colors bleeding at the edges of the frame, and disorienting slow-motion matched with a deeply unsettling sound design dominated by the low-frequency "thrum."
The tone blends the grounded reality of a sports drama with the creeping dread of psychological horror. Tonal comparisons include the uncanny reality-bending of *Annihilation* and the concept-driven suspense of a *Black Mirror* episode, focusing on sensory distortion and existential fear over jump scares. The final scenes in Caldwell's office will be claustrophobic and shadowy, steeped in academic arcana and a sense of ancient, dangerous knowledge.