The Warner Bros. casting studio in Burbank, California, was sleek, modern, and smelled like expensive coffee.
Donovan, now twelve years old, sat in a low-slung leather armchair, sipping a water bottle. Right across from him sat Bruce Willis. The action star was peak-1994, leaning back with a confident, slightly smug grin, wearing a black leather jacket over a grey t-shirt. To any casual observer, he looked like a movie god.
Evelyn Blackwood stood by a table near a large window looking out onto the studio lot. She held a fresh copy of *The Sixth Sense* script, her posture confident and proud.
"So," Bruce began, a playful glint in his eyes, "sentient cheeseburgers were out, but ghosts are in? This better not be another *Cop and a Skateboard* pitch, Evelyn."
Donovan didn't blink. He analyzed the 1994 "tough guy" aura radiating from Bruce and instantly knew exactly how to break it. He read the room in a fraction of a second: the lighting was naturally warm, but the conversation needed to be cold.
He sat forward, letting go of his casual, charismatic self. Instantly, his face went pale, his shoulders hunched inward making him look fragile and scared. He pulled his sweater sleeves down over his hands, which began to tremble with unforced, deep-rooted terror.
He didn't look like Donovan Blackwood, the billionaire kid. He looked like Cole Sear, the haunted child who carried the weight of a thousand unseen horrors.
Evelyn cleared her throat. "Bruce, we want to read Scene 61, where your character, Malcolm Crowe, first meets Cole in the apartment."
Donovan began reading the scene before Bruce could even open his mouth. He didn't recite the lines; he breathed them out with such profound, fragile dread that the studio air seemed to drop several degrees.
Bruce Willis actually sat up, his smug grin evaporating. He was supposed to say his first line, "What is it you think these ghosts want...?" but the look in Donovan's eyes stopped him dead in his tracks. They were wide, glazed over with a raw, terrifying truth that made the veteran action star feel genuinely, cold-to-the-bone scared.
"What do they... what do they want?" Bruce finally managed to stammer. He wasn't acting. He was just a guy staring at a kid whose intense, vacant stare made him feel exposed.
Donovan slowly turned his vacant stare toward the empty corner of the room, as if something horrific was standing right behind Bruce's shoulder. A single tear rolled down his pale cheek.
*"I see dead people,"* Donovan whispered.
The silence in the room was absolute. Even the sound of a distant car horn outside the window seemed to fade away. Evelyn didn't even try to hide her triumphant smile. Bruce Willis stared at the twelve-year-old kid for five full seconds, his own heart rate visibly spiking under his grey shirt. The tough-guy action hero looked genuinely, visibly unsettled.
"Cut," Evelyn said softly, though the tension didn't break immediately.
Donovan blinked, wiped the tear off his cheek, and let out a bright, casual, and totally normal twelve-year-old laugh, instantly vanishing the haunted, broken child into thin air.
"Was that okay, Mr. Willis?" Donovan asked casually, taking another sip of water. "I think the lighting on that take was a little off on my side."
Bruce Willis let out a massive, shaky breath, rubbing both hands over his face. He turned to look at Evelyn behind the cameras.
"Evelyn," Bruce said, completely serious. "Do not shoot that again. That was the scariest thing I've ever seen. Give this kid the trophy right now so we can all go home."