A college student slips into emotional numbness after a breakup, moving through New York as if the world has detached from him. Time begins to warp. Backgrounds race past him while he stands still. Faces stretch and blur. Life accelerates, but he no longer belongs to its rhythm. He watches the city move, but he cannot feel it.

 

In the midst of this internal collapse, he meets a quiet, strangely serene figure. Their conversations cut through the noise like a breath of still air. Something about this presence feels impossible, too composed, too precise. And yet, this figure is the only one who seems to understand him. It is only later that the truth becomes clear: the person guiding him is not real. He is something beyond a friend or a stranger, an echo of help from above, the shape of the hope he has forgotten.

 

The film’s atmosphere is intimate and indie, a blend of dark emotional tones and authentic college-life grit. The visual language shifts between the chaos of Manhattan and the calm clarity of the divine presence, creating a contrast that pulls the protagonist back to life. The moment they meet is the heart of the film: the city roars behind them, yet the scene feels suspended in time, lit with a softness that makes reality feel briefly negotiable.

 

Technically, the project is an ambitious one-person production. I borrowed a basic camera from the school, bought inexpensive microphones from Amazon, and built the entire film almost alone. Every step of the process was my: writing, directing, shooting, editing, color grading, sound mixing, and all of the VFX. The film blends rotoscoping, cloning, masking, slow motion, lens distortion, chromatic aberration, and complex compositing to express the protagonist’s fractured perception. The audio was a challenge because I were working without a crew, but the visuals carry the emotional weight.

 

The short runs fourteen minutes, followed by three minutes of behind-the-scenes material. It is a story about depression, but also about the terrifying and beautiful moment when someone , OR SOMETHING, reminds you that your dreams still matter. It is a film about being lost, about the strange miracles that appear when you are ready to see them, and about the courage to begin again when everything feels out of place.