Late October
By end-October the chaos around The Sixth Sense thinned completely.
Enough for Neil to blend back into ordinary school life—with school and his classmates also getting used to the idea of a child star among their midst. The curiosity, the crowding in the cafetaria, the stares as if under a microscope had almost disappeared. At least inside the school. Outside, ever since the AI casting was confirmed, papparazzi had a field day for the week.
He was as ordinary as a child-star second grader could be. Campbell Hall's white buildings gleamed in the fall light, and for the first time in months he walked through gates not followed by a camera flash.
However, beside her, Dakota Fanning besides had decided he was her personal project.
She trailed him everywhere—cafeteria, pool, art class—declaring every partnership "destiny."
"You overthink everything," she told him once, hands on her hips.
"I prefer to call it quality control," he'd said.
She'd rolled her eyes. "But actors aren't supposed to control—just feel."
"Then I'll feel in a controlled way," he answered, and she'd laughed so hard the teacher sent them both out.
That week their teacher introduced a new transfer student from New York—Timothée Chalamet, younger by a year but placed ahead for his reading level. Pale, wiry, curls too long for the dress code, he carried himself with the weary calm of an old soul in miniature.
"Say hello to Timothée," the teacher said.
He gave a shy nod, French vowels on his tongue, and the class murmured a collective whoa at the accent.
Dakota leaned toward Neil. "Woah! He is so cute."
Hailey on the sides also chimmed in. "Great! another eye candy? We can probably start a boy band next summer."
Both Dakota and Hailey giggled. Timothy saw the three of them at the back of the class and walked towards the only empty seat in front of Neil.
Neil didn't ask. He studied the boy's eyes—unfocused yet searching, as though watching a reel only he could see. For a brief instant Neil felt that same static ripple that sometimes preceded déjà vu, a pulse under the skin of the world.
He'd seen this face before—or would.
'Why is he here?' he thought. 'Someone reshuffling the cast? Wasn't his mother a dancer and grew up in Manhattan?'
----
Outside of the school weirdness and routine coding at the night, the pool reclaimed him back in October.
Jay had already printed fresh banners—PRITCHETT'S CLOSETS—Glide-Through Wardrobe At Olympic Speed!—and the November invitational loomed like an exam. The business had been booming, there was now a online website with at-home deliveries and installation service.
'He is a decent coach, but a shrewd businessman.' Neil thought.
Neil's actual coach, however, was a great compact women named Coachera, she timed every lap with military precision. Twenty warm-ups, ten butterfly sprints, six endurance sets; and a detailed diet plan counted to the last calorie.
The water bit colder now in the evenings; October day's were still hot but the nights dropped fast. Neil welcomed the burn—it was the one place where noise couldn't follow him. Every snort of chlorine water, the subtle twitching on his skin as he enters the water.
Each stroke became ritual: reach, pull, breathe, kick, repeat.
The chlorine stung, his arms shook, yet he refused to stop until the stopwatch clicked under fifty seconds.
Claire watched from the stands, hands tight around a thermos.
"Doesn't he need rest? He has been at it for more than an hour" she whispered.
Jay, leaning back with a smug grin, clapped a hand on his grandson's shoulder. "Champions don't rest, kid—they just float between laps, plotting their next win."
Phil, eyes wide, puffed up with pride.
Jay's voice boomed, oblivious. "One month. One month till the competition, and the world's gonna see Jay Pritchett's grandson isn't just some screen-obsessed couch potato with a flair for drama!"
"DAD!" Claire's voice cut through, sharp and exasperated, her hair rising. "Don't let Neil hear a word of this, or I swear!"
Jay winced, muttering under his breath, "Shit, my big mouth."
He shot Phil a look. As if asking. 'Take your women away Phil.'
---
At home, Phil filmed connected the new camcorder to the TV in the living room.
Whole family around the tv looking at Neil's stroke. Critically analyzing and giving sound advices not to be followed.
Phil: "Like a property with great water pressure" he said. Neil in the video almost choked mid-lap.
By late October his body had adapted—leaner shoulders, sharper rhythm. His muscles although never neglected by him due to his strict discipline, were starting to prime themselves for the war in the water trenches, Jay's words.
As he got into the routine. The discipline spilled into his schoolwork too. Dakota, the proud blonde, started copying his study notes instead of writing her own; with just enough changes to not be qualified as Neil's notes.
"You're annoying," she said, flipping through his notebook. "but efficient. I thought given your fame and interest in the movies, you would be an overexcited kid. But you are a total Nerd."
---
On the day before the Halloween, he dreamt of endless lanes stretching into fog as he moved his strokes with mathematical percision. Each one splitting into another.
When he woke up from his deep slumber, his stopwatch read 00:49.7.
He'd broken his own record.
---
November, 1999
In early November, Claire and Cindy flew with him to meet Shyamalan at Philadelphia.
The walls were plastered with storyboards—alternate versions of The Sixth Sense universe.Some had been crossed out, others re-drawn in haste, entire arcs replaced by restless vision.
Shyamalan—Night, as everyone called him—stood near the window, tie loosened, eyes rimmed red. His career had exploded overnight, but the cost of being a genius storyteller was visible in the tremor of his hands.
He greeted Neil like one might greet a prophet in disguise.
For hours, they spoke.
Their voices dropped low; the sound of sketch pencils filled the silence.
Neil said little—just enough to shift gravity. He didn't rewrite scenes; he rewired meaning. He gave Night a vision. A "fog sealed in a jar let free" as Night called it.
By evening, when they walked out into the wind, the director's posture had changed—shoulders lighter, gaze anchored.
No one outside that room ever knew what was said that weekend. The nondisclosure agreement sealed it tighter than a tomb. But history remembered the moment differently.
Two decades later, when Shyamalan stood at the pinnacle of world cinema, he would call that meeting "the day my compass realigned with my destiny"
---
Academy Awards, February 2030
A storm of applause faded into reverent hush as M. Night Shyamalan, now a legend, took the podium for his ninth film—a staggering odyssey that had bridged the worlds of East and West.The statuette gleamed in his trembling hand.
"When I was young," he began, voice steady, "I met a child who saw the world not as it was, but as it was meant to be. He taught me that stories aren't written—they're remembered. That every soul you meet has already lived the tale you're about to tell."
He paused. Cameras caught the faintest tear, not of weakness, but awe.
"To the man who changed my life, and perhaps all of ours… To Neil, the founder of Sapphire Odyssey, who broke the clockwork of the old world and freed us from time itself—
You destroyed the cage we didn't know we lived in. And in doing so… you gave humanity back its story. This is for you!"
For a moment, the auditorium fell utterly silent. Not from confusion, but from the collective awareness that they had just heard something holy. Their collective memory recalling every step of the child that went from holy to unholy; then carved his own path out of that hell and took over the highest throne in the world. Neil Dunphy — The Prophet.
The broadcast cut to Neil in the audience—older now, slight stubble on his face. Gray under his eyes, light sky-blue eyes that had turned deep sapphire, almost purple.
His expression unreadable like always. He simply inclined his head once, as if acknowledging a truth that had already been written in the dark.
The lights dimmed.
---
Present Day
A week later, the call came from Amblin Entertainment about the final meeting.
As per the stories. Spielberg had watched Neil's tape thrice, first raw, and then with a short story called "Supertoys Last All Summer Long" in his hand. And finally in the story room with kubrik's storyboard plastered all over the wall.
After two days, he had told his casting director, "I want him. No matter what."
The offer arrived by courier:
Base signing amount — $750,000.
And a 10% profit participation of the net-profit on top; but without any other residuals on DVD sale and such.
Somehow the details about the base signing amount had leaked to the media; and Hollywood didn't shut up for a week. Many movie directors, that were planning to offer Neil a movie before, suddenly vanished. Neil loved the after effect. He didn't like dealing with those fake smiles anyway.
The news was a cause of concern for many media houses. When the best of the movie child stars were earning an amount of a million for non-franchised work at the maximum; a $750k did look absurd and inflated. Especially when Neil only had one movie under his name.
'Thank god they didn't hear of the profit sharing clause.' Neil thought one day while riding back to home.
Over time, the world found its own reason for his exaggerated pay: industry goodwill and fan following. Private truth: every studio wanted a piece of the boy whose website could move box-office graphs.
---
Production was set for July 2000 through May 2001 at Warner Bros. Burbank. Half the film would unfold against vast blue- and green-screen soundstages; the rest on Kubrick's resurrected practical sets—miniature cities drowned under glass, half-sunken carnival rides, mechanical forests of chrome.
Spielberg wanted the human heart of the movie to come from real light on real faces; the machinery could wait for post-production.
Cindy flipped through the pages, eyes wide. "This officially marks you for a top-dog in the Hollywood. Spielberg is huge. It is as big as a franchise." She said.
Neil only smiled. "I'm just borrowing the role of Kubrik's imagination. The story already existed; I'm catching up."
By late November, as the Invitational approached, the world around him hummed with momentum.
Early mornings was running. Mornings were school; afternoons were water; nights were script notes and whispered phone calls from a director who maybe relied a little too much on a kid; but Neil didn't mind.
Sometimes, walking to parking lot after school, he'd spot Timothée waiting with Dakota under the same jacaranda tree that he had his first school picnic a week ago during lunch. Trading lines from some imaginary play.
The air around them felt weightless, almost rehearsed. Neil would nod, the boy would grin back, the girl would jump in excitement and for a second everything seemed aligned—the swimmer, the actor, the brood, all unknowingly orbiting the same future reel.
"I wonder what other surprises are out there for me to see," Neil wondered aloud as he sat back in the car. Only Robert was there that lunch. Hailey would be dropped by Dakota's mom at home. Dunphy's house only a slight detour from their route.
"Every secret needs someone to open the door, sir. I'm the secrets are also willing to be discovered by someone." Robert broke the professional silence and said with a emotionless tone.
'I guess, there's some secret that's waiting for me to walk throughtoo.' Robert thought silently.