LOVE VACUUM
Genre: Romantic Drama / Light Surrealism
Location: Urban university campus in Lagos, Nigeria
Theme: The emotional cost of detachment — and the strange gravity of real love
Tagline: When you've shut out love for too long… it finds a way in.
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ACT 1: STASIS
Scene 1: Damian's Lecture – "Love Is a Lie"
Location: Psychology lecture hall
Description: DAMIAN (28), cool-toned, sharply dressed, addresses his class. He paces, confident and distant. His lecture mocks romantic attachment.
Students laugh, record him for social media. He's known as "Mr. Anti-Heart."
He ends with: "Love is an emotional vacuum — it sucks logic out of your life."
Scene 2: Alone, Always
Location: Damian's flat — minimalist, cold, full of books
He scrolls through old college photos, pausing on a girl he once loved. He closes the app quickly.
A knock at his door — his colleague invites him to a staff mixer. Damian declines.
Scene 3: The Transfer Student
Location: Campus admin office
AYA (22) signs forms. Stunning but unfazed. Her aura is calm, magnetic.
The receptionist whispers, "That's the girl from the art program — the one everyone's talking about."
Cut to: Aya walking across campus. Heads turn.
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ACT 2: COLLISION
Scene 4: Aya's First Class with Damian
She sits in the front row. Doesn't flinch when Damian starts ranting about love again.
After class, she walks up and says:
> AYA: "You speak like someone who lost the war before fighting."
Damian is caught off-guard.
Scene 5: Group Project Mix-up
Due to a scheduling error, Damian has to supervise Aya's art group.
Aya works on an abstract piece titled: "Things That Pull."
Damian stares too long at it. He starts seeing versions of it in his dreams.
Scene 6: Dream Sequence #1 — The Float
Damian floats alone in a white void. Objects (his watch, tie, pens) drift away. A sound — like a woman humming — pulls him forward.
He wakes up sweating.
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ACT 3: THE VACUUM
Scene 7: Consults a Mentor
Damian visits an older psychologist, DR. TUNDE. Describes the dreams.
Tunde laughs: "You might have the Emotional Vacuum Response — your brain's waking up."
Damian scoffs but takes the books Tunde recommends.
Scene 8: Magnetic Encounters
Damian and Aya cross paths everywhere: library, cafeteria, an art show.
They never plan it. Each time, the world seems to slow around them.
Aya notices it too — and says nothing.
Scene 9: Aya's Studio
Damian visits her art space out of curiosity.
One wall is covered in sketches — all resemble his face, in fragmented forms.
He confronts her.
> AYA: "I didn't draw you. I drew what found you."
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ACT 4: TRUTH REVEALED
Scene 10: Research Lab Twist
Damian digs deeper — finds Aya's name linked to an experimental emotional therapy program disguised as an art scholarship.
He confronts her again. She admits it:
> "You were chosen. You sealed your heart so tight, we thought you were lost. But you were just... waiting."
Aya walks away, leaving him in shock.
Scene 11: Dream Sequence #2 — Vacuum Break
Damian is in the void again, but this time, Aya is across from him.
A cord connects them — thin, pulsing. He cuts it. He falls. Alone.
Scene 12: Collapse
He stops teaching. Sleeps in. Disconnects from everyone.
Everything feels colorless.
He realizes: the vacuum isn't love — it's life without it.
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ACT 5: RELEASE
Scene 13: The Choice
Damian finds Aya at her studio. Her art is gone.
She's preparing to leave.
> DAMIAN: "Was any of it real?"
AYA: "It only matters if you want it to be."
Silence. Then Damian:
> "Stay. Not because of the program. Because... I feel the pull. And this time, I'm not fighting it."
Scene 14: Together, Finally
They hold hands. The "vacuum" feeling disappears.
Her studio glows warmly for the first time.
One final sculpture stands in the center — two tangled figures slowly rotating in balance.
Scene 15: Epilogue — New Lecture
Damian teaches again.
His first line:
> "Today, I want to talk about something I once didn't believe in.
Not love. But gravity."
Students listen. Aya walks in and sits at the back.
He smiles