I like creating beauty out of scary things.

Host: The warehouse was an abandoned cathedral of steel and graffiti, a place where art and decay had long since fallen in love. The ceiling leaked, rainwater dripping into shallow puddles that mirrored the flickering light of a neon sign outside — half-dead, humming faintly like a dying god.

A massive canvas hung against one wall — black, jagged, unfinished. Its surface looked wounded, scratched with colors that didn’t belong together: crimson, emerald, electric blue, and ash white. In front of it stood Jeeny, her hands smeared with paint, her eyes alive with something halfway between terror and ecstasy.

Jack leaned against a metal pillar, arms folded, his grey eyes reflecting the chaos of her creation. The smell of turpentine and rain hung heavy in the air, the kind of scent that spoke of both madness and birth.

Jeeny: (softly, still painting) “Grimes once said, ‘I like creating beauty out of scary things.’ I think I finally understand what she meant.”

Jack: (smirking faintly) “Sounds like a justification for nightmares.”

Jeeny: “Or for art. Which might be the same thing.”

Jack: “You always pick quotes that sound like confessions.”

Jeeny: “Maybe because they are. Every artist confesses — in color, in sound, in chaos.”

Jack: “Or maybe it’s just a way of dressing up fear. Put enough glitter on a wound and people call it genius.”

Host: Thunder rolled in the distance, a low growl that vibrated through the walls. Jeeny paused, brush trembling in her hand, as if the sound itself had spoken to her. Jack lit a cigarette, the flame flaring briefly, casting his face in a sudden flash of orange — the look of a man who’d made peace with darkness long ago.

Jeeny: “You think this is just decoration, don’t you? That I’m painting to hide something ugly.”

Jack: “Aren’t you? Everyone paints to distract themselves. From death. From loss. From meaninglessness.”

Jeeny: “No. I’m not distracting myself from the ugly. I’m inviting it.”

Jack: (raising an eyebrow) “Inviting it?”

Jeeny: “Yes. Bringing it in. Staring it down until it transforms. That’s what Grimes meant — beauty isn’t the absence of fear. It’s what happens when you use fear as pigment.”

Jack: (exhales smoke, slow) “You’re saying horror’s your paintbrush.”

Jeeny: “Exactly.”

Jack: “Then I’d hate to see your dreams.”

Jeeny: (smiles faintly) “They’re beautiful. In a terrible way.”

Host: The rain hit harder, drumming on the roof like a hundred ghost fingers. The lights flickered, and for a moment, everything was bathed in a sickly green glow. The painting behind Jeeny seemed to move, its colors shifting in the half-light — as if the monsters inside it were waking up.

Jack: “You sound like those artists who romanticize madness — like Van Gogh slicing his ear was enlightenment, not despair.”

Jeeny: “Maybe it was both. Maybe despair is a kind of doorway — and madness, a key. Without them, art stays polite.”

Jack: “Polite is safe.”

Jeeny: “Safe is sterile.”

Jack: “And chaos ruins.”

Jeeny: “Chaos creates. Everything you love — every galaxy, every atom — was born from something terrifying exploding.”

Host: Jack’s expression darkened, the lines around his mouth deepening. He took another drag, the smoke curling through the air like a ghost taking shape. Jeeny’s voice was steady, almost reverent, as she lifted her brush again and stroked the canvas with trembling confidence.

Jack: “You think creation excuses destruction?”

Jeeny: “I think destruction is a form of honesty. You break things to see what they’re made of.”

Jack: “And if they don’t survive the breaking?”

Jeeny: “Then maybe they weren’t real to begin with.”

Jack: “You sound dangerous when you talk like that.”

Jeeny: “Good. Beauty should be dangerous. Otherwise, it’s just decoration for the blind.”

Host: The storm outside roared, wind rattling the windows, rain streaming down like veins of silver. Jack’s cigarette burned low, the ash long, unbroken. He watched her — the way her small frame moved, the way her hands shook but never stopped — as though she were conducting something larger than herself, some ancient language only she could hear.

Jeeny: “You’ve never created something, have you?”

Jack: (flatly) “I build. I don’t create.”

Jeeny: “That’s the same thing.”

Jack: “No. What I build is meant to last. What you create is meant to haunt.”

Jeeny: “That’s the difference between control and surrender.”

Jack: “And you think surrender’s noble?”

Jeeny: “No. I think it’s inevitable.”

Host: A piece of metal clanged in the corner, falling as the wind slipped through a crack in the wall. The sound echoed, like the voice of the warehouse itself, adding its own commentary to their debate.

Jack turned, then back again, his voice softer, but laced with something more human — maybe curiosity, maybe fear.

Jack: “So you take the scary things… and make them beautiful. Why? To control them?”

Jeeny: “No. To understand them. Control kills mystery. Understanding feeds it.”

Jack: “You make horror holy.”

Jeeny: “And you make fear an enemy.”

Jack: “Someone has to.”

Jeeny: “Why? What are you afraid of seeing, Jack?”

(a pause)

Jack: “Myself. In the dark.”

Jeeny: (quietly) “Then paint it.”

Host: The room went silent, except for the drip of rain and the soft scrape of brush against canvas. Jack didn’t move. He just watched — as if each stroke was revealing something unsaid between them. Jeeny’s eyes glistened, not with tears, but with the reflection of lightning, alive and wild.

Jack: “You really believe fear can be beautiful?”

Jeeny: “It already is. Look around — rust, decay, storms, heartbreak — all terrifying, all beautiful. The universe wasn’t built in silence. It was born screaming.”

Jack: (smiles sadly) “And here I thought beauty was supposed to calm you.”

Jeeny: “No. True beauty doesn’t calm. It confronts. It tells you you’re still alive.”

Host: The lights flickered again, and then — just for a moment — the painting came alive. The colors burned, shifted, bled together into a chaotic explosion of motion, like something breathing beneath the surface. Jack stepped closer, transfixed.

Jack: “What is it?”

Jeeny: (whispering) “It’s what’s inside me when I stop pretending I’m okay.”

Jack: “It’s terrifying.”

Jeeny: “Good. Then it’s honest.”

Host: The rain softened, the thunder rolling away, leaving a silence so deep it felt sacred. Jack stood beside her now, close enough to smell the paint and the storm in her hair. The canvas, now finished, seemed to glow faintly in the low light — a chaos that had somehow found harmony.

Jack: “You made something alive out of something dead.”

Jeeny: “No. I revealed that it was alive all along.”

Jack: “You’re not afraid of monsters, are you?”

Jeeny: “No. I just want to give them faces worth loving.”

Host: A flash of lightning lit the warehouse, and for one heartbeat, it looked like a cathedral again — a temple for broken things, reborn. Jeeny dropped her brush, exhaled, smiled — not triumphantly, but peacefully, as if the storm inside her had finally gone quiet.

Jack, still watching the painting, nodded slowly, the edges of cynicism melting into something gentler, like surrender.

Jack: “You know… maybe Grimes was right. Beauty doesn’t come from perfection. It comes from the courage to make something beautiful out of fear.”

Jeeny: (softly) “Exactly. Because fear is just love without light.”

Host: The camera would rise, pulling away from the two figures standing in that vast, wounded space — surrounded by broken glass, rain puddles, and a masterpiece born of chaos.

And as the music swelled, a single truth remained, echoing through the hollow cathedral of creation:

That the darkest things we fear
are the very materials of our beauty —
and to make something beautiful from the scary
is to prove
that even shadows
can bleed light.