DISCLAIMER:
Monster High and all related characters are property of Mattel Inc.

*Interior of a movie theatre styled in 1930's art decó. A man in a three-piece pinstripe suit walks into the stage, which is covered by a large crimson house curtain*

"Ladies and gentlemen and esteemed members of monster society!" says the man with a slight Russian accent "Cinematográfica Dragunov would like to give you the warmest welcome to the Maquinarium Theatre! Tonight the company is proud to present its first film in English, The Unknown Letter, which is a translation of our very own work Carta de un desconocido published two years ago. So, come along with me and let's enjoy together this dark and intense love story about a teenage ghoul and her secret admirer."

*The man walks out of the stage; the house curtain starts to open to the sides and reveals a white screen. The lights go out and the countdown starts*

5… 4… 3… 2… 1…

Cía. Cinematográfica Dragunov
Presents:
A production of:
Filmadora Nacional de Costas del Cráneo

"The Unknown Letter"

A short film by Mark R. Dragunov
Starring:
Abbey Bominable and C.A. Cupid

Based on the novel Letter from and Unknown Woman by Stefan Zweig and the song Darkness from Lacrimosa's album Live.

First movement: The Delivering.

My heart, my love
One word, and gone
To stay, I will
Believe and pray
To see, to feel
To hear, to be and gone
Tilo Wolff

Salem, Oregon, USA, February 14th, 2013. What for many people is nothing more than a simple holyday, for teenagers is a much awaited date. Especially for those who are just starting to feel those first eruptions of hormones and feelings that move them towards the opposite gender. The guys prepare their savings and creativity to surprise their respective girlfriends, while they search desperately a hint to discover which ones are the surprises that their lovers have prepared for them. The hearts, roses, chocolates, stuffed animals and the red color go from there to here in an authentic frenzy of consumerism, romance, feelings, sweetness and a little bit of lack of originality.

But not everything is love that day. There are certain guys and girls who, for one cause or another, are "alone" in that date. Maybe because they've not been lucky in love, because they've decided to defer it, because that "special person" already is with someone else, because the partner is away, and a thousand reasons more. They have the relief of knowing that this day is not only for the lovers, but also for friends. Some guys buy little details for their lonely friends not to be sad that day, and others simply divide the date between friends and love, to not leave anyone down.

Monster High School it's not the exception. A damsel of pink hair and white skin walks hurriedly by the school's halls. The ghoul wears a magenta bracelet and a bow-and-arrow-shaped ring in her right hand. A white skirt decorated with heart-shaped graphics and a pattern similar to drops of dripping liquid girds her brief waist. The top of her dress is pink with a pair of black straps over the shoulders. A heart in the lips, a braid with the same figure next to her temple and a pair of blue eyes lightened by the celebration complete that svelte silhouette.

She is C.A. Cupid, the school's love guru. Her radio program is her way of helping teen monsters in their love relationships. Being the offspring of Eros, the Greek god of love, who better than her to guide the hearts of those teens? Today Cupid has a particularly important task: to deliver the love letters to each and every one of their addressees, thing that in a school as large as Monster High isn't easy. In fact, she offers the love mail service all year long, but in this month the mailboxes are particularly saturated.

The girl hasn't been able to attend too much her class today, but with an exculpatory from Mistress Bloodgood in her favor, the only thing she has to care for today is to deliver the correspondence. Even though in the actual Internet Era teens opt for an e-mail or a message through social networks, many monsters still trust the old methods. Especially because girls find more romantic a hand written letter than a virtual message left in a computer.

Barely stopping to breathe, Cupid goes from side to side of the school carrying a colorful mailbox of red cardboard in her hands. She visits classrooms, laboratories, computing classrooms, library, gym and sport fields looking for those who want to send a letter. The remitters give her the correspondence and she takes it to the receiver. The only conditions to provide the service are: 1.-Complete data from the remitter and the addressee, and 2.-For the letter to be of love or friendship, since if it has hateful words it won't be delivered. And she doesn't need to read a letter in order to know if it's of love or hate: it is one of her abilities "to see" and perceive the feelings of people, even when they try to hide them by all means possible.

A the end of the day, with the mail service closed and all the letters delivered, Cupid sighs happy and satisfied of having distributed all that love through the school. She stores her mailbox in the closet of her radio cabin and gets ready to go home. Suddenly, something on the console calls her attention: a big yellow envelope that waits to be delivered. The ghoul takes de object between her hands and gets surprised by the weight and volume of it. There must be at least a dozen of sheets written inside it, and her sixth sense detects the burning heat of the love it contains. It definitely is the largest letter that she has seen until now in that school.

Cupid reads the data of the envelope and goes into bewilderment. The remitter's information points to somewhere near the Oregon State University campus, at the other side of the city. "A college student?" she asks to herself. To confirm it, Cupid searches the internet for the address. "Now this is weird" she says after looking at the results of the tracing: an abandoned building near the university campus. And there's absolutely nothing clear about the name, which is so strange that it could be the pseudonym or user's name of a web surfer. When Cupid reads the name of the addressee, her query gets even bigger. That ghoul and Cupid have been friends since a long time ago. She knows her very well, and also knows that she isn't interested in that kind of relationships, let alone with college students. But then ¿who's the letter from? She doesn't know it.

Just about to leave the envelope with the rest of the correspondence that wasn't delivered because of it not fulfilling the requirements, Cupid stops to contemplate it. Inside of it there must be a strange mixture of emotional energies, because in addition to the heat of love and the vibrations of passion, her sixth sense detects some traces of depression at the bottom of the document. Until that moment she has seen only a few letters like that, so it must be delivered at any cost. Whoever the author is, he deserves his loved one to read his letter after putting such effort into writing it.

With that decision in mind, Cupid takes the envelope with the rest of her stuff and leaves to deliver that last letter before going home. The school's halls are empty at that hour. It's only half evening and everyone has already left to enjoy the rest of the day with their respective couples. The ghoul looks for the letter's addressee in the school entrance, but doesn't find her. After that she reminds the path that the letter's girl takes to go home and heads towards that direction.

After a few blocks she finds her at the bus stop. A blue silhouette with white hair and a dress of blue, pink and black geometric figures waits next to the traffic light. Cupid hurries up and calls her by her name, causing the other girl to look and greet her. Both talk briefly in that place, Cupid gives the envelope to the ghoul and then they wave off each other.

The receiver of the letter is a yeti girl called Abbey Bominable. Native from the Himalaya, Nepal; her family sent her to study abroad in the United States since more than two years ago. Today's date it's not a big deal for her, as this holiday it's not celebrated in her mountain village. The rest of her friends are with their respective boyfriends, while she is currently single. She decides to downplay that issue and goes home to watch a movie or do homework to spend the rest of the day.

The journey in bus is normally boring. When she gets home the place is lonely. "Maybe Mr. and Mrs. Bloodgood hang out this afternoon" she thinks. Due to her father's job, the rest of her family hasn't been able to move to the United States, so she lives with Headmistress Bloodgood during the school months.

Abbey enters the room, leaves the envelope on her desk and her backpack next to it. Turns on the radio and tunes in the classic music station to get relaxed. An eerie piano melody, dismal and cadenced, starts to come out from the device's speakers. She doesn't know the author of such piece, but immediately decides that she has to add him to her musical library.

The ghoul takes the letter from the desk, unbinds the knot of the top and takes out more or less a dozen of hand written white sheets. She checks the data of the envelope and even though she attempts to remember she can't find the face to which the name written in the remitter's place belongs. The author of the document is perfectly unknown to her. Abbey leafs through the pages and gets to the conclusion that they are too elegant and simple for a high school student. In these two years in Monster High Abbey has received a few love letters, but no one like this. A lot of the others have been sent to her by Heath Burns, a fire monster whom she was in a relationship that now is only part of her past. She has seen his writings so many times she doesn't need a forensic calligrapher to tell that the writing in those numerous sheets isn't his. But neither does it belong to any other student of Monster High. The strokes are too concise and clear as to be the ones from a teenager. Neither is there perfume, hearts, some song's lyrics, drawings, nor any other of the trimmings they use to put in their love letters. Just words and more words.

The girl finally decides to leave her investigation about the letter's author aside and dedicate her time to read it. She turns the radio's knob to diminish the volume of the music and concentrates in her reading. Takes the sheets between her hands, lies comfortably on her bed and starts to pass her eyes by the first lines of that document…